It's a Girl!

It's taken me a while to post this, but most anyone who is reading already knows ... I had a baby! Shocking, isn't it? Well it was for me! I mean, as much time and energy and money and emotional whatever-itude you put into planning for a new addition for ten whole months (more if you were scheming for it even before), when that new addition actually gets deposited on your chest covered in a warm blanket (and goo you'd cross the street to avoid under normal circumstances), it's shocking.

Anyway, I'll go backward since you already know the punchline, as it were.

This is Katherine Hall Bosche.

She was born June 16, 2010, at 11:39 a.m. via scheduled induction ... and epidural ... and an epidural booster ... and forceps. The use of forceps was minimal this time, I'm told, and only because my pelvis is weirdly shaped and not conducive to birthin' babies. So I guess I did the best I could do. Steven was impressed, which was satisfying in some vaguely validating way that probably says bad things about my need for approval.

Arriving at the hospital at 6 a.m. for induction was a muffled sort of terrifying. Muffled because who can muster real terror that early? I do know that I spent the three-minute drive to the hospital in a state of silent panic.

Steven was wonderful and the nurses were young and sweet and nonthreatening and my doctor was calm and capable (if a very big fan of himself). The pain was worse than I remembered, but I did manage to labor to 8 centimeters before requesting the blessed needle in the back. In the meantime, having Alex and his grandmothers in the room was enough to keep me from making too big a deal about the pain (I didn't want to traumatize the boy).



Katherine was "tricky," they kept telling me. Her heart tones were perfect when nothing was happening, but when I pushed they'd go way down. Enough to worry my doctor and have them weighing the choice between forceps and a C-section. In the end they let me "labor down" for an hour to see if her head would come down to within forceps-grasping range. And I don't remember much about that hour except that it hurt and I worried. And when my doctor came back and the grandmothers left with Alex and pushing resumed, there followed the most intense experience of my life. Here I'll spare the details.

When she was out they immediately placed her on me, and on top of us both an almost-hot blanket, and I held her, chest to chest, and I couldn't see her face but Steven said she looked like me. And with the room still buzzing from the whirlwind of labor and delivery and me still trying to catch my breath and Steven still texting the moms to update them, the child at the center of all this activity and excitement fell asleep. It was all pretty incredible.



She is for all intents and purposes a dream baby, and we're still waiting for her to prove she's just been lulling us into a state of complacency so she can stage her coup, overthrow us, and rule the household with piercing wails and chronic dissatisfaction. (Oh, newborn Alex...)

But really. She amazes us.

She sleeps. Like, a lot. During the day we look forward to her two or three periods of alertness, when the three of us cluster around and admire her rarely glimpsed newborn-blue eyes as she blinks up at us in alien-esque slow motion.



She stretches. She scrunches her little body up, rear end stuck out and tiny feet crossed to mold herself into a little ball of irresistibility.

She makes funny faces. She has an entire repertoire of expressions already, most of which flutter over her features repeatedly while she sleeps, reminding us in rapid succession of Alex, of Steven, of me ... occasionally of someone we're not even knowingly related to.

She loves her big brother. His voice can stop her (granted, infrequent) bouts of crying in their tracks. She turns her head toward the sound of his voice and, when we let him hold her, she's happy as a clam and he is proud and adorable. I think her first two days home I did nothing but take pictures of the two of them together. He calls her "My best Katherine" and thanks me for having the best baby ever.



OK, so it's not all roses. Alex is adjusting in his own way, which entails little overreactions and uncharacteristic responses to things. Like when the turkey and cheese fell out of his sandwich and he exclaimed heartbrokenly, "Oh no, now it's just bread!!!" He's suffering more than his fair share of minor injuries, most of which are suspect, and he's not sleeping well. Worst for me is that he seems excessively eager to please, as if he's trying to ensure his good standing.

And he broke his damn Nintendo DS, a birthday gift that was doing double-duty as a you're-a-big-kid-now special rite-of-passage reward.

We're doing well. Settling into the new routine that won't really be a routine for another couple of years because with a baby predictability is hard to come by and with a toddler it's impossible. I'm trying to get out more than I did when Alex was tiny because I think we both suffered for my not doing so and I don't want to make that mistake again. Yesterday I braved Babies R Us and Old Navy, plus took her to a friend's house, and all were successful ventures that did not leave me in tears.

