It is June 24th... this means that I gave birth to
my daughter, London June Ray, exactly one month ago today. How can this be? Everywhere we go, we get stopped by strangers, they look at her with sentimental eyes and they all seem to say the same thing... "they grow so fast" or "don't blink" and "enjoy every second", and with every little passing moment I am acutely aware of this acceleration of of time... and it actually causes me a pain in my chest, a physical anxiety, a panic almost and I beg my beloved Londy Loo to
please... Grow slow.
We stare at each other most of the day. And when she is asleep I stare at pictures of her, I've got nearly a thousand of them, documenting every last facial expression, cute outfit and tender moment. Yes, she even has her own instagram account dedicated to "a little bit of London everyday". I'm infatuated, deeply, and it's a bit ridiculous how much I love to just look at her, study her features, kiss her cheeks over and over, and hold her as tight as I can with out completely squishing her delicate newborn frame. I cry a lot, like the day she turned a whopping week old, or when her yucky little remnant of her umbilical chord fell off to reveal the perfect belly button, or when I saw real tears stream down her tiny face a few days ago. While hormones and exhaustion are likely the culprit, they can't take all the blame... real love such as this is intense.
As Ron Burgandy so poignantly and dramatically exclaimed, "I feel like I'm in a glass case of emotion!!" I am happy, I am sad, I am worried, there is constant ache, a vulnerability and a confusing melancholic joy that I can't even describe. I suppose this is why it has taken me so long to write about it, which I was certain that I would do nearly the second I came home from the hospital. I wanted to get it all down, while it was fresh and new and powerful. But... I just haven't been able to find those words to articulate this kind of love, I still can't, and I couldn't find the desire to sit in front of a computer when I could be sitting in front of my beauty of a baby, and nor has she allowed me much time to do so. She is not one of those babies that snoozes the day away in a swing or a swaddle, nope not my girl. She is bright eyed, always looking up at me, melting my heart and demanding my attention when distracted by the buzz of a text message, requiring me to rise before the sun and stay awake with her till almost noon, She was quite literally born ready to give this life a real go. Even the lactation consultant who came to my rescue in the depths of my woes of nursing (so hard, a blog post unto itself) held my squiggly wiggly and alert newborn up to take a good look at her, and said to me "wow, this is a wild person!". Eventually I might likely grow weary, but for now I am so happy to just be right here with her, right now, taking in every bit of her sweet wild spirit. I'm not getting much done, but who cares, I've spent the last decade of my life "getting things done" and being a hyper-multi-tasker, overly ambitious and constantly stressed about "doing it all". However, a funny thing has happened to me, while I still care deeply about my music, my "projects" and being a girl with glasses, right now I am quite consumed with the desire to do one thing really really well, and that is to be London's mom.
That morning I went to the hospital to be induced one week shy of my due date, I was abnormally calm, as a cucumber. Now I realize I was just completely oblivious of what was to come, and thankfully so. Perhaps my subconscious was protecting me, blocking out all fear, because I expected no pain. Sounds silly I know, I was about to push a person through "down there", and with my one and only plan for an epidural in place , I anticipated to not feel a darn thing. However this was not my fate. From the I.V. to the anesthesia, to the epidural, to the catheter to the main event... I felt a lot. Unfortunately the right side of my body seemed to have complete disregard for the epidural, I could wiggle my right toes, do leg lifts, I pinched my thigh only to let out an "ouch"! My left side however was dead to the world, and if I had to push a baby out of my left big toe I would've been good to go, however we all know that the left toe is not the location of a babies entrance to the world. While my contractions were rather dull, the necessary region was still fully aware of every painful sensation. This was not good news, and that calm feeling was abruptly replaced with panic. I informed the nurse several times that "I think I need more". I'll be the first to admit, I am scared person, I am fearful, particularly of pain. Through out the day the nurses and doctor would ask me "on a scale of 1-10, how is your pain?" It wasn't till the end of the experience that I'd gotten an educated sense of that pain scale. Basically I learned that my tolerance for physical pain was, low. Dave, calm and strong as he always is, held my hand while my body shook and sweat ruined the make-up that I had put on that morning in hopes that I would look decent in photos. Looking back at the pictures, that attempt was unsuccessful...
