Seder-baby,

You quietly edged your way into the beginning in the gentle hours of Monday morning. I was still asleep on the couch, propped up against its odd comfort, leaving the big bed to your daddy and sister. I dreamt then, that my mother was asking me if it was still ‘safe’ to be pregnant ‘at this time’ and I emphatically answered ‘yes!’. Thus, with her presence and opinions known, my mother disappeared and the lull of rough-edged contractions began to fill out my consciousness.

Clinging to the last moments of rest, I hunched forward, leaning into the arm of the couch while Jess, who had come from Auckland to be with us, filled my request for a back massage. Squirming through that, and then a short-lived breakfast of homemade yoghurt and peaches  – I suggested to her it only might be labour. Then suddenly your daddy and Noemi appeared in the living room and I suddenly relented to the notion that today you would be born.

Retreating into the roomy cocoon of our bedroom, I curled myself, hands and knees around a pile of pillows and let your daddy work his magic acupressure points into the small of my back. Each contraction’s stiff peak suddenly melted into a dullness that spread through my body, relaxing me and allowing me to enjoy the time together.

No need to call the midwife – we merely waited for her to return home from boxing class whereupon she surveyed me swaying against the door jamb en route to the toilet and said “right”.  My desire to hibernate was strong and she intuitively headed out again – this time to gather an epic’s worth of groceries. Apparently births require good food to proceed.

The day passed calmly – snug in bed, eating grapes and reading friend’s blogs. Relishing the peace and quiet. I was encouraged by some bloody show and the discouraged when I peeked at the clock and saw the contractions were still five minutes apart. I popped out of the room and asked for a quick check – 5cm. Ah, so something was definitely happening.

Around dinner time the discomfort had swelled and I announced I wanted into the warm pool your daddy had filled in our alcove. The bliss of warm buoyancy conflicted with the tiring heat of the water and the steady increase in power of each contraction. A photo of me smiling took some effort! Pressed into your daddy’s neck, the water reflected strangely off the clear plastic of the pool in the dimly lit room. I felt you gently shift and turn inside me, pressing your way through the labrinyth of my pelvis. Our midwife crept around sopping up the leak that had sprung in the pool but I was only briefly roused from my labour-dreaming to be unreasonably annoyed with her.

Soon the split and heave of collapse and collide within began to over power my sense of self and frighten me. Afraid it would never end and I would forever be thrust, blind and heaving into the vast oblivion of pain I demanded our midwife check my progress, break my waters and get me out of there! I was tired and angry and unable to see the way through any more. Because I had been to so many births as her student, I was worried that anything she said to me would fail to impress and steady me. Thankfully, I was wrong and her words were soothing and strong.  I did, however, turn a few times to your daddy to ask him if what she said “was true”. His reassurance was somehow more trustworthy because I knew he had seen me through birth before. His quiet presence each and every second I clung to him became the epicentre, the life-point to which I could cling, or at least view through the tempest.

At last it was night, and at last the wholeness of your body was bearing its full weight against mine. The feeling was threatening and yet inviting, asking me to plunge into the darkest point where only the tiniest hope of breaking through resided.

Thrusting my way in and out of the birth pool, to the bathroom (where I remember noting that my footprints, small, neat and wet on the black & white bathroom floor were improbably lovely) and back to the bed I ranted and flailed looking for a non-existent escape-clause. Demanding another examination, the news that only a small lip of cervix remained was more distressing than heartening. I moaned and seethed through the urge to rip myself open and be done with it. Lying on my side, the contractions occasionally had no pause between them and the world seemed to have disappeared altogether. Only the sight, just out of the corner of my eye, of the second midwife calmly finishing up my knitting for me by the light of a small lamp reminded me that all was well and right with the world.

Finally, the lip had melted away and our midwife’s finger slipped through your membranes and flooded the end of the bed with relief. And then, as the vast and roaring power filled every space between you and I, out, out out into the wide world we hurtled. Bound together in a tight and seamless unity, speeding towards the moment of being ripped apart. The very last contraction that held you inside me I remembered my desire to give you peace at birth and I calmly breathed through just one contraction. Then the crash and tumult of unimaginable proportions hit and your sleek wet head was flung into open air. “still posterior*” remarked our midwife admiringly and I paused to laugh in amazement and allow the second midwife to take a quick photo at your unusual entrance.  Star-gazing we sometimes call it in midwifery.
Then the last razor-tipped wave – the one that will never be remembered, because on its crest came you,  serene and blue. As if gently deposited on my chest by the evening tide.  Calm-eyed and wise, soaking your sweetness into my skin and deeper. Saturating us all with your beautiful completeness. Bringing the starry night in to stay with us forever.

Such peace and such power.
Thank you forever and for always – for the gift of birthing you.

All my love,
mama