Most people stay up till midnight on New Year's Eve to usher in the New Year to start on a fresh set of bad habits and other have new resolutions that they're like to break... :)

Tricia and I had a very different new year. We started this year as parents! Eve, our daughter was born on 31st of December 2005. She is just a day and a half old now and we are in awe of her already. Let me tell you about the 24-30 hours before she was born and a few hours after.

If you read any of my posts before this, Trish and I had decided to go the natural birth way. We had contacted a midwife close to home and had rented a heated birthing tub, which holds some 200 gallons of water.

Thursday, 29th December, Tricia and I drove to Corvallis to return some Videos we had borrowed from Linda (our natural childbirth instructor) and we also wanted to visit the "Co-op", which is a naturals/organics store. During the drive there, Tricia told me that she felt the Braxton-Hicks contractions all the way. We smiled and said that the day is close by. We stopped to do our grocery shopping, which is a weekly affair which usually involved a lot of meat, but this time we bought veggies and salad fixing among other things we needed. It was pouring rain when we walked out of the store, with thunder and lightning. A very stormy night. Little did we know.

The Monday before that, 26th December, was when Tricia's mucus plug had come out. It happened right about when Grandma and Aunt Kathy were getting ready to head off to the airport to go back to LA.

We drove back home from the store, quite carefully since visibility was quite poor. We got home at about 5:30pm and I started cleaning up the kitchen so, I could make dinner for all of us while Tricia decided to go for her water aerobics classes. I didn't think she should go because of the contractions that she was feeling but she told me not to worry because they were just Braxton Hicks. Turns out she ended up leaving the class early because her belly was quite uncomfortable. By the time Trish got home, I had made a Bengali lamb curry called "Kosha mangsho" and a Maharashtrain dry fry called "Tindli Batata Curry". The lamb was ok... I tried to make yoghurt with lactose free milk, but failed miserably, so the recipe was incomplete and the Tindli was only ok. My maid used to make the Tindli much better.

After dinner Tricia told me that she was feeling the contractions quite regularly and she commented on how weird it was...none of them were painful, but she noticed them more than she had other times. After dinner we decided to continue watching our Star Wars Marathon. We were on, Revenge of the Sith. There is a scene in the movie where Anakin dreams about Padme in labor. Just as the picture switched to Padme's face in labor pains is exactly when Trish jumped up and announced that her water broke! We didn't even notice that until later when I looked up and noticed the paused TV screen. Mom and I then, started cleaning up the place. We started getting the house ready, just incase the labor progressed faster than normal. I had already cooked for several days and frozen quite a few meals in the freezer, incase it was required.

After Tricia called Carol, our midwife, we decided to head to bed and see how much rest we could manage to get before things started to progress. When we went to bed we timed her contractions and they were about 12 minutes apart - we think. She was having a hard time feeling when one began and ended because they weren't causing her any pain.

We were very excited and tried our best to go to sleep and at about half past the witching hour, we fell asleep. Trish woke up the next morning at about 5:30 am and felt quite a few contractions. We had breakfast, made sure things were as ready as we were, and carried on with our day. We had bought some diaper liners from Bombay, these are 3 ply toweling which are quite absorbent. These had kind of come apart in the washer and subsequently in the dryer. True to her nesting instinct, Trish pulled out a sewing machine and started working on them.

Trish walked around and at about 11am, we decided to watch some TV. Law & Order was on. I guess the "SVU" version and we saw 2 episodes back to back. At about 12:30 pm, Trish's contractions started becoming quite uncomfortable. We turned the TV off and we walked around the house. I called Carol, who dropped by at about 1:30pm and examined Trish. She was about 80% effaced and 3 centimeters dilated. But the labor was progressing quite slowly. Carol used a small tool to break the "water bag" a little more. It broke and lots of amniotic fluids gushed out. This was good.

Carol had some back problem so she went off to have it looked at. At about 4:30 pm, Trish was starting to get very uncomfortable and she was then in active labor. I called Carol and she reached us by about 5:45 pm. Just before she got to us, we stepped into the birthing pool, which we had set up in the family room. Her contractions were slowly gaining in intensity. The birthing tub was almost too good. It kept the water heated to 100 degrees F, but Trish got quite hot after a few hours.

Carol examined Trish and saw that she was 6 centimeters dilated and 90% effaced. But the baby wasn't lined up correctly. The baby's back was a bit off to the right. That concerned Carol, so Trish was asked to lie down on her left side to change the center of gravity for the baby. Trish did exactly that. She decided she wanted to try other positions, after the contractions troubled her. She tried kneeling at the couch, it worked for a while but her feet started getting numb. Then we decided to try it at the dining table, were she sat in a chair and leaned over the table. She found that quite uncomfortable too. We then tried it in the bedroom again, where it was ok, but still not working for her too well. After that we walked circuits within the house, quite slowly.

By about 9pm, Trish was getting quite tired and wanted some respite. The hardest part was yet to come. She went through "Transition" over almost 2 hours.

At about 10:30pm Trish felt she was ready to try the tub again, because she was getting ready to push. I helped her in. It was still a little warm, so mom and I dabbed ice cold towels across her face, back and arms for the next 3 hours. She kneeled across the tub with her arms across the sides, as she labored and started her pushing. As time passed, she kept saying very positive things. She did not use any tranquillizers. She was quite calm and serene through everything. All the exercises and planning we had done was working positively for us. Pushing for 3 hours is certainly not an easy task.

I changed my laptop's screensaver to the system clock and synched it with the atomic clock. As time was ticking by, it was past midnight. It was 31st December 2005. It was a quarter past 1 am when I stepped into the tub. We could just about see the head of baby. We could see dark hair. Everybody was very excited! Things were literally coming to a head. :-)

AS Trish worked her way through the last few minutes, I was ready to catch our baby. It was a very exciting moment. The head was slowing coming out. There was certainly a lot of hair on the head and it was black. The head got stuck right at the nose. We smiled at that. After a few more pushes, the head popped out. It was a surreal moment. A small push later, the shoulder popped out. I put my hands under water to make sure I catch the baby as it comes out. We did not know the sex, so I call the baby "it".

At exactly 1:31 am, (yes, I looked at my laptop's atomic clock synched time... :-) ) Tricia delivered a healthy baby. Dida (Grandma in Bengali) called out her name.

Her name is Evelyn Suchitra Mittra. 8 lbs 5 oz. 20 3/4 inches. A beautiful baby girl with black hair, brown eyes and mocha skin.

Mom's pictures are here.