- Samuel Beckett
Amy's first serious contractions started on Friday--two weeks before our estimated due date--she delivered our baby boy early Thursday morning. We laboured (as the English call it) at home, pouring painfully and patiently through each contraction while trying different birthing poses and exercises. Women who have birthed babies will understand what was going on; guys who have been with them can imagine. We had prepared all the ammunition, diapers, blankets, Qtips, birthing pool, readings, classes, midwife, umbilical clips, and nesting that you could possibly need to feel safe walking into the end of a finetastic pregnancy.
Amy lost her mucus plug on Saturday and averaged one minute contrations every eight to ten minutes for four days. She was dialated to 6 cm on Wednesday morning and, all of the sudden, her contractions receded to 3 per hour. My mother says that pregnancy and delivery aren't completely connected. In this case, after four days of labor, it was obvious that birth wouldn't be as sweet as gestation. The romantic notions that we had of birthing a child at home wore off right about when those contractions grew fewer and farther apart. Eight hours later, without much reassurance from our midwife, and very little energy, we couldn't help but doubt that we were on the verge of gambling a human life. Who in their right mind wagers so high to have a nearly biological experience?
By all means, the time we spent mosying around our house, relaxing in the birthing pool, and cursing while leaning on the kitchen counter was one of our favorite parts of the experience; in the end we both like our sleep too much for putting the heavy weight of jeopardizing a newborn on our conscience... especially at five driving minutes from St. Pete's.
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