A beautiful Experience

Leif Orrin Neill was born May 2, 2012, and both he and the mother are doing well. He weighed 7 lbs 2 ounces and 21.5 inches long. As my father says, he was an average bass.

I recieved a phone call at 5:22am from my sister. I was not remotely close to being awake when my sister told me her water broke. That definitely got my attention. So my mom and I got ourselves ready and we were on our way to Pittsburgh, Pa (about 3.5 hours away).  When we arrived, my sister, Anja, was just admitted into a room. She wasn't having contractions at this point but since her water broke, they wanted to keep her monitored to make sure they baby had enough fluid. It was not until 6:30 the next morning that her labor actually started.

The actual part of the adventure I would like to share was how it felt to actually witness a birth. I don't need to write any details because it is not my story to share. My brother in law had asked me earlier if I wanted to stay in the room when my sister was having the baby. Honestly, the thought terrified me. Why would I want to see something that seemed so personal to me, I had every intention of leaving the room as soon as things were getting started. But Leif thought otherwise.

Anja had received news that seemed like things would still take hours. So I made no effort in going anywhere. In fact, I'm pretty sure I took off my shoes with intentions on staying a while. Half an hour later, things started happening so fast. I was distracted by watching the nurses and midwife running around getting things ready to deliver, to think about getting myself out the door. Sounds comical but I really thought I could just sit in the corner and be a fly on the wall. Once I heard the midwife say Anja was at 10cm, the tears poured out of my eyes. I had no control. Probably just the thought of her pain being over soon enough and the excitement of meeting the little guy soon overwhelmed me.

As I am standing behind the line of people helping my sister, I felt awkward in the fact that I had zero knowledge of what is normal and what is not in this situation. I had absolutely NO idea on where to look, and I heard the midwife say she could see the head. She had asked my mom if she wanted to see and right away my mom looked. After she saw, she went immediately back by my sisters head to help comfort her. Then the midwife turned to me and asked if I wanted to look. For some reason, despite everything I had originally thought, I wanted to see.

After the entire experience, I had learned so many things about such a beautiful process. I thought that if I had seen it all happen, it would scare me away and I'd become a nun. That's definitely not the case. I have more respect for all women who have given birth, especially to those who do it naturally. Maybe I am just crazy but I am so glad to have had the chance to experience it.