A Birth Story

09.04.2010

If anyone is reading this and has had a child, I welcome sharing your child’s birth story, your feelings, thoughts, etc. Especially if it’s a funny story.

I haven’t given birth, but I will still share a birth story. While in college, I worked at a coffee shop and one day a new manager came in with her little girl (about 1 yrs old) and she and I immediately bonded. I started babysitting after my shifts and on the days I wasn’t going to school, and very soon after my boss got pregnant again. In the 9 months, I grew very close to the family and, because they were having a home birth, they asked me to participate and watch their daughter. I agreed, flattered and not knowing at all what to expect.

Around the time of the due date, I went out with my best friend one night to do our usual ritual of dinner at Johnny Rockets and a movie. But for reasons I can’t remember, we were back at my house at about 9 pm and my mom said that I got a call from the expecting parents, who I'll call Sarah and Ted. I returned the call and Sarah’s water had broken and wanted me ASAP. Luckily I lived 2 minutes away, so I went to their house and one hour went by, the next hour went by, then the third. Nothing was happening. Somewhere close to midnight they sent me home but then at 4:30 am they called again. Sarah was in hard labor.

Once at their house, I went to get the girl, who was with one of the midwives, but I had to cross the parent’s bedroom to get to her. As I crossed the room, I glanced at the bathroom where Sarah was sitting on the toilet in extreme pain with Ted holding her head/hair in the palms of his hands. I don’t know how to explain how in awe I was with this image. There was such beauty in that moment despite the moans of pain coming from Sarah.

The little girl (who had just recently turned 2) and I hung out in the kitchen occupying ourselves with various activities until about 6 am when we were called in to the room where Sarah was, by now, in an inflated tub of water. 18 minutes later their son was born. In those 18 minutes and immediately following, I felt such power and even more beauty that even though I wasn’t physically giving birth myself, I understood why people consider the birth of a baby to be such a miracle. It was nothing like how you see it on TV or the movies… There was such a sense of spirituality and a deeper, unexplainable gift given to me in those moments that, at the risk of sounding cliché, it transformed me. Hearing that little baby take his first breath was magical. Next month he turns 14 and, unfortunately, the family no longer lives in CA. As a result, I recently found out that his memory of me is fading which wrenches my heart. But my memory of him won’t fade. Of that I can be sure.