The end is the beginning...

Howie Day was right when he sang, "The end is the beginning and every point in between."



I've had a lot of ends, and beginnings, and points in between in my life—graduations, new jobs, moves, my wedding—but none of those really compares to Matilda. When Kirsten and I left for the hospital I knew it was the end of "just us" and the start of something new. What I couldn't have known, however, was how beautiful the journey would be. What I witnessed over twelve hours was my wife, my hero, my baby momma deliver our daughter into our lives; what I experienced was art.

I was listening to NPR the other day and there was a feature on the photographer Sally Mann. I'm not familiar with her work, but the way that she described a photo shoot she did with her husband encapsulates how I felt as I labored with Kirsten: "It's almost dreamlike, the way we move. You know, each one of us knew what we had to do and we weren't talking, but there was something very quiet and very loving about the whole process." Of course, those that know us, have to know that we weren't perfectly quiet—we cracked jokes, we laughed, we cried—but we were quieter and more instinctual than I think we have ever been. In my mind's eye it's less chronological, less "memory" in the traditional sense. It's moments, it's feelings, it's snapshots, it's art. I am blessed to have been a part of it.

So that was the end.

And this is the beginning.



My heart is full.

Sugar and Spice

No, Matilda's birth story isn't finished yet. Partly because I am both a procrastinator and a perfectionist, and partly because I am on this incredibly demanding schedule called keeping a small human alive while remembering that I still need to eat. Also, I have not yet fully mastered activities that require two hands while breastfeeding Matilda, which means we do a lot of blog reading and very little writing. So in lieu of the lovely (really, it was lovely) story of our daughter's birth, let me distract you with photos of The Cute:



I was pretty convinced Matilda was actually going to be a boy. When the ultrasound tech announced without even a moment's hesitation that our baby was definitely a girl, I remember staring at the ceiling, distinctly not thinking about tiny painted toenails and over the top hairbows and all things sugar and spice. I was thinking about all the door slamming and foot stomping and screaming and whining and countless other horrifying things I did that traumatized my own mother. I went through a wicked Mean Girl phase. And even if boys are more prone to breaking things, including themselves, they don't terrify me (or Joshua) the way the thought of raising a daughter terrifies us. When I think about myself from the ages of oh, 11 to 18, the very last phrase that comes to mind is everything nice.

So this helps me deal:



How could something so small and so cute, wearing a TUTU, have scared us so much? Here, let's add our puppy to maximize the effect:



Those teeny tiny twinkletoes are definitely going to stomp their way away from me at some point. But not this week, or next month (maybe next year, but chances are good she'll end up tripping. And I will not laugh, because I am a good mother).

Ok, I'm definitely going to laugh at angry toddler Matilda.

But before that I will be savoring all these newborn moments, and baby pictures so adorable I find myself suddenly crying at a certain expression or silly position even after I've looked at them all thirty times. In a row. While pausing to look at Matilda herself in between. I can still imagine that little boy I thought we were having, but now I think of him as her someday little brother. Or maybe he will just live happily in my head while we add another girl to our family (someday. Not that soon, but not that far either. Like I said, birth was lovely!)



It's all been amazing, every tiring bit of the two and a half weeks we have spent getting to know our daughter. Now, I can't imagine not having a closetful of ruffled dresses and a drawerful of tiny socks with huge bows on the toes. When I finally got past my own past, and remembered all the things that come first (ballet class, saggy pink tights, pigtails) and everything that comes after (my wedding, my relationship with my mom, becoming a mother myself), I thought...we are so lucky to have a daughter. Life is just so full. And so much better with our little girl.

Matilda

Matilda Claire arrived one week ago today, on February 1 at 11:30pm weighing 7 lbs 8 oz and measuring 21 inches long. She was born at the height of the biggest blizzard of the year, the third worst snowstorm in Chicago history. A week later the city is still digging out from under all the snow, and I am watching our gorgeous daughter sleeping soundly on Joshua's chest.

Her birth was amazing, and her first week of life has been busy and has flown by incredibly quickly. I think Joshua and I have cried more than she has - not because we are tired or frustrated, but because she is so lovely and healthy and the experience of becoming parents is a kind of excruciating joy that can't be put into words.

I'm writing her birth story to share here and for her to have when she's old enough. I started it tonight hoping to be able to post it here on her one week birthday, but I should have known it's going to take me longer to write down everything I want to say about such a wonderful and transformative day.

Matilda may have been born in a frenzy of winter weather, but so far she is a dreamy, sleepy and calm baby. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and find her with laying in the co-sleeper with her eyes wide open, just staring and drinking in the little world of our bedroom. I know this newborn phase will be over soon and I am trying to soak up every second of her little life so far. She is by far the greatest gift that I have ever been given, and I'm still in awe of that fact that she is finally here, and real, and so beautiful that it hurts.

