Presenting....the One...the Only....

At long last, the day has arrived. Our sweet wee bairn has joined us and we couldn't be more excited. He has such a mellow disposition and sweet face that he melts our hearts constantly.

I will not attempt to tell the story of Declan's birth in any voice save that of an observer-albiet an actively involved one. My wife is a rockstar with an amazing capacity to handle the great effort that birthing requires. She will post her story in her own words later.

After many trials and tribulations, including one false start that involved filling the birthtub only to have labor stall, we finally awoke on the morning of the 12th with the feeling that this was it, this was THE DAY. Kim was contracting regularly and strongly so we called our midwife around 3 pm. It so happens that she is the principle of Sunnyside Environmental School, so our timing was a bit off and she asked us if we thought that we could hang on for an hour and a half or so. "Sure", we said,"No problem". We continued hanging out, doing our thing, when...yes, you guessed it...labor stalled once again!!! It did not completely stop, and when we called the midwife to tell her, she suggested some labor-starting tips and told us she'd see us later. She arrived at 7 pm and checked Kim...she was at 6-7 cm, so Sarah-our midwife-was not really as discouraged as we were. She recommended we continue with the program, and had Kim taking a regimen of herbs to help it all along. It happened to be one of Sarah's assistants birthday that day, so she took her crew out to dinner and said they would be back to check on us later.

When the midwives got back at 9:30 and checked kim, she was at 8 cm without contracting and almost 10 cm with one. She said to keep it up, she and the ladies would grab a cuppa tea from New Seasons and be back. She also said that tonight was the night and they weren't leaving until we had our baby.




We kept at it hard until about 12:30, when Kim was checked and was at 9 cm without a contraction, and we opted to have her water broken. We had to continue with the manual contracton starters for another hour and a half or so, but then Kim took over and they came on hard and strong all on their own. We worked in a variety of positions and placements until Sarah said that the only thing holding up the birth was a small crescent of cervical lip, and with some manual adjustment the lip slipped and with three good, strong pushes out came baby!!!!

I cannot say enough about the astounding reserves of strength my wife has and her ability to perform miracles. WOW!!!!