The Birth of Ruth, Part 5: Meeting Her Big Sister

All photo credit: Lauren LaBarre

Just before midnight, we finally moved from the floor to the bed, where I nursed and more fully admired our new baby, as the midwives assessed us both and sutured my minimal tearing. 

 
We heard Erlys (my mother-in-law) making her way upstairs from the basement. She was shocked to learn Ruth had already arrived, and even more so to hear she had actually been born an hour earlier! Miraculously, Lucy had slept through the entire thing. Perhaps all my earlier screaming hadn't been as loud as I imagined?

Justin and I impulsively decided we wanted to wake Lucy and bring her down to meet Ruth, and I am so thrilled our birth photographer was still around to capture their introduction. 

Between Lucy's sweaty bedhead and prominently displayed Daniel Tiger tattoos; my "cocoon" of chux pad, towel, blood-soaked birth blanket, and a hodgepodge of receiving blankets; and the distinctive absence of Ruth's face as she screamed any time she was not deeply burrowed into my breast (understandably protesting her evacuation from her first home)...these crowded, sleepy first images of our family of four are not at all what I imagined they would be.

And yet, despite all our hopes, dreams, and diligent planning; birth writes itself. Over and over again.