Christmas Eve

This is the first time in four years that I'll be spending Christmas Eve with Joshua instead of at work with sick babies and their heartsick families. I've never been that upset about having to work on Christmas - I feel very selfish once I walk into the hospital missing my healthy happy family at home and am smacked in the face gently reminded that here are so many people living out their worst nightmares over the holiday season. But of course I'm thrilled to be able to go to Christmas Eve service at our own church and enjoy a Christmas morning that doesn't start with me in scrubs (it ends with me in scrubs, since I am working tomorrow night, but our sweet healthy girl will be already be off to bed with visions of sugarplums dancing in her head. What are sugarplums? I think we need some).

Joshua and I have talked so much about how we want to create the mystery and excitement of Christmas for Matilda in the upcoming years. This year, I think she is overwhelmed enough by ornaments that are just out of reach, her beautifully illustrated board book of the Christmas story, and the satisfying crunch of brown paper packages tied up with string.

We took that song (and our commitment to not wasting tons of paper) seriously, so here we have Trader Joes bags turned inside out to wrap up our gifts. I think this is exactly what Julie Andrews had in mind, right?

We always sleep in front of the tree on the first night that we put it up. We've been doing this since the first year we were married and it's my favorite silly holiday tradition that Joshua and I created ourselves. We grew up with different family ideas on Santa (him: in moderation, me: in absentia), and we aren't sure how we will present jolly old St Nick to Matilda. I don't know anyone who is particularly scarred in their adult life by either the inclusion or exclusion of Mr Claus in the Christmas magic that their parents weaved for them. But we are most concerned that Matilda realizes that waking up in front of glittery trees and unwrapping gifts are not the only way, and not at all the reason, that we celebrate this holiday. We want her to grow into a generous giver, thankful for her redemption, inspired by the Christ in Christmas.

We are wishing everyone a very very Merry Christmas.

O Holy Night! The stars are brightly shining. 
It is the night of our dear Saviour's birth. 
Long lay the world in sin and error pining
'Til He appear'd and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

Fall on your knees! O hear the angels' voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born;
O night divine, O night, O night Divine.

Matilda Month By Month

I know I'm just a broken record at this point, but honestly, our Matilda Claire becomes more of a little girl every day. Lately there have been quick moments when she falls asleep in the middle of playing, with her arms out at her side in pure baby exhaustion, and I suddenly catch a glimpse of her as the toddler she will be before I know it. And every so often when she curls her body into mine to nurse, especially in the early mornings when she's laying next to me, I realize that her dimply knees and chubby toes now press against different parts of me than the days before.

This baby, with scrawny legs and long spindly fingers, who slept so soundly I was worried she had hearing loss, seems entirely too fragile to be our Matilda.

This baby, still swimming in her zero to three month onesie, hands still clenched in those baby fists, is precious and wee and can't fling herself off the bed or make it across the living room in one graceful barrel roll.

This baby, more alert, with round fleshy knees sticking out beneath her suddenly small tutu, is the beginning of the Matilda I still see today.

This baby, curious and content, wide-eyed and full bellied, still lives here with us.

This sweet round little babe had to graduate to the next size up in tutus, and although you can't tell, wore her onesie unbuttoned for part of this photo shoot because her chunky baby self was literally busting out the seams.

This is my Matilda. And this independent girl is not even as wild as the baby who spent today bouncing and reaching and flailing and army crawling  - yes, she did, there was belly scooting and rocking on all fours and a determined momentum that will coordinate itself soon enough.

These pictures are all unedited, and some are the teensiest bit out of focus. We have some plans of what we will do with the best shots out of our twelve months of photos, and they will be cropped and the lighting will be corrected and it will all be very polished (it will probably not be me doing this, let's get real). But I like these raw photos for the way they capture Matilda as she grows. It's amazing to glance back and see that from the very beginning she has actually looked so much like she still does now. She looks both incredibly different and comfortingly the same as she was the night she was born.

We haven't taken her six month pictures yet. We took most of these towards the end of whatever month she was in, partly because we are disorganized like that, and partly because by the end of the month she is doing all the things that we then remember that month for. She turned five months on July 1, started sitting alone on July 5, and when we took her five month pictures she was sitting alone in almost all of them. Because sitting is what five months was all about.

Also, assisted standing.

Oh, watch out world. Six month pictures this week and then a seven (seven!) month old baby are barreling around the corner.

Those pesky teeth. If five months was about sitting and seven seems like it will be all about crawling, six certainly has been all about the pearly whites so far. Both bottom front teeth broke through at the same time, we had a bit of a reprieve (look how much less crying this post had than this one last week!), and now one of the top teeth is on its way in. Ouch.

See? Foreshadowing.

Father's Day. What Do You Mean, It's Over...

