We paid approximately $6500 for a midwife to attend the birth of our son, plus take charge of my pre and postnatal care. Ironically and through the fault of no one except for perhaps my son and his expeditious entry into the world , our midwife was not in attendance when he emerged. “Do we get our money back,” Matthew asked, somewhat tongue in cheek but also more than a little earnestly. No, we do not, because what we realistically paid for was peace of mind that we would not have to undergo another hospital delivery, unless of course we were to be rushed there in an emergency. This was a real possibility, but I was so convinced that home birth was our one and only destiny, I hardly gave it a thought.
I don’t recall when the home birth seed of thought first took root. They ain’t lying when they tell you memory is the first luxury to go in the land of lost sleep. It’s patchy at best and gone completely at worst. When I die, fingers crossed a heaven awaits where you can revisit every savory life moment in crystalline detail. This is my chin up buttercup approach to the frustration of drawing vast and total blankness when someone asks a real humdinger like, “What did you do over the weekend?”
Home birth seemed to approach me more that I it. As so often is the case when our brains are left to catch up with a primal event of the body, I told the story of my daughter’s birth to all who would listen, over and over again in cathartic detail. My conclusion after all this rehashing: I would not be setting foot in the hospital again for baby delivery if I could help it, and I WOULD help it with all the powers of the World Wide Web at my fingertips. Though, I would gladly sign on to hospitalization if bitten by a rabid bat or something.
At some point (that’s sincerely as specific as I can be), Instagram randomly, if anything about “the algorithm” is random, served me a home birth video. I clicked on it. It was fascinating. I watched another. My “Discover” page was flooded with them. It was like all these granola moms and midwives and doulas and coaches were waiting in the wings all along. It was the first time that I really applauded said “algorithm.” They say the Universe conspires in our favor. It surely does! But we should call a spade a spade. In this case it was the Metaverse. Enough Zuckerberg though. There was real life quantum entanglement too.
I ran into a friend from college at the park one day when my daughter was about one or so (who’s to say, really?) and my indignation at the entire hospital birthing experience was reaching a fever pitch. From following along on social channels, I knew some vague details about how she’d brought her four children into the world. A birthing center maybe? Sparing not a scrap of self-pity, I shared my story unsolicited. How my water broke at an afternoon tea with a gush, just like in the movies. How the midwife said to settle in. That it would be a while, “it” being my first labor, baby, etc etc. How we went for a hike and how the contractions were STRONG by the end. How…
Matthew called her again in the evening to check in. By then I was lying on the floor, whimpering and pleading with him to let me stay put, to please explain to the midwife that while that was indeed me mewling in the background, I have a very low pain tolerance and surely shouldn’t be sent to the hospital just yet. It felt antithetical to every cell in my body to go anywhere, let alone a compound with labyrinthine parking and aggressive lighting. The drive from our house to the hospital felt like the descent into hell (not that I’ve been that way before…yet. I kid. Hopefully). I felt at war with my own body, uncontrollably shaking with each contraction as if I could rattle my soul loose and spare it from this doom. I was absolutely, utterly astonished, stunned and livid at how much it hurt. Despite Hollywood’s best effort to portray birth as a violent catastrophe, I truly thought it wouldn’t be that bad. Why should it? You are welcome to question my sanity at this point in the telling but really, haven’t people everywhere been doing this for the past, I don’t know, billion years?
What I found so infuriating about it though, was that I felt like I could’ve managed had everyone just left me alone to concentrate. But they were all, from my husband to the cool (as in, frostily removed, not trendy) receptionist checking us in at the hospital, just doing their jobs. Bless them. But you know that very visceral response to overcommitting? Tension, exhaustion, anxiety and sadness until the sweet euphoria of canceled plans? Labor was the DEFCON version of that. I was overstimulated beyond comparison. They sent me straight to the delivery room. I literally tried to crawl there but was chastised by the mean nurse aka Public Enemy #1 for being a tripping hazard. She clearly had a point though. It would’ve been fairly easy to miss a large, shrieking pregnant woman, galumphing down the hallway.
I had one job to do and every tiny distraction, forced conversation, restraint of colorful language I dearly wished to unleash on Mean Nurse (Remember, Alli! For her it’s just another day at work!) drained the precious stores of energy I needed for the main event. IV meds were administered, though I don’t remember asking for any. It was another deleterious blow as they did nothing whatsoever to dull the pain and only succeeded in exhausting me further. When my midwife, the calm and collected saving grace of this whole circus, arrived, I informed her that I couldn’t do it. She countered with strong and soothing encouragement. But I wasn’t seeking assurance. I was merely informing her as a courtesy that I was about to die.
