The Other Side of the World

I’m still around - just trying to finangle a broadband connection for myself, which apparently is the Kiwi equivalent of trying to heist a Klimt. Luckily for us all (ha!) the internet ranks up around food, water and compliments about my hair in my hierarchy of needs, so I am making good progress. In fact as soon as my feet are able to propel me once more (taking 5 weeks off work and then working back-to-back waitressing shifts is not overly wise) things should be good to go.
Until then - prepare your minds for a feast of bodily fluid soaked tales!
(I’m not kidding - there is a sweatshirt in my laundry drenched with amniotic fluid & meconium, and a person in the world who - outside his mother’s body - felt my hands on his head first).

In 24 hours.
July 1 2006 6:13 a.m. baby girl, 7lbs3oz (quietly pushed out on hands & knees)
July 1 2006 9:21 p.m. baby boy 5lbs11oz (emergency C-section, cord prolapse)
July 2 2006 4:18 a.m. baby girl 8lbs6oz (high shoulder dystocia, ventouse)

and another very precipitous birth on the toilet; July 2 2006 11:07 a.m. that I was asleep for, but assisted the repair of the 3rd degree tear (that’s all the way down to her bum, boys. . . )

How’s that for an induction to midwifery?

It’s Sunday (July 2) at 10 p.m. and I’ve slept about 7 hours since I woke up Friday morning. Including a nap snatched on the antenatal clinic examing table at the hospital. At one point I’d been at the hospital longer than the medical resident on-call for the floor (who was coinicedentally the Uncle of the first baby).

And yes, it was amazing, overwhelming, intense, beautiful, slow, fast, powerful and sometimes a gory, bloody mess.
It hasn’t all hit yet, but as I was speeding down the road to #4 in the perfect brighter-than-blue morning I very suddenly found myself pouring tears all over the steering wheel so hard I could no longer see the road. And I didn’t have a clue why. . . except that life is just. . . Life.

Off to shower & bed now.
Did I mention # 5 is in early labour. . . . ?