My laptop charger bit the dust (more accurately, our dog bit it. It got caught up in one of Helo's chew toys and he happily chomped the cable right in half), which is why The Blogging halted to an abrupt stop at the beginning of June. This is Joshua's busiest time of the year at work, making his computer unavailable for the casual documentation of our domestic adventures (rude!), and I am pretty lazy when it comes to the ordering of the electronic things. Honestly, the lack of a computer at home was just giving us more time to devote to Words with Friends so we really didn't pull it together to order a new charger until this past week.

I didn't post on Father's Day, which wasn't meant as an affront to Joshua on his first Father's Day or to my dad on his 28th. I worked overnight Saturday, stayed up until late afternoon Sunday trying to make Father's Day great for Joshua, then turned into a weepy mess when the exhaustion caught up with me and my attitude started swinging from nearly hysterical to catatonic and back. Both Mother's and Father's Day were a little shaky for us this year - what can I say? Life was messy and tiring before we became a part of all the extra parental (long-anticipated, well-appreciated) holidays.

Even though I crashed and burned spectacularly on Father's Day, and couldn't pull it together to finish making dinner, let alone type this on my phone, I want everyone to know how proud I am of Joshua. And I also want to celebrate that I've been blessed with a dad who is strong, principled, and yet unafraid to show emotion and sentimentality. I was never spoiled and I am not a 'daddy's girl'. I was expected to face the consequences of my actions, and I certainly couldn't go running to my dad to get out of being disciplined. I wasn't punished mindlessly - I remember sitting on the kitchen counter, talking about what I'd done and why it was wrong and how my actions had disappointed my parents. Then my dad would make us all english muffins at midnight and tell me he loved me despite my bad attitude/lying/sneaking around/everything else I was doing and we'd all go off to bed only to repeat this delightful routine a few days later. I was always told I was loved. Always, even when I hurt my parents deeply, and there were a few years when that was what I did best.

No one parents perfectly, but I'm pretty sure books have been written to teach fathers how to raise their girls the way my dad intuitively parented me. So here's the best Father's Day gift ever - I'd like to say thank you to my dad for being strict. For having high expectations. For grounding me, both in the metaphorical sense and in the no phone privileges sense. Most of all, for just talking. Oh, so much talking - it made me crazy then and there's nothing I appreciate more now.

I hated the fact that my dad was less interested in being my friend during my horrid teenage years and more interested in keeping me on the straight and narrow path. But now my highest hope for Joshua is that Matilda can't stand him the second she hits middle school. Years later, when she can look back and see that his protective actions sprang out of a deep, intense love for her, I hope that she will also be able to say thank you. Thank you for ruining my hormone-addled little teenage life so I would grow up to have character and values.

(I think this is the parenting jackpot, right? Your kids actually telling you that you did it right. However, Dad, I will add that you went a little crazy with the TV censoring when I was little - I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have stunted my moral development to watch Full House.)

Joshua was terrified to have a daughter, but really he already shares the elusive combo of emotional vulnerability and embarrassing toughness as my dad. He made me start sobbing -unexpectedly, messily - when he started singing Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely" to Matilda the night we came home from the hospital. It was the very first song she ever heard (that wasn't the sappy intentional decision it sounds like; we were just too busy making sure she was breathing to ever turn on the TV or radio before that), and now it's their song. Thankfully I didn't have to weep alone in my postpartum haze, Joshua even made himself cry with the sweetness of it all. And oh is Matilda lucky to have a dad that will cry over her, pray over her, and put in the hard work to develop her self worth and self respect.

I know, because I am that lucky myself.

So hopefully this post can partly make up for the fact that Father's Day ended with Joshua making us both dinner while I basically snoozed into a wine glass. And the fact that I only sent quick phone pictures of Matilda to my dad, and we were never able to actually talk on Sunday. I am blessed and my daughter is blessed because we have wonderful fathers.

Happy Father's Day, one week, one day, and one new laptop charger later. I love you guys.

On Memorial Day We Drink Sam Adams

I read a certain blog pretty regularly, written by a mama who is far more poetic and sentimental and glass-not-just-half-full-but-overflowing than I am. She's also a photographer with gorgeous kiddos and a beautiful home. Despite the fact that she is very honest about the (serious) challenges her family faces, sometimes when I read her blog her life looks and sounds so magical that I wouldn't be surprised if tomorrow she posted a picture of a unicorn sleeping on her front lawn.

Every once in a while the sappy yet completely sincere tone of this particular blog irks me. That's really not a criticism (I absolutely love the writing and the photos - and actually I aspire to be more in love with the moment and welcoming of unicorns), it's just a personality difference. Idealistic and romantic are probably not words anyone would use to describe me.

Right?