Forty

Forty weeks.

Nine (plus) months.

It's my due date.

Things I did today: woke up at 5am, obsessively checked the weather since we are about to have an epic blizzard, showered, did the dishes, 3 loads of laundry, scrubbed the kitchen, dusted, attempted to sew (but was thwarted by my machine and my lack of sewing knowledge, more to come on this later), took a brisk walk around the neighborhood, had lunch with Jessica, walked the dog, went to my 40 week midwife appointment, made a non-stress test appointment for tomorrow and updated my insurance info with the hospital, braved the craziness that is Target the day before an epic blizzard, walked the dog again, made myself dinner, and sat down on my exercise ball from Aldi birth ball to watch TV and blog.

Things I did not do today: go into labor.

I am currently 2cm dilated, almost completely effaced, and the baby's head is low and engaged. I have a "very favorable cervix" for a first time mom according to my midwife, which is now my second favorite pregnancy compliment - first is "you still don't look pregnant from behind". Obviously. (Pregnancy compliments are funny because really what control do you have over those things? Step away from the junk food and if your body still feels like making you look pregnant from behind, that's not going to be something you can change. But it still makes me feel all warm and skinny inside). Anyways, she felt confident I would not be back for a 41 week appointment and would have a baby at this time next week. To say that I feel pretty strongly about that myself would be an understatement.

So in the morning, I'll have the non-stress test and an amniotic fluid index to check to make sure baby girl is still living in a luxurious, well-oxygenated uterus (right above that favorable cervix. Literally...right above. So go on, baby. Head on out). As long as she is happy and snug medically speaking, we just keep waiting. Of course if she is anything like her father, she'll take her sweet, sweet time planning for departure while people around her start to go crazy with the slowness of it all. And when it comes to this baby, I am literally the person around her. Going crazy.

The one thing I am really happy about is that our daughter avoided being born on the same day as one of our 8 million friends and relatives who have mid to late January birthdays. I'm glad that she will have her own special February day to celebrate.

So to sum up: my day was incredibly busy yet did not include birthing a child. Tomorrow, tomorrow, you're only a day (2.5 hours actually) away. And yay for February. More updates to come.

No Sew Hair Bows

This post is going to end with these...

...but it's going to take a while to get there, and I know always skip to the photos, so please! Bear with me.


One of my goals for this new year is to spend less time reading blogs and books about crafty things, and spend more time actually learning how to do them myself. I used youtube videos to teach myself how to knit a few years ago, and literally three weeks after stocking up on needles and yarn and starting multiple scarf-related projects, I promptly broke my wrist snowboarding. Besides the fact that being down an appendage made my last semester of nursing school miserable, I wasn't really able to use my right hand until spring break. At that point, my knitting motivation was low.

Since then, I've picked up the knitting needles several times, finished a scarf or two, and even taught myself (youtube again!) how to make cables, knit in the round, and a few other little tricks. But inevitably I lose interest the minute the weather gets warm.

Somehow I decided this past year, after becoming immersed in the world of crafting blogs, that I needed to learn how to sew. Then my in-laws very generously got me a sewing machine for Christmas, and it sat unopened in the living room until I took it out of the box, became overwhelmed by it, and put it in the corner of the baby's room so I could watch cable and read more blogs without My Lack of Initiative staring me in the face.

Although I have a strange fear of craft stores (there are aisles of things that I cannot identify), and despite the fact that the owner's manual for my extremely basic sewing machine could have been written in Swahili for all I understood it, I am really excited to start sewing. So today I found myself in Joann's picking up all the supplies I need to make that happen.

I did not hyperventilate in the store, and I did come home with a huge bag full of sewing necessities. But I had also tossed in some sweet little hair clippys and a few rolls of $1 girly ribbon to our overflowing cart, so while I did not spend the afternoon threading bobbins (if that is what you do?) or figuring out what to do with a foot pedal, I did get all no-sew crafty.

I could not pass up these precious little ribbon rolls - not overwhelmingly pink, but all girl anyways.



Joshua's sister Heidi introduced us to this E-6000 crafting glue when she was making our baby girl adorable headbands for one of our baby showers.


And if by some chance our daughter has any hair to clip, we are prepared.


And...we've come full circle to the beginning of this super long-winded post, in which I did not actually sew or knit or do anything except glue. And even then, I think Jessica's clippys are cuter than mine - she made the one with the button.