I felt the strongest urge to push but held back as I had read some misaligned advice months earlier about how I should wait until instructed to do so, since the doctor would know more about timing than my own instincts, apparently. My midwife, crouching protectively over me on the floor, swooped in to champion the urges, murmuring, “Trust your body.” By then the damage was done however and the resistance was such agony that I could barely comprehend words at all, let alone instructions. The metaphors I drew between myself and a caged animal were vivid. I felt equal parts terrified, trapped and humiliated, painfully aware of how the nurse quietly pursed her lips in disapproval of me involuntarily peeing on the floor.
Call me ignorant or hopefully, an experiential learner, but it wasn’t until months after my daughter was born that I sought to really understand labor and birth. Through reading and some truly empowering social media accounts I learned that because the feat of delivery is so unbelievably extreme, the nervous system will go to remarkable lengths to ensure safety. This could mean pulling a fully dilated woman out of labor completely if someone deemed to be a threat even enters the room. There are stunning accounts of the awe-inspiring power emotions can have during birth.
One of the two times I entered therapy was the summer I was expecting my son. My daughter was 18 months and I was desperately searching for alternatives to a hospital birth. On the occasions I would coincidentally drive past our local hospital where she was delivered, I would involuntarily shake and shiver. My therapist specialized in addressing physical trauma and deciphering Human Design. Prior to that, I had dabbled in Meyers-Briggs and The Enneagram for the benefit of self-discovery. Practically speaking though, extensive self-analysis hasn’t always proven productive for me. My takeaways are that I’m about as far on the feeling end of the spectrum as possible, so any kind of over-thinking, even in the name of soul searching, can throw me off my rocker. It’s like focusing on the breath. Suddenly you forget how to breathe normally.
In Human Design, my therapist confirmed in a very affirming way that I fall under the “predisposed to absorb other people’s energy” category. Sometimes we’re gifted startling insights about the way our souls move through the world. This was mine. It was step-out-of-a-meat-locker-into-the-sunshine relieving. For Meyers Briggs, I’m a bold-faced capital F, Feeler. The Enneagram, a 3 (ie The Performer ie Person Who Finds It Nearly Impossible To Act Oneself When Accompanied By Others). What does all this mean? That kept Aristotle and others busy for a while. But I confirmed during therapy that I would be unlikely to reach a state of full relaxation, trust, openness, comfort and concentration, one imperative for labor, in the presence of others, especially people I didn’t know well, such as, say, a less than welcoming (nay, bone-chillingly icy ) nurse. The hospital and I were oil and water.
At some point in the dark haze of my daughter’s labor, I asked for an epidural so I could sleep. I was informed later that all the hubbub surrounding charting and ordering and administering anesthesia took about thirty minutes. Blah blah blah. I swear on my laboring life, it was at least seven hours before the anesthesiologist entered the room. I never saw his face, but in my wooiest of woo woo memories, I could feel his energy the moment he walked in. I liked him immediately. You may be wondering whether this was the angel effect given his position as the gateway to numbed bliss, but having made a study of the nervous system and our profound instincts in a heightened state, I know I liked him because he was a positive person. It’s possible I liked him a little extra because of the drugs. My body relaxed. It wasn’t hard to sit still while he needled me up. The contractions came and went like a boxed ocean that had been released to crash freely.
It was smooth sailing after that. I pushed. Hard. She came out. Slowly. We cried and rejoiced. Forgetting the numbness in my legs, I accidentally collapsed onto the nurse who moved me from the bed to the wheelchair. I tried to make a joke about how I was testing her sturdiness. She grimaced accordingly. She rolled me down the hallway to the recovery room. Nurses, doctors, lactation consultants, photographers, car-seat inspectors, chefs, mailmen, baristas, motivational speakers, insurance salesmen, window washers, mosquito treaters, interior designers, court jesters and Jehovah’s Witnesses stopped by around the clock to just “check in.” I slept on a bed for paralyzed patients. Presumably to fight against bedsore, it inflated and deflated with gusto on no discernible pattern or schedule, but always when I was on the brink of falling asleep. It was December but the weather was as sunny and crisp and blue and warm as Spring. The glass of the window stayed shut tight with maddening fortitude. I begged to be discharged. 72,000 hours after arriving, we journeyed home with our precious, healthy, adorable daughter, Murphy Jane.
