My Happy Place

Wednesday night Christian and I were invited back to our birth class to share the story of Chet’s birth. Driving to the Little Neck Swim and Racquet Club brought back the overwhelming feeling of joy. For eight weeks, we spent our Wednesday evenings in their meeting room. We learned all about childbirth. Even more importantly, we learned a lot about ourselves and our relationship in the process. Our feelings about childbirth became rooted in facts and knowledge. During the process of educating ourselves, I fell in love with childbirth. Not just my childbirth, but childbirth in general. The entire process is amazing to me. I love how very little control we have over the journey. I love how its a babies first journey in life. As a mother, it is our first chance to support our babies as they set the pace for their life.

I miss those classes. I miss labor. I miss the birth of a baby.

Seeing all the couples in the room filled my heart with so much warmth. Although their journey is their own, I know how much I received from the class. Aimee and Christi gave Christian and I one of the greatest gifts we will ever receive. They gave us the knowledge and the confidence to trust our bodies and to trust our babies. With the support of this class and these two amazing woman, we established the foundation for Chet’s birth plan. Although a lot changed from the piece of paper to the delivery room, having the knowledge we now have about birth and the support of our doula allowed us to give Chet his best birth. Every couple in that room is about to experience a similar journey. I wanted to hug each and every one of them. I want to hug everyone woman I see that is pregnant and about to birth her baby.

As I lay in bed Wednesday night, I had the hardest time falling asleep. I couldn’t stop thinking about the classes we took and Chet’s birth. What was it that made those classes so impactful on my life? Half asleep, I think I figured it out. The classes produce amazing dads and support systems. Our birth classes made Christian an active participant in the birth. He knew everything that was going on inside me from early labor to active labor to transition to pushing. He will never know the physical feeling, but he understood. He was able to embrace the journey. He wasn’t just there waiting for his child to be born, he was there to hold my hand through the journey. The birth classes made Christian apart of the birth. While we were sharing our story on Wednesday, I looked at the faces of all the dads in the room. They all had the same expression Christian had on his face in class – aw and amazement.

I truly LOVE child-birth. I would love to be in the room with every mom as she is about to welcome her baby into the world. I would love to give a dad the gift that Christi gave to Christian. She allowed him to be my husband that day. He was able to serve me instead of advocating for our birth wishes. Christi and our nurses became our advocate instead.

Child birth and everything that surrounds it feels like home to me. I would have 20 more babies just to experience giving birth again and again if Christian would let me.

All my life I’ve been chasing down a dream trying to figure out where I belong in this world. I think I found it. I want to pass on the gift that Christi and Aimee gave to me. I want to give that to other mothers and fathers. It might be time to start looking into doula training. Writing that here on my blog makes me nervous and excited all at the same time. In my years of searching, I do know that only good things come from attempting to tackle the things that make you nervous and excited.

While I’m not ready to tackle this hurdle today, it is on my radar for the very near future. First I need to tackle the hurdle of returning to work on Monday and learning how to be a working mom again. I can not believe it has been 10 weeks since we welcomed our own itty bitty baby into this world.

My sister is welcoming her third child into the world next week. She better be careful! I might crash her birth! (don’t worry Amy. I’m only kidding.) BUT I am so excited for her to meet her own itty bitty baby and to fall in love with the tiny person she has been growing for 9 months.