This is Life!: Revolutions Around the Cruciform Axis

The Fatherhood Chronicles LXXIX

The Birth

When Anna determined to birth Delaina through the care of a midwife, I was less than thrilled. Not that I had anything against midwifery, mind you. But when it comes to the health of my family, I want all the marvels of modern medicine at our immediate disposal. The whole midwife thing just smacked of new-agey hippie-ness. Not fer me, thank yew very much.

But for those readers who know my wife, Anna is not easily dissuaded once her mind has fixed on a goal. And her goal was simple and clear: a water birth with a midwife. And by golly, that's just what she got. She wanted that with Sofie, but her employer switched insurance providers just before her last trimester and she wasn't able to make the switch.

Sofie's birth was marvelous, of course. I was a weepy, gooey mess. (Tripp can authenticate this claim, by the way.) But Anna's ob-gyn had already determined that if Anna went a week over her due date, he would induce her labor. And that, in fact, was what happened. Although Anna paid attention to her body's labor, since it was chemically induced, and her first delivery, there was more a feeling of not being in control, of things just happening to her and Sofie. And I was pretty much useless. As Sofie was being born, I stood at Anna's shoulder while all the medical personnel north of the Mason-Dixon line worked around my wife. I briefly saw Sofie crowning, and the rest of the time I could only see Sofie as she had emerged from the womb. It was still a marvelous sight, but so very much filtered. I was an observer. They could have put me on the other side of a glass wall.

After Sofie had been born, while she was on the warming table and getting checked out, I could touch her and kiss her. But those first initial moments are lost behind that barrier.

Delaina's birth was gloriously and completely different for us both. First of all, and most importantly, Anna's body, not some doctor, dictated when Delaina would be born. Anna could listen to her body and had a good sense of what was going on and how imminent was the birth. In fact, we all went to Vespers just a few hours before Delaina was born--while Anna's contractions were five minutes apart. After Vespers, we drove my mom and Sofie home and headed to the hospital. We got there between ten and ten-thirty and Delaina was born about three hours later.

When we got to the birthing suite, the midwife filled up the tub, while Anna worked through the stronger and more regular contrations. She could walk freely and sit up. I could apply pressure to her lower back and otherwise help her. The midwife was there to encourage us and chart all the stuff that was happening naturally. With about twenty-minutes to go (though we did not know it then), Anna got into the tub and let the last minutes of her active labor happen. It was, by Anna's account, a much easier birth. No drugs. The pain was mitigated somewhat by the warm water. And no intrusion of a SWAT team of medical personnel. It was Anna, one of her friends, the midwife and me. (Though for insurance/legal reasons, a couple of nurses popped in and out from time to time.) And only at the end, when Anna needed some help repositioning so that Delaina's shoulder could make it out of the birth canal did the midwife really insert herself into Anna's labor.

Delaina was born quickly and placed on Anna's chest, where she let out her first cries. Anna then laid Delaina on her upraised knees, balancing her in the water. We were able to feel the last pulsations of the umbilical cord as blood and nutrients flowed for the last time to Delaina. I got to cut the cord. And after they took Delaina to the warming table for measurements, I was able to give her my paternal blessing in the presence of the icons of the Theotokos and the Christ, and the vials of oil from the vigil lamps of the tombs of St. John of San Francisco and Blessed Hieromonk Seraphim of Platina.

But best of all, I got to nap for a couple of hours with Anna and Delaina before I headed home to get my mom and Sofie and give thanks in the Divine Liturgy.

Posted by Clifton at July 11, 2005 04:43 PM | TrackBack