But we just had one of those weekends that was so perfect and memorable I felt like I was living inside one of her 'life is beautiful' blog posts. It made me want to bust out all of my flowiest adjectives and capture every fleeting moment in both words and photos.



Grinning, glowy little baby...beaming mama.

Matilda is going to be four months tomorrow, and she is just exploding with smiles, babbles, silly expressions and noises. She grabs everything and tries to stuff it in her mouth, she rubs her eyes when she's tired and looks so much like a kid that it makes my heart stop, she adores anything brightly colored, she's intensely curious and most importantly every day she shows off more of her personality. Joshua and I were home together for the whole three day weekend and every day with her was just...glorious (whoop! nice adjective).

If you live in Chicago you know this has been the lamest, chilliest, rainiest spring of all time (I'm not sure that's actually a fact, but I think emotions are really what matter when it comes to weather anyways) and then this weekend torrential storms suddenly gave way to a scorching and sunny Memorial Day. We tucked Matilda deep beneath the sunshade of her stroller and roamed all over the neighborhood, sucking up iced coffee and accidentally burning our shoulders because inevitably every year we are so excited for the summer we forget how quickly pasty turns to lobster in the sun.



It's quick, my pale friends. Quick.

Matilda's pudgy toes and buttery thighs have been bare since summer arrived yesterday morning. I think she has worn at least six outfits in 48 hours, partly because she is a drooly mess these days, and partly because I've been impatiently waiting to put her in sundresses and rompers and then my mind sort of exploded from how cute they all are. She runs her hands over her skin constantly, like she is just as surprised as the rest of us by how soft babies are. I love being able to see her big belly and the wrinkly, stretchy skin on her back and her fluffy cloth diaper booty.



What did we do this weekend? Really nothing extraordinary. We saw friends and family, we got take-out, we drank Sam Adams because Joshua said that was the patriotic thing to do (um...ok),we took Helo to the parking lot a block away that has become our lazy day dog park, we went to church, we pushed Matilda in endless loops around the neighborhood, we made a last minute trip to Jewel for hot dogs last night because I said eating leftover Chinese food for Memorial Day wasn't patriotic (oh yes, two can play this game). We used the last of our baby giftcards to buy Matilda a tragically large, bright, jungle-themed activity seat/exersaucer/jumper thing and the absolute joy on her little face made me heavily regret my aversion to plastic baby crap. Guess who loves plastic baby crap? Oh that's right...babies.



Matilda hollers at that parrot lineup like they have gravely offended her, and it is hilarious. We laugh at her and she just yells louder and then pauses to smile at us, which makes us laugh more. It also makes me realize again what a privilege it is to be a parent. We make so many decisions about what our babies eat, or don't eat, their schedules, or lack thereof, what they wear and see and listen to and that is the raising part of having children. Then there is the pure wonder of just watching a baby grow up and change from a sleepy newborn to a babbly, opionated, parrot-taming little human. It is really no less surprising than if we walked out to the living room one day and a unicorn was standing there all like, hey can I sleep here tonight?

Ok, I've killed it. I've killed the unicorn thing.

This long weekend really was gorgeous. Stormy, sunny, sappy sweet..glass full to overflowing. However, all the idyllic moments in the world cannot spontaneously improve my self-portrait photography skills. Apparently urban parents struggle to quickly focus their hipstamatic camera when they should be paying more attention to their dog and baby blocking the sidewalk.



Oh yes. We are those people. Watch out, Chicago.

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to my beautiful mom Claire!



I love my mom for so many reasons, but my empathy and respect for her have certainly increased now that I have a daughter myself. I think about Matilda growing up and I barely want to let her go to elementary school three blocks away. I know my mom must have felt the same way, but she never stopped me from plunging out into the world. When I came home from the trip where I met Joshua, I wrote her a letter gushing that I was sure he was going to be my husband and slipped it under her bedroom door because I was too scared to say it out loud. She never laughed at me or told me I was being a silly 19 year old - instead, she saved the letter I wrote her and gave it to me after Joshua and I really did get married. When I decided to move to Seattle from Massachusetts a few months after writing that letter, she never said it was too far, never made me feel guilty about the 3000 miles I was putting between us, or told me that the job I was moving for probably wasn't going to work out. It didn't, and I'm sure she wasn't surprised. But I found that out on my own, and that particular life fail was far more of a growing experience for me because of it.

I hope I will be a brave mom to Matilda, and let her go when she needs to go and I want to keep her close for my own selfish reasons. My mom helped me pack my bags to move away from home, she was excited (and probably terrifed, although she didn't show it) when I got engaged, she was supportive when we decided to leave Seattle and move to Chicago almost on a whim. She outlasted me on the dance floor at my wedding, genuinely thrilled to celebrate Joshua and I even though we were barely legal, totally broke, and blissfully stupid. But she supported me through all those things that seemed crazy at the time and have now led to the life I have and love right now. I'm so incredibly thankful for my mom and the way she navigated the tricky passage into parenting adult children. Our relationship is also a deep friendship because of it, and my greatest hope is that I will be able to be the same kind of mother to Matilda - strong, passionate,honest,compassionate - that my mother was to me.

