Day 1

Aria is born. There she was out of her mother’s womb after spending 37 weeks and 3 days in mom’s warmth protected from the outside world. It had already been 3 days of labor or trying to get there and the climax could not have been any more dramatic. The nurse had checked her cervix 45 minutes ago and announced that the baby’s head was right there at the gate now. Dr. Teng arrived and took a look and called me to show me her head sneaking through. 15 minutes later with the last efforts required from mommy to push through, her head appeared and in the next second her entire little body was in the doctors hand. And then the crying. It had to be the sweetest sound I had heard in a while. Relief, relief, relief. Thank God. Rest is a bit of a blur now. Images in my head imprinted. Mommy crying, holding the baby. Baby being cleaned up. Two shots – one in each leg – Vitamin K and Hepatitis B. Weight being measured, height being measured. The time 10:54pm. Dr Teng saying that its a beautiful placenta. Does the dad want to cut the chord? Holding the baby. Calm, calm baby. Swaddle the baby. Pack up, moving to another room. Congratulations. Don’t let go of your daddy. The feeling of relief. The feeling of being happy. The feeling that everything is moving too fast. The feeling that you have to be focused and alert. The feeling of cluelessness. The feeling of exhaustion, and we are just getting started.