home birth

Postpartum Parenting in a Pandemic

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They say it takes a village to raise a child. What happens when there’s no access to that village?

Peach was born the day Vermont went into lockdown. COVID had been on people’s radar, but the general thought was that if you washed your hands and avoided touching your face, you would be fine. Suddenly, that advice changed. Suddenly, everything was unsafe, everyone needed to isolate, and schools were closed. And in our home, suddenly, we were a family of four healing from birth, caring for a 2.5-year-old, and caring for a newborn, all without family, friends, or other help.

The isolation and fear that set in immediately after birth was intense. We were scared to go to the store, and scared to check the mail. We were scared to get medical care for myself and Peach and we were also scared not to get such care. Thankfully, we were able to live off of stored dry goods for quite a while. We did curbside pick-up twice at our local co-op, and after researching the safety issues implicated, we were able to receive homemade food that friends dropped off on our doorstep. Because we used home birth midwives, we were able to have Peach’s post-birth appointments conducted at our house by one midwife who took safety precautions. Still, I couldn’t help but stare at Peach and worry for the world she and Pidge will inherit.

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Pidge’s world especially turned upside down. We had no idea when we picked her up from school on March 13th that she would not be returning. Pidge loves school, and she misses her teachers and friends desperately. She talks about them all the time and can’t wait to show them things “when ‘crona-iris’ is over.” This sudden and drastic change to a life of isolation has been hard on her. The first time one of her teachers sent a video, she cried. She buried her face in my wife’s chest and choked out a whisper about how much she misses her teachers. Now, when we watch her preschool videos or participate in a recorded Sing & Dance, Pidge still tries to talk to the familiar faces on the screen. She tries to show off her twirly dress. No matter how many times we explain that it is a video and the other person can’t see her, she still tries. It breaks my heart. On top of lockdown, Pidge went from being an only child to being a sibling. How difficult this must be for such a little person.

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Regarding my health, our midwives advised I stay in bed for at least ten days to heal from significant tearing. So I sat in bed, alone, in pain, bleeding, and feeling soft. I thought I would be one to bounce back from giving birth, but the only bouncing I experienced was when my toddler would jump on the bed.

No one really prepares you for postpartum. Now that I have experienced it, I am not sure it is something you can prepare for. I was not prepared for my body to feel mushy and incapable. I was not ready to feel so weak. I was not ready to go from loving how cute I looked with my thick hair, glowing skin, and prego belly to suddenly feeling puffy and pale with stringy hair, cringing every time I looked in the mirror or at a photograph of myself. I had not had such a negative connection with my body since I struggled with an eating disorder in my teens. It felt really terrible. Actually, it still does.

And on top of that, I didn’t feel attached to Peach. People told me that I would be flooded with love for our new baby. I loved her, yes, but she also seemed so foreign to me. Here, on my left, was the toddler I had known for two and a half years, expressive and joyful. On my right was this tiny little stranger. I thought back to all that worry before Pidge was born – that I would connect with her less because she was not biologically related to me. So it was interesting when I felt more connection to her than I did to my own bio baby. Today, that is starting to change. At 12 weeks postpartum, I am beginning to feel more connection with little Peach. She is so, so adorable and I melt every time she smiles.

Pidge has adjusted to being a big sister beautifully. She adores Peach. She seeks out her little sister to provide and receive comfort. Pidge transitioned away from co-sleeping and nursing all while a new little person transitioned into these activities. And Pidge did it all with grace and kindness. It has been so rewarding to observe.

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Still, I wonder how all of this will affect Pidge long-term. On the one hand, the quarantine has allowed us to focus on our family and to spend some amazing time together. On the other hand, it is hard for me to watch her cover her face with her hands or scramble to pull up her mask if we see other people on the hikes we eventually ended up doing. I am proud of her for not resisting the social distancing and masking we ask of her, but I worry for her. I try to remind myself of her resilience, and I hold onto hope.

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Quarantine has extended for our family – we are under medical advisement to stay at home even as the state begins to open. Pidge has underlying cardiac and endocrine issues that increase her susceptibility to COVID. She is currently being tested for some hematology issues that have us concerned. To that end, we have been making trips to the hospital every now and then to have Pidge’s blood drawn or to see specialists. She wears her mask dutifully and works so hard to do the right thing, pressing her little hands together to avoid touching anything. She really is a remarkable child.