At the park, my mom-of-four friend was empathetic to this story, surely a feat of grace on her part given the volume of tedious detail I disclosed. I had been praying relentlessly for anything and anyone to ease the burden of confusion surrounding the experience. We were physically healthy and yet I was so emotionally bruised. She had a friend who was preparing for her second home birth and offered to put us in touch, but I wasn’t yet pregnant with my son, so I tucked the invitation away for later. I wanted more kids but was sickened at the thought of ever returning to the hospital for delivery. But this happenstance meeting on the playground felt like parting clouds.
The tricky thing about home birth is that a lot of states (North Carolina where I live being on the unfortunate list) make it close to impossible to pull off. You can do it by accident of course and drive to the hospital later, but if you want to do it on purpose, legally and with an attending midwife, you’ve got to make some hoop-jumping leaps of faith.
I was out of town on an epic, girly, wedding dress shopping weekend-palooza for my best friend when I realized I was pregnant with my son. I was also visiting my old church while there. The nostalgia for my former home, the grandeur of the spirit now living in me, the magnitude of the days’ events with a cherished friend, plus a hot n fresh batch of pregnancy hormones sent me spinning into unstoppable waterworks. It’s probably the longest and hardest I’ve ever cried and really, that’s saying something for me. Evening with the stern adamance that I WOULD NOT be delivering at the hospital under their clinicians, I made an appointment at my usual Ob/Gyn for a pregnancy confirmation. I knew the familiarity would be welcome during a time of emotional upheaval and most importantly, my prenatal visits there were in-network, 100%, cherry-on-top covered.
I had searched our unflinchingly unhelpful insurance portal to find an in-network, home birth clinician and came up drier than a dirt patch under a 3pm, late July sun. Especially in the early days when you’re on a strict appointment regime yet still floating nervously along in the agonizing first trimester, you really can’t bring yourself to pay anyone out-of-pocket. There are a zillion tests and scans and probes and pee cups in those first twelve weeks. How anyone would know when/where/how to get started on the prenatal care track is beyond me. The office receptionists I spoke to seemed to always be under the impression that I used to work there or something. You’re nine weeks and haven’t come in for a confirmation yet?? What on God’s green earth are you smoking????? The only reason I was slightly on my game this time around was that I’d done it once before, not that I remembered much.
I’d had a miscarriage prior to becoming pregnant with my daughter and optimism had unconsciously become a cautious affair. But around twelve weeks when things were looking strong, I decided to contact my friend (mom-of-four, park friend, you remember) so she could kindly put me in touch with the home birth goddess she knew. I was ready to lock in a midwife. But things remain unlocked and on the loose for a very, very long time. Despite the resources my new friend extended to me, which were plentiful and dramatically validating (books! podcasts! videos! doulas! all of them praising the birthing mothers’ bodily wisdom), hiring a midwife was like catching smoke. First, there were very few of them, less than ten in the entire state, who were licensed to attend a home birth. There are thousands of midwifes, of course. Hell, I’d already been a patient in a midwifery clinic (under the umbrella of my Ob/Gyn) for the birth of my daughter! But it’s a whole separate hog to legally assist at home. Most don’t do it. And none of them advertise. I only knew who to call by word of mouth from my new pal who had done it before.
Second, they were busy. When you let nature take course, it’s impossible to predict. I could never get hold of them. We phone tagged like nobody’s business because, and I can’t really fault them for this, they were always attending a birth that was due for next week but started early. Or was due last week and had gone late. Yada yada. There were no regular office hours. Third, of most whom I called, I lived too far outside their working radius. It would be logistically impractical for me to drive hours round trip (or the deluxe package - for the nurse to come to me) for prenatal care and downright dangerous for me to be so far away from them during labor.
Fourth, their schedules were already full. Mind you, I began this process when I was twelve weeks pregnant, arguably (if it’s me arguing), the earliest I could’ve started. Had I been doing routine gynecology visits with a midwifery team, mayyyybe I could’ve secured a spot sooner. But since none of them were in-network with my or any insurance for that matter (spoiler: insurance companies do not like to cover home birth midwifery clinics) I wouldn’t have been doing that. Twelve weeks is early, people! You’re still in a state of confused hopefulness, feeling foolish for dreaming and guilty for not. Miscarriage is a pretty decent possibility up until this point. With small teams and uncertain timelines, midwives understandably only accept a few due dates a month. Of the two clinics that which I fell into their acceptable geographical bubbles, one did not deliver babies during my due date month ever as it was her vacation window and the other was already booked solid.
