We had probably done the stupidest thing imaginable. My wife and I were expecting our second baby, and unlike the first one, we did not choose to work with one obstetrician, but rather chose to be randomly assigned within a large practice. The day of the delivery, we thus ended up having in our hospital room three OBs that we had never met, although my wife swears she remembered one of their names from the practices’ website.

What could be more important, emotionally powerful, and life changing than having a child? Even if it was our second, and likely last. Indeed, we were, like most experienced parents, taking it a bit easier the second time around: a combination of being busy with our four-year old firstborn, the excuse of knowing what was coming, and the refrain from everyone else who had more than one child, that “the second time is so much easier.”

The contrast was now apparent to us. While we were in the same hospital both times — the respected George Washington University Hospital — we had no idea of who might end up delivering our second baby. The first time around, we were in the caring hands of an elderly and vastly experienced OB who had immigrated to the U.S. from Syria decades ago and who had a habit of joking at the more stressful moments during that delivery. “Black hair,” he had said, at one particularly stressful point, “He has black hair like dad’s. Hence, not the postman’s.” He had decided to retire, and so we did not have him guiding us patiently through this second, and suddenly-dawning-on-us-as-tense delivery.

We had no idea who might be responsible for delivering our baby and getting him to breathe, cry, and be alive. But I was either obtuse enough not to realize this, or wise enough to dismiss it, as we were admitted for delivery that day.

Now, let me digress for a moment to mention here that we were in one of the best hospitals in the world. When I look back at this now, I remember the first time I saw a delivery room in an Indian village. Let it suffice to say that it is a miracle we have millions of babies being born and surviving that and similar experiences in the poorest communities of the world. It is a stretch of the imagination to call those facilities a delivery room. But yet, when the thought hits you that something might go wrong with the birth of your own child, at that very fragile moment, you begin to fear for the worst. I imagine this is the right of any parent, and I only hope that they all will one day be able to rationalize away that fear the same way I did: “we are in a damn good hospital right now, so any problem can be taken care of.”

And then the moment arrived when something did go wrong. Our baby’s heart rate dropped suddenly. We had barely seen the number falling on the screen when four physicians entered the room, and immediately — while introducing themselves to us — began to issue orders to our labor and delivery nurse and to my wife, to get the baby’s heart beat back on track. Less than a minute after the drop began, the problem had been solved. By a group of people I had never met before, who did not know my name, who did not owe me anything, operating only with their responsibility to use their expertise to make sure that our child was born healthy.

A few hours later, our son was born, healthy and crying, as newborn babies should. He was delivered by a doctor whose name I had to request our nurse, two days later, to write down for me. Who was under the supervision of another doctor — who looked remotely like a friend of ours, likely a pattern recognition reflex to find the familiar among unknown faces — but who we will likely never meet again. We did not know of their religions or beliefs, and they did not know ours. We did not know where they came from, if their families are on the social register or not, or if they had been born a city or a continent away, if they voted for Obama, or Romney, or Bush. All we knew, at that time; all we trusted in, was their knowledge of what they were doing, and the professionalism of their execution of that knowledge.

Had we done, then, the stupidest thing? What I realized only later, was that we had trusted science and hoped for scientists to show up and help us at one of the most beautiful and taxing moments of our lives, and help us tilt the probabilities of life in our favor. Hundreds of years of accumulated knowledge, carefully curated, refined, and tested had led us to this moment. I have never believed in any god, but I realized that day that because of scientific inquiry, and the society that it has created, I might yet be in the presence of miracles. And I can only hope that we will all find these wonders without number.