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Although all of this has been exceptionally difficult, I cannot help but acknowledge how very lucky I am. I have a beautiful family: a caring and generous wife, a toddler full of heart, and a beautiful, healthy baby. I also feel very fortunate to be living in Vermont right now. While our friends who live in cities are stuck in 600 square foot apartments, we have nearly unfettered access to the great outdoors. We hike, swim, and enjoy all the nature Vermont has to offer.

It is so easy to get mired in the mess. It is easy to feel frustrated and defeated and discouraged. But there is just so much to be thankful for as well. As we move forward, one day at a time, my goal is to focus less on my hardships and more on the joys. Because there is just so much to be joyful about.

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Birth, again.

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March 14th, 11:30 PM.

I’m awake again. Every night for the past several weeks it has been the same—exhaustion, early bedtime, then two to three hours of sleeplessness in the middle of the night. Pregnancy is the worst, I think to myself as I attempt to heave my massive body out of bed. But before I do, a twinge hits me in the lower abdomen. A cramp of sorts. It’s in my back, too. I pause. Could this be it? I am past my due date so it might be. . . No, I tell myself. That’s just wishful thinking.

I hobble downstairs and sit on the couch. A cramp again. That’s strange, I think. Again, I dismiss it. I turn on the television. Frozen II. Let’s see what the fuss is about.

Twenty minutes go by. Ow. Another pang. I go to the bathroom.

Blood.

Oh my god, so much blood.

My heart sinks. My mind immediately flashes back to my miscarriage. The cramping, the bleeding. Just like this. Just like this. Oh my god.

I go wake my wife. “What’s wrong?” she asks, panicked as she reads my face. I tell her about the blood. She tries to calm me by telling me that it might be the “bloody show,” or the start of labor. “No,” I say. “There was too much blood for that.” We text the midwives.

Over the next several hours, I monitor the blood loss. It slows a bit, which brings me some comfort, but not enough. The cramps continue. My mind whirls.

More hours, no blood. Thank goodness. But cramping. Painful cramping. Patterned cramping. Labor! This is it!

As night transitions to dawn, my worry begins to transform into excitement. We are going to meet our baby today. March 15th—Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s birthday. I love it.

The contractions start coming every four minutes. Despite the pain, I try to do everything I’m supposed to. I eat well. I hydrate. I go for a walk with my family. I can do this, I tell myself. I’m ready.

The day continues and the contractions progress. By 5:00 PM, they’re coming every minute and they are intense—nothing like I have ever felt before. I move between the yoga ball and the tub. I am on my knees a lot.

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My wife works to keep me hydrated and as comfortable as possible. Pidge has been precious all day, and continues to be. Earlier in the day, she bathed with me, pouring water over my back while singing, “Oh my doula” to the tune of “Oh my darling, Clementine.” As I bent over the yoga ball, she rubbed my lower back and kissed me sweetly. When I began to get more audible during contractions, she grabbed her headphones. Naked, wearing only a bag to hold her music and donning large blue headphones over her ears, she gave me a little pat and explained to my wife about what was happening. “She having a birf, Mama.” Adorable.

We text the midwives. I worry that we’re texting them too early. I worry that we’re texting them too late. I have no sense of time and no sense of how much progress I have made during labor. All I know is that after this many hours of labor, my wife had already had Pidge.

The first midwife arrives and begins arranging the supplies. She checks baby’s heartbeat—all good. She checks my blood pressure—all good. Good, I think. Things are good.

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Labor continues. And continues and continues. A second midwife arrives. A third arrives.

March 15th, 11:30 PM.

24 hours of labor have passed and it’s not looking like we’re having this baby tonight.

The contractions intensify. Pidge is asleep now, and honestly I have no idea how she is managing it as I am completely unable to control my volume. I start throwing up. A little at first, but then I realize that it’s happening with every contraction. We start keeping bowls next to me.

March 16th, 4:00 AM.

How much longer will this continue? My body is sore, I am exhausted. My throat is hurting from persistent vomiting. One of the midwives tells me that they rarely do cervical exams during home births, but that she can perform one if I want to know where I am. Do I? If I’m far along, that will really help me. But if I’ve hardly made any progress. . . I decide I want to know. I lay back on the couch and the midwife reaches in. She feels around. Then she smiles. 9 cm.

Nine. NINE. I’m so close!

I continue to labor. I feel my body start to push. I remember when this happened with my wife. She gave birth two hours later! Maybe I only had two hours left. . .

Two hours roll by. Three.

