Witnessing a Live Birth

Did you know that today, March 8, 2011 is International Woman's Day?

Neither did I until I heard it on the radio. Not sure exactly what it's about other than what I imagine is to celebrate the awesomeness that it is to be a woman. Maybe to get awareness of the long way we have come and the long way we still have to go? Either way, I'm for it!! (metal note: do some research)

Some days I feel like a kid, a teenager at best. Not really an adult woman. But...the 29 candles I blew out recently tell me otherwise. So, to celebrate IWD I decided to write about a moment where being a woman became one of the most mind blowing moments of my life. I feel a bit like I'm disappointing IWD by writing about this and not something like getting the right to vote, or earning equal pay. I already know that we deserve those things and fought and will fight for that. This moment was something completely different. Witnessing a live birth is intense. Seeing my cousin give birth made me realize not only are we just as smart, just as capable and just ans awesome as men, on top of all that we can have babies. That beats peeing standing up any day!. 

A little over four years ago my cousin, Doris, was pregnant and anxious to give birth. It was December 20, and she did not want to have the baby during Christmas. She wanted things to go by much faster. She had witnessed a live birth before and we had spent countless hours watching birthing stories on the discovery channel (there was a time where we both didn't have a job). She felt confident and like most 9 month pregnant women, she was ready to have the baby already! 

Being the rookie she was at that time, she decided that I would be in the delivery room too. Pre-babies (she has two now!) and pre-hubby, Doris and I were very close. We still are but her life has taken her in the direction of wife and mother and they are her priority over me. As they should. But back to the "pre" time, there I was in the middle of the show. Now, my roll was to be supportive and just take pictures once the baby was born. You know...minimal stuff.

They had been at the hospital for a few hours when I showed up, I was rushing through a final to get there! Her epidural had been administered and it was just a waiting game now. We watched some TV, we talked, took some pictures. In between all this they would check her, things were moving very slowly. They broke her water and things started to move a little faster but still nothing to jump about. Clay and I put two big chairs together and slept on opposite sides for the night. Our backs were aching the next morning.

Around 9am (almost 24 hours later at this point and a few hours of pushing) Doris was very frustrated, there was a lot of commotion but nothing was happening. Everyone kept telling her you are doing good. We can see her head! You are almost there!! Here comes my favorite part of the story. Probably not hers but I'm sharing my perspective here. While everyone was saying all those positive things Doris seemed to just not believe it. At one point it was just me and her in the room and she turned to me, her cousin, her confidant, her best friends, the one person she knew had always and would always tell her the truth. "Marisol, can you look? Can you see her head?" Well, this was more that I expected to do but hey, why not. Be a good friend. So I took a look. Now, I could have said "Yeah, I can see her!" or "Oh my God, there she is!" or "Wow, Doris! You are progressing!" But no. I decided that I should tell the truth.

Marisol:"I don't see anything!"
DOris: "Seriously!?....Oh my God."


I should have lied.

Doris describes that moment like she felt all her hours of work just came under her and all her efforts were for nothing. It was very discouraging. I know I have said this before Doris, but I am really sorry. A few hours, massive pain due to epidural running out, getting more involved in the process that expected and lots of effort from my cousin, Savannah Michelle was finally born!

Like I said, I ended up being more "involved" than I expected but it was worth it. It really is beautiful and amazing... well, at least once they cleaned every thing up. She was so big, and so real and alive! It doesn't look natural to me though. It seriously looks crazy like "How is this possible? This should be in some alien movie!" But that is what a woman's body can do. We can do many, many, many other things...but seriously, growing a human and giving birth to it, awesome!

I got to take her first live photos and recently I took the ones below...


SAVANNAH MICHELLE :)

I love being your "Tia Maso!"

 Someday kiddo, I will embarrass you with this story. Specially the part about how HUGE of a baby you were, seriously Savi, you were like almost 10lbs.!


Oh and Doris, I probably would not be too happy with you showing my, I just gave birth photos someday so thank you for letting me share this. Oh and here is a very beautiful family photo were you look like you normally look...

 

So happy International Woman's day. We can do this and we can do anything else we want!