After the super easy and satisfying cuteness of that quick project, what is still awaiting me tomorrow during playoff commercial breaks? And also distracting me from the realities of being 39 weeks pregnant with a hiccuping ninja who seems to be in no rush to make her debut? This baby...

Quiet

One of the things I really like about working the night shift are the quiet days I have before I work. Yes, I should sleep more. Over the past two years it's actually only gotten harder to take naps or sleep in so I'm really rested to stay up all night. But I have gotten better about accomplishing little odds and ends, hanging out on the couch and watching cable (because all those things are just so difficult). I have such a rough life.

I only have nine shifts before my due date, and only six of those are overnights. If I work two in a row, obviously I do manage to sleep in between, so I guess I have maybe two or three of these "rest" days left. I've spent this one doing my nails, writing thank you notes for baby girl presents, drinking my raspberry leaf uterus-strengthening tea (I have mixed feelings on this one), snuggling with my sweet animals, and hoping I just spontaneously go into labor and actually have no shifts left (it's looking unlikely).

I know I could be doing so many more productive things with my time. The obvious one being sleeping all day when I have to stay up all night. Actually, I am waiting for that nesting thing to happen - now that the baby's room is basically done and our hospital bags are as packed as possible, I'm just going to relax until I am suddenly hit by that crazy burst of energy (that everyone has promised me will happen) to do things like dust the blinds and scrub the kitchen floors. And if it doesn't happen...well, I think I can justify a few more days of guilt-free How I Met Your Mother marathons.

Happy New Year!

We had a mildly traumatizing start to the New Year. We both woke up to the sound of Pam chomping on something plastic in our bathroom - which is in itself not that unusual. She has a total plastic fetish and will climb into our drawers, the recycling, the cabinets and my purse to get to anything she can crunch happily between her teeth. However, she took it to the next level this morning when she choked on her inedible 'treat'. Joshua made it out of bed and to her side much more quickly (not shocking, seeing as how I am essentially a beached whale in the mornings these days) and by the time I got into the bathroom, Pam was gasping for air and Joshua had most of his hand in her mouth trying to fish out her beloved plastic death trap.

The next 10 seconds is sort of a blur, probably because while I am 100% comfortable resuscitating a 9 pound choking and gasping infant, a 9 pound cat is a different story. I managed to (sort of) give her the kitty heimleich manuever, she let out a huge yak, and then somehow she must have gotten the piece of plastic back into her throat and promptly swallowed it instead of throwing it up. In the meantime, Joshua had gotten himself dressed, including gloves and a hat, and had gotten the cat carrier from the basement. Joshua tends to get ready at the pace of a second grader who hates school, so I think the sight of him standing in the kitchen ready to whisk Pam off to the emergency vet was almost as surprising as starting the New Year off by resuscitating a cat.

By this point Pam was in the cat carrier, breathing calmly with the tiniest bit of a wheeze, and looking at us like we were insane (she's never seen Joshua get ready so fast either). I was on the phone with the vet, who told us that if Pam was in no visible distress and was breathing easily, we could just keep a close eye on her and not worry about rushing her to the ER.

We let her out of the carrier and she promptly ran away from us, probably because she was worried we were going to start yelling and banging on her ribcage again. Of course, I burst into tears, because I love my little zoo so fiercely, and also because I burst into tears at anything these days (see above re: beached whale. And also, a serious lack of sleep).

So to sum up the first morning of 2011, we haven't made any New Years Resolutions yet. I haven't gotten out of my pajamas or left the house yet. I've been curled up on the couch with a sleepy Pam, trying to make sure she isn't developing aspiration pnuemonia. We were watching the Rose Bowl Parade, but when I fell asleep after one too many descriptions of floats covered in mums and oregano, Joshua took advantage of the situation to start watching back to back episodes of all the Discovery reality shows I cannot stand. The baby can't decide if she would like to stick her butt into the left or right side of my ribcage, so she's trying out both options every half an hour or so. I really dislike putting my feet up (both literally and figuratively) but I'm doing it anyways because the New Year has also brought me a wicked case of the cankles. I think because the huge anticipation of the baby is still looming over us, the New Year is almost anticlimatic. For me, the world starts shaking when the baby decides to make her appearance.

But I do have Pam to thank for getting my heart racing this morning. She's our first baby, the first pet we had together, and I love that silly little cat so much. Seeing her terrified expression when she couldn't breathe was incredibly scary, and of course my mind jumped to all the horrifying potential scenarios that come along with being responsible for a tiny human. I was so proud of Joshua for staying so calm and literally being ready to rush her to the ER in less than a minute. I don't know what 2011 really has in store for us, but if he can start off the year leaping from a dead sleep to save the day like that, I think things are going to be just fine.