The Po Show

Flashback

I just watched an episode of Coupling (fabulous British comedy that we absolutely adore) that ended with one of the characters having a baby. Apart from all the usual TV bullshit regarding labor (she perches on the top of a couch while supposedly in labor, she delivers this long speech while supposedly in the middle of a contraction, she "chats up" the anesthesiologist after he gives her an epidural and actually says the line "I'd do you right here if there wasn't someone else coming back the other way!"), the end totally made me cry.

She is failing to progress (so why'd they give her an epidural just before announcing she still wasn't making any progress?) so they pull out her boyfriend and say she might have to have a csection. She gets the section. The baby cries. I cried. I'm still crying.

Matthew was born via csection. I can see him in my mind's eye on the warming bed after they pulled him out my body. As they put my guts back into me and sewed me back together, they covered my baby with saran wrap on the isolette to bring up his body temp. His little hand reached up and touched the plastic wrap. He cried. He turned red. He had such a conical little head. He was beautiful beyond words.

I didn't get to hold him for two hours after he was born. Ross held him. My mom held him. Even my sister snuck back into the recovery area and held him. I watched and shook and was so incredibly relieved that the labor was over. Then, after two hours, the nurse swaddled him tightly and placed him in my arms. He was asleep and beautiful beyond words.

He's eight years old now, he's still my baby, and he always will be.