I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' babies

SO...

My lil wife just had a lil werewolf baby.

Fantastically exciting, I tell you. And boy what an ordeal it was for my poor wife.

It's been an exciting year for us. We met a year and a half ago, Enjoyed a passionate romance and were married 5 months later. the day before our marriage of course she bought a house. 2 months later she was pregnant.

The pregnancy!

So wonderful! she was so beautiful and so bursting with life. Like some potent fertile herb she imbued everything around her with her essence.

Even when that essense was crazy pregnant-lady-hormones.

Her plan was to have a natural home birth. No brusque dictatorial doctors in a soulless puppy mill of a maternity wing. No mind numbing drugs, no impersonal and apathetic medical practitioners or unnecessary procedures. No uncomfortable hospital room or awful hospital food. 

Just the comfort of our wonderful home, natural and beautiful, with everything just how she likes it.

With this end in mind, my wife hired a very acclaimed midwife, and made up a plan for a water birth at home.

As the due date rolled around, we became more and more excited. After all, it is our first baby. 

We purchased countless items necessary for home birth, and read books and endless articles about the subject as well as watched innumerable youtube videos about home births and the natural birthing process...

The trouble began when natalia's water broke. It didn't all burst at once but over the span of many hours. leaking and leaking. 

But the labor didn't start.

Another day passed, with natalia still leaking amniotic fluid. and still no labor.

At this point her midwife decreed that because so much time had gone by after her amniotic sack had broken, the risk of infection was a definite concern.

Off we went to the hospital. Which is exactly what my wife had been dreading for the 9 months of pregnancy. But as her midwife was the medical professional in charge of her pregnancy, there was no contesting the decision.

We got to the hospital and they immediately put Natalia on Pitocin, a drug used to force contractions and labor.

For hours and hours and hours, she was in mortal agony as the forced contractions wracked her body. She moaned, and screamed, and paced and doubled over, nearly collapsing several times as i held her, and tried to continue with the plan of having a natural birth, but because of the unnaturally harsh spasms induced by pitocin, she had to have the epidural. 

Yet there was still no relief. For the next 5 hours she pushed and pushed, and no progress was made, even though her cervix was properly dilated. Again she screamed and sweated, and pushed and pushed and NOTHING. Despite her truly herculean efforts, nothing.

More and more people kept coming in the room, supposedly experts of their sub-specialties, each with their own acolytes attending them, and before we knew it, the damned room was filled with strangers clad in blue scrubs.

One of the doctors, a mildly affrontive balding man, came in and took charge. He added a considerable amount of stress to the situation, with his brusquely apathetic manner, and the invasive (and painful) examinations he performed on my wife without any pretense of bedside manner or even gentleness. 

To say nothing of the fact that he said that she had to push the baby out within 45 minutes or he would perform a c-section upon my wife.

Still Natalia pushed. and screamed, and bled profusely, while trying her very hardest to concentrate. While the random people now crowding the room, had random personal conversations on their phones, and others shouted out advice which conflicted with one another.

And the Dr. came back, telling natalia that he would give her only a couple more contractions and then he'd take her away to do a c-section.

The next contraction came, and no baby although it was getting close.

the doctor told her that the next contraction was her last one she had in which to try to give birth by herself. So she pushed, and screamed. and pushed. and suddenly a head came out. followed immediately by a tiny ashen body.

THE BABY!!!!!

I could hardly see through the tears in my eyes but they whisked her away to a corner of the room to perform tests on her. like a zombie i followed, and caressed her as they ran their tests. and spoke sweetly to her; my voice cracking with half sobs throughout.

And we had our baby. beautiful and perfect. looking so exactly like her, while somehow looking exactly like me. (It helps that my wife and i are related) 

I sit here in the hospital room, watching my wife feed our daughter, in complete awe of them both.

I have never seen anyone so strong as my wife. To me it is as if she revealed some superpower heretofore kept hidden from me. I stare at her wide-eyed, remembering all she did the night before.

I think it shall always stay with me, this awestruck knowledge of her secret titanic strength and force of will. It changes the way i look at her, as does the reverence i feel for her motherhood, in having given birth to our perfect daughter.

My daughter. Wholly perfect in every way. Hands working and clenching tightly as she feeds. surely a metaphor for her future.