Jumping right in

I keep thinking I need to do things in order. I haven’t shown you the pictures of her room yet, how can I talk about the shower? And if we haven’t talked about the shower how can I talk about her birth? And then when I try to talk about her birth I get swallowed up by my inability to articulate the moment. Meanwhile, I have other things* to talk about, so I need to just jump in here, and catch up later.

*By other things, I of course mean pressing things like the vomit on my shirt, or moaning about going back to work.

I want to talk more about her birth when I feel like I have better words for it, because I realize as time passes that I am just starting to understand how I felt. When it happened, when she actually came out and I was watching them clean her off, I didn’t feel anything. I was watching myself watch her. And then, when they put her in my arms I felt the most stomach dropping fear course through my body, and I didn’t understand why. Now I understand that when she first came out, all of my senses shut down because the act of seeing her was so powerful I couldn’t have taken anymore information. I literally only saw her. I didn’t hear anyone, or think anything, or feel anything – my whole being saw her being. And the fear was just that my thought in that moment was – I can’t accept this. It is too great of a gift, too huge of a sacrifice. I would say that is the one thing I have struggled with in the past six weeks, accepting the grace that was given to me. In the chaos of the room after she was born – it was divided in two, half of the staff working on babymama and half with B & I weighing her, I met the babymama’s eyes over everyone else and mouthed thank you. And she said, you’re welcome. And then sound came back. Later, I will share more. For now that is all I can articulate.

That first week . . . oy vey. There is no way to prepare for that. It was BRUTAL. A mix of adrenaline and fear and sleeplessness and doubt and awe. With just a tish of “oh, fuck”.

I am getting my sea legs, though. She knows me. She smiles at me. When they first put her in my arms I told her that it was going to be ok, and it is ok. My first promise, fulfilled.

We call her Chuck Norris, because when she gets mad, cities will burn. We call her Nona, because it’s cute. I call her Morning Bird when I wake her up, and Mama’s Girl most of the day.

Every plan you have is immediately reworked. You can’t know the plan without the baby. She hates the bassinet, so she sleeps in a co-sleeper for now. I wasn’t going to watch TV when I fed her (!) and a good friend told me how stupid that was, that “a well stocked DVR is the cornerstone to new motherhood” and oh, she was right.

I have vomit on my shirt and poop on my pants and I don’t really know what day it is, but I am doing this thing. And I mad in love, you guys. Like fluttery stomach, smelling her head, rocking her even when I don’t have to kind of love.

Oh, and I have to go to work on Monday and my boss demoted me while I was gone and took away my corner office and gave me a crappy non-desk desk. Isn’t that like, illegal and stuff?

Furthermore, Igby has a spinal injury and is paralyzed from the waist down. I’ve been devastated, and also it feels like I had twins because he needs carried every where and taken to the bathroom.

There! I broke the seal. Now I can go back to regularly scheduled blogging. I wish I had pictures to leave you with, but I am having major computer / camera issues. Pictures to come!