I love you Mom. Happy Mother's Day!

27

It's official.

I'm in my late twenties...and I'm pretty sure I like it.

I woke up to this sweet face...



These were delivered from my in-laws, who always remember yellow flowers are my favorite...



I went out to lunch with Jessica and Rachel here...



We had takeout sushi and thai for dinner, I opened sweet gifts and cards and had a silly night at home after our cranky little miracle went to bed...



Joshua is the best husband ever and got me exactly what I wanted...



And now I'm in bed watching a happy baby stretch and sigh in her sleep...



Writing with my boots on and a overly affectionate cat at my feet...



I'm sure it's obvious that I'm a little obsessed with my $1.99 hipstamatic app, my new favorite birthday present to myself...



It makes everything look dreamier and poignant and far more hip than real life, and I'm into that.

26 basically culminated in all my dreams coming true...



And now that dream is quite literally awake. So hello 27. I think we're gonna get alone fine.

The Longest Birth Story of All Time, The Part with the Birth

I never intended for Matilda's birth story to turn into a two part novel, but I realized after reading through my last post that it's divided exactly the same way on the blog as it is in my mind. Although the shift was definitely not as distinct on that day as it is in hindsight, I now think of my labor with Matilda as separated into the Part Where I Coped Well and the Part Where I Just Got Through It By Screaming A Lot.

I know that my contractions hurt, and I think if I had actually written this story in the few days after Matilda was born, I would be able to more accurately find words to describe them. All I can think of now is everything surrounding the pain: I had to hold on to something or someone; I unconsciously made those low, animalistic groans ("the universal noise of childbirth') during each contraction; my midwife kept telling me not to lock my knees when I was swaying back and forth. But the memory of the contraction sensation has really faded for me. I can see the pain in the twisted, teeth-baring expressions on my face, but I can't really remember what it felt like.



Since I am standing up and Joshua looks peaceful, this picture was definitely taken in the dreamy haze before I started pushing. I made my inane comment about labor not being as bad as I thought it would be immediately after I found out I was almost (almost! this is foreshadowing) ten centimeters and my midwife said I could start to do 'light' pushes. I was riding the adrenaline rush of knowing that pushing could not possibly take as long as everything that had happened up until that point. I distinctly remember thinking I stayed lucid! I never felt like I couldn't do this! I am actually doing this! Everyone says pushing is such a relief! and other giddy thoughts.

Pushing was not a relief.

I know women have described the visceral pain of a child descending through the pelvis in far more articulate, spiritual terms than this but in summary, it totally and completely sucked. Really, words fail me.

Because my body was pushing through every contraction whether or not I helped, the midwives started checking me more often to make sure I was that I was completely dilating to ten centimeters. I don't know how many times they checked, and I have a vague memory of being told to just blow through some contractions. I couldn't find as many positions that were comfortable to push, or not push, as I had when I was just contracting. The nurses changed shifts, the midwives were suddenly both there to stay, and the room was louder, brighter, and busier than it had been when just Joshua and Jessica were supporting me through labor. For the first time all day, I started to feel bad - annoyed, distracted, tired, dehydrated.

Within an hour, the part of my cervix which hadn't fully dilated and moved out of the way of the baby's head started to get swollen. Since too much swelling could block her head from descending, the midwives really wanted to get that cervical 'lip' out of the way. This the part of Matilda's birth story where I start to get foggy on the chronological details - at some point, the midwife used her hands to manually push the lip of cervix around Matilda's head, at another point she broke my water (we had two midwives and the less experienced one did this - oh my god, if I am ever in this circumstance again and find myself repeatedly stabbed in my unmedicated lady bits with a sharp hook by someone who doesn't seem entirely sure of where to stab...I may just do it myself. The look on Joshua's face was horrific), there was a lot of flipping me from my hands and knees to my back, I was constantly asking if the baby was ok and was always reassured that she was fine.



It was...hellish. I really don't know how long it took for that small part of cervix to dissipate, but every contraction and push was absolutely agonizing. I had my eyes shut so often during this part of my labor that I have almost no memories of anything but the pain. At one point, I was hanging off the head of the bed, the midwife was stretching my cervix away from the baby's head, and the only insane thought running through my head was how I could be somewhere or someone else. I started having surreal swings between thinking rationally (you have to push through this, it's too late for pain meds anyways, if you want to avoid a C-section she needs to get your cervix out of the way) and totally irrationally (maybe I'll just go home instead of having the baby). Even though the room was full of people encouraging me, I have never felt so desperate and removed in my entire life.

