Birth day minus four

In four weeks Laurel will be one year old. As I did with her brother, during each of these four weeks I plan to post something related to her homebirth, leading up to her actual birth story. This is installment number one; here are links to installments two, three , four, and five.

I haven't written much about Laurel's birth yet, or at least nothing that stands alone. A few weeks after she was born I wrote a comparison between the births of my two children, and last month I wrote a comparison between birth and appendicitis. Poor second child, seen only in the shadow of comparison to others, not allowed to stand in her own radiant light! So my challenge will be to write about Laurel's birth on its own terms.

You may recall that one year ago this blog was full of posts about my anxieties about childbirth. I had already had an amazingly positive experience giving birth to Isaac, but instead of feeling reassured by it, I was worried that the new birth would be completely different. I had been a great success at coping with slow and gradual labor, but I was afraid I wouldn't be able to apply my old skills to the upcoming birth, especially if it was fast and furious.

It turns out that my fears were absolutely on the mark.

And maybe that was a lesson for me. My second birth was different than my first birth; my second child is different than my first child. Starting from the very first contraction I got a dramatic reminder, almost a physical manifestation, of the uniqueness of Laurel. The second isn't a copy of the first, and I can't apply the same set of strategies to both.

Actually, I am having a hard time with this lesson. I did try to apply the same set of strategies during labor, and I am continually surprised at the differences between my children. Is this lack of perspective due to the arrogance of being the eldest child?

But speaking of insightful second children, my younger sister Erica was the only one who got it right: last Christmas she said to me, after a conversation about my fear of intense labor, "Well, we might just have to put on Metallica and ride it out."

Two weeks later Laurel was born, and Erica missed the birth entirely. If she had been here, maybe she could have reminded me of this conversation and told me to forgo my useless relaxation techniques and ineffective visualizations. She could have grabbed me by the shoulders and told me to stand up and get moving.

But the birth was so fast that by the time Erica got to the house, Laurel was already two hours old.

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Did you know that Erica also missed Isaac's birth? It's true! Well, she was at my house for the labor, where she was very helpful, but during the rush at the hospital she got lost in the shuffle and didn't make it into the delivery room.