Ah, where to begin?

About a month and a half ago, Gaibi started having little crampy things starting at about 3am one night, which continued into the next day. It didn't interfere with much, we made some breakfast and watched a movie or two. When they came she just scrunched her eyebrows and got quiet. The crampies persisted throughout the day and by nightfall she was doubled over on the bed, having more transcendent experiences with pain. Laborland, they call it. Well let me be the first to tell you, Laborland is real! Where does a woman go during those contractions? I wish the answer could be Baskin-Robbins but from what I could glean it wasn't quite 32 flavors.

But we should expect nothing less of Mother Nature. She is fair. You want a human? How about nine particularly and colorfully uncomfortable months (give or take) which crescendo into the experience which i must begin another paragraph to describe:

Imagine sitting with a bottle of juice that has a little bendy straw in it and watching your significant other get their hips pried open but the unruly tools of an invisible god. Every contraction truly seemed as though some force was (and indeed it was!) pulling Gaibi's hips apart and slowly opening the door for Isaiah's grand entrance. We dragged the big trough into the house and started filling it up. Family and neighbors were called to come over with big pots so that we could boil water to add to the tub because someone seems to have accidentally put the hot water heater for a house full of hamsters in our house. Inside it was buzzing with people carrying big pots of boiling water and sinks running, a blazing fire in the stove, Gaibi enduring torture at the hands of the birth goddess, me sort of managing the event and fetching comfort stuff, it was delicious chaos. It was clear that something outside of and beyond Gaibi had taken over our house, and you could feel it in every inch of the place the moment you stepped through the door. Soon it was 2am.

3am. 4am. Lots of pain. Few interruptions save for our midwife who would come in with her assistant regularly, just to verbally check in and provide a calm voice. Throughout the night we could hear our midwives chopping wood in our backyard to feed the fire in our drafty, wood-floored living room. Sometimes the tub would begin to cool and someone would come in with our saucepan, scooping cool water out and refilling it with boiling water. Each time this happened, Gaibi's body would visibly decompress a bit. Sadly, this relief would prove a hindrance in the end.

Not long into labor Gaibi declared her sympathy for those who opt for epidurals. 13 odd hours later and i'm sort of dazed from sitting tub-side and walking throughout the house while she slowly and painful morphed into proper form.

it was about 9 am she started pushing.

this went on, moving from tub to bed to bathroom, upstairs and back a few times, around the couch, so on. it was apparent that the huge tub of warm water, however wonderful, was just too much so and actually slowed the process down. finally we were on the bed and it was everything you might think. it feels like Heaven's brass section are playing and there's lots of intensity from her screaming to my probably-by-then-very-desperate-and-emotionally-unstable-sounding consolations, to the midwife's calm, zenlike approach.

i don't know, it was a blur, but all of a sudden this happened.

the midwife said something like, "ok, GET YOUR HANDS READY, GET THEM HERE, NOW NOWW!!!" and all of a sudden there was this warm, meaty kind of little thing all flopping around in my hands and snorting like a pig, which i kind of clumsily escorted up onto Gaibi's chest and it began shrieking its virgin shrieks, which to a parent are truly heavens trombones. the next little while is a bit beyond the grasp of the English language, though i quote my midwife in saying that, "those first few hours and days with your baby are like the glue of your family, setting." it was true. here was this entire organism who had been sneakily hiding away and growing itself a body in my wife's torso, full of personality and wisdom. for the first thirty minutes, while mom had to have different procedures taken care of, Isaiah sat with me, silent. He wasn't asleep and he wasn't dazed. He was just perfectly present and beatifically quiet.

The Love is profound and awesome. Everyone was right, there is no way you can describe it. The earth and stars revolve around your baby's heart. When he cries, the skies fall. When he smiles, the whole world smiles. When he sleeps you merely sit and adore him, more enthralling than any movie. He looks like you and its weird. This is where babies come from. Now i understand.

He continues to grow and change daily, always to our delight. More on that next time.

Lovies

d and the family