My mom and dad walked into the room after driving in from AZ, along with my sister who had surprised me with her unexpected presence. Seeing them suddenly made me feel like a little kid lying in a big scary hospital bed and I cried... cause I was so happy to see them, cause I wanted my mom, because I was scared, because of the drugs, because I was in pain, because in a few short hours I was going to finally meet my very own first child. My little sister who gave birth a year before me took my hair and tied it up in a knot on top of my head to keep it out of my face, she assured me I could do this. Within a few short hours I had made significant progress, my wonderful nurse Joy went on her lunch break and assured me that by the time she returned, I would be having a baby. The anesthesiologist returned to give me a pep talk a one final boost of the epidural, and my right side began to feel dull in the nick of time. My doctor came in, assessed the situation and announced it was time to push. I had been listening to John Mayer's record "Born and Raised" through out the day to sooth my nerves and take my mind off the pain and anxiety of labor. Those songs will always remind me of the day London was born...
I looked at the clock, it was just ten minutes past six pm. It was go time, I tried to calm my shaking body with the deep breathing techniques I had learned in my pre-natal yoga class. I wanted to be brave, I said a million little prayers under my breath "please heavenly father, please help me do this". I begged Dave to not "look", to stay up above with me, but he couldn't help himself and wanted to be a witness. He was amazing. I was relieved after my first push to feel pressure instead of pain... though the pressure was intense it was bearable to my worn out body. My tricky doctor would distract me in between pushes by asking me about how Dave and I met nearly nine years before at the Thanksgiving dance in Mesa. I would get to a certain part of the story and suddenly feel the strong urge to push. It was hard physical work. My dad waited just outside of the curtain to be saved from the visual of the birth, but I could hear him cheering me on from the other side. My mom and sister stood at my side wiping my forehead and taking photos that would document the most important experience of my almost twenty nine years of life. We never made it to the end of the story, and those final pushes I squeezed Dave's hand with all I had left, the doctor exclaimed "she has hair!" I was over the moon with just the thought of her little head of hair and I started to cry, I could hardly wait to see her, and with one motivated last push and she was out by 6:41pm, it was so quick and yet played out in slow motion, she didn't even cry, as they immediately placed her beautiful little body on my chest.
She was still covered in Goop, I didn't care, I felt like a momma lion with the instinct to nearly lick her new cub clean, but I held her close to my body and kissed her head over and over and told her "Im your mom! I'm your mom!" I cried, I laughed, I was so high. Never felt so euphoric in my life, all the pain, the pressure, the fear, didn't matter. Now I've gotten to do some pretty cool things in my life, had some pretty special moments, but none of them could compare to this one. Dave cut the chord, we huddled together, a little family. The love... the love.
They took her, they cleaned her and weighed her. Just as my ultrasound suspected, I had a big healthy baby, 8 lbs 12 ounces, 20 inches of perfection. My family all took their turns to hold her. Watching them hold her I kept thinking "that is my baby". I couldn't wait to hold her again. As well I become intensely aware of how thirsty and hungry I was, little did I know I would not be allowed to eat nor drink during labor. Finally they brought me a fruit juice concoction that was the most delicious thing I had ever tasted and I chugged it faster then I should, only for it to come right back up. The room became quiet as my family went back to our home to sleep, the doctor left us for the night and it was us and our London. The responsibility for her life weighed heavily upon us. It was nearly impossible to sleep that night. Having never felt so exhausted I could hardly close my eyes. We watched her like a hawk, the tiny rise and fall of her chest. Picking her up at the slightest cry. Attempting several times to nurse her, it hurt. The epidural wore off and the pain of labor settled in. My body felt like a wasteland and yet I felt like I was floating on a cloud.
The last four weeks have been nothing short of the most euphoric, challenging, exhausting, painful, happy, heavy, lonely, overwhelmingly joyful time of our existence. The spectrum of emotion is vast and extreme. It's amazing what a body can do in just over nine months, and though it might not ever be what it once was, is healing and changing almost daily and I am grateful for the miracle it produced. Nursing has been harder then I hoped, hurts like heck and yet is truly heavenly in those moments when it is working, it's getting better everyday. Dave Ray CPA, I've never loved and appreciated him more. He told me before she was born "I'm gonna be a good dad, I think it's going to be what I'm good at"... but he's way better then good, he's amazing. Turns out he's a full on baby whisperer. It's remarkable to see this sports loving, hockey playing, accountant turn into a swaddling, diaper changing, lullaby singing super dad. The day he had to go back to work I fell apart. Parenting is a team sport...
There is so much more, but this is certainly long enough, and It's nearly midnight, I will with out question be awoken by the cry of a hungry lil' baby with a poopy diaper in less then two hours, and that nap I was going to take today never happened, so I'm going to stop here... for now:)