At some point the cervical lip finally moved out of the way of Matilda's head. Given the excruciating experience of getting past it, you might think I would remember the moment the midwife told me it was gone and I could just push. I don't. There are actually whole chunks of time that have just disappeared in my mind. I remember crying into my blanket because it smelled like home and I so badly wanted to be out of pain and in a comfortable place. My next distinct memory is laying on my back holding my legs up to push and everything starting to seem too bright. I looked at the clock and it was nine, I pushed a lot and as I so eloquently mentioned, it sucked a lot, and then it was ten. And then eleven.



I think my face really says it all.

I was so exhausted that in between contractions I literally fell completely asleep. I would wake up when I felt a contraction start and I would just croak out, "Now" and try to get as many pushes out of it as I could. Usually three, sometimes four, always ending in this horrible, uncontrollable yell. The room was almost silent when I was passed out between contractions, and then I would start to push and everyone would cheer and hooray and tell me how much more of her head they could see. Someone brought in a huge mirror and I would sometimes remember to look at the progress I was making. It didn't even occur to me until afterwards that we never counted during pushing - my urge to push was so overwhelming that I really had no choice about how long I could do it for.

It sounds strange, but for almost the entire time I was pushing, nothing was farther from my mind than the thought of the baby actually being born. During my early labor at home, and actually up until the late afternoon, I was intensely excited to meet our daughter. Then my baby-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel mentality was completely swept up in the pain of the cervical lip and pushing debacle, and it wasn't until her head and shoulders completely slipped under my pubic bone that I snapped back into the moment and realized she was coming out. She had been moving reassuringly throughout my entire labor, but I suddenly felt her whole body for the first time - completely different from a roll or a kick, just a long swift movement that left my upper abdomen empty and soft.

There was more pushing, my legs started cramping, and then her head was just there. There were more people in the room getting everything ready for the baby's arrival, and I suddenly had a huge rush of adrenaline. I definitely wasn't falling asleep, because there wasn't really an in-between-contractions anymore. Everyone was talking excitedly about the blizzard that was peaking in intensity outside the window - no one was going to be able to leave the hospital that night. The midwives were pouring olive oil over the baby's head and putting counter-pressure on my skin as I pushed. Although crowning was the only part of labor that felt exactly like how I had always heard it described - fire - I didn't anticipate her crowning through so many pushes. The midwives kept saying, just one more! One more push! and then I would do five more. I've heard some people describe giving birth as feeling like they are splitting down the middle. I felt more like a bomb that could explode all over the room. I was terrified to actually push her out because it didn't seem possible that my body could stretch one millimeter farther. My midwife was incredibly encouraging - she just said, "This is horrible. This is the part where you just scream. It's the worst part, and it's unbelievable pressure, and you don't have to hold it in, just scream."

So I screamed.

And then, shockingly, in the midst of all the pressure and fire and olive oil and screaming and the frenzy of snow outside the windows, Matilda was just out. There was literally no more pain, just the feel of her warm sticky skin and her little bones sinking into my deflated belly.



This is the very first picture that was ever taken of Matilda, and she is approximately 2 seconds old - thank you again, Jessica. She was born with the cord around her neck, quite stunned, and very blue. The nurses whisked her off to the warmer (I helped by pushing her at them and yelping, "Take her! Take her!", as every NICU nurse out there will understand) and Matilda was hollering within seconds. It happened so fast that I never felt even a twinge of the panic I would have expected when my baby was born blue and not breathing.

I didn't get to see her face until they brought her back to me pink and screaming and wrapped in a blanket and a little cap. And while words fail me to describe the pain of labor, they cannot even touch the emotions of holding Matilda for the first time. This baby, with her big feet and puffy lips and long fingers, was the child we prayed for and loved when she was just a second pink line on a cheap pregnancy test.



Her birth was without a doubt, the most joyful experience of my life. The pain that proceeded her arrival really only heightened the exuberance that I felt afterwards. It sounds absolutely crazy, but I found myself saying less than 24 hours later that I would do it all again. I meant it then, although I was probably riding an endorphin high and sounded a little psychotic, and I mean it now with all the benefits that hindsight brings. Yes, the pain of natural childbirth is horrible (perhaps you feel like getting an epidural after just reading this?) and yet I am actually looking forward to experiencing it again someday - not that soon, I'm not completely insane. I do cherish the fact that I was able to feel everything, all the tiny, excruciating movements that brought her out into the world. And I appreciate every opportunity that it gave me to rely on Joshua during the most physically and emotionally draining hours of my life. Since getting pregnant was a struggle and made me feel like a failure so many times, giving birth to Matilda was an incredibly redeeming experience.



