His little body was working just as hard as hers.

Dropping down, wriggling from the comfort of the womb, his home.

He began his big journey, just as she began hers.

Both bodies working together to create the miracle that is Child Birth.

He moved to pass down through the fleshy passageway,

blooming into the world with the blossom of Life;

with a rush of feeling, with a push, with a cry, an unfathomable strength.

Out he swam through the petals of the vagina, a full head of hair could be seen through the petals of the flower.

Half in, half out, he greets the room.

His body still part of hers, but his head meeting the external air;

half water, half air, half earth, half heavens.

With the next contraction, no longer half, he has arrived fully into this world.

His body swims into my hands.

My blue-gloved hands are the first to touch his body in this life that he is just beginning.

He is wet, new, and fresh.

He is unmarked, soft, full of stories, yet free, he is full of potential.

His tiny body still radiates the heat from her womb: the only home he’s ever known.

Wiping his eyes of meconium, and amniotic fluid, they remain shut,

he is not ready to receive the world with sight just yet.

He takes his time, on the biggest day of his life.

My eyes are the first his will greet.

I touch him with a caress of gentle, humble, embrace of the true privilege that it is to greet a new Life.

He will decide when he is ready to open his eyes to mine.

Small trembles come through him as he feels the outside air brush his body for the first time ever.

This outside air is mixed with my breath as I speak to him.

My voice, in soft whispers, welcomes him to this earth,

I tell him how strong her has been in his work that he too has done tonight, how brave he has been.

~~~

After the last pulse of the cord, I gently cut him from the organ that fed and nourished him all of his life.

As he learns to breathe his own air, his lungs grow stronger with each expelling cry.

Tying the cord with three strong knots secures him to his own identity, his own physical being.

He is not a part of her body anymore.

He is his own.

We cauterize the cord with a candle.

The two veins and one artery that nourished him and pumped his blood, sizzle and die.

His eyes catch the sparkle of the soft candle light.

Taking his precious time, he slowly peels his sticky eyelids open.

Yawning his lids one by one,

his big brown eyes meet mine, as I get to bare witness to his first look in this life.

~~~

There are two beings in a birth.

The process of the smaller one is so much subtler, quieter.

Its much easier to miss the tiniest details of it if you don’t look so very closely. Close enough to smell the aroma of the vernex.

When you slow down in the hype that can be birth,

you can connect to this being that has just been detached.

You can tenderly support the beginning of this journey of his.

If you’re lucky you can experience being the first one to bare witness to this very gentle process that is beginning life outside of the womb.