[theme music]
Dan Jones: From The New York Times, I'm Dan Jones.
Miya Lee: And I'm Miya Lee.
This is the Modern Love podcast.
Dan Jones: Today's essay comes to us from writer Kadine Christie.
And this essay actually made me gasp when I got to the end.
And I don't gasp very often.
Miya Lee: It's a fabulous story
that feels like fiction and feels like fantasy,
but it's real.
Dan Jones: The essay is called 'I Met My Husband on the Maternity Ward.'
Miya Lee: It's written by Kadine Christie and read by Shayna Small.
[music]
Shayna Small: My birth story,
which is also my love story,
began nearly 40 years ago in the mountain town of Spalding, Jamaica.
It has been told to me time and again
by the two women who were there that April day:
my mother, Lorna, and a stranger, Lurline,
who was giving birth in the same open ward.