Our Birth Story

By: Daniel Lawson

On Wednesday Alicia felt like the birth was imminent because she was having painful contractions. So I took time off work and drove her the two hours from Winthrop to her midwife’s in New Hampshire. Her midwife didn’t seem to think that she was so far long, so we drove all the way back without a baby. That night Alicia’s contractions got more regular and more painful. Around 2 a.m. I woke up to her crying over me, asking why I wasn’t getting up and telling me that I needed to get up and time her contractions. So—having ignorantly played the Wii until 11:30 the night before—I lumbered out of bed. An hour and a half later we were rushing out the door for our white-knuckle drive down I-95.

The drive went pretty smoothly. There was only one time when I really had to drive as if I had a pregnant woman in the passenger seat. I was approaching a toll booth, and there was only one attendant available. Apparently the attendant was having a good conversation with a taxi driver because when I got behind them and honked the horn, the cab didn’t budge. Fine. I thought. You just saved me a buck-seventy-five. And I jerked the wheel into the EZPass lane with a clean conscience.

By the time we got to the birth center it was pretty obvious that the baby was on its way out. I’m amazed at how quickly the whole process went. Considering the fact that she shrieks like a banshee whenever she sees a spider, I thought that pushing a baby out of her vagina might be a bit troublesome. She did great, though. At first she seemed pretty relaxed once she climbed into the birthing pool (which is a lot like a three-foot deep heated kiddie-pool built for a living room). But after a few hours I could tell that the contractions were getting intense because she just kind of went into a trance through her contractions.

It was a little weird being in my shoes. I knew that I was supposed to coach her along and help her maintain a breathing pattern, but I felt totally unqualified to help her. I thought: what the heck do I know about what she’s going through? You know when you’re at a baseball game and there are really ignorant fans who have obviously never played baseball yelling things like, “C’mon ya moron! Hit a home run why dontcha?” or fans at football games that think a runningback should just be able to leap over an unblocked defensive line? Well I felt like those idiots. Alicia, it will help if you breathe like this. I really had to try hard to pretend to know what I was doing. Alicia and the midwives seemed to think I did a pretty good job, but I felt pretty useless.

I may have done alright with coaching Alicia’s breathing method, but I real botched my chance to be a hero. I did great with the icky stuff—there were blood clots the consistency of boogers landing on the towel I used to dry off Alicia’s legs and floating around loosely in the pool, and there was blood dripping on the floor. When the baby’s head poked out I reached down through the water and felt its hairy sliminess without flinching. So when the midwife asked me if I wanted to reach in and pull the baby out of the water and up into the open world I coolly got into position like a quarterback under center. Then all at once—with one big push by Alicia—the baby came out. Here was my chance. I reached down, put my hands on her…and fumbled. No one told me that picking up a baby on its way from the womb through a pool of water is like picking up an ultra-greasy watermelon. As soon as I put my hands on her she spun out of my grasp, wrapping herself in the umbilical cord. The midwife—probably seeing that Papa was about ten seconds from accidentally strangling the newborn—took over and pulled her out.

The whole thing happened so quickly. We were only at the birth center for about eight hours: four hours to give birth and another four for relaxation and recovery. Alicia had to push less than ten minutes: I barely had time to get from the end of the pool next to her head, where I was coaching her breathing, to the other end to receive the baby. It was such a huge life change that I could not believe that it happened so quickly. As Alicia and I were driving Anna home we were amazed that it was just earlier that morning that our family had only three members.

It was very emotional. I thought that I might be too overcome with disgust and anxiety to feel the joy of having a child, but I felt incredibly happy. I was in tears as soon as I saw the baby’s head come out.

Things have been quiet since we got back. The baby sleeps most of the time. I’d like to be of more assistance, but really the only thing the baby needs regularly is food, and I’m not much help with that, so I focus most of my energies making sure that Alicia has everything that she needs and Juliette is occupied.

Juliette loves her new sister. She wants to hold her all the time. If she has any disappointment, it might be in Anna’s energy level. Juliette wants to give the baby toys to play with, apparently not realizing that Anna is only semi-conscious of her surroundings. But we haven’t seen any major signs of jealousy from her. It might be a challenge when I have to go to work and Alicia will be the only one left to feed her insatiable appetite for attention.

Having a child makes everything seem unimportant. I only got about two hours of sleep the night of the birth, but last night I didn’t really want to go to bed that badly, I would have rather stayed up with Anna. I’ve got to start applying for jobs after I graduate, and I have deadlines coming up starting on Monday, but I don’t care much about them—jobs just seem like something that will take time away from Anna. I’m sure this feeling will fade (at least I hope it will or Anna might be living in a van down by the river), but for now I’m pretty infatuated.

*Written for Elder Bryan Lawson, Dan's brother who is currently serving in a LDS mission in Washington state.