Memories of birth

WARNING: some of this is a bit explicit in the terminology used, but not, I hope, offensive.
I have included two photos; neither shows private body parts, but there is blood, so don't scroll down if you're squeamish.

A few days ago I got out Anna's scrapbook & photo album to show a newly pregnant mum some records from my pregnancy and the birth. Anna grabbed it afterward and of course she was fascinated by the (quite graphic) birth photos after she managed to open the discreet cover pages. She asked to see some more and, since she'd already seen them, I wanted to look at them with her properly and talk to her about them, but there just wasn't time right then.

So yesterday, with a rainy morning making it nice to stay indoors, we all sat down at the table and looked through not only Anna's album but also Abigail's and then Joshua's. Sam doesn't have one - he only has this blog and the many many photos saved on the computer - and looking through them with the kids I felt a yearning to be regularly scrapbooking again.

We started with Anna's birth. She was born very quickly, almost immediately after I arrived at the labour ward, and I was attended by two midwives and no doctor. But having said that, one of the midwives actually took photos of the whole event while the other coached my mother in the fine art of delivering her granddaughter! Jeff was there as well, rubbing my back and whispering encouragement. We have photos of Anna crowning and then of her head emerging with a little fist beside it in "thinker's presentation". We presume she was interrupted sucking her fist because she was born with suck marks on both her hands; the scars have only recently faded away, four years later.

As I talked about these photos with the children, I explained what was happening in each one, but I tried to focus on the people rather than the gore. I talked about how special it was for Grandma to be able to cradle Anna's head in her hands as she was born. I talked about how thankful I was for Jeffrey rubbing my back to soothe me. I talked about how excited I had been to meet her finally, and how while she was being born, I remember calling to her through tears of joy, "Come on little Anna! It's all right my little Anna Christina, we love you!" Even though I did not know until she was born and given to me that my "Baby X" was indeed the girl I thought she must be. I talked about how much we all loved her, from the first moment.

Then we have photos of Anna screaming up at me as she lay between my arms (I gave birth kneeling on the floor); she had an APGAR score of 10/10.There is a photo of Anna feeding at my breast minutes after that, with the placenta (delivered naturally, which was quite unusual for the hospital) complete on the bed.

I pointed out the cord to the children explained to the children how it had taken blood with food for Anna from my body to her stomach within me. Anna in particular was fascinated by this, and of course we had to examine her belly button to see where the cord had gone.

And finally there was this amazing and tender photo of Anna staring straight up at Jeffrey's face as he holds his little baby girl in his arms.I remember saying to Jeff at that moment, feeling like it had been a very easy birth, "Next time we have a baby..."