The truth about giving birth

If you told me that I had to give birth again, my first reaction would be that I was quite excited and pleased by the idea.  Ask me now, and I'd say without hesitation that I enjoy giving birth, it's fantastic.  It might sound a little crazy, I realise, and not everyone has that reaction, but still, on the whole I love it.

I've had four very different births, which you'll know if you've read my birth stories, but all of them have been good in their own way.  Even the emergency section that I had with Kai had good points, although it did take having Mahe to come to terms with it all totally.  By Anja though, it was really good, I looked forward to it, and the actual experience was good. 

I will admit here though, I do clearly remember a point where I thought, I must be crazy, I looked forward to this??  What on earth was I thinking.  I also did the classic, I can't do this phase, probably mid transition.  But, having said all of that, the euphoric feeling you get when you're baby is here and you've done it, you just can't beat that.  It's not just finally meeting the little person that you've been waiting for for the last nine months (or if we're honest longer, often babies are longed for long before they're conceived).  But you can't beat that huge rush of hormones that comes post birth.

This and a couple of other similar photo's are some of my all time favourite shots.  Not because they're the first pictures of Anja (I realise that you can't really see her in this one anyway) but because they're photo's of those first special minutes.  I didn't get pictures like this of the other three.  With Kai photo's were the last things on our mind, and with the other two my official photographer was too busy in his other (more important role) of Daddy meeting a new baby to take pics at this stage.  With extra midwives on hand this time, there was someone else to take the pictures, and I'll always be glad of that. 

So yes, I love giving birth, but what I really love is the feeling you get when you've done it.  There's no beating that.  And of course that cup of tea, slice of toast and shower that you have just afterwards are the best on earth, if only I could recreate all of those without the labour bit......