The midwife does another exam. I’m told that she can feel her head, right up against the cervical opening. However, the bag of waters has not yet broken. “It is possible,” the midwife says, “that the bag is preventing her from moving down. Without the bag, her head might be small enough to make it through the opening. We never recommend this, but if we break the bag, there’s a chance she could be born very quickly.” I weigh my options. I don’t really want to start interventions, but the idea of labor being over soon is too appealing to dismiss. I agree to have the midwife break the bag.

SPLOOSH! Amniotic fluid gushed out of my body. Not just a little—a lot. And when I would think it was over, more poured out. I could not believe how much water was inside me! Then the vomiting came. Not just a little—a lot.

The contractions intensify. The pushing becomes unbearable. The vomiting continues. I begin experiencing extreme soreness. Why hasn’t she come yet?

More hours go by. I ask the midwife to check again. I watch her face drop. “This isn’t what you want to hear,” she said. Baby’s head did not slide through the cervix. Instead, her head dropped at a slightly incorrect angle and had begun ramming against my cervix. In response, my cervix hardened and started swelling. I was now at 7 cm.

No, I cried. No. I had to stop pushing in order to relax and re-dilate my cervix. But how can I stop something that’s involuntary? I get back in the pool, hoping the warm water could soothe me. With every contraction, pain sears through my body. 34 hours of labor. I cry. I vomit. I try to breathe through the contractions. I collapse with exhaustion. Our friends come over and pick up Pidge.

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At hour 36, the midwife checks my cervix again. 10 centimeters, and the head is close. Oh my god, thank you. I gather my strength and prepare to push.

With each contraction, I push with everything I have in me. I moan and growl and yell and turn red in the face and burst capillaries in my cheeks and push and push and push. After each contraction, I vomit.

My wife offers encouragement. “You’re so close,” she says. “I can see the head!” She shows me a photo she took on her phone. But as I look at the photo, all I see is the teeniest bit of the baby’s hair. I want to be encouraged, but I can’t believe that was all I had pushed out so far! With all the pressure, all the pain, I really thought I had made more progress. Ugh!

I keep pushing. I change positions and push again. You can do this, I tell myself. You are so close. I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and repeat the chant I had been thinking but not saying throughout the whole labor: I’m breathing her down. Down through my pelvis, and into my arms.

After three hours of pushing, she finally emerges. She comes out with her hand up by her face, resulting in three separate lacerations that tear through skin and muscle. But I don’t even notice. I am so happy she is born that I burst into tears.

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The midwife places the baby, who I will refer to as Peach, on my chest. Her tiny, hazy eyes gaze up at me. She latches immediately and begins to suckle. My baby. Our baby. My wife is crying, too.

We did it.

 

 

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We’re almost there, inching ever closer to our second baby’s birth day. I know it’s coming, but I almost can’t fathom it. Are we really going to have another baby in the house?

I vacillate back and forth between surprise that I haven’t given birth already and thinking that the baby will never come. Pregnancy is getting increasingly uncomfortable. I’m not sleeping and it feels like everything I do is a struggle.

Our home birth supplies are set up neatly against the wall in our sunroom. We’re ready. Are we? We seem to be. . .

Truth is, we’re tired. And while having a newborn will bring its own set of challenges, living in limbo is challenging, too. We feel caught between two worlds and we’re juggling a lot. My wife is working a full-time job, prepping for her absence, taking care of a toddler, attending grad school full-time, and trying to manage household duties. Until two days ago, I had been commuting three hours every day to work as an attorney and professor at the law school. By the time I got home, it was all I could do to help a little with Pidge and with the house before I collapsed into bed. As we wait for labor to begin, I am still working, but I am working from home, which is much, much better. I can finally get that in-case-I-give-birth-on-the-interstate bag out of my car and breathe a bit. Only a bit, though, because now we’ve got Coronavirus to contend with. Good grief.

Pidge is getting antsy. We have been talking about this baby for the majority of the last year. She knows the baby is coming, but I think she gets tired of us talking about it. She wants it to happen already (me too, kid).

We’ve been trying to prepare her for the birth. We have been reading her stories like Hello, Baby and the book I made about how she was born. Although she is typically screen-free, I decided to show her the video of her birth. I thought it might be a good idea for her to experience the sights and sounds of what birth looks like. She watched, entranced. When my wife got to the hard pushing, Pidge winced and teared up and covered her ears. Birth is a lot for a 2.5-year-old. I hugged her close to me and told her that yes, Mama was in pain, but she was roaring like a lion because she is so strong. At the end of the video, I asked her if she wants to be with us when the new baby is born or if she wants to be somewhere else. She thought for a moment, tilted her head, and then said, “I want to be here, but I want to wear headphones.” What a little problem solver.