This is obviously, the worst picture of me that has ever happened, and if it wasn't the first picture of the three of us together I definitely would not be sharing it here with the world. Four and a half hours of pushing left me wrecked - my face was hugely puffy, my eyelids were swollen halfway shut and I had huge burst blood vessels in both eyes. Let's be serious, I looked like my six chins and I had lost a bar fight.



It was also, obviously, worth it.



This is the last picture of Matilda and I in labor and delivery. I'm getting wheeled up to the postpartum floor where we spent a quiet, sleepy, snowed-in two days with Jessica and the other wonderful nurses on her floor who are really more our friends than anything else. This is where Matilda's birth story ends and becomes just her story, the sweet unfolding of her life that Joshua and I are privileged to be responsible for right now.

It may have taken me eight weeks to finish this and it may be more of a short novel than a blog post, (and it is possible that no one will ever make it to the end and I would completely understand!) but I hope Matilda will appreciate it when she's older. I know I absolutely cherish having all this down here to remember myself.

One more picture of our baby girl...



"What a wonder it is - this miracle of birth that happens
Every day and every hour!
Only the unusual strikes us more.
God is always doing wonders."
George MacDonald

The Longest Birth Story Of All Time, Part One

Now that our sweet blizzard baby is a smiling, cooing 8 week old whose 0-3 month clothes are already packed away in storage...it's probably time to document her birth story, yes? Yes.

I had to laugh when I re-read this post because after writing a long-winded and self-pitying rant about still being pregnant, I promptly stood up from the computer and went into labor. On my due date.

Labor was in some ways exactly what I expected and in other ways, an entirely different experience than what I had imagined. I had my first contraction the minute Joshua came home from an exceptionally long work day at 10:30pm, covered in snow and looking slightly stunned to find me hunched over the counter. I did not say hello and instead just blurted out, "IjusthadmyfirstpainfulcontractionandIthinkI'minlabor". I think at the time, Joshua said something sweet like "that's great!", and then we had a relatively mundane conversation about how his day went (good) and how mine went (self-pitying, see above) and whether or not we should plan on keeping our reservation at a hotel close to the hospital the next night (there was an epic blizzard on the way, and I was terrified of giving birth in a snowdrift). But for some reason, in the past few weeks, the memory of him walking in the door that night has become intensely meaningful to me. It feels like the counterpart moment to when I blew off yet another 'negative' pregnancy test, only to hear Joshua calling from the bathroom, "Um...I can see a second line?" It would have been just as real if I had taken the positive test alone (but thanks for letting me know Joshua!), or if I had gone into labor when he wasn't around, but for me those crisp memories of the two of us, realizing something life-changing together, define the beginning and end of our pregnancy. Everything before that crazy morning last May was just us hoping to get pregnant, and everything after that snowy minute in the kitchen is the story of Matilda. The in-between, the 40 week rush of growing our daughter, ends in my memory when Joshua walked in that door.

My contractions started coming faster, stronger, harder, longer overnight. Joshua slept for a few hours, and I tried as well but gave up when the contractions sent me repeatedly lumbering out of bed. I did all the cliched labor things - took a shower, bounced on the birth ball, paced our halls to make sure this was real labor - and some of the lesser known early labor activities, like obsessively painting my nails, watching all the episodes of How I Met Your Mother left on my DVR, and tracking the snowstorm that was threatening to force me into an unwanted home birth. It was the quietest and only solitary part of my labor, overnight by myself, and I didn't do all the frantic and excited texting I thought I would. I actually didn't do all the thinking I thought I would. I'm a person who usually needs other people in painful and emotional situations, and because I literally have a career due to all the things that can go wrong in pregnancy and birth, I assumed I would need constant reassurance during labor. Instead I felt oddly serene, sitting alone on my birth ball in the dark, feeling the baby move and kick after every contraction. (I could have turned on some Enya and really embraced the primal experience of labor, but that is seriously not my style so I chose to share these intimate moments with Neil Patrick Harris and Alyson Hannigan instead. I do not regret The Funny over The Granola).

I woke Joshua up for good around 5am when my contractions were close to 5 minutes apart and almost a minute long. We knew our midwives would want us to stay at home as long as possible so we waited until 6am to call (I feel like this birth story is exceptionally long and so possibly you are thinking, I have been reading this for 20 minutes and she has not even called the hospital yet? Brace yourselves). The midwife on call listened to me describe how I felt and then said sweetly, "Well, I do think you're in labor. And your contractions don't really need to come any more frequently, but I'd like them to be a little longer, and just call back when you can't walk or talk through them, ok?"

Ok. I kept bouncing on the ball, walking up and down the stairs, and finished packing my bags. I ate. As soon as it was light out and the blizzard forecast started looking absolutely deadly, I sort of snapped out of my nighttime fog and decided I wanted company. My best friend Jessica, who was going to drive me to a non-stress test appointment that morning, came over to help us get ready and pass the time until my contractions got stronger.


