Hi everyone. Hope all is well in your worlds today. I was sitting at my desk recounting a conversation I had with S. yesterday along with some recent reading I’d done. There was a blog post I read entitled “Giving Birth is not a Party”. I read it and could relate to the author’s frustration with the way some people take the experience of birth as a right to be present. I get it. It’s exciting. It’s new life for goodness sakes! BUT, it’s not for everyone. Most of you know how fortunate I was in my first pregnancy. I was a single mom doing it solo. My mother wouldn’t be in attendance at the birth and I was bummed about being there by myself. Then my sister squad came through after I called them and told them my water had broken. By the end of my 11 hours and 55 minutes of labor, there were six beautiful woman in that room welcoming the birth of my son. It was powerful. It was beautiful. It was soul stirring. It was something that will never be duplicated. Nor should it. This time, I want things different…and they already are.
I am married now to a man whom I love with all of me—even when he drives me bonkers lol. This is our first biological child together. We’ve been blessed to experience the joys of newborn raising together (our daughter) and the joys of raising a preschooler to soon-to-be middle schooler (our son-wow), but pregnancy and delivery have never been experienced together. I thought about how big our families are and how many people could easily say they were on their way and, quite frankly, I don’t want that. It seems to take away from things. That’s what I told S.
I asked if he would have any objections to it being just the two of us in the delivery room. I know my husband has tons of brothers, a sister, sister in laws, and that together we have so many nieces, nephews, etc. I love spending time with them and I love the energy they bring to any event. However, I don’t think I want all that energy when we are laboring. I would like it to be just he and I laboring together. This is our one team, one flesh, one effort moment. I don’t want have to worry about people seeing my nether regions or talking when I want complete silence. I just want it to be he and I. At least, that’s what I think I want.
S. didn’t seem to have a problem with this at all and joked that maybe we should let everyone know after the baby was born and at home. I actually like the sound of that, but also know that I wouldn’t mind a couple of friends or family members in the downtime where he has to go home. My mother won’t be down until several weeks later. I suspect I’ll be there for a couple of nights minimum. S. will be going back and forth with the babies and I wouldn’t mind someone sitting with me for a little while–maybe.
I think most will be okay with any decision to wait until we are home since their travel distance is an hour minimum. I’d prefer they wait until the baby is about a week old before coming over. I want the family to have time to be home and enjoy meeting and loving the baby.
The only exception to the wait until we get home rule will have to be my babies. I would like our son and daughter to meet the baby in the hospital. I think it will be a nice time for them spend some time together, take pictures, and return home knowing we’ll see them the next day. This will be especially important for our oldest. He is very protective of me. I know he will be worried if he doesn’t see me and will want to know that I am okay.
I was putting all of this off since we have a couple of months before things are solid, but then two of my fellow pregnant mothers delivered early. My former colleague and my cousin. The colleague went three months early. The cousin went three weeks early. My office has also recently started to ask when I plan to take maternity leave, so I suppose I have to start thinking about this stuff now.
Any thoughts? What did you do? What are you doing? Who will be in L&D with you if you are doing a hospital birth? Who will be with you if it’s a home birth? When are you starting maternity leave?
-K
