(There is this really sweet book called “On The Night You Were Born” that always makes me cry when I read it. It’s beautiful, and truthful in it’s own way, but it doesn’t paint a realistic portrait about what the night someone is born really looks like. I mean, this would probably freak out the kids, but still. A few friends and I had some fun rewriting the story to be a little more true to our realities, and the results were pretty funny to read. This is mine.)
On the night you were born the moon smiled with such wonder, and your father sat silently in a rocking chair while your mother whispered “this is freaking insane.”
So enchanted was I with the thought of your imminent arrival that I repressed memories of other people’s terrible birth stories, and had the wherewithal to ignore the woman in another room screaming “I can’t!” from the top of her lungs.
I sailed through contractions, trying to breathe, low-moaning, and attempting to relax my muscles. Until everyone heard it and everyone knew that I was in transition, and stuff was going down for real.
Not once had I felt such exhaustion, such pain. I felt like my body was being torn right in twain.
When the polar bears heard they said, “You really should have gotten yourself drugged up for this.”
From far away places the geese were like, “LOL, it’ll just keep getting worse.”
The moon was somewhere, I’m sure, but I hadn’t opened my eyes in hours.
And none of the ladybugs told me about rolling contractions.
So if you ever doubt just how special you are, just think of how I rocketed you out on a night so bizarre.
Listen for the geese honking high in the sky
(they’re apologizing for that time your face was mashed against my pelvic bone).
Or notice the bears asleep at the zoo
(it’s because they waited 42 weeks and sat through 36 hours of my contractions to meet you).
Or drift off to sleep to the sound of the wind
(know that I was so high on oxytocin that I couldn’t fall asleep until 5 AM the next day).
For never before in story or rhyme
(not even once upon a time)
had I ever experienced a night less zen
and I’d never want to, not ever again
(though I’m going to take one for the team and give you a person to hang out with in the woods).
On the night you were born, there were no dancing bears or doves in the sky.
And all I really wanted to do was lay down and cry.
The entire experience is a painful blur.
But were you worth every second?
Yes, Kaia, you were.
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