At 9am, a different midwife (my favorite) told me (again,sweetly) to stay home until I lost my appetite. At 10am, with my contractions 4 minutes apart, at least a minute long, unable to walk and talk during them, and no desire to eat anymore, she said she would meet me at the hospital in an hour. In the meantime, Jessica had grabbed our camera and started taking pictures of Joshua letting me hang off his neck helping me through a contraction. I will pause this story to say that the pictures we have of our labor are something I treasure more than words can express. I never really expected to have any photographs of this particular life experience, and now I am overwhelmingly grateful for every gorgeous, intimate image. Thank you, Jessica (and Joshua, who is also an excellent photographer and later in the day, captured the fact that Jessica also let me hang off her).



It's hard to describe the jumble of emotions I felt as we left for the hospital. I was so thankful that Jessica was coming with us, slightly terrified for the drive because I hadn't managed to stay sitting during a contraction once, and unexpectedly weepy. As I was walking out the door I noticed our confused pup Helo sitting alone in the middle of the kitchen and I felt one brief moment of sadness for him and for the simple, almost responsibilty-free life we were leaving behind. Sappy? I know. I blame the hormones and the pelvis-rattling pain I was experiencing.

To be honest, the slow drive through the snow to the hospital while I jumped off the seat during every contraction was truly sucky. But we made it almost without incident. I say almost because Jessica was literally almost killed by a truck during a car-switching maneuver in the snow, but thank God, I remained the only person who ended up hospitalized that day.



Once we got into our delivery room and let our families know we were at the hospital, the midwife checked me and announced I was 4cm dilated. I remember being so happy that I was making decent progress, and also shocked at how uncomfortable I was laboring on my back in bed. As soon as I stood back up and started pacing, leaning over the bed, the counters, the birth ball, whatever I could find during a contraction, it felt like all of us - me, Joshua, Jessica, and our midwife - slid into the hazy experience of hard labor together. I'm sure the afternoon passed much differently for them than for me, but I never felt like I was doing anything alone.





This long stretch of afternoon was the most enjoyable part of my labor. One of our midwives left to see patients at their office, and the other drifted in and out of the room frequently to check on me and put pressure on my back when I needed it. Our nurse came in every hour to check the baby's heartbeat, and other than that we were left to ourselves. I wish I had other words to describe it besides all the natural birth 'catchphrases', but it truly was a primal, instinctual experience. When I had a contraction, I just did whatever I felt like I was supposed to do. The awful, guttural birth moan. Squeezing the hands of whoever was unlucky enough to be sitting right in front of me. Swayed, bounced in the water, rearranged all the pillows and blankets to support me in whatever position seemed marginally more comfortable. I have strange sensory memories of the afternoon - when I was in the tub during contractions I wanted to rest my chin on Joshua or Jessica's palms because the cold tile bothered me. For the first half of the afternoon I remember laughing and talking with everyone, and during contractions I would drift around in my mind. I kept saying that it felt like a dream.



I also said it looked like a Vegas strip club when I came out of the tub to find that our thoughtful midwife had turned on the heat lamps above the bed.



I have no memories of actually looking out the window at the snowstorm, but I remember feeling less talkative as the day went on and the room slowly get darker and quieter. My water stayed intact while I progressed from 4cm to 6cm to 8cm by 6pm. I started to run out of new positions to labor in, and instead of reaching out for whoever was closest, I wanted Joshua to be the one with me as much as possible. I ended up figuring out that I was most comfortable just sitting on the toilet. The bathroom was just a tiny rectangle and there was only room for Joshua to hunch over on a small chair facing me. Everyone else had to stand in the doorway to talk to me and I remember feeling like he was protecting me in my small, questionably hygienic safe place. My contractions really weren't getting any more painful, but I felt myself switching from talking between them to resting and even sleeping when I wasn't feeling any pain. I got a sudden burst of energy around 7pm and along with it I had the sudden realization that I was pushing during a contraction.

The midwife checked me and I was 9.5cm dilated. After I was standing back up and had recovered from the excruciating pain of lying down during a contraction, during a cervical check,(honestly, I do not know how people labor in bed)I actually said to the midwife, "This really isn't as bad as I thought I would be." And let me just say, whether you are laboring without pain meds or not, that is a really stupid thing to throw out there. I mean, I'm a nurse. We never say things like, "It's going to be a slow night!" or "My patient hasn't coded in a week!" because that means you will be pushing the code button within 15 minutes. My midwife, who obviously has the benefit of giving birth herself, not to mention the experience of catching hundreds of babies, said something noncommittal like, "Hmmm!" or "Oh really?" And I was feeling all proud and I-am-woman-ish, and within 5 minutes ohmygod it was not as bad as I thought it would be, it was much worse.

