The Birth of Elena Rae

Montana woke me up on May 6, 2021, at about 6:15, informing me that today was the day. She had called both the midwife and her mother, and the former was beginning her hour drive to come to our house. I got up slowly, like I usually do, thinking through everything I needed to do to prepare. This is our third child, so I have been through the drill before. I remember feeling excited, but not giddy. I went down stairs to my computer where I telework and told my supervisor that I will not be logging in today. My wife is in labor; the hour has come.

 

Montana and I had decided to do a home birth for our third baby. Our first two boys were born at the hospital, and both were great experiences. Our decision to make the change was in part due to COVID restrictions in our area. We had a lingering fear of the off chance occurring: that one of us would test positive on  the day of the birth and Montana would have to deliver the baby alone. More positively, however, we had heard glowing reports from several friends who had done home births. As with most new things Montana proposes to me, I was hesitant to go along with it at the start, listing my objections in a methodical fashion. What if something happens? Doesn't this just add risk to the delivery? What about insurance? Point by point my objections were satisfied. The midwife has largely everything our local hospital has; in the event of an emergency we can go to the hospital; and the insurance would work out just fine. It had all come to this moment, and now the midwife was on her way and the baby was coming.

 

After emailing my work I remember Montana telling me to inflate the pool we had been provided with should she decide to labor in water. I went at my task as dutiful as I could, only to be called to press on Montana's back during a contraction. Nothing to worry about here, I remember Montana laboring for several hours with our first, as well as our second (though he came quicker). Contractions are part of the game and should not be an indicator that we have 30 minutes until delivery. After the contraction I returned to the pool only to be called back to apply counter pressure. This happened perhaps four or five times, and I tried to suppress the realization that these contractions were not spaced very far apart.

 

At some point in this excitement, my Mother-in-law came to the house. She was there to pick up the kids. I remember going to my boys' room to wake up my oldest, and being called to return to my wife to apply counter pressure. What follows is something that remains rather a blur in my recollection: 

Montana tells me to forget about filling the pool up and get the bed ready. We go up stairs into our master bathroom. There is another contraction before I can get the bed ready. Before the next one comes I frantically rip off the packaging of the shower curtains we had bought and lay them across the bed. Then another contraction. Then I get another shower curtain, and I begin to realize that this baby could very much arrive in a few minutes. Montana's moans have now changed pitch and I find her calling my name as she is on the floor of the bathroom. She tells me she needs to get on the bed, so I prepare the bed sheet to go overtop the shower curtains only to be interrupted by my wife staggering out of the bathroom screaming my name (This is the image that is ingrained in my brain). She crawls on the bed before I could get the sheet over the shower curtains, and I see, to my horror, a crowning head with dark hair.

 

We are now pushing. Yes, this is happening.

 

At this point I am in full shock, praying to God, shouting something about seeing a head. For comic relief my mother in law runs into the room shouts: "There is a head!"--only to leave the bedroom, shutting the door behind her. Now the head fully emerges with a hand. I shout "push!" and immediately appears shoulders, soon to be followed by the rest of the body, which slides gently into my bare hands. She weighs light, she is a girl, and she is curiously clean. I am shaking, sweating, full of adrenaline. With eyes wide open my daughter begins to cry and I breathe a very much needed sigh of relief. She is breathing, she is born, we are good! And did I mention she is a girl?! (We did not find out the gender previously and, as I mentioned earlier, our other two are boys.)

 

Still shaking, I give my new daughter to Montana, who tells me to calm down and call the midwife to give us instructions. The time is 7:11 AM, less than an hour before I woke up. Soon after my sister arrives to help (a recently graduated nurse), followed by the midwife's assistant who has beaten her colleague to the scene. At this point I can take a bit of a chill pill. There are professionals here who can worry about the cord and placenta and vitals. Montana is doing well; she is some kind of woman. I can now think a little and breathe. Pace back and forth with my hands in my face.

 

What a moment. I will carry this with me to the day I die.

 

Montana and I have recounted this story many times over the past week. It has become quite a comedic retelling, but in the moment there was nothing funny about it. In the final peak it was nothing but raw human intensity: screams, blood, smells, tears. I felt that horrible feeling in my stomach that comes with being entirely unprepared for what is about to occur, frightened that something should happen that I could do nothing to avail. But the speed of the labor checked some of this anguish. I could not panic as I wished because before I could think: Wow, there was my daughter.

 

As I reflect on this moment, I feel a deep thankfulness to God that everything went so well. Montana has recovered very quickly and my daughter, Elena, is doing perfectly. I also feel an overwhelming gratitude that I was able to experience the birth of my daughter in this way. I was there for my sons' births, but this one was a little different. It is the strangest thing really, the kind of thing words do not justify. I just remember laying in bed a few nights after, telling Montana, "I don't think I have ever been so happy."

 

I know these surprise deliveries are not at all uncommon; there are many stories similar to mine. But I cannot help but wonder if one of the defects of a modern society is we all too often miss out on beauty like this. The beauty of catching  my daughter in my home and being the first person to hold her. The beauty of being the first one to give my daughter to my wife and watching the joy in her face after her travails.

 

There is a natural order given us by God: "a time for everything, a season for every activity under the heavens" (Ecc 3:1). There is a way the world moves with its cycles and patterns. Modernity with its advances and specializations tends to sever us from the fullness of that order and insulate us from its vitality. We live lives segmented by various expertise. We becomes professionals in one part and consumers of another. We appropriate birth to the experts, harvesting to the farmers, death to the homes. And I think we do so at a great cost. There is beauty in all of it, lessons to be learned in every part. A life that sees only one small piece will miss the wonder of the whole. It will miss all the beauty that has been given to us to behold.

 

This ordeal has reminded me of the wonder of life, the graciousness of God, the beauty of His creation--and I am resolved to catch as much of that beauty as I can.

*** 

Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens. Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?

Psalm 8:1-4

Elena Rae Harris, born May 6, 2021