INTRODUCING THEODOR & HIS BIRTH STORY

Meet Theodor. Theo, for short. He was born on a warm Bremen morning at 10:10am, weighing in at a healthy 4.2kgs. He came into this world in one of the simplest ways: in blood, sweat, and a whole lot of screaming. As I write this now, he’s sleeping peacefully next to me in the center of our bed. My little bean, made up of all the love I could ever hold in hands that are beginning to look more and more like my mother’s.

Early labour began on Wednesday 10^th May, the day he was due to be born. Our morning began like any other. We woke up, had breakfast, and went to my routine check up where we were told that I showed no signs of labour. When I left my doctor’s office with faint stomach cramps, I brushed them aside as simply being mild pregnancy discomfort. Being new to the experience of giving birth, I was waiting for some kind of clear sign that labour was here, but there was no water breaking, no bloody show. So, I waited.

I waited through the entire day and early evening, all the while not convinced that any pain I was experiencing was a sign of labour. It wasn’t until about 2am that things began to sink in. The dull ache I had been experiencing hours before had evolved into something deep and aggressive. So, in anxiousness and not a wink of sleep, Chris and I headed to the hospital.

I’m not going to lie and say that my birthing experience was ‘amazing’, because the little that I remember of it still frightens me and I’m glad that we don’t plan on having more kids any time soon. My body welcomes the break, because this pain that women speak of – it has momentum and it has no mercy. For me, it was a landscape of suffering that radiated throughout my entire body, carving out the insides of my stomach. It felt like pure, intense torture. Like somebody wanted to rip the limbs off my body, Game of Thrones style.

We had gone into the delivery room with the hopes of having a water birth, but in my mind I held no pride in how I wanted things to go (or so I thought). The baby’s life and mine were the only bottom line, the only non-negotiable. That being said, when I was told that I wouldn’t be able to have a water birth because I had a fever temperature and the baby’s heartbeat was elevated, my heart sunk. I’ve never felt so disappointed in my life. Everything after that point has become a blur. Time no longer existed in my mind, all that I was aware of was the pain and uncertainty of how much longer I might be able to endure it.     

It’s hard to write about now, two months after birth, because my body has turned those memories into faint and foggy pictures in the back of my mind. I remember being on the floor, looking up at Chris and begging him to help make the pain go away. I remember the feelings of desperation and hopelessness, watching the sunrise from our delivery room, Chris’ face as he told me to push. I remember the last few hours of Chris and I, just the two of us.

I remember seeing Theodor for the first time.

Chubby-cheeked, purple skinned and covered in blood but every inch the healthy baby Chris and I had waited months to finally meet. As I picked him up off the delivery bed and held him against my naked chest for the very first time, my body had undeniably calmed. He was here and he was healthy and I was so preoccupied with staring into the eyes of this little human I had somehow squeezed out of me that I barely registered when I was told to push out the placenta and the entire time they were stitching me back up (yes, I tore down there), I felt absolutely nothing. It was as if my entire world had gone quiet and all that existed was me and this baby and the gentle knowledge that I was now the mother to someone so perfect.

It took approximately 15 hours of labour and 2-3 hours of pushing to give birth to Theodor, and through those giddy first contractions to the ones that had me screaming in agony, Chris was by my side. He stayed awake for every second of it (which, if you know Chris, means a lot). He was my constant comfort in the searing pain. In moments where I would doubt that my best might not be enough, he would be there.  My heart swells with love and pride when I think about it. It’s another thing that makes me want to cry, and I want to cry a lot these days because post-partum hormones are so, so real.

I had myself fractured and broken into pieces that day, but to experience such a moment is somehow such a pure expression of love.

And, just like that, I became Theodor’s mother.

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