...to Neil and Helena, a baby girl, born January 04, 2005, at 4:02 PM in Western Washington...
8 pounds, 6.9 ounces. 20 and a quarter inches long. A head roughly the size of a very large Granny Smith apple, only olive-skin-colored instead of bright green. Born with silvery grey-blue eyes, which the nurses claim will stay pretty much the same, although it's really hard to tell... A full head of deep brown hair, big fat squishy cheeks, and oddly pointed ears.
Bean looks like a little elf-baby. Strikingly like I did when I was a newborn. Only I had much darker eyes. And I wasn't nearly THIS cute.
She's absolutely beautiful.
The contractions started around 4:00 in the morning, and felt like the most horrendous back pain anybody could imagine. Neil and I got to the hospital by six or so, I think, and they hooked me up to a bunch of machines to make sure I still had a blood pressure. I did.
Neil held my hand through the contractions, talking to me about... fuck, I don't even know what... soothing things... Monks with butterflies sitting on their arms... Troublemaking stories from his hometown... Gahd, you have never known anybody so patient and loving.
They gave me an epidural when I'd dilated enough. I refused the drugs they said would make me "woozy," but I figured I may as well take the epidural. I mean, pain, or no pain... REAL tough choice, right? But I got freaked out by the whole procedure, had an anxiety attack, and very nearly blacked out. Funny, that: I wimped out over the tiny little tube going into me, but I felt surprisingly coherent with an eight and a half pound human being coming out of me... Cripes. They had to give me some oxygen (which I'm pretty sure I refused until Neil was holding the suction cup) to bring me back around... I am such a chickenshit.
I went numb from the center of my breasts to the tips of my feet. Neil and I took advantage of my lack of pain (and consequent wailing) to get a quick nap.
...And then I woke up... In pain... the epidural had mysteriously stopped working. They upped the dosage as high as they could, and then gave me another shot, and still, absolutely nothing happened.
Except that the doctor came in, informed me that I was dilated to about a nine, and ought to start pushing...
Giving birth is, not surprisingly, a fairly nasty process. It's gross and it's slimy and it hurts like a bitch. I'm extremely glad I couldn't see most of what was going on. Neil, who deserves medals of several different kinds, was brave enough to keep one eye on my yelping, yowling face, and one on what was going on at the other end. And, bless him, did not pass out. Shit, my brave, brave brother, who is an EMT, pulls screwdrivers out of people's heads for a living; he pulls obese people out of their bathtubs and cleans up brains -- and HE passed out when he saw a woman give birth... I would have passed out too, but I was otherwise occupied. And had my eyes closed, mostly.
They told me the baby had lots and lots of hair. They said they could braid it and help to pull her out. I remember telling them to do that, and feeling awfully pissed off when it turned out they were kidding. It didn't occur to me that that would be sort of fucked up... A lesson to the medical profession: don't tease women in labor.
Bean had gotten the cord wrapped around her neck, AND around her foot. They took her away from me the second she was born, made sure she was breathing, poked her and prodded her, squeezed her all over, counted her toes, and gave her back to me two or three minutes later... Neil held her while the doctor stitched me up (yes, THERE...), and helped me keep pushing to deliver the placenta -- which felt even nastier and grosser than delivering the child, if such a thing could be possible...
And then they handed her to me... And what a WEIRD-looking little creature! She had a bright pink face and these huge blue eyes, and a very fussy look on her face, punctuated by a weird little pink tongue that kept sticking straight out at me. And her little head was all mushed on one side. Apparently, instead of coming out with her nose pointing upwards -- as babies are supposed to do -- or with her nose downwards -- which babies sometimes do, which makes it more painful -- Bean decided to come out SIDEWAYS. Hence the excessive amount of pain. And the half-mushed head.
But oh, those pretty little eyes...
...And then Neil, holding my hand, and all three of us looking at each other in absolute wonder...
My mom told me that you forget the pain afterwards.
I have a vague recollection of being extremely uncomfortable for awhile, but mostly I just remember the wonder of those strange little eyes, and the feeling of being a complete family.
In the postpartum ward, they wrapped her up in blankets like a little burrito.
They told me her head would straighten out and un-mush itself within a couple of days, and that the icky belly-button part would come off in a week, give or take.
And the photographer lady who came to take her picture for the hospital website told me she was the prettiest baby in the hospital. Now, maybe the photographer lady says that to everybody, but I really think she meant it this time. I mean, what the hell could possibly be cuter than a little brownish-pink elf child, with grey-blue eyes, wrapped up like a burrito? There is no way in the world there's ever been a baby as cute -- and as wise, I suspect -- as our child...
Taking care of a baby is hard as hell. I don't have enough arms. Together, Neil and I don't have enough arms. It's an absolute miracle she hasn't squirmed away from one or the other of us by now, and mushed in the other side of her head. Diapers aren't nearly as hard as they sound. Feeding is about a billion times harder than I supposed. And sleeping... well, sleeping is rare... Neil apparently did night patrol last night. And I've been doing day patrol since Bean woke me up (with a fist to my nose) around eleven.
This shit is hard as hell.
It doesn't help greatly that I'm still REALLY sore. I mean, sore EVERYWHERE... Yesterday, I swear, my CHEEKBONES were sore.
But I think we're gonna be okay.
Bean is sleeping at the moment. She's got a flat, squished-out nose, just exactly like mine. She'll be able to balance shot glasses on the bridge of her nose when she's older.
It's hard to imagine anything more peaceful and beautiful than the look on her face right now. Unless it's the look on Neil's face, who is also sleeping.
What a wonderful family.
What a freaking incredible world this is...
In a day or two, I'll try to post a picture...
Love,
~Helena*