The worst is obviously followed by the best:



Spoiler alert! There will eventually be a birth at the end of this remarkably way too long story, but that is going to be described (at length, obviously I am not big on condensing) in Part Two.

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.

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.

Grateful

Thanksgiving has passed but before it's too far behind us I really wanted to take some time to mention what Joshua and I are so thankful for this year...

- The gift of each other. We are so blessed to have celebrated FIVE years of marriage this past May. I'm thankful every day that we met when we were so young and that we've been able to grow up together without growing apart. At our (granola crunch style) childbirth classes this past weekend, we were asked to share the story of how we met and fell in love. This was an unexpected detour in between graphic homebirth videos, and we were surprised by how much fun it was to talk about our wild little teenage romance. We've come so far from those first crazy months of long-distance phone calls, cross country plane trips, 2000 mile roadtrips and lugging our physical and emotional baggage all across America. Our life now might not seem as spontaneous and passionate as it did when we were 19 and 20 and writing (bad) poetry and running off to Chicago together, but it is so much richer and deeper and more fulfilling than I could have ever expected back then. Every day that we have together is a gift and I never want to lose sight of that!

-The gift of our baby. Joshua and I weren't one of those couples who have a few extra drinks, tumble home and fastforward a few weeks to a totally shocking positive pregnancy test. A baby was prayed for and planned for (and cried over, let's be serious) before this baby became a reality. It's hard to put into words how grateful we are that after that struggle, I've had an incredibly uneventful and healthy pregnancy and we are only 9 weeks away from welcoming our daughter into the world. I wake up every day thankful for her jabs and rolls and karate kicks, all of which take my breath away. Sometimes because a swift punch to the ribs hurts like hell, but always because it means she is real, and we are incredibly grateful for the intense experience and privilege of becoming parents.

-The gift of our jobs. We both love what we do. Not every day is a great day at the office or the hospital, and sometimes when things at work are stressful we forget to be thankful for our careers. (Last night when my patient's ostomy bag came off twice and she was screaming bloody murder, and my other patient decided to start hollering at that moment for a bottle, I would not say that I was particularly happy about my choice of poop-covered workplace). But when we step back and look at the people we work with, the experiences we get to have, and the fact that we do totally different things that are perfectly fitted to our personalities, we know we are blessed. We have job security, we have benefits, we have so many opportunities to be challenged by our work and make a difference in the lives of people around us.

-The gift of our families. We both have intact, supportive, loving and slightly crazy families who have been there for us every step of our lives. We're thankful for that every day, and especially at the holidays. This fall my cousin Cari moved from Massachusetts to live with us in Chicago (she sweetly shares her room here with our emotionally disturbed cat Hala, who would like to say that for Thanksgiving she is grateful we got her an extra human). Cari is hilarious and incredibly thoughtful and helpful and even sobbed at my last midwife's appointment when she heard the baby's heartbeat. Which of course made me cry because I can't overexaggerate how happy I am to have someone from my side of the family here after the six years I've spent 1000 miles away from everyone I grew up with. It's been one of the best seasons of my life so far.

The gift of our friends. We have great friendships that we've built over our almost six years in Chicago. Some of our friends here are actually my elementary school friends from Massachusetts that have migrated here over the years (yes I take lots of credit for this). Some of our friends are Joshua's college friends from the year when he lived in Colorado. Some of our friends are our college friends from here in the city. Some are our work friends, some have slipped in through roommates and friends and family of other friends, and all I can say is that they are all wonderful and our lives are so much better for knowing them. Joshua looked around the room at our baby shower last weekend and said to me, "I really really love everyone here." And we do.

-The gift of our home. We can say for certain that after almost a month of living in our condo (pictures are COMING SOON, I promise!) that this is exactly where we are supposed to be. It's both cozy and spacious, easy to keep clean, perfect for us and our animals and getting closer to being ready for baby girl. We have already made lots of wonderful memories here and I know there will be so many many more.

There are a hundred more things I could say (I'm thankful for my zoo! Joshua made me dinner tonight and just did the dishes! My fancy dream stroller is being delivered this week! I don't have any stretch marks yet! My mom is coming into town this weekend and I'm finally going to decorate for Christmas!) but I think the most important thing is to continue living our everyday lives thankful for all that we have been given. I know there will be years where things are much more difficult and don't fall into place as beautifully as they have in 2010. There will be times when we struggle in our marriage and struggle as parents and and as friends and just in general don't wake up as excited about life as we do these days.

So that's what this list is for - to look at on the crappy days when the baby is screaming and the cat throws up on the rug and the dog is chewing happily away on Joshua's favorite hat and the fridge is empty and I have the flu. We have been blessed with so much, and we are so thankful for it.