Watching Births

Yesterday Andrea and I met with Helen - our doulah - and we watched a number of excerpts from the show "House of Babies". We don't have cable or anything so we don't have the ability to watch this normally. Helen fast forwarded through alot of the episodes so that we could get to the "good stuff", meaning, the birth. Most, if not all, of the births that we watched were underwater, which is amazing. The baby's head will come out and still be under water, and because it is getting oxygen still through the umbilical cord it is fine until it comes all the way out. But, was most interesting about the different births was how different women reacted to being in labor, especially the last bit of labor. There was one women who could barely keep going, saying it was too hard. Another women was almost smiling between contractions as she seemed so content, even with the intensity of the last bit of pushing. And another women was almost methodical in her approach, as if she was doing a job and just trying to get it done. What was not different about each woman after the birth was how happy they were and how they beamed with joy as they held their newly born baby.

It will be interesting to see how Andrea (and I) do during the birth of our little one. I'll keep you posted...