I've been putting off this post for two weeks because I thought it should be amazing, but that is how things never get done.

Well, I had a lot of ideas about what I was going to do while I was waiting for my baby to come. I finished work three weeks before the due date and I was convinced, based on family history, that I would go to 42 weeks and deliver a 12 pound freakin' baby. So I planned to swim a lot, do some romantic stuff with my hubz, read this and that, write up the birth plan, buy diapers and stuff, work on my baby shower registry, write in my journal a lot, etc. One thing we did immediately after I quit working was attend a birth class with seven or eight Amish couples, so Matt finally knew about things like cervices and uteri and perineums. Whew. (Foreshadowing)

After two full days of freedom from work, I waddled through Wal*Mart etc and gathered up all the supplies I needed for the birth. I wrote a blog post about it (see below.) Then I furiously tidied the room in which we planned to have the birth pool. It was full of camping stuff and golf clubs and it had been a load on my mind. I sighed in relief, feeling pretty much ready for my midwife's 37 week home visit which was to occur the next day (more foreshadowing,) and went to try on my new swimsuit bottom, for the purpose of all the swimming I was about to do. During this process, I felt that the swimsuit was quite wet, and thought "how embarrassing! well I certainly can't return it now," assuming that I had peed my pants, which happens a lot to pregnant women there at the end, I guess. The funny thing was that I had personally never peed my pants during this pregnancy, and it was rather a lot of liquid, much more than my bladder contained. Well, I continued "peeing my pants" for about a half an hour until I finally poked my head in to the room where Matt was serenely reading Rousseau or something, and querulously announced, "Umm... I think my water has broken?"

Thank God for that birth class. Long bloody messy rather painful story short, 29 hours later, we met this guy:

Scott Maximos; 8 lbs 15 oz; May 22

and what can I say? He's perfect. The last two weeks have felt like life on a new planet.

The labor itself was certainly the hardest thing I've ever done, but also undoubtedly the best. And it wasn't really as bad as I thought it would be. I only had a couple flickering moments of panic ("IS THIS HELL") but otherwise I felt emotionally capable, well prepared, and supported by people I loved and trusted. And just as Christ says, she forgets all about the pain, because of her joy that a new person has come into the world.

So I guess the blog has come full circle. I started it to chronicle my observations during an internship with the midwife who attended my delivery. Then I kept it around for five years and continued doodling in it. And now I have a baby delivered by the same midwife (well, delivered by me, but you know what I mean.) It would be a dramatic time to quit blogging but I don't have any plans to do so. Just wanted to mark the occasion and acknowledge that I do recognize the literary appropriateness of such a gesture.