12 Days Old

Birth Story - Act III

   My wife was fairly immobile throughout the whole process. With the midwife’s urging, we made a couple of trips to and from the bathroom which probably helped get things moving.  But by 6:30 am (I think) we ended up in the bathroom and weren’t moving at that point.

   By now my wife had been pushing with the contractions.  I don’t know when she started the pushing so I can’t say how long it lasted until the birth at 7:31am.  That last half hour was nothing less than a miracle.  And every moment with my daughter since has been pretty amazing, too.

   My wife was on the floor of the bathroom leaning over the edge of the bath tub.  She was between me and the midwife.  She kept repeating over and over again that she couldn’t do it. But she was there doing it the whole time.  As the baby was crowning I could clearly see a teeny head full of dark curly hair.  I don’t know how many times I lied to my wife saying “one more push and it’ll all be over”.  I’m not sure if this makes me an ass or not.  But the point when I saw the head halfway out, I believed it myself.  I cupped the head in my left hand and it felt like a warm, wet, hairy softball.  The midwife and I urged for another push and the head was out. I could see eyes, nose, lips and chin along with the hairy head.  And then I saw the lips purse and move.  Everything below the neck was still unseen, but this perfect little face and head just hung there waiting patiently for its body to arrive.

   And then it arrived with the final push.  It flooded into and through my hands as I half caught-half dropped my baby onto the bathroom floor.  Luckily, there were lots of towels to cushion our daughter’s entry into the world.  I was probably pretty useless at this point so the midwife helped me guide the baby into my wife’s arms.  A couple of minutes later my wife actually thought to check the sex of the baby.  I’ve been calling her an “it” for so long now that I’m still getting used to saying “her”. 

   Something tangible filled the room at that moment.  Besides the baby’s presence I mean.  It was in the air.  Words cannot explain it.  Relief?  Wonder?  Satisfaction?  Love?  Yes, it was all of these but much much more.  It was magic. (Wow.  Could this be any more cheesetastic?)

   In the midst of all of this, the midwife apprentice snapped this amazing picture that still takes my breath away.

Photographed by Karinda Woodward

10 Days Old

   Von Bebe has changed a lot in the very short time she's been with us.  It seems like 10 days isn't much time for things to happen, but it is.  Just tonight she was looking off to my left when I had her in my lap.  I put my finger in front of her face and she actually tracked it!  Or maybe it's because she's hit that phase where she'll wake up for 2 hours at a time at 2am and sucking on my finger is one of the few ways I can get 20 minutes of calm.  Here's something I never thought I'd hear myself say to my wife:  "Want me to give our daughter the finger?"
   Music is another way to calm her.  Well, maybe it's another way.  One night when she was being a little ornery I started plinking away at our digital piano which totally knocked her out.

This, of course, gives me hope of her becoming some kind of musical virtuoso.  But really, I don't want to put that kind of pressure on a 10 day old infant.  ANY kind of virtuoso would be fine.

   What makes me more of an ass, putting unreasonable pressure on my child or being sarcastic?

9 Days Old

Birth Story:  Act II

   One of the most helpful things I did over the last few months was to watch home birth videos.  Lots of home birth videos.  The midwives gave us several to view.  And Youtube is a running font of birth videos.  I could not have watched enough of these.  I took a lot of information from these: how to massage my wife; where to put pressure; how to support her physically and emotionally.  Give her water between every contraction. This information was very helpful. 

   In between contractions I managed to set up the birth pool in the living room and got things ready for the midwives before they would arrive around 7:30 pm –ish. 

   I started filling it and realized the water was running cold after not very long.  This was a bad time to discover that when I turned the heat up on the water heater weeks ago, I actually turned it down.  Oopsie .  Not to spoil the end of this story, but this was the worst thing that happened.  And it was quickly remedied by pouring pots full of water from the stove into the pool.  Crisis averted.

   The next 10 hours are a blur.  Some of the videos we watched showed women looking very zen in their birthing pools with soft music and lit candles in the background.  Lots of soft moaning and ohming.  So of course, this is how we imagined it would be for ourselves.  Wishful thinking. 

   There was much more gripping, screaming and gritting of teeth.  (both hers and mine)  At least this is how it felt for both me and my wife.  Our midwife assures us that it was a very “mellow” birth.  However, it’s hard for me to imagine the birth as mellow with my wife clutching the collar of my sweater while leaning over the side of the pool, trying to deal with one of many, MANY contractions.  I guess compared to all the other births I’ve witnessed first hand (zero) it was the most mellow.

   I checked the clock a couple of times but not for any real reason.  I think I was just trying to make myself look busy.  I yawned… a lot.  I couldn’t help myself because by now I had been awake about 33 hours which for me is an exceptionally long time.  Our bedtime is usually between 9 and 10pm and a full night’s sleep for me is typically between 7 and 8 hours.  I was apparently annoying my partner with all my incessant yawning.  In a moment of impatience, she uttered the words “Don’t. Yawn!”  From then on I tried to hide it a little better.  I failed.  This was the worst thing she said to me throughout the entire birth.  Ergo… My wife is a Rock Star!


Act III coming soon.

8 Days Old

Today was our first outing.  Despite this photo, Von Bebe actually complained very little.

   Okay all you experienced parents out there, now is the part where you tell me all the things I've done wrong in the above picture.  Let me have it.
   We decided that the child's first foray into the wild would not be a McDonald's drive thru.  So we selected a location that any parents wanting to culturize their child would choose:  the public library.  
   We were only there for 10 or 15 minutes and on the way out, my wife obtained a library card in our daughter's name.  She won't be able to read for years and she already has a library card.  I would not have thought to do this, but it's actually pretty awesome.  Yeah.  My wife is going to be the one to ensure our daughter is cultured, educated and a contributor of society.  I'll teach her how to use a table saw without cutting off her fingers.

6 days old

My wife is an absolute ROCK-STAR!!! More on that later.  I’m going to regale you with the story of my daughter’s birth.  It’s kind of long so I’m going to break it into small chunks.  Here is the first:

Act I

   I woke up Sunday morning January 8^th with my wife telling me that she’s been having more severe contractions since 1:30 am.  I say “more severe” because she’d been having Braxton Hicks contractions for a couple of weeks before the birth.  When she said this, I was immediately hopeful that things have started for real, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up.  I was not disappointed when we discovered a small wet spot on the couch where she had been sitting while watching episodes of StarTrek Enterprise and Parenthood on Netflix.  (I don’t care what Netflix has gone through this last year, I still LOVE it!)

   I don’t know why movies like to show water breaking with a gensis style flood pouring all over the floor.  Oh wait, yes I do.  Because if it showed real life, no one would watch it.

   We were scheduled to meet our midwife that afternoon so we called and decided to postpone until the evening when we felt like we would need their support.  So we spent the afternoon watching another episode of Enterprise and an episode of How I Met Your Mother while the contractions continued.  Nothing like a little Scott Bakula and Neil Patrick Harris to pass the time.

  I played the role of dutiful husband/birth partner and started recording the length of contractions and the time in between.  Sometime between 6 and 7 pm the contractions were getting pretty regular.  There was about 4 – 6 minutes between and they were lasting about a minute.  Note to those not wanting to be an ass:  don’t tell the mother the times of contractions.  The last thing they want to know is how long they’re actually lasting or how long until the next.  I learned this the hard way… once.

To be continued…  But here’s a little something to tide you over until I get around to the next section.  Whenever that may be.

Cute, huh?