She's laid on her changing mat with a full nappy. Nyaniso is holding her feet, dancing them up and down as he sings a poop song, wondering if there's more to come out before he changes her. A projectile poop a few days ago taught him the stinky way to check before changing. Oh, how we laughed! A salt lamp casts a sweet pink light across our dimly lit room. I've just stepped out of a salt and magnesium bath and I'm enjoying the chill of a padsicle (pad + popsicle) that I've just pressed against my vulva. Why didn't I make and use these sooner?!

The nappy has now been changed, amidst much protest from the little one. She's calm again. Nyaniso is singing a "Clean Bum" rendition of The Lion King's Circle of Life and raising her to the ceiling like baby Simba being held up to all the animals of the land. Papa's chatting to Baby about why she gets uncomfortable during nappy changes. Conversing with her casually about surrendering to the discomfort - how she's safe with us.

A couple of days ago our Doula, Tamryn, came for a postpartum visit. We talked through the birth and reflected on the process to bring our journey to a close. I shared with her how Nyaniso was processing everything that he had experienced (we couldn't have orchestrated a more graphic image of birth for him if we tried) and she shared how he was the most present of all Dads she's witnessed in the birth room, and the first she's met to have caught Baby. She went on to affirm that how he had shown up was momentous and to be acknowledged in a big way. I felt proud. I still do.

In our first HypnoBirthing class with Tamryn, we were asked to write the first five words that come to mind when we think of birth. One of my husband's words was death. He was resistant to all that would come with birthing a child, but in true Mr Dzedze fashion he gobbled up all there was to learn and digested those lessons into applied mastery. That's one thing that I'm grateful to have identified in Nyaniso - his patterns.

To begin with, my husband retreats all the way. Like a tidal wave retracting itself from the shore to gather fullness and ferocity. If you didn't know the nature of a tidal wave, you might believe that the water was leaving. If I didn't know the nature of my husband, I might have believed him when he said, "I don't think I'll catch the baby." I heard what was whispered between the lines though. Sensed that in his retreat, he was calculating every possible happening to master his grand entrance. That his words were really saying, "I'm setting you up to expect nothing from me, so my presence can crash upon you in the most magnificent, majestic and explosive of ways."

His presence in birth, and in parenthood has been insurmountable. As my waters, blood and birth-everything gushed over him and he met our child for the first time, and every day since, he has held us close. Close in seriousness and close in play. She's sleeping on him now... And we laugh, as we hear the audible squirt of yet another poop. The Circle Of Nappy Life.