Daddy with “Big” and “Baby” Sisters!
by Dylan Bruun
On Thursday afternoon, October 27, at 4 p.m., Brooke and I welcomed our new baby girl into the world. We’re just calling her Baby Sister for now because we haven’t settled on the name yet. We’ll get that straightened out soon enough . . .
Daddy with “Big” and “Baby” Sisters!
We had a different idea for the birth plan for our second time around. We were a bit more comfortable with the birth process and so we thought we’d try for a homebirth. So with that in mind, we were a little discouraged to be at a midwife appointment eight days after the due date with no baby in our arms. (So much for sharing our birthdays with the little bambina—both Mom’s and Dad’s birthdays were within a day of the due date!) They don’t like you over-cooking the baby for too long and we were worried we’d be going to the hospital the next day for another induction. We’d already been through that once and we were hoping to see and feel what it was like for the baby to make up her own mind and come out when she was ready, with the slow buildup and the excitement and so forth.
The midwife told us to “have more sex,” and asked, “Would you like a ‘stretch and sweep?’” We agreed. This meant a lot of cervix manipulation and not much fun—but we were getting desperate. We walked back to the car (Brooke, a little uncomfortably), and made our way home to cross our fingers and hope for the best.
Brooke cramped up pretty often that night, which is typical after the stretch and sweep. She continued cramping through the night and didn’t get a lot of sleep in the process. By the time I woke up, she was having cramps pretty regularly. How regularly? About eight minutes regularly.
“I’m pretty sure this is early labor and not just cramping if you’re getting them every eight minutes,” I said, and some quick research backed me up. I’ve heard of it before, of the disbelief some women and couples feel when labor actually starts happening, after such a long road, where the woman’s body throws everything and the kitchen sink at them in the pregnancy process . . . it’s pretty astounding. They go through so much that a full day of regular cramping can just seem like another body-gone-crazy pregnancy inconvenience.
After we wiped the disbelieving cobwebs from our eyes, we got on the phone with our midwife Julianna. She started on her way. Then we did a little dance because it looked like we were going to be able to use all the neat stuff we got for the occasion—the crown jewel of which was a really skookum birthing pool. I started blitzing through eight-minute cleaning sessions to get the place in order. Eight minutes of dishes . . . run back for a contraction. Eight minutes of cleaning up the living room . . . run back for a contraction. They were starting to get pretty intense.
Julianna came over, accompanied by one of her students, and assessed the situation. “Yes, you’re in labor. Yes, you’ll be having it here. Yes, you can set up the birth pool—right now would be a very good time!”
It was go time for the next six hours.
I diligently set about filling the birthing pool with warm water (a serious task in itself as our hot water tank couldn’t keep up), and stain-proofing the furniture.
Brooke was handling the contractions with great strength and purpose. Before too long, though, Julianna advised us that we should probably try to turn this baby. She said it would be pretty intense but would save us some trouble later, so we trusted her and followed her lead. We won’t go into too much detail on this next part, but basically she had Brooke in a modified upside-down teddy bear stand while she rotated the baby with her hand. Suffice it to say, Brooke says that that may have been the most intense part of the whole experience!
After recovering from that, it was time to try out the pool. Brooke got in and started to feel a bit of the calming effect we were hoping for. The water helps to relieve the heaviness and eases joints and muscles for the big push ahead. Within the hour, Brooke went through some incredibly intense contractions and it felt like the baby was on the move. I was face to face with Brooke as she hugged the rim of the pool. I looked down and saw a dark shape at the bottom. I was so wrapped up in everything, I didn’t totally register what I was looking at. Then Julianna asked Brooke if she wanted to bring up her baby and as she did, the little being took her first breath and we in turn all breathed a deep sigh of relief.
Brooke had done it! The topic of pain management had not even come up and she was able to bring “Baby Sister” into the world in as safe and as natural a process as we had hoped for. It was a beautiful moment indeed. The midwives remained for another three hours and then bid us farewell for the night. Shortly thereafter, an excited big sister Natasha arrived home with her Nan to be introduced to the little bundle. We’d talked to Natasha for so long about that moment, and it was really special to see them together for the first time.
Brooke and “Baby Sister.”
Sisterly love!
Brooke and Dylan are based in Vancouver, where Dylan works as a professional photographer and Brooke is a music therapist.