Playing catch up. The birth story must be first. =)

So my baby is almost 9 months but I am going to slowly catch up while at the same time addressing the now in this blog about my new world as a mother - the best world I've ever known. People often asked me in the early weeks if motherhood was a big adjustment. Of course it is. And yet nothing ever felt so natural, peaceful, and meant to be in my life. I feel a sense of belonging in this role.

To begin my documentation, I am copying in the birth story I wrote up just after Sharlotte's birth.

My little Sharlotte Paradise was born into the water April 28 at 1107 pm, making her among the small percentage of little ones who arrive on their actual due date! She weighed 6 lbs 11 ounces and has a beautiful head of black hair.

My contractions started around 10pm on the 27^th while I was working. I had told my husband the day earlier that I just had a feeling she was coming soon and my sleep had been restless and full of dreams about her birth. The contractions were regular but mild and did not demand that I take my attention off my work. I wondered if I should head home part way through the night, but decided to finish out my 12-hour shift as it was providing me a very natural distraction. In the morning before I left the charge nurse asked me if she should take me off the schedule for that night just in case. I said to go ahead and count me as ill but that if my contractions continued in this mild pattern or slowed down I would call in and come to work. I figured this could be practice labor and go on for days. My goodness was I wrong!

Things slowed down after showering at home and I was able to sleep for 2 to 3 hours until I began to have contractions that I could not sleep through. They were very far apart – about 20 minutes – so I would doze between them. As the day went on the intensity built, but I was able to relax the surges a little for a time by sitting in a tub of water with warm compresses to my back and abdomen. I found that I was feeling all the sensation in my back. After leaving the tub, the contractions took more attention and I spent literally the entire rest of my home labor in child’s pose with my husband applying counter pressure to my back and reciting Hypnobirthing prompts. This firm pressure was a lifesaver!!! I cannot imagine my labor without his words of relaxation and hands of strength!

We decided to go into the hospital around 9pm at which point the intensity was really picking up. I continued to need child’s pose while they filled the tub of water for my water birth. Though, alas, we had run out of the house without our carefully prepared folder of birth aid materials, Phil talked me through each surge with affirmations I had written and Hypno prompts from memory – I found envisioning filling an orange balloon with my breath particularly poignant for reasons I do not know and we used that image again and again.

Almost as soon as I sank into the water my body went into transition and I began to experience the contractions so powerfully. Before long I had the overwhelming need to push. This was the most startling feeling I have ever had – I felt like an animal being taken over a force I could not control! Even the noises I made seemed out of my control. The midwife reminded me to keep my sounds low. I thought of the lion’s breath we had practiced with in my prenatal yoga class. And certainly I was like a lion! In just 4 or 5 amazingly intense pushes my little Sharlotte came earthside! What an amazing feeling of release and emptiness when her body left mine! Because I was on hands and knees they caught her in the back and passed her to me through my legs. It was unbelievable to see this very familiar stranger for the first time! Her cord was wrapped tightly around her neck and was very short. Since I was in the water they could not just lower her closer to my body to remove it as she had already been exposed to air. I remember they very quickly took hold of my arms and lifted me to standing so that the cord could be pulled from her neck. She looked around peacefully then let out a cry. She was so entirely new – so intimate to me and yet so herself, so unknown.

She searched for the breast and latched on in her own accord almost right away. She has been a very good eater ever since! I am tired but incredibly full. She is my dream come true, my beloved.