So . . . yesterday I called and checked on my friend Dionna, who was past her pregnancy due date. Dionna is an amazing person who I hit it off with instantly when we met at Second City. Dionna runs Outreach and Diversity for Second City in Chicago. I don’t see her nearly enough. She’s always incredibly busy with creative projects. She and her husband are one of my role model couples. I attended their wedding last year, and it was so obvious that they’re really supposed to be together. Everyone should have a role model couple (if you don’t have one, find one).

The story is that, Friday night, we heard that Dionna was 1 cm dilated and going to the hospital. As it turns out, she ended up leaving the hospital and they all went to Anthony’s show that night.

Her husband, Anthony, answered the phoner and asked if he had called me earlier. Apparently he meant to, because he was trying to gather some girl-power to gather around Di while he was at his show that evening. According to Anthony, her contractions were 5-10 minutes apart and she wanted to be comfortable at home.

I agreed (because it seemed more important than the evening of mindless drinking that I had scheduled), picked up another of our friends, grabbed some munchies and trekked over to Dionna and Anthony’s house.

The cast of supporting actresses were L., a young beautiful dancer with an older spirit; P., a woman who’s a slight bit depressed about a breakup and a concern that she will not find her ideal husband and children; myself — a skittish, decidedly childless person who’s frightened of bodily functions and terrified that Dionna would go into hard labor on her watch; and T., a wonderful woman with a big personality who held everything together and was the only one in the room who had any knowledge, whatsoever, of the labor process and was completely in tune with Di as she went through her natural process of managing her pain.

We had a great time. We ate pizza. We talked. I ate a cupcake (nobody else wanted to partake in the deliciousness that I brought from the Hershey store on Pearson). Most of all we marvelled at Dionna, and how she handled her contractions.

We experienced one soon after walking through the door. During a contraction, she would stand and hold T’s hand, while swaying and moaning loudly. Once the contraction was over, she would resume whatever she was saying or doing. It was extremely bizarre, and she laughed at our faces as we looked at her in amazement. She kept asking us what we were thinking, as though anything that I was thinking held any relevance in that moment. In between searing attacks of pain, she offered to put on a movie, or play Scattergories. We laughed and told her that, since she had energy, she could make us chicken, a pie, pudding, a pot of greens. She wanted to know about our lives. I established that someone calm was tasked with driving to the hospital (and since I can barely drive three blocks to the grocery store without zigging, zagging and dropping a liberal sprinkling of F-bombs, that person was clearly not going to be me).

Love lives were the topic. P. and I shared sad stories of our recent breakups. L. talked about men that she can’t figure out for the life of her. T., married w/two kids, had the most to share. She talked about her surge in libido post-40, birth stories. At one point, we discussed soy products, and how I’m scared to death of them (more on that at another time). All in between Di’s contractions that we were measuring very carefully, hoping that we could hold out for Anthony’s return, before they rushed off to the hospital.

As it neared 11:00 pm, it seemed that Di’s water might have broken — at least partially. I thought that this milestone might’ve forced a quick dash to the hospital. But, no. The contractions were still far enough apart that she just took note of the water, and calmly continued to manage the pain. Wow.

Anthony arrived and the three of them — Di, Anthony and T. — managed her contractions together.

Finally the contractions were about 4 minutes apart, and they decided to call the midwife. We all decided to leave, with the exception of T., who was in it for the long haul. Di thanked us for the girl power that she claimed provided her with strength. We all agreed that she provided US with the strength to get through the night.

Her baby was born this morning at roughly 7:00 am. Happy birthday, Xavier! Welcome to the world.