I am so overwhelmed. I have been planning to write about birth, but was hoping to avoid alluding to anything gross which pretty much rules out anything remotely interesting about giving birth. In any case, the birth went well. It was actually pretty funny which was fitting as it started during a comedic play.

The “active labor” started around 3:30 AM and lasted just under 5 hours. We were being really geeky and kept the eye on the contractions monitor to see how strong the contractions were. As if I didn’t know. I was pretty prepared for it between the Yoga I did during my first pregnancy and the Spinning I have been doing this Fall, I knew that I can physically do anything for two minutes at the time and that attitude helped.

The doctor who did the delivery was the same doctor that delivered Trevor which we were really glad for. This time he had a resident side-kick. He reminded me of my sister’s med school friends, the goofy ones anyway. The delivery doctor was quizzing the resident throughout the delivery along the lines of “what could go wrong at this point?” and “what would you do if it did?” which I could imagine would be somewhat disconcerting to some patients but I found it really interesting and funny.

Owen was very considerate and obliging and he got himself in the perfect position to be pushed out. He cried a little bit, but was very dignified otherwise. What I find really interesting is that his head looked about the same size as the rest of him. He is just about to get back to the weight he was at when he was born, but his body looks about three times bigger than at birth. Not that I have any measurements or anything, but this is how it seemed like.

It was really nice to hug him pretty much as soon as he was born. Trevor was placed on my chest when he was born as well, but I was drugged and could not move too much. I don’t remember if I could move my hands. This time I managed to avoid epidural or any other pain killers so I could hug my new baby as much as I wanted. Don’t get me wrong, I was glad when they gave me the medicine baggy after everything was over.

Now that I am a bit more sensible as a parent, I actually managed to get some sleep, Owen, again, being very obliging. This time around I have had and will have one or other grandparent around until February. This makes so much difference. Being home alone the whole day the week Chris went back to work when Trevor was born was really hard. Then again, I can’t tell the future, we might still be on the honeymoon… Come back next week for the “Honeymoon is over” post.