It's raining tonight, pumpkin, I think it's the first time it's rained since you've been alive. We're going through a bit of a dry spell at the moment, and when it rains at night it's like you can feel the whole country breathe a little sigh of relief. The nature strip is happy too.
Here's what I wrote at 9am on the day you were born. It's a little disjointed, I'd been awake for about 30 hours, and it's a little emotional for obvious reasons. When I wrote this, you were still about 5 hours away.
Not knowing where to start - chronologies of what happens when are not of much use to other people after the fact - everyone's experience of this time is different, and I don't know if our journey will help anyone else's.
How, then, to talk about what's happening right now?
From my perspective. Being an outsider. Feeling extraneous to the process, but knowing simultaneously how integral to Eve's focus my presence is. Feeling like I don't know what to do, looking for signs of what Eve needs.
Things that have surprised me so far in labour. For all the screaming and yelling and panting, there are lengthy periods of quiet, of stillness, of chances for reflection like this. Eve doesn't want to hear any music, so the only sounds that intrude on us are buses, the bells of trams on Swanston St and your heartbeat on the monitoring machine.
We're keeping people overseas posted on what's happening, but apart from that we remain completely removed from events outside our room. We haven't seen a TV screen or a newspaper - heard a radio, since we arrived last night. It's like there are only 3 people in this world - your mum, me and the midwife Gaylene, along with occasional bit players like Pete.
I just had to go outside to move the car, and it was an absolutely surreal experience. After so long ensconced in one room, it was a harsh, bright world outside.
This is, munchkin, more than likely akin to how you're feeling right now.
Love you.
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