Preparing Isaiah

I think the midwives tricked me -- in a good way.

Origianlly I thought that I would not want Isaiah to be at the birth -- he gets scared of intense faces on his Thomas videos and doesn't like gooey things. We're never quite sure what is going to freak him out. Then the midwives gave me some children's books and videos about homebirth.

Isaiah was fascinated by the books and asked to read them night after night. Rather than freak out when watching the first video, he sat, totally attentive. The first one showed a midwife giving birth to her own child in the water. She was mostly silent, and her other child jumped in the water with them just after the baby was born. Isaiah asked if he would get to jump in the water, too! Hmmm, not sure about that. But I was starting to think that maybe Isaiah could be present for the birth, at least the end, so our whole family would be right there when the newest addition was born.

The next video showed many different women giving birth and he was fine until he saw a very vocal mommy pushing her baby out.

"I'm all done watching baby video," he said, with an anxious look on his face. Darn. I messed up. But then again, that's realistic, and that's what he might see. I explained that the mommy was working really hard, and that's why she made all that noise. Then I decided I would pretend birth Isaiah's baby doll -- noisily! He thought this was hilarious and then asked to do it himself.

So, here is Isaiah, giving birth to "Graco," his babydoll. If only it were this easy.