The Art of Being Born, My Birth Story

This story doesn't begin on the first date I had with my husband, Michael, when he kissed me goodnight and we both, just like they say, knew.

It began as early as I can remember, playing as seriously as a child could with her dolls. This phase lasted long past cool, after the other girls in my class moved on to hanging out at the mall looking for cute boys.

It began begging my mom to help in church nursery, where God's grace was more evident to me than in the sanctuary. I was oddly and deeply at peace among babies.

It began with my first babysitting gig when I was twelve, caring for three kids under five and was good at it. Again, this phase lasted way past cool, announcing that yes, I was a 35 year old nanny.

Children have had my name written all over them for as long as I can recall. I've never had a job that revolved around anything else, save for a smelly semester spent in the dishroom my freshman year of college. So after 30 years of caring for and loving so many, all the while holding my heart up and open to show God the kind of desire I had for my own (sure that at the age of five I could handle such a task), after all the diary pages filled with letters to my future kids and endless lists of baby names (Abraham, Zelda), when the forth pregnancy test showed two pink stripes, I literally fell to my knees and praised God.

Pregnancy and all it's hormonal wonders took away some of the initial manic joy. Suddenly I was an exposed nerve in a new marriage, and I remembered that- wait!- I was a free spirit who liked to ride her bike to yoga after her nanny shift ended at 3pm. I was the girl drinking tea in the all-night cafe making up stories about the other tea drinkers. Did I even LIKE kids?!!

I was pretty sure that I did not, but I carried on tentatively, choosing our doula, Kimme, who had been an iron worker before settling into her latest gig. She was strong and clear and I loved her immediately. Michael and I went religiously to the baby classes at our local clinic where week after week we forgot our pillows. I was pretty sure we were doomed even with a doula specializing in iron.

But if I was going to have this baby then it had better be a girl! So many men in my life had scared me and let me down. I trusted girls, and besides, dresses were way cuter than sweatpants riddled with footballs.

On the drive to the ultrasound I crossed my fingers and prayed, but when the technician showed us the perfectly formed human on her screen, a wave of joy rolled over me and I was suddenly head over heels. There, as if at attention, was the answer to my prayers. God knew just what I needed to continue to heal my oldest wounds. Michael and I both screamed in awe for the son we could see in black and white.

I poured over baby name books, over the many lists I'd made over the years, in search of the perfect name for this precious boy growing inside of me. Every street sign seemed like a clue, every credit rolling down a late-night movie. Oz Slome. Jerome Slome. Sidewalk Slome. Nothing felt quite right, and it seemed, then, an enormous responsibility to hand one a name and hope it was well received. I was obsessed. Michael eventually refuse to discuss the matter, but one night a few weeks before my due date on our way to pick out our first Christmas tree, he asked, "What about Gideon?" and the peaceful feeling I knew I'd have when I heard it settled around me.

Cut now to the remaining nights before he comes. I am mourning the end of an era, loving the gentle manatee that rolls strangely inside of me, curious about this abstract boy. And then, at midnight one night, my water breaks and Michael and I drive wide-eyed through the dark holding hands, Christmas lights twinkling all around our car. I am crying because I know this will be our last drive, just us, for a very long time,

If you weren't within a mile radius of the hospital, I will save you from describing in detail the tale of a drug-free back labor. The word "agony" doesn't begin to describe it, and without the support of my husband and Kimme, I'd surely be a goner today. I knew I could not take another moment when there, laying across my body was the oldest part of me, my boy.

Cut again to angels singing, church bells clanging, oceans roaring with joy and then a hushed tunnel lit by fireflies and fairies filled with glitter floating noiselessly down and all around us.

I thought I knew what it would feel like, this love. I loved so many kids before this. I loved my grandmother, my best friend since kindergarten, my husband all so fiercely, but this! This! A well so deep I could never swim to the bottom opened up inside of me at that very moment and I dove in.

My life began.

And now, a year has rocketed by. I got my all of my birthday, my wishing well wishes, and I have yet to ask, "When does this shift end again?!" I wake up every morning, not quite believing my luck. "You mean I get to keep you?"

Gideon Michael Slome, the boy who wakes up smiling and ready, his blueberry eyes taking in all of this beautiful beautiful world.

Amen.