Today is my daughter's first birthday!
I can't quite believe that she's really a year old. All day (actually yesterday and today) I was noticing the time and recalling exactly where I was, and what I was doing, a year ago.
3 pm yesterday - feeling the first cramps.
3:30 pm - realizing -omigosh!- those are contractions!
7 pm - walking around and around our apartment, breathing heavily.
10 pm - walking around and around, leaning over the sofa arm, groaning.
1 am - on the way to the hospital, feeling spacey and eager and a little nervous.
4 am - pacing the halls in the hospital in a stylish tentlike gown.
6 am - watching the sun rise, with my midwife at my side, and hearing her say something about how I'm still only in "early" labor. aaaah.
9 am - groaning, pacing, panting.
11 am - crouching in the tub. It doesn't help. Starting to feel panicky, like I can't keep ahead of the pain; asking for an epidural.
noon - blessed relief, lying in bed after the epidural. The room was dark, and my husband and I both dozed. I thought of how soon I'd have my baby in my arms, and my eyes filled with tears.
2:30 pm - time to push. Painful but exciting. I felt totally focused on the job at hand.
3 pm - the birth! seeing my beautiful baby for the first time, feeling how real she was as she wriggled on my chest, warm and wet and dark, all long limbs and big dark eyes. Feeling totally in love with her and with my husband.
5 pm - eating dinner with one hand while I held my baby with the other.
9 pm - surprise visit from my brother, after my parents and husband had gone home. In the warm, quiet room, we marveled together over the baby.
It was a wonderful birth day for her, and an experience I'll treasure always. Probably the best thing that's ever happened to me. I remember I held her in my arms and nursed her all night long, only putting her down briefly to go to the bathroom. I couldn't take my eyes off her. I felt that little surge of happiness that you get sometimes when something particularly good happens to you - but I felt that way for hours and hours on end.
And now she's a year old, a whole year of discoveries behind us. She's grown from a little 6-pound swaddled bundle whose only desire in life was to nurse, nurse, nurse...to a real little person who kicks and struggles and growls at me if I take too long getting her dressed - a person with ideas and a sense of humor, with my husband's ears and her grandmother's eyes and my dark hair. She's spirited and playful. We love her so much it hurts.
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2 comments:
Oh my gosh, Erin. Childbirth sounds horrendous. Joe keeps teasing me that I'm pregnant and I keep wanting to punch him in the mouth. Just kidding. I'm sure it's all worth it in the end ... but ... ow. Ow, ow, ow. That's a lot of hours. I read an article in the local paper yesterday about a woman who was in labor for only six minutes. I thought, "Now that's the way to do it."
It's strange, but honestly, when you're in the moment, experiencing the contractions, it's not so awful as you might think. I think there's a distinction between pain that comes from an injury, that you're actively trying to stop or escape - like if something heavy was grinding down on your foot - and pain that is natural and that you just have to get through. Part of the suffering comes from resisting the pain and thinking, "This shouldn't be happening." And when you're in labor, it's OK with you that there is pain, and you know that it signifies progress, so it's not as bad somehow.
Of course, that's my perspective from a year after the fact, and I did have an epidural. I have unlimited admiration for women who go natural. :)
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