So now we wait. We work and we try to go about normal life and we wash our hands and we snuggle our toddler and we wait.

Brussels Sprouts, Breast Pumps, and Blessing Ways

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It has been awhile since I last posted. Thanksgiving has come and gone, and we are now well on our way into the Christmas season.

Pidge is working on understanding the concept of “holiday.” Her first real association with the word happened around Halloween. She has a book, Clifford’s Halloween, in which the main character, Emily Elizabeth, outlines all the holidays and proudly proclaims that Halloween is her favorite. Pidge loves that book, and we read it to her often (albeit with some modifications to better align with our values). Consequently, Pidge was adamant that she dress up as Clifford for Halloween. As we had already put together her costume, we held off, hoping she would change her mind. But she never did. She held fast to her desire to be Clifford, and a few days before Halloween I found myself scrambling to transform my 2-year-old into America’s most beloved big red dog. The venture was successful, and Pidge was the cutest puppy I have ever seen.

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When Thanksgiving rolled around, Pidge could not understand how it too was a holiday. Halloween was the holiday, right? We tried to explain how holidays are special days we set aside to engage in various traditions. Of course, there are some holidays where traditions have been modified to fit our lifestyle, and Thanksgiving is one of them. We no longer tell or celebrate the fictive account of pilgrims and “Indians” that whitewashes the horrors inflicted on indigenous peoples by colonizers. We do not center our meal around a dead turkey. Instead, we recognize the history of the land we occupy, we engage in the practice of acknowledging our blessings and giving thanks, and we spend time together as a family.

One way we spend time together on Thanksgiving is by cooking together. This year, we enjoyed a large meal consisting of a Tofurkey roast (cooked to perfection), mashed potatoes and gravy, homemade stuffing, brussels sprouts, and crescent rolls. For dessert we prepared a vegan cheesecake and we washed it all down with sparkling cider.

We make it a point to actively engage Pidge in everything we do, including food prep and cooking. Pidge was the best kitchen helper. She donned her new apron and chef’s hat and meticulously scrubbed and peeled potatoes. She practiced her knife skills by dicing and chopping, preparing the vegetables for the stuffing. Pidge helped me cut and peel the brussels sprouts. Her little brow furrowed as she concentrated on each task, working hard to do it just right. We loved spending this time with her and watching her beam with a sense of pride and accomplishment. Between prepping, Pidge and Mama danced around the kitchen, Pidge squealing with delight and shouting, “Happy Gives-Thanking!” over and over.

We sat down to dinner and fully expected Pidge to zero in on the crescent roll, forsaking all the nutrition on her plate. Much to our surprise and delight, Pidge’s favorite item on her plate was her brussels sprouts! She left portions of the roll and potatoes, but came back for seconds on brussels sprouts. Hooray for a vegan kid who loves her greens!

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Now we’re on to preparing for Christmas, and for that next big adventure. . . baby #2! We decided we want to co-nurse this baby, just like we did with Pidge. Consequently, my wife had begun the process of inducing lactation since, despite Pidge still enjoying the occasional comfort nursing session, neither she nor I are producing milk at this time. As a key part of the process, my wife has begun setting herself up to a breast pump multiple times per day. We were unsure how Pidge would react to this process, but she is fascinated. She watches my wife closely, helps adjust the flanges, and looks for milk. She will often remind my wife that it’s time to pump, running over to her while holding flanges and saying, “Mama! Breast pump!” Pidge knows that Mama is working to make milk for her little sister’s arrival and her enthusiasm around the process is beyond adorable.

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Another way we have been preparing for our next baby’s arrival is by working with the same midwives who helped us through Pidge’s birth. Initially, I had been unsure whether I wanted to use the services of home birth midwives. I was drawn to the idea, partly because of how wonderful our previous birth experience was. However, I was also nervous. My family has a history of C-sections, the nurses at the hospital have been consistently telling me I’m high risk because of my age, and my previous miscarriage made this whole pregnancy feel fragile. That said, the reality is that this entire pregnancy has been overwhelmingly normal. Aside from some of my digestive problems, everything has been progressing normally and there have not been any complications. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to take my prenatal care and birth into my own hands. I was tired of what seemed like the endless search for pathology that the hospital was engaging in, and I was ready to embrace more holistic care. So here I am, back in the care of our home birth midwives, planning my own home birth (with back-up plans, of course). I am a little hesitant, but I am also excited and I feel so incredibly supported by this medical team.