Fifth, as previously mentioned, I couldn’t get insurance coverage for the way I wanted to give birth. The midwife who was an hour and a half away agreed to take me on even though I was outside her usual range, most likely sensing my desperation. I cried with short-lived relief. What ensued was a months long, sporadic, confusing and unsatisfying string of emailed correspondence. Sometimes I was able to speak with their office manager. She would cheerily inform me that she had not one answer to my relentless insurance questions but would ask the midwife to call me when she got the chance. The midwife never got the chance.
There was one obscure insurance carrier that was in-network with this clinic. It wasn’t mine. I could submit a gap exception request to MY carrier informing them that I was unable to find a provider for my needs within fifty miles, so would they please extend coverage to this clinician. Somewhere in here I was also supposed to call them ahead of time to inform them the request was incoming. I needed signatures and letters and the patience of a patron saint. It would take at minimum, thirty days to even gain receipt of my request. Summer was raging by now. Baby Boy was due at the end of September. I did not have thirty days, at minimum or maximum.
Meanwhile I spoke to an insurance rep on the phone who said my request would be highly unlikely to be approved. According to her and the company she represents, which shall remain nameless though I would dearly love to out them, if there’s a perfectly good hospital down the road from me (which there is, though the “good” part is debatable), they would most certainly not pay for me to go all crunchy with an out-of-town, home birth midwife. So let’s just perform a quick thought experiment for a second and pretend I say sayonara to insurance and pay up front and out-of-pocket. “What then,” I asked the perpetually sunny office manager. “Would you pro-rate my package now that I’m nearly thirty weeks pregnant and don’t need the full nine months of prenatal care?” “I’ll get right back to you,” she said! Three weeks later: “Nope!” If I were one of their patients, I’m sure the relationship would’ve been different. But the lack of helpfulness and basic communication with this clinic were flags so deeply crimson that I couldn’t pull the trigger. I hit the road, leaving the $300 spot-holding deposit in the dust without a backward glance.
I was thirty-one weeks pregnant, still without any prayer of a birth plan and no midwife to speak of. I called the clinic that had provided me care for my daughter. Even though they deliver in the hospital, I thought this would at least be favorable to a straight up obstetrics clinic. They wouldn’t take me because I was too close to my due date. My last hope was gone. FINE, I said. I’ll deliver at home and I don’t need any of you haters. I’ll just call an ambulance when he arrives and they’ll take care of us. My husband had just a few strong objections to this plan.
In a last ditch effort, I called the two nearby midwifery clinics. Maybe a spot had opened up or their schedules were looking clearer now that we were so close. By now, I was praying five hundred times a day, but who’s counting. I was texting updates to my mom and my friends asking them to pray too. Matthew and I pray together most nights and around this time our prayers were pleading: Help us find a midwife. I cried uncontrollably when I thought of going back to the hospital.
I was literally on my knees in fully-fledged desperation surrender when our soon-to-be midwife answered the phone. In a crackly, tear-laden voice, I explained everything. Would she possibly have space for me during her vacation month? Normally no. But since my due date was at the end of the month and she’d be back by then and she had no other clients scheduled, yes. Yes. Months of uncertainty and thousands of expletives later and she’d put me out of my misery with the simplest, sweetest word. It was $6500 and she did not take insurance. Not to be morbid, but you would only get reimbursed should there be a miscarriage (and I was well past that point) or heaven help us, still birth.
Enter hurdle numero séis. It’s a lot of money. $6500 was for the entire package: all the prenatal care, the labor and delivery and several postpartum home visits and checkups. Like the other midwife though, she didn’t prorate the package for late to the gamers like me. It was all or none.That was a problem but not THE problem.
Because of our high deductible, even if we planned to stay in-network for the delivery (ie just gone to the local hospital in the first place), it would’ve come out about the same as hiring this particular midwife. What required a gigantic leap of faith was proceeding despite knowing that her payment wouldn’t count a cent toward our deductible; therefore; if we paid the midwife her non-refundable fee, we could still very well end up in our in-network hospital anyway (owing to an emergency), paying out-of-pocket up to the deductible. If I haven’t bored you to exasperated tears yet, this comes to a grand total of around $14,000 in potential expense, forked over, plain and simple, gone forever. After that, insurance specifies helpfully that it “might” pick up the tab. I thought about that for approximately five minutes before hiring her. After that, it mercifully never crossed my mind again (it would hardly be a helpful thought while laboring).
