There is a queue in front of a trendy trainer shop. A dozen or so men are waiting one-and-a-half metres away to be allowed inside. I turn into a narrow street and dodge a cyclist who raises his middle finger at me. I am on my way to a young couple in the heart of Almere. "She's been having contractions for about seven hours, but it's all still fine," the man just reported to me by phone in a monty tone. 'She just doesn't want to talk anymore,' he continued. In the background, I heard his wife puffing away a contraction. Automatically, I recorded the time. The contraction lasted more than a minute. "I'm coming to you," I said.

They actually wanted an underwater birth and had already rented a bathtub. It takes me a while to park my car and ring the doorbell. In a small and hip flat furnished according to the guidelines of the urban jungle the woman sits on a dark blue yoga ball. She is puffing and rocking back and forth. I examine her, find that she is already eight centimetres dilated and call the maternity service. By now the husband is nervously darting around me. 'I still have to set up that bath she wants to give birth in,' he says nervously. He paces back and forth because the thing still seems to be in the storeroom. 

'Have you mounted the strokes to the tap in the kitchen yet?' I ask him. 'Never mind,' says the woman while rocking on her ball. 'I want to go to the bedroom and just do a birthing stool, that works better I think,' she says between 2 contractions.

"So it's really going to happen now?" the man asks me from across the room. Not wanting to get in the way, he stands at a distance. In total, the flat is less than 50m2 I estimate. The bedroom only just fits a double bed. On one side of the bed, a bedside table can just barely fit between wall and bed. "Keeping distance is impossible, she needs you" I say out loud. The woman starts moaning. Naturally, the man supports her on one side and I on the other. We carefully place her on the birthing stool.

Soon, a small piece of the baby's head becomes visible. The woman has push contractions. Still trying to keep his distance, the man dives into the corner of the room. He overlooks the tray full of glasses sitting on the bedside table. It falls over and the glasses shatter on the concrete-look floor in thousands of pieces.

Upon entering, I took off my shoes. So I am standing on my socks and surrounded by shards of glass, I cannot move. The woman is also sitting on the stool with bare feet and cannot move because of the surrounding glass. The woman groans, another push contraction announces itself. The baby comes and there is glass everywhere. The man looks at me in amazement. "Now grab a hoover," I say to the man who is wearing his slippers. "Take a gulp of air and press," I say to the woman. Using a pillowcase from the bed, I carefully slide away the glass around the woman's feet. The woman screams, a hefty push contraction takes over her body, drowning out the sound of the hoover now moving up and down around her and my feet. "Sorry, sorry," the man shouts. 

I catch the baby. The glass is largely gone. The man and I put the woman on the bed with the baby. The baby cries. "Don't you ever want to do that again," I say to the man with a smile around my mouth. I perform a physical examination on the baby. "Everything is fine." The woman smiles with relief. "Shards bring luck, shall we say," the man says.