The birthing process was a unique, interesting, and challenging event. It was hard to see Maya in such pain. It took about 18 hours and of course when we left for the hospital neither of us were really ready but they say you never are. It was a scary time but having the Doula Colleen was certainly helpful and I don't know if we could do it again whether we'd do anything differently. Maya went back and forth with the need of the epidural and during the most intense contractions kept saying she couldn't do it anymore but she pushed pretty far into it naturally.
For most of the birth I was mostly just speechless, not sure what to say, wanting to help, but really doing very little as obviously Maya does/did all the work. I did little things like offer encouragement, give her ice chips, massage her shoulders a bit, grab a wet cloth to put on her forehead, and ask questions to make sure we felt good about everything. The hectic-ness of birth this was a challenge, especially with the decelerating heart beat episodes. She came in with everything moving quickly but overnight it really slowed down.
When the baby finally came everybody was exhausted. The quick and easy birth that we had hoped for did not happen, but at least we didn't have to any major interventions and/or need to do a c-section. I was impressed with the help at the hospital and by the end we assembled a pretty big team (maybe 6-8 people). It was both a relief and a surprise to see the baby finally come out. She came out at 6 lbs. 10 oz. and 19 inches and pretty with lots of hair. I was shocked by how normal she seemed and not at all alien-like as a I expected being all wrinkly and smushed face. I also for some reason thought it would be a boy and that he or she would look like one of us. But so far she is cute and so little and I am proud to be a father and it is still all hitting me.
Now, it's time to start learning how to do this. I really don't know anything about girls...