Where I don’t feel as much support is in my community. I think that part of this is because I’m somewhere between thinking and feeling, left-brained and right-brained, emotional and logical. If I could get with the whole woo-woo sacred birth concept, I would find support there. Conversely, if I was more clinical and less attuned to the emotional nature of bringing new life into the world, I could find companionship in that shared experience. But I am in the middle. I don’t want a traditional Blessing Way and we don’t need a baby shower, but I do want intention around this experience, and I want other people to acknowledge the specialness of giving birth. We’ve decided to create our own version of what I want/need. Our plan, as of now, is to invite friends over to celebrate the upcoming birth of this baby. We will put out a bowl of beads and each friend will choose a bead and write down a good intention either for me or for the baby. Then, we will string all the beads together into a bracelet, which I can wear while giving birth and later give to our daughter. We will also provide guests with tea lights, which they can light when I go into labor. I hope that isn’t self-indulgent. I think it sounds nice.

We are going to need some good intentions, because I start a new job in January. Honestly, it is a dream job. I was hired at a law school to teach family law and also to serve as a staff attorney in the legal clinic, representing children. I am very excited about it. Unfortunately, it also comes with an hour and a half commute each way and I will be starting the job about 6 weeks before my due date. I am nervous about going into labor far away from home with Vermont’s notoriously hazardous winter conditions. I am also worried about the sustainability of such a long commute, but we can move. Perhaps that’s what our future holds: Brussels sprouts, breast pumps, Blessing Ways, babies, and relocation. In other words, beautiful new beginnings.

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Birth.

/ sugaronsnowmom / 4 Comments

I woke up to the sound of my wife’s voice. Groaning. Moaning. Repeatedly catching her breath.

“You okay?” I asked. “Do you think this is it?”

“I’m not sure,” she replied.

It made sense that it would be labor. My wife was two days past her due date. Still, we were both intensely aware of the fact that most expectant parents with first-time pregnancies think they’re in labor before they actually are. We weren’t going to be those people, we told ourselves.

But the pain continued. My wife described it differently than she did the Braxton Hicks. Lower. More intense; more consistent. I sent my boss an email telling her I would not be working that day. “We think my wife’s in labor. . . .” I sent our midwives a text.

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A week prior I had built a birthing tub and set it up in our living room. I hooked up the hose to the sink and began to fill it. I was trying not to get my hopes up, but I was excited. My wife grabbed a yoga mat, spread it on the floor of our living room, and got on her hands and knees. “Ohhh,” she groaned, arching and bowing her back.

I ran around the house, trying to make everything perfect. I hung the rainbow lights my wife loved above the birthing tub. I fed the dogs. I let out the cats. I brought her breakfast, coffee, water. Lots of water. Tea. I got my Birth Partner book and propped it open to the chapter marked “Labor.” I checked the water temperature.

“Is the tub ready?” my wife asked. I looked at the water. It wasn’t even a third of the way full. I looked back at my wife and shook my head. I felt the hose—cold. Damn our little water heater, I thought. I turned off the water to wait for it to reheat. My wife reached over and ran her fingers across what little water filled the bottom of the tank. She stripped down and got in.

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I texted the midwives, who told me that my wife could labor in that state for quite a while. Days, even. Really? I thought. They said she/we should eat. They said that while the tub’s relaxing for her, I really should try to get her on a walk if she wanted to “get things going.” I looked over at my wife, her face scrunched in agony. I wished myself luck as I asked if she wanted to go for a walk. She looked at me like I was nuts and said, “No way.” Eventually we did get her to walk around the yard, but that was about as good as I could get it. I never could get either one of us to eat.

For the next several hours she was in and out of the tub. I was running water over her. Rubbing her shoulders. Rubbing her back. Asking questions and getting snapped at (my fault). Watching helplessly as she suffered. Hearing her desperate cry of “help me” and not knowing what to do.

Early afternoon, it sounded like my wife was in pain every second. Maybe I should time the contractions, I thought. I got a chart I had printed and asked my wife to tell me when the contractions were starting and when they were stopping. “They don’t stop,” she said. “They just get slightly less intense.” I opened the stopwatch feature on my phone and recorded the times as best I could. They were really close together.

