Labor Day

Literally! I want to gather some thoughts and memories on this magic day.

Our son was born last Friday, August 19th, a little before 5pm. He came to the world in our bedroom, facing the Pacific Ocean, submerse in water himself. Around the birthing tub were the two midwives that assisted us, Deborah and Dana, as well as some close loving friends - Anita, Jesse, Joanna, Aparna and Blaithin. He came on his due date, a Friday of full moon under Leo. Avani says there was a big festival taking place in India on the 19th - it is comforting to know that India was celebrating as I was pushing my son out into the world.

It was a long labor - 22 hours altogether. For the ones among you who fear 22 is too long of a number as far as labor duration goes, rest assured that 21 hours of it were relatively mild, and for the most of it I doubted the baby was gonna come in less time than a week, since the contractions weren't too strong. The first contractions started around 7pm the day before, and didn't necessarily feel any different than Braxton-Hicks (the so-called practice contractions that I was having every day in the last few weeks of pregnancy). We invited Anthie over for tea after dinner. She seemed to know that something was up in the air, because she came over, even though she declined our invitation at first. "I had a feeling", she said later.

The first indication that something big was going to happen came when Nalini asked me to put her to bed at 10pm. Now - Nalini asking to go to bed is really unprecedented - she's the ultimate party girl, and particularly when we have guests over she just wants to hang out with us for as long as she can stay awake. The most impressive thing though is that she kept repeating: "Mamae, cama, cama, mamar, cama" (Mommy, bed, bed, nurse, bed), as if she was saying "You need to go to bed now, let us nurse to sleep". Once she was asleep, I ignored her (good!) advice and sneaked out of bed to chat some more with Anthie and Jamila. When Anthie left at midnight, the contractions were still happening, and seemed to be getting slightly stronger. I took a glass of wine and went to bed, in the hope of getting some sleep.

When I woke up shortly before 3am, I knew that those contractions were different than all previous ones. My Braxton Hicks always dissipated with me falling asleep at night, but not these ones. I lay quietly at Jamila's side for over an hour, focusing on what I had before me on that day. Between contractions, I went over all of the things that needed to happen for the birth to go smoothly in our home. At 4am, I woke Jamila up and he started to time the contractions - they were coming exactly every 13min, lasting a little less than a minute each. They kept coming strongly and regularly, while we were just focusing on getting me into a deep relaxation. At around 6am, we called Deborah, the midwife, and Anita. Both showed up at our place at around 7am, and calmly set up everything needed. I told Deborah I hesitated to call for a while, since the contractions didn't feel too strong, and she said: "Honey, this baby is coming today". And I said: "Maybe by 6pm".

These are the early members of the birthing team:



One of the first tasks to be undertaken was filling up the birthing tub. Jamila and Nalini proceded to do so while Deborah was busy in the kitchen setting up her stuff:



As I mentioned, things kindda progressed really slowly from then on. The other members of the birthing team arrived one by one - Jesse offered to video tape the event, and was next to arrive. He later picked up Joanna from OAK, who flew in just for this special event. Blaithin came around noon, Aparna called saying that she wouldn't be able to show up before 3pm. "No need for her to hurry", I thought, "the baby is gonna wait".

Dan and Kara showed up a little later, and were generous enough to bring over a pillow for us to use in the birthing tub. Kara also used here magic hands and gave Ana a wonderful labor massage, while Dan and Jesse made sure Nalini was being entertained:



A while later, Jamila and I took a break in the birthing tub. Sitting in the warm water certainly felt really good. In fact, it made me relax so much that my contractions slowed down quite a bit. I got a bit worried that this would end up prolonguing labor by quite a few hours, but Deborah reassuringly just told me to relax and enjoy the break: "You'll need your energy when time comes", she said.

And she was so right! Not more than 20 minutes later, I was lying down in the bedroom when the contractions started to feel really strong. Nalini was lying with me, and coached me through some contractions by petting my chest gently and saying "sleep, sleep", trying to get me to relax. Jamila stayed with me through this hard and intense phase of labor, helping me get through the contractions. After about 30 minutes, we called Deborah in to check our progress. Her words were: "This baby is gonna be here so soon! Give me your hand." She took my hand and had me touch the top of the baby's head, which was already showing. A wonderfully wet and mooshy feeling, a really beautiful sensation!

We rushed into the tub, and I'd like to say that I pushed the baby out, only that I really didn't. Instead, both Deborah and Dana coached me to let the baby come out slowly and by itself, at its own pace. Having actively pushed a baby before, I must say this was quite a wonderful experience - I was witnessing the power that my own body had to birth its baby on its own, without any interference on even my part. The results were amazing - my son literally shot out of me after barely 20 minutes in the tub, and dove, head and body out at the same time, directly on Jamila's hands. A truelly magic moment!



Deborah carefully disentangled the umbelical cord from his neck - it was wrapped around it twice, and I lifted him up to my arms, to discover that he was a beautiful baby boy! The boy I waited for so many months to meet :). He immediately opened his eyes very wide and gazed at me calmly and contently. Nalini had joined us in the tub, and together with Jamila we all welcomed our son into our family.

We rested in the tub until the placenta was born (which by the way caused a beautiful effect in the water), and the rest is history - we came out of the tub, and after we had had some time to bond and breastfeed for the first time, Deborah and Dana examined both me and the baby, to find that I was doing really well and that the baby was healthy and strong! He charmed all of us right away:



At the end of the day, we all celebrated with a delicious Burmese dinner and a lot of fun. Here you can see the whole birthing team gathered around the table after dinner:



I'd like to thank each one of you who helped make this day one of the most beautiful experiences in my life! A special thanks go also to the Deborah, Dana and Juli, the midwives from the Awakenings Birth Services for their magnificient guidance throughout my pregnancy and the birth itself.