Falling In Love Again

                Every time I am pregnant, I think about how it will feel to finally see the little one who has grown in my womb over the past nine months.  The first time I gaze into their little eyes and hold their shivering body close to mine, I feel it all over again.  I feel my heart melting into a little puddle, and I fall in love with them.  They are just so sweet and helpless that it makes all the sleepless nights and even the pain of labor feel completely worth it. 

                This Thursday in the wee hours of the morning, I met my first little boy and felt my heart melt again.  We were planning on having a home birth, and I’m thrilled to say that is exactly what we were able to experience.  My water really did break at 5am on Wednesday morning.  Although I continued to be reminded of this all day, I didn’t have any regularity to my contractions until that evening around 8:30pm.  By 11:30pm, I moved into the hot tub as my contractions grew stronger, but they continued to be about 9 minutes apart.  The dim lights, familiar music, and the soothing jets made each contraction more bearable.  I have never had a chance at a water birth before; it was amazing what a difference it made.  It was so much easier to move during each contraction which helped with effectively pushing out the baby and handling the pain.  If I ever give birth again, this is exactly where I’d want to labor again.  I noticed that my contractions quickly jumped to coming during every song that was playing, so I began timing them.  They were 3 minutes apart at 12:15pm, so my hubby called for the midwife to come.  She set up her supplies, and monitored both myself and the baby at regular intervals.  When I began to feel a lot of pressure, he woke up my two oldest as well as both of our mothers.  All of them were there while our little boy took his first breath and cried his first cry. It was a family affair.  My second oldest had the honor of cutting the cord and even being the first sibling to hold him.   

                I loved all the precautions taken for our home birth (like the availability of IV fluids, oxygen, and even medications found on the crash carts at the hospitals).  I really loved all the freedom that it afforded (like being able to labor where I wanted  to, not having to answer admission questions during contractions, sleeping in my own bed without being interrupted every five minutes, not having to try to pack everything I might need). Most of all, I’m love that where we live there is a choice for a hospital birth or a home birth.  How we give birth is not a competition or something we need to argue about.  It is an opportunity to find what fits our family and our pregnancy situation best.

                As I hold our son in the wee hours of this morning …soothing him, nursing him, and taking in every feature…I am reminded of a simple fact that I often overlook. A little over 36 years ago, some one very dear to me was soothing, nursing, and falling in love with my helpless little form.  My heart is growing bigger right now not only for our most recent edition but also for the parents that fell in love with me.