Warning: Birth Story to follow. If you are squeamish about the intricate details of how we enter this world, feel free to close your eyes and click the X in the corner of your screen to close this page. There will be other blog posts in time, better suited to all audiences.
Still with me? Very well...
Walter's due date had come and gone, and I was excited and anxious for labor to begin. On October 11th, Matthew and I fell into bed, weary with birth preparations. Matthew lay pressed up against my back, his arm cradling my enormous belly. We were talking quietly in the darkness, when I felt the strangest sensation in my depths, as though something in my belly had gently popped. I asked Matthew to get me a small towel, and--sure enough--when I moved, I found my water had broken. I got up, ran for the bathroom, and barely beat the ocean that came rushing out of me. Matthew and I were laughing, giddy with excitement and nervousness, as we used every towel we owned to try to dry me off.
Because our midwife had told us it was safe to wait until morning as long as the water was clear, we returned to bed. I felt a few gentle contractions, but soon fell asleep, knowing I would need my strength the next day.
In the morning, we decided to go to the grocery store and to the laundromat, since we probably wouldn't be going out again for a while. We went to Starbucks and Home Depot as well, just to walk around in hopes of ramping up the contractions I'd been having all morning. We called the midwife to give her fair warning, and she told us to call her as soon as we were ready for her to come over.
We went to the nearby park and walked until the contractions were coming more quickly and I was too uncomfortable to continue. We returned home, and I decided I wanted to bake cinnamon rolls to pass the time. However, I'm afraid Matthew ended up doing most of work on that project as I wimped out and went to sit on the floor in our living room. I tried to watch a movie (Nine Months, with Hugh Grant; terrible choice) but couldn't pay attention.
As the contractions came faster and harder, I took to kneeling in front of our couch and burying my face in it, moaning long and low. It was actually a very comfortable position for laboring--anything else was torture, particularly lying down.
At 5:30, I told Matthew to call the midwives. E came over first. She checked my blood pressure and the baby's heartbeat, and then she sat down near me and waited. I remember hazily how cozy the room felt, with the darkness outside, and the golden light of the living room lamps inside. Matthew put a playlist together for me, composed of song titles I had scribbled in a notebook a week before. Although Walter was past due, I knew we were still unready--barely able to grasp that we would soon go from a couple to a trio.
The laboring was not what I had imagined. It felt like a hot ring of aching muscles had settled low around my waist, and after a while I could feel Walter's body descending. I went through the transitional phase without even noticing it, and I was still in good humor all throughout. My midwife couldn't believe I had reached completion of active labor so quickly, which made me feel relieved and happy.
"How much longer now?" I remember asking, seated on the birthing stool upstairs in my bedroom.
"It's hard to say," she answered, "It could be fifteen minutes, it could be half an hour, or maybe an hour." (It turned out to be two and half hours...sigh.)
I felt excited and scared that our baby would be joining us so soon. I felt like I was still a little emotionally unprepared to welcome a child--my child--into our home that night. I wasn't making much progress upstairs, so I asked if I could move downstairs and get into the birth tub. My midwife was afraid I was going to have Walter right on the stairs, but she agreed reluctantly and went down ahead of me, so as to catch him if he should decide to emerge.
However, Walter was not so quick to arrive. I climbed into the birth tub, which was deliciously warm and welcoming (I wish I'd gotten in sooner) and Matthew climbed in with me. Feeling his strong arms around my shoulders gave me courage and the will to persevere. However, I felt I couldn't get the kind of traction I needed to push properly in the tub, so I soon climbed out. I clutched the doorframe of the kitchen bathroom for support, with Bright Eyes' lyrics running through my mind, "Swear I was born right in the doorway..." After what seemed like an agonizing eternity, my son Walter came earth-side.
I was so shocked and overwhelmed when K, our second midwife, handed me my screaming son, I can hardly recall what happened afterwards. I remember she had wrapped him in a towel and put him directly in my arms--he was very white with red spots all over his body, and his strange, cone-shaped head was covered with dark hair. I didn't know what to do, and I just wanted to be alone for five minutes while I came to terms with what had just happened. He rapidly changed from white to bright red, still screaming--it must be shocking to come from darkness into light, from warmth into cold.
They cut the cord and handed him to Matthew. I decided to get back into the tub (I couldn't imagine sitting anywhere else!), and Matthew and Walter joined me. Walter immediately quieted, opening his deep blue eyes. We gazed at him, in awe of this little person who was at once so strange and yet so familiar. When the water began to cool, we were helped out and toweled off. We dressed Walter and went to sit in the living room. He began breastfeeding immediately, and soon grew sleepy. We were all exhausted. Our midwives (after examining me) tucked us into bed and went downstairs to return our home to normal.
It was so peaceful, falling asleep with our son between us. We knew our lives would never be the same, and we felt more love inside ourselves than ever before.
Here he is today, at over three and half months...
What can I say? I'm just the luckiest mama alive.
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