Baby Boom

The Israeli television Channel 10 premiered a new reality show last night called "Baby Boom."  The premise is simple actually, it follows a woman from the time they enter the hospital until they give birth and hold their son or daughter in their arms for the first time.  There are minimal reality type show shots of the people talking directly into the camera, which makes it easier to watch.

I cried last night along with the mothers and the fathers and the mothers-in-law and the midwives and the official birth videographers, and I am fairly sure that most of the viewers did the same.  One of my close friends who also watched the program texted me, saying, "I am predicting lots of births nine months from tonight."

It got me thinking:  when I was pregnant, I did not get all hormonal or obnoxious and demanding, but I do remember crying every time I saw a commercial on television of some version of a happy family.  Father playing with son, mother holding baby, family on vacation etc., they all made me bawl. 

But when it came to Raphaela's birth, I don't remember crying at all.  Not during labor - although there was lots of "Get me an epidural, for the love of G-d!" - not after I held her for the first time and not for two days afterward.  I had had in the end a totally natural birth, and was high from the adrenaline of the event, not to mention flooded with the joy of this beautiful new life.

Three days after the birth I cried for the first time, when I said her name aloud.  Hearing "Raphaela" come out of my mouth, the name I had chosen when I was five months pregnant, it made it all real. 

I am looking forward to the next installment of Baby Boom, and will have my box of tissues at the ready.