My son was a week late. Unlike my with my daughter, I felt no rush to coax him into the world. After a tumultuous summer of uncertainty, I had little emotional bandwidth to do anything but go along with nature. It was, dare I say, a peaceful last week of pregnancy. There was an indescribable feeling of contentment the day I went into labor. We had a breakfast date at our favorite café. The fridge was stocked with groceries. It was a full moon. I was wearing my favorite dress. Not sure how that contributed but when you’re an image-conscious “3” on the Enneagram, a cute outfit can really work wonders for your confidence. I was walking our dog on a trail behind our house getting spectacular glimpses of the rising moon through the trees and feeling entirely overcome by the glorious mystery of it all. I looked up at the sky and said aloud, “Lord, I’m ready.”
No sooner had the words left my lips than I felt a gigantic lurch in my belly like Baby Boy was literally catapulting himself free. After saying goodnight to Matthew and Murphy Jane, I settled onto the couch to sleep, feeling the faintest of contractions peaking through (Yes, I always sleep on the couch or the floor. Mattresses be damned). I told Matthew it might be time, but couldn’t be sure. He said to wake him if/when they strengthened.
Throughout the summer and especially in the final two months, I had made a study of birth like I was training for the Olympics. It was an about-face from my tactic for Murphy’s birth, which was to do absolutely nothing in preparation. I read The Bradley Method and Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth. I used the Christian Hypnobirthing app. I took a course called Practically-Pain Free Method. I prayed. Then prayed again. Then prayed some more. I wasn’t praying for a pain-free birth per se. If it needed to hurt, so be it. I was praying to be brave. And yeah, okay, I was praying for it to hurt a lot less than last time. And if I may be so bold, for it to be relatively speedy.
In a “take the best, leave the rest” approach to the abundance of advice and information, I kept a running list on my phone of mantras and mindsets I learned from each resource that might ease the intensity of labor. I asked a few close friends if they’d be willing to come over and lift my spirits when the time came. Laughter was said to be instrumental for many women. In one of the sessions of the pain-free course, we clamped our hands around ice cubes for upwards of ninety seconds at a time while distracting from the shockingly painful bite of cold with a meditation track.
Something clunked into place mentally with this exercise. The bodily pain of labor is physical, yes. But our highly distractible brains can be duped into focusing on something else. The prevailing wisdom and common thread among these accounts and communities is that relaxation is the hero ingredient for a manageable labor. You just had to figure out what relaxed you. Easier said than done. I started practicing the ice exercise nightly, experimenting with what would carry me through. I quickly realized I had far more endurance when listening to music than following a meditation track. Ninety seconds, a realistic expectation for the most intense contraction, went by in the blink of an eye when I was groovin’. I created a playlist full of songs with very specific criteria: tracks that evoked feelings of gratitude, nostalgia and/or wonderment, were easy to harmonize to, had beautiful melodies, relaxed my body, brought good memories to mind, empowered, inspired, made me laugh… any combination of the above.
I lay on the couch and felt my adrenaline rise. This was not false labor. I had the silliest impulse to open Instagram, something I rarely do at night. The first post to crop up was a birth story from a mom who had delivered her first four children unmedicated at a birthing center. Her fifth baby was imminent. It was the last surge of encouragement I needed. The contractions came faster. If it’s infrequent that I open social media in the evenings, it’s even more unusual for me to keep scrolling. But I did. Because video after video of hilarious content poured onto my feed. Even Instagram, notorious buzz kill vortex that it is, was conspiring to keep me happily distracted. I looked up at the little octagonal skylight in our living room where I sat and saw the full moon, perfectly framed. Naturally, my brain conjured a quote from The Office, as it is wont to do at the most obscure moments, such as this one. Andy Bernard, the interviewee, says, “I’m just waiting for the stars to align. Literally. There’s a small skylight in my bedroom, and I’d like the moon to be visible.” I laughed out loud at the visible moon hanging in my skylight. I’d never seen it nestled there before.
