The Foundation Myth

Tuesday, January 24th, 2012. 7:22pm. Enter Halle Rose.

My water broke at work four weeks before Halle's due date. Soaked in amniotic fluid, I breathlessly went through all of the bureaucratic procedures to leave work early; texted my husband ("Emergency. Don't panic, but call me."); and drove myself to the hospital.

I wasn't having any labor pains yet, so the idea of driving myself to the hospital wasn't as obscene as it sounds. I was able to calmly squish myself up to the fifth floor Women's Pavilion and check in for delivery. I was almost giddy with the unreality of the situation. Who has a first baby four weeks early?

By the time my goggle-eyed husband arrived at the hospital a half hour later, I was gowned and being monitored, still deliciously without any major pain, and thinking, "This is kind of fun." Thirty minutes after that I was having the worst cramps of my life and rethinking my natural childbirth fantasies. Ten minutes after that I was fully dilated and pushing. For two hours.

Halle wanted to be born early. She wanted to be born quickly. She was just a little hesitant about actually leaving the womb.

Because my labor progressed so quickly, there was no time for pain medication. (This is a fact I mused over quite a lot during the quieter moments of the pushing stage.) According to my mother, I was pretty stoic but kept repeating, "I want this baby OUT of me!" And it's true: you really do want that baby out of the goddamned birth canal and into your arms. Pushing is the hardest physical feat I have ever accomplished and the only thing that got me through it was the knowledge that it (a) had to happen, and (b) ended in a baby. The nicest thing I can say about labor pain is that it has a definitive purpose and a definitive end. As soon as that baby pops into the doctors arms, the cramping ends and your world changes. You have a sticky, exhausted infant in your arms, a terrified new dad by your side, and about ten people bustling around your gaping vagina. The nurses bare your breasts to the world (and any visitors--my dad rushed in as soon as the baby appeared, which is something I am truly grateful to have been too exhausted to notice, especially since I wasn't just topless but bottomless, being stitched up after an episiotomy), and they put your naked newborn onto your chest.

Which is miraculous. Did you know that the mother's body thermo-regulates the baby's temperature? Your little baby gets as much warmth from you as she needs, and the two of you can lie there together stunned by the magnitude of birth. I barely remember it, but I know in my bones that it was the best thing that has ever happened to me.

I had Halle three weeks ago today, and each day has been a sleepy wonder. I've been peed and pooped on, spit up on, and I find none of it disgusting. I'm running on 3-5 hours of sleep in a 24-hour period, but I'm not crazy yet. I nurse an average of every 2 hours and feel like a dairy cow (my daughter can't really focus on my face yet, but she can smell my boobs from a foot away), and the minute I think about nursing my milk leaks everywhere. I've never done so much laundry in my life (we don't own a washer-dryer) and we've gone through something like 180 diapers. At night I peer over the bassinet watching her breathe, making sure she's breathing, holding my own breath in a ridiculous, unconscious attempt to give her as much oxygen as possible.

Being a mom, and being a wife to a dad, are two new jobs that are hard to describe, and I'm going to use this blog as a place to parse out my feelings, both when they're joyous and when they're fearful, or fearsome. I'm not writing this for an audience, but if you stumble upon my blog and take some comfort in it, or laugh with (at) me as I fumble through motherhood, I'll appreciate the company.

And of course, I'll post pictures.