On Tuesday, January 5, at 2:34pm, my wife Alexandra and I became parents to a gorgeous little girl. Her name is Eliana Tziporah Blaker. She was born 8 lbs and 8 oz, at 42 weeks and 5 days.

We had a clear plan for the birth - a midwife assisted home birth in water, and worked with a midwife group. Alexandra had her first, mild, contractions on December 19 (her “due date” was December 17). She had small contractions every once and a while for a couple of weeks.

A series of stronger contractions on the 30th (in response to acupuncture plus castor oil) petered out late that night. Then an even stronger series of contractions got going on Friday night, January 1st (perhaps in response to spicy food and holding a baby). Alas, they pretty much petered out by morning, although a few showed up throughout Saturday and Sunday morning. On Sunday afternoon the real contractions (birth waves) began after another acupuncture treatment, lots of walking and more castor oil. Jake from our midwife group came over around dinnertime, and stayed with us without break until Monday evening. All Sunday night the contractions intensified. We sang through them (traditional Jewish songs mainly). But they also ended up petering out by Monday morning.

At that point we were 42 weeks and 4 days, and Alexandra was at 2 cm. dilation. And the baby was in a unfavorable position (her head was pointing up and to the side). But Alexandra was doing well and the baby’s vitals all looked great – so we decided to induce.

With pitocin, but without anesthetic, Alexandra labored for quite a while. I don’t want to go into timing too much, because it sounds overly-daunting to anyone who reads this and hasn't been through it – but the fact is that Alexandra was amazing through the whole process, and although it was difficult, she managed it with grace, and hasn’t the slightest regret. Alexandra credits our birth-class teaching, and also the guided meditations of Hypnobabies – but I think it just reflects my wife’s inner strength. The contractions brought Alexandra to 5cm, but the baby’s position was unchanged (we tried unsuccessfully about a thousand things to get the baby to turn). So we made the next decision – to have an epidural. The epidural was in place for about 7 hours, but at the end of that time Alexandra was still at 5cm.

It is worth noting that our baby was doing extremely well throughout this whole process – which is why our doctor (we laways had a doctor as a backup to the home birth plan) supported the effort to give it every chance..

But at this point her uterus was exhausted, and there was just one decision left.

Eliana was delivered via C-section. Alexandra and I, along with our midwife sister-in-law, sang as she came out into this world. Definitely not our original plan – but we feel good about everything that we did along the way, and that the decisions we made were well-informed. And we feel clear on the fact that this little angel came into our lives in the way that she needed to. She is healthy and beautiful.

We had our perfect experience – maybe not perfect by our original plans – but perfectly in keeping with G-d’s plan – and perfect in the beautiful result.