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I sent the midwives a text with all the information about her contractions: duration, interval, observations, notes. They asked if we wanted them to come over. Just as I was about to respond that we were fine, my wife’s water broke. “We’re coming.”

“Ahhhhhhh!” my wife shouted. The pain was increasing, and my ability to be useful was decreasing. I tried to think of everything I could do to make my wife more comfortable. Music. My wife loves music. She has her phone hooked up to a special Bluetooth speaker and creates all sorts of playlists. However, she’s always the one who puts the music on in our house, and I had no idea how to work her devices. I picked up her phone and tried to figure it out. I pressed a button that looked like a music note and then I pressed play. Mariah Carey blasted through the speaker. I cringed. I looked at the playlist – something about “liked” or popular songs. I had no idea how to change it. Apparently this baby would be born into a 90’s dance party. Oh, well!

My wife was on the floor when Midwife 1 arrived. She took her blood pressure. She took her pulse. She listened to the baby’s heartbeat. Strong. I stroked my wife’s back while the midwife placed various items around our house, pausing every so often to ask me where certain things were. As she distributed her belongings, she swayed to Mazzy Star. She boogied a little to N*Sync. She jammed to Phish. I shook my head at the ridiculous hodgepodge playlist. “Sorry!”

Midwife 2 arrived. Together the three of us helped my wife to the bathroom. She labored backwards on the toilet for what seemed like hours. The midwives stopped her every so often to listen to baby’s heartbeat. You could hear the heartbeat echoing off my wife’s pelvic bones. The baby’s descending.

I walked out to the kitchen to find Midwife 2 knitting. I offered our guest bed if she needed a rest or if this continued on for a while. She looked at me and chuckled. “Your wife is pushing,” she said. “You’re having this baby very soon!”

Throughout the whole evening, my mind and emotions had been vacillating between focus and fog. In one moment, I was sharp. In another, I was lost. But throughout the entire experience there was one emotion that remained constant: excitement. This was really happening. We were having a baby.

My wife continued to labor on the toilet. Eventually, Midwife 1 looked at me with urgency in her eyes. She whispered, “This baby is coming now. We need to move your wife.” We coaxed and prompted, but were met with resistance. Finally, we got my wife off of the toilet and onto a low to the ground, crescent-shaped birthing stool.

“You can see the head,” Midwife 1 said. She held the flashlight as I looked in. There it was! A little brown swirl of hair. My heart skipped a beat and a huge smile spread across my face.

“Do you want to see it? Do you want to feel?” I asked my wife, but she was so lost in her pain that she couldn’t do it. All she could do was push. I positioned myself between my wife’s legs as INOJ’s Let Me Love You Down pulsed through the speakers in all its teenage glory.

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She pushed once, and a head began to emerge. “This hurts like hell!” she screamed.

Second push, and the head was out. There was a pause between the contractions. I cradled the head in my hands, the first person to ever touch this little being outside of my wife. My daughter. This is my daughter.

Third push, and a little body slithered out of my wife and into my arms. The umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck and body, and the midwives and I twisted and turned her around until she was untangled. We heard her sputter and then we heard her cry. It was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard. I lifted her tiny body up to my wife’s chest as she cried, “My baby, my baby, my baby. Oh, sweetheart.” I wrapped my arms around my wife and began to sob. I was overwhelmed with love and admiration.

Blood poured down between my wife’s legs. The baby had pulled part of the placenta off the uterine wall when she came out. The midwives ran about, attending to all my wife’s needs. They gave her a shot of Pitocin to contract the uterus, the first drug my wife received throughout this whole process. They gave her herbs. It felt like a movie where my wife, my baby and I were in focus as the rest of the world moved around us in a hurried blur.

We moved over to the couch where my wife continued to cradle our child. We stared into our daughter’s little face as my wife birthed the placenta. “Oh, you’re perfect,” I repeated. My eloquence long lost to overwhelming emotion, I showered my daughter and my wife in short statements of adoration. I reached out my finger, which was quickly grasped by the tiniest hand I had ever seen. I thought my heart would burst out of my chest right then and there.

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The midwives took care of everything as my wife and I held each other and snuggled our baby. We could not stop staring at her, touching her, kissing her wet new skin, telling her how loved she was. I pulled myself away long enough to cut the umbilical cord. The midwives stepped away to cook us food, clean our house, and eventually help us up to bed. After several hours of snuggling in our bed-nest, Midwife 1 performed the new baby exam. 8 pounds, 6 ounces. 22 inches long. Born at home at 7:38 PM.

Perfect.