As most of our three readers know, I just had the good fortune to be home for the birth of my nephew, Jairen. It was kind of my sister to wait until late in the night I got home to go into labor. It was a joyful occasion, with an air-conditioned maternity ward, plush chairs in the waiting room, and 99-channel cable in the delivery room, although I don't think my sister payed that much attention to the Golden Girls at the time. The hospital staff were polite and discreet. The bed had sheets.

Today I witnessed my first birth in the village. Let's stop for a moment and note that I just recently started considering a career in midwifery and have been frantically researching schools and related policy. Though excited about my new path and sure that I would make an excellent midwife someday, I had never actually witnessed a birth. You see, even though I was in the right place at the right time to see my nephew's birth, I was too jet lagged to stay up all night for it and passed out at about T minus 3 hours. And of course the last time I came incredibly close to seeing a birth in village (as in, I saw the baby crowning) I was sent home by the nurses to "prepare lunch for my husband." There would be other births. (But not other chances to cook lunch?) Given all of this, despite my passion for my new career path, I still couldn't be so sure that watching a birth wouldn't make me intolerably queasy.

So my whole career hung in the balance this morning when, during a routine cooking demonstration for women with underweight children, the traditional midwife told me a woman was giving birth. This was it. Would I panic? Throw up? Cry? I really hoped I wouldn't because it wouldn't be "culturally appropriate," especially since the laboring women are not permitted to do the above either. I waited patiently as the women fed their babie the porridge that I had watched them make, had a quick meeting with the head nurse about one of my upcoming projects, and then I went to watch life's most basic yet most amazing miracle.

Unfortunately the setting was neither amazing nor by any means miraculous. Remember how I said that my sister gave birth in a hospital with sheets? Yes, that is a luxury not shared by all women all over the world. Metal-framed flat table with a vinyl-upholstered two-inch thick foam cushion, two windows, concrete floor, 95 degrees, no fan, and the tick-tock of a Quartz clock the only distraction. No hand-holding, just a watchful village midwife intermittently checking the progress and changing the bedpan. Oh, and one awkward white girl looking on with carefully masked jubilation.

I spent most of the time trying to find things around the room on which to focus my attention. It should come as no surprise that the hospital without sheets is also without dressing gowns. On the one hand, this allowed me to see the contractions in great detail, but on the other hand, it made it feel impolite to stare.

After a while, Agnes, the village midwife, told me it was my turn to take the listening device (Google Pinard horn) to check that "the baby is still living." (I think some of Agnes's discretion was lost in translation trying to give me directions in French. If I'm going to keep showing up at these events, I need to hurry up and learn Jula already). Boy, did I try to make sure that baby was still living. Through all the whooshing a whurring, I tried to really squint my ears to hear beating, fluttering, anything familiar, but I just couldn't conjure it up. I couldn't help but think that perhaps I could have heard better with the stethoscope from my Fisher Price doctor kit. Mainly I just didn't know where to put the thing to hear the heartbeat. I decided not to try for too long lest I make mom-to-be worry that her baby wasn't living. Agnes came to help me, saying that she could hear it, to try again. At this point I resigned and just kind of nodded, agreeing that I heard that whooshing and whurring, hoping maybe the baby was the one making all that racket. I sat back down, praying that there really was a heartbeat and trying to ignore the heartburn caused by not having eaten all morning.

When it was really time, Agnes assigned me the task of calling the nurse to tell him to come back to the clinic (neither Agnes nor I have any formal training). I went bumbling around the office looking for his number. Oh my gosh, somebody had moved the stupid piece of paper that used to be right there by his door with all the numbers - no wait, time to come back in, it was on its way out. And as soon as I got back in the room, out came his little head. I failed my one task, but at this point it didn't much matter because the nurse wouldn't have made it in time anyway. Agnes gave a somewhat less than gentle tug on baby's head and then next thing I knew, the little guy was waving at us. Just like that. I was looking for a shoulder, but first out came his tiny little hand, five fingers and all. It was at that moment that I knew I could really do this for a living.

When the nurse finally called, I let him know that the baby was out but all was well. Then I helped measure the baby and record his information in his chart. Neither Agnes nor I actually knew how to fill out the chart, but we did our best. Here, that's the way it is.