Karen Walrond’s Childbirth Memory

Alex, photographed September 16, 2009.

I can’t tell you how thrilled I am about Gabby’s wonderful news. I’ve only known Gabby for a couple of years now, but in my completely unprofessional opinion, this woman is made to be a mom, isn’t she? When I look at her, I always think of the mother in “Little Women” — her children are surely blessed to have her to look up to, and this little one on his (her?) way is no exception.

When Gabby asked me to share a story with you here today, I immediately thought of the day my daughter Alex was born. Alex’s birth story is one of my favourite memories thus far in being her mom. It’s a bit of an unusual story, since she came to us via an open adoption: in other words, we have a relationship with her birthmother. While her birthmother was pregnant, I was able to go with her to prenatal doctor’s visits, and, bless her, she invited my husband and I to be present at Alex’s birth. It was a really cool experience — I’d never seen a child born before — but it was actually what happened immediately after Alex was born that made the event absolutely unforgettable. And even though I suspect that most expectant mothers at the point of childbirth, are a little …well, preoccupied, let’s say, what with the whole in-the-middle-of-giving-birth-thing, I tell Alex’s birth story to every expectant mother, in the hope that just maybe she might be able to catch a glimpse of what I saw, during the birth of her own child.

So anyway, to the story: the baby was born, and she was upside down in the doctor’s arms, and he was cleaning all the birth gunk from her face and neck. At this point, I was sort of numb, and my first thought was that it was not possible that this little, tiny doll-like being was going to come home with us in a couple of days.

My second thought was that this baby was the most beautiful shade of cerulean blue I had ever seen in my life.

Alex’s birthmother asked, “Doctor, why isn’t she crying?”

The doctor replied, “I don’t want her to cry just yet. The umbilical cord was wrapped around her throat. Just one second.”

The doctors and nurses kept doing their thing. I wasn’t nervous, because they seemed pretty calm. A few more seconds passed, and then, just as I was wondering if I should be nervous, the doctor said:

“Okay, she’s going to cry … now.“

And Alex inhaled. She just took this great, big, huge, breath …

… and she turned pink. First her arms, then her hands, and then her legs and her little face and chest. And as crazy as this may sound, I am absolutely convinced that we’d just witnessed Alex’s soul, which had been waiting in the delivery room with us, flying into her body, and giving her life. Even more, I absolutely, unshakably believed, at that very moment, that this little girl was meant to be ours, and that had we not been waiting there for her — had her birthmom decided not to place her, or has there been another adoptive family in the room — a different soul would’ve entered her body, and she would’ve been a totally different person.

And then she started to bellow.

Anyway, Alex has proved me right every day since. She’s just .. well, she’s just like us, I suppose. She gets our senses of humour. We’re such a tight-knit family. We’re a team. We fit.

So, I guess the point of all of this is that when you become a parent, whether by giving birth yourself or via adoption, you have to believe that God, or Allah, or Fate, or the Universe or Whatever You May Believe In has a plan. Trust that the child you bring home is meant to be yours and yours alone. It has always been this way. It will always be this way.

Congrats, Blairs. May your family … your team … continue to grow as tight-knit as ever.

From Karen Walrond of Chookooloonks.