In Birth

Yes, I planned to be at home. My eighteen month old boy to witness, my husband to share. My midwife, to attend. The stark contrast of the sterile hospital where my son was born to laboring in my own living room while my midwife played peek-a-boo around my belly with him was overwhelming. The labor tub, warm and receptive. I opened to the experience, and my daughter was born. There in the water, husband, son, newborn daughter and me...could anything, ever again, contain a family so perfectly? She's a teenager now, that memory fades to a scowl as we argue.