Freya was born at 7:24pm on 24th April 2009. 3.1kg, or 6lb 13oz in the old parlance. She entered this world a slippery flub of white and blue wrinkle, covered from wriggling toe to alien cone head in cheesy bloody goodness. The first sounds to greet her newborn ears were her mother’s screaming and her father’s sobbing, intermittently interjected with the click wind click wind of my old Olympus OM. All in all, a good start I’d say.

To say the birth of Freya was for me a life changing and awe inspiring moment is the kind of cliche I’d prefer to avoid, but sadly for lovers of great and original literature I must stand by those terms. Adjectives were surely invented solely to better describe the overwhelming emotions felt by anyone witnessing a childbirth - and yet they are sorely insufficient for those whose child it is being born.

We can look at this scientifically of course. The room is literally flooded with oxytocin, that feel good hormone that gets the labour started. Surely we must be high on this human happy gas? Or we could point to the long long hours - for us fifteen of them - and suggest that anybody pushing something that bloody big through something that bloody small, for that bloody long, must feel some kind of transcendental moment when it reaches it’s bloody climax. All true, but in the end, irrelevant. It’s all about her.

I had planned to write the story of Freya’s birth as a kind of blow by blow journalistic account, complete with witty observations of the behaviour of midwifes, rollicking anecdotes of harrowing car journeys to and from hospital, and perhaps a faithful description of the delightful Indian food I ate a few short hours after her arrival, thus evoking an exotic and somewhat spicy flavour in the reader’s mouth, thereby enhancing their appreciation of the moment I experienced.

However, I have changed my mind. You know how birth stories go. Imagine a good one, with no medical interventions, no need for pain relief due to Kathryn’s calm and relaxed approach (and exceptional support people - of which I proudly count myself one.) Next, insert one or two worrying moments when the midwife voiced some concern about the time things took, but put that to one side and instead imagine that everything went to plan and in the end, a baby fit and well, cuddled in her mother’s arms and wondering what in the world had just happened to her. A thought we three were sharing perhaps.

Kathryn has written her story and she has ably described the day from her perspective. Which is quite the achievement given that for 75% of the labour she had donned an eye mask in order to labour in darkness (an extremely effective pain management tool as it turns out.) As a result, I feel no need to add to her narrative at this stage. For my part, the day began at 5:30am with the information that labour had been underway for four hours. The next 14 hours consisted of tears, massage, showers, massage, tears, low low moaning in tune to Kath, yet more massage, a brief respite, then the final act: more tears, don’t touch me, more tears, pushing pushing and then…

Some things in particular will stick with me forever when i think back on the moment of birth. The crowning, that little egg shaped and shockingly white lump gently pressing its way down, and the folds of skin on Freya’s head looking something like white brains and me for a moment fretting that my daughter had no skull. And then she was born, and I can’t describe it. After two weeks of wondering how I would write this up, I simply can’t do it justice. I was crying. I took a couple of snaps. I saw her on the ground, surrounded by blood and it was perfect and beautiful. But these images themselves are snapshots, and telling them now it feels like a hollow reconstruction. And perhaps it is, as in some base way, for a few moments at least, I wasn’t there. The inner dialogue which normally functions ceaselessly in waking hours, providing our life narrative and making sense of the world had for a moment shut down. Colours shimmered. I noticed the umbilical cord, vivid and blue and throbbing and alive and I couldn’t understand how this thing, so queer and by any standards grotesque, could appear to me to be the most beautiful thing in the world. It was, perhaps appropriately, the sight of the cord, that vision of a blue so unprecedented in my former experience of colour that snapped me back to the scene. There she was. Not that we knew she was a “she” for quite a few minutes, so caught up were we in the moment that we forgot to look.

I can say this now. I always knew it would be girl. Which is nonsense, since I didn’t really know… but in my mind it was always “she.”

And so here we are then, two weeks later and Freya is growing before our eyes. She’s now about 3.5kgs .. maybe 3.6, feeding well, keeping us busy with nappy changes and keeping us fit with all the walks in the pram which help her settle. Life is different. Sleep is precious and comes easily, food is glorious and satisfying and Kathryn is tired, but as happy as I have ever seen her. Truthfully, we’re both at that level of happy.

Today I went back to work for the first time since the birth - and after two weeks of living so closely with my two favourite girls I must admit I pined a little. In August I plan to take over as full time house husband - a prospect which has me excited and nervous. I’m sure I’ll report back here then.

*****

For the record I’d like to acknowledge a few people who have in either small or large ways helped us bring Freya into the world. Our family and our friends, we love you, we are lucky and we know it. Our doula, Erika who was incredible and beautiful in her support of us both throughout the labour. She showed us how. The Mercy Hospital’s Family Birthing centre and all the wonderful staff there whose passion for natural and non medical birthing is both infectious and a great asset to the human race.

And Kathryn. The most courageous, gentle and beautiful woman I know. You are already a supermum. And my hero.  xox