It has been nearly two years since I found out that there is another life growing under my heart. Already a mother to two beautiful boys, I was not prepared for the fifth soul to enter our little circle. But I yearned to have a daughter, so considered it a given that my yearnings were being answered with an arrival of a female companion.
I embraced this pregnancy with vigour. I walked on fire, I fed my passion for natural birth and woman circles, I travelled to Turkey with my work as a steel reporter, family in tow. I have experienced the beauty of the Greek beaches in mid-spring, with not a soul around for miles, I felt strong and I loved being that.
Back in Blighty, four weeks before the arrival date, the beauty and the overwhelming fatality of English Spring has propelled me into the state akin to deliriousness. But at the same time, I kept my feet firmly on the ground, and was keeping the watch of all that was not perfect, but had to wait to be resolved later.
On May 14, what was considered two weeks before the due date, we sat on the Salisbury plain with my two sons, the grasses swaying in the wind, like the Sea. It was the hour of the satisfied sun finally deciding to start making its slow way to rest for the night. As we spoke of the sea-like grasses, and wondering of how the new sibling would like to be here with us and see the beauty that we beheld, my third child announced its imminent arrival by pulling the plug and letting the waters gush out... The excitement, the walking, running towards the lane, ringing Tom, more water, the trembling in hands, the laughter... Back home, two pools to chose from to fill with water, the sink to complete, greeting the midwife, exactly the one I was daring not to dream of having at the birth. Children's bags packed and mother-in-law having arrived to pick them up, only one and a half hours later, at ten minutes to ten, after the most centred and dedicated labouring, I gave in to the insistent pressure of the new body to leave its safe cradle and enter the new earth-bound domain. The head came first, and with the help of the midwife, who later remarked that it was our great luck that we didn't go for an unassisted birth, as shoulder dystocia meant we would have lost him, William Ash was born.
You guessed it: not a girl, but another beautiful boy, to make, just like in Russian fairy tales, three sons for their mother and father.
I embraced this pregnancy with vigour. I walked on fire, I fed my passion for natural birth and woman circles, I travelled to Turkey with my work as a steel reporter, family in tow. I have experienced the beauty of the Greek beaches in mid-spring, with not a soul around for miles, I felt strong and I loved being that.
Back in Blighty, four weeks before the arrival date, the beauty and the overwhelming fatality of English Spring has propelled me into the state akin to deliriousness. But at the same time, I kept my feet firmly on the ground, and was keeping the watch of all that was not perfect, but had to wait to be resolved later.
On May 14, what was considered two weeks before the due date, we sat on the Salisbury plain with my two sons, the grasses swaying in the wind, like the Sea. It was the hour of the satisfied sun finally deciding to start making its slow way to rest for the night. As we spoke of the sea-like grasses, and wondering of how the new sibling would like to be here with us and see the beauty that we beheld, my third child announced its imminent arrival by pulling the plug and letting the waters gush out... The excitement, the walking, running towards the lane, ringing Tom, more water, the trembling in hands, the laughter... Back home, two pools to chose from to fill with water, the sink to complete, greeting the midwife, exactly the one I was daring not to dream of having at the birth. Children's bags packed and mother-in-law having arrived to pick them up, only one and a half hours later, at ten minutes to ten, after the most centred and dedicated labouring, I gave in to the insistent pressure of the new body to leave its safe cradle and enter the new earth-bound domain. The head came first, and with the help of the midwife, who later remarked that it was our great luck that we didn't go for an unassisted birth, as shoulder dystocia meant we would have lost him, William Ash was born.
You guessed it: not a girl, but another beautiful boy, to make, just like in Russian fairy tales, three sons for their mother and father.
