Birth Announcement

Birth Announcement, originally uploaded by DrLuv99.

I am now officially a "Mother". Crazy. I have a daughter. My very own kid. To love and nurture and screw up beyond belief. I had better start a therapy fund for her now.

The birth was everything we did NOT expect.

We planned for:
-A home-birth... a doula and midwife were at our beck and call since I was only about 5 months pregnant.
-A water birth.. in a birthing tub we rented for a whole month and had set up in our dining room awaiting the first pangs of labor to be filled with fresh warm water.
-A natural delivery... I knew with enough support and encouragement that I could make it thru all the pain of labor and delivery sans any medication/painkillers.
-A vaginal delivery... C-sections scared the cr@p outta me!
-Immediate skin-to-skin contact in a loving, warm, low-light environment (our apartment).
-Family and friends around to welcome Harper Jo into the world from her very first breath (and to help me thru the pain/fear of labor and delivery).

What we got:
-Emergency C-section in a cold, bright, sterile operating room at Kaiser Perminente, with only the hospital staff to welcome a very blue and breathless Harper Jo into the world!
-A morphine drip for two solid days to counter the excruciating pain from the incision.