All in Due Time :

Fourth Delivery

When they got pregnant the fourth time, they were determined to have a home delivery with a midwife. They had come so close the last time, a mere 20 minutes away from a true home delivery. They lined up the same midwife, pediatric nurse and interpreter. Egina reminds Jimmy that actually they had a new interpreter because their other one moved. Jimmy explains that they had an interpreter who’d never done a birth and was actually a former student of Jimmy’s. So everything was arranged.

Sure enough, Egina started labor in the middle of the night, just like before. She remembers how they had gone to bed that night, talking about their plans. She was feeling some contractions. Jimmy asked her to please not give birth in the middle of the night this time. They went to bed at 10 and at 11:30 Egina’s water broke. That was the first time her water breaking was the initial warning of the delivery. She woke up Jimmy who was totally disoriented and told him her water broke. He couldn’t believe that one hour after he begged her to wait till morning, her water broke.

Egina took a bath to clean up and told Jimmy to call the midwife. He was taking his time and she really had to hound him to make the call. She felt the baby was coming soon and he was sure they had plenty of time. So again, the midwife and interpreter came. This time they planned to have the baby on the bed. They got everything ready to go. This time, everything worked out smooth as silk. They’d had labors of 24, 30 and 7 hours (with a hospital trip) and this time it was 7 hours and a perfect delivery at home. For the first time Jimmy was able to do the actual delivery, the way he’d wanted to from the very first pregnancy.

So now they had a girl, boy, girl and (even though they thought it might be a boy) another girl. Egina remembers that the baby was born around midnight and she and Jimmy went to sleep soon after. In the morning they work up with all the other kids around the bed asking them where the baby came from. They had slept the whole time everything was going on. For them, it was as if the stork came and just dropped her out of the air overnight. Egina remembers how they all stood around in amazement looking at the baby. Even Emelia stood at the edge of the bed, sucking her thumb and just staring at the new baby. They had both been so tired - it was wonderful to just fall asleep in their own bed.

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