It was 3 P.M., "change of shift" in nurses' lingo, when the daytime nurses tell the evening nurses the goings-on of the day.  Things had been quiet, and the report was short.  Then the phone rang;  it was a doctor.

"Ariel French is on her way up.  I'll be right along.  She's six centimeters dilated; this is her fourth baby.  Please get ready for the birth."

"OK," I answered, and hung up.

I told my comrades what was up: Ariel French was well-known to the staff, the woman with absolutely painless, almost undetectable labors.  Her last child had been born in the parking lot.

The doctor's office was fifteen minutes away.  I set up the birth supplies in the first vacant room.  I also readied another set in case we needed to make a mad dash to the parking lot again.

Soon the door opened, and Ariel came down the hall.  She looked barely pregnant - a petite woman with an equally petite belly.

"Hi, Ariel, what's up?

"The doctor says I'm in labor.  Who's to know?  About time this baby came anyway," she answered.

I showed her to her room; she took off her clothes and put on a nightgown.  The doctor walked in.

"Let's see what's happening, Ariel, if it's all right with you," he said.  She nodded, lay down, and spread her legs.  She was clearly at ease with her body.

I had not noticed her having any contractions - no change of expression, movement, or sound.  I listened to the baby's heartbeat while the doctor sat on the bed and did the vaginal exam.

"Well, now, you're eight, Ariel.  How soon are you going to have this baby?  Five minutes?  Ten?  Fifteen?"

We all laughed, and Ariel continued to smile, reclining in bed with her legs spread.  I kept my hand on her belly and, sure enough, it tightened.  I timed the tightenings while we talked - they were every two minutes, lasting a minute.  This woman was having contractions.

"Can you feel that?" I asked as her belly rose up, contracting firmly.

"Not a thing," she said.

Three contractions later her waters broke, clear fluid pouring out of her vagina and puddling on the bed.

"Here comes the baby!" she said.

Without so much as a moan or a groan, she spread her legs further apart, and I saw the bulge at her perineum.  She smiled and reached down to touch the head as it began to show.  The doctor supported her perineum, Ariel gave a big sigh, and the baby slipped out.  She reached down for the baby - a boy - as the doctor lifted him into her arms.

"Four boys, Ariel.  How do you manage?" he said.

"Maybe it'll be a girl next time," she said, as she traced the contours of her new son's face with her fingertips.  The love light in her eyes clearly showed that the gender of her newborn did not matter.

A few minutes later the placenta came, and Ariel's uterus clamped down with hardly a trickle of blood.  A quick check confirmed an intact perineum.  I removed the wet sheets, tucked fresh ones under mother and son, picked up the tray of birthing supplies, and left the room. 

I joined the doctor at the nurses' station.

"Amazing," I said.  "I'll never understand why she doesn't feel anything."

"Can't say as I understand it either," said the doctor.

A few minutes later I went back to see Ariel and her baby.  He was nursing happily, and Ariel was talking with her husband on the phone.  Everything had happened so fast, she had forgotten to call him.  Now she was chatting cheerfully and making plans for him to pick up their other children to come and visit their new brother.  I checked her uterus - still firm - and laid my hand on the baby's cheek, pink and warm.  Ariel smiled as she put down the phone.

"Wasn't that fun?" she said.