After half an hour or so, I had migrated to the bathroom with a water, gatorade and my noise cancelling headphones (that they’re noise canceling is a somewhat amusing detail for later). The playlist was in full swing. All the training and coursework I had done had suggested I sit or lie somewhere comfortable in complete surrender to the rushes happening in my body, but I found that I simply couldn’t stop moving. To move was to stay in the flow. If I kept moving, the intensity seemed to rush in and out of my body with ease. Stopping was unfathomable. I paced and paced and paced.
Under the assumption that the laboring mother would likely be surrounded by support people, the course instructors dedicated an entire segment to massage for labor. But I was alone in the bathroom and had no intention of inviting anyone, including my husband, to join me. I had not an ounce of focus to tear away from the rhythm I had struck. There was still pain, but that wasn’t my overwhelming feeling like it was the first go round. If you’ve had one of those dizzyingly potent deep tissue massages, I think you can relate to what felt to me like satisfying affliction. It hurt so good. I have never experienced such harmony of mind and body. With each rise, I would picture Matthew’s face and relax the way I only know how to do in his company. I still hadn’t invited him to join me but in my defense, I had only been laboring for an hour and for all I knew it could go all night. No need to wake him yet. Besides, I’ll say it. It was blissful being alone.
When my contractions were three minutes apart I was tiring quickly. I felt a twinge of fear that I wouldn’t be able to keep going. But then Jennifer Hudson sang “How Great Thou Art” through my headphones and I rejoiced all over again. When I started to dread the next wave, I remembered Ted Lasso. I became a goldfish. The first contraction I recorded was 11:15pm. The last, 1:13am. After that one, I raced upstairs to my sleeping husband, sensing that I should no longer be progressing alone. “Matthew, can you help me? I’m laboring. Call the midwife.” Then I retreated to the bathroom and resumed my slow and steady pacing.
He paused my music to call her from my phone as he didn’t have her number saved on his. This was the only time when I felt disoriented and pain-stricken. He tried to ask me questions to relay my progress to her. “Just tell her to come now,” I sputtered. “And give me back my phone.” There was no space in between the contractions now, just a spine tingling, relentless surge. I sank to my knees. There was no awareness of anything except the clear and unrelenting instinct to push. him. out. I felt his head descending and thought wildly of the boulder careening forcefully through the narrow cave in Raiders of the Lost Ark. I registered a persistent and blaring groan drifting from beneath my music. “What the hell is that?” I thought. It was a shock to realize the deep and guttural bleating was coming from my own body. I was involuntarily roaring with primal effort.
Matthew, in his deeply respectful effort to not touch me during labor, lay a single finger on my hand. He was shouting something at me but I couldn’t hear through my headphones. Louder this time, he exclaimed, “Alli, the head is out!” Good job, Beats by Dré. The noise canceling feature works beautifully. Water splashed onto the floor. The sac had remained completely intact until that point. After one more reflexive convulsion from my body, our son came barreling out into Matthew’s waiting hands. I was still listening to music. On cue, my birthing playlist, set to shuffle mode, served Johnny Nash’s I Can See Clearly Now. I smiled at this impeccably divine timing, yanked off my headphones and reached for my son.
The midwife arrived ten minutes later, murmuring words of reassurance. I had transitioned to the tub by that point and was resting comfortably in the soothing water with Baby Boy on my chest. It was 1:30am and the labor and delivery of my deepest dreams was behind us, clocking in at barely two hours. I relive it often, each time recalling another exquisite detail. Murphy Jane stopped by around 3:30am to see what all the fuss was about. At the hours-old infant in my arms, she looked on with complete nonchalance, finally whispering, “hey, baby brother.” I showered and slept.
My mom came by a few hours later to meet her newest grand. We all made breakfast together and walked around outside. Murphy Jane patted him gently and repeatedly offered him pacis, seemingly undeterred by his lack of interest in them. Not in any rush, we tested out various names, finally landing on Winslow William. We call him Winnie. Or Winner. Or Winner Winner Chicken Dinner. Or Win. Or Winsie. Or Winnington. Or Winnie S Low. Or Bubba Wubba. Or Smoochie. Or Squeakums. Or… Precious boy who chose us and gifted our family the easygoing spirit we desperately needed. Murphy calls him Little Buddy. I pray over their friendship every day. After the magical delivery and his perfect health, the next best gift was that we were already home. There would be no 3am door knocks from people insisting my fundus needed checking and the baby needed bathing. We could rest easy.
Thank you for reading this story! As I toss this newsletter into the air, it would mean the world to me if you helped her take flight by hearting, commenting or sharing (or all three!!!).
With gratitude,
Alli
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