Her umbilical stump came off last night. She's growing up already.

My Only

Tomorrow at 6 a.m. I go in for induction (if that ends up being necessary). My body seemed pretty sure it wanted to do something today but then I took a nap and the contractions fizzled out and now I'm just feeling ... yeah, I have no idea. Whoever said words are my thing?

I just put my baby to bed on the air mattress in his room (his Nana is camping out with him tonight) and got an excellent reminder of the rewards of parenthood. "Here's your hospital hug," he said, squeezing the life out of me, "and I'll give you some energy for tomorrow." Bzzzzhhhhhp. Bzzzzzhhhhhhp. He gave me a double dose.

He's hanging on to a picture of me and gave me one of him to take to the hospital, and this show of age-appropriate self-soothing, this healthy manner of coping with temporary separation and the not-so-distant rush of monumental life change is a lesson I hope to hold on to forever.

"Oh yeah," he added before I shut the door. "Tell the doctor to get the baby out the easy way."

Building blocks

I sense it coming now, a feeling reminiscent of getting close to the last page of the last chapter in a book that's carved a piece out of you. I've always been one to mark these events, these "lasts," either consciously or not and without even a sense of why I find it so important to keep track.

There will be, and it's measurable in hours and days now instead of weeks and months, a last time I put my only child to bed. A last time we eat dinner as a family of three. A last time I wake up in the morning and don't have a daughter.

A last time I go through my day without carrying a picture of her face in my mind and my heart.

And who knows what today has in store? I could have already had those lasts and not even know it.

But that's ok. I know it's not really necessary, or even very advisable, to put more emotional stock in "endings" than they merit. To focus on what's not, anymore, is to undermine what's going to be.

Those books that stay with you, they built their foundation while you were staying up too late for comfort because you couldn't put them down.

And the little family of three that started with two almost-kids thrust into the roles of Mama and Daddy, plus a handful of baby who turned their world upside down, that little family doesn't cease to exist just because there's about to be a number four.

It's our foundation. It's who we were upon which we built who we are. And soon enough and without even knowing it's happening, the four of us will start the quiet construction of who we will be.

I think it's going to be pretty amazing.

58 months down, 14 days to go...

Far be it from me to complain ... but I can whine with the best of 'em.

I'm not saying I want her out right this second; I'm far from sucking down castor oil or seeking out bumpy back roads in the hopes of jostling her loose. What I am saying is that if I make it to Friday without an utter come-apart it will be a miracle.

When you're not sleeping (and can anyone aside from my husband attest to my unparalleled talent for sleeping?)

AND you're stretching out even the maternity clothes you once set aside with a snicker and a "maybe at the VERY end"

AND you're still having trouble breathing because the child won't get in the GO position already

AND the 107-year-old check-out lady at Publix tells you not to hurt yourself and puts your gallon of milk in the cart herself

AND your belly feels like what you imagine a boulder would feel if it were animate enough to feel pain and were badly, badly bruised

AND it's five thousand seventy-two degrees outside and your husband insists on setting the thermostat at an astounding 74 degrees during the day

AND it hurts to sit, stand, walk, recline, hover, lie, and lean...

When those things all hit at the same time and make your excitement a little bit sharper even as they dull your will to open your eyes in the morning, well that means it's almost time to be a mama again.

Four more days of work and then I can park it on the couch with a Diet Dr Pepper in my hand and the fan at point-blank range and not budge until either my water breaks or she crawls out of me a full-grown toddler.

Sap, unabashed.

In cleaning out old files I came across something I wrote a little over a year ago. I miss my little-bit-younger Alex.

***

Today we were astronauts. You were the spaceship driver, and even when you crashed five or six times you wouldn’t let me take over. My job was to cook the astronaut food.

Today I showed you a picture of my childhood dog, Bonnie, and told you she was in heaven. You cried like your heart was broken, then ran to your room and wouldn’t let me come in. Makes me want to put Jack and Charlie in plastic bubbles to make sure nothing ever happens to them. Let alone how I wish I could preserve your heart from those other inevitable fractures.

Today you told me you loved me repeatedly, unabashedly, apropos of nothing except that, well, you love me. Today you played hard and got sweaty and dirty and sticky. Today you played silly little-boy games and said words you think are bad and drove me crazy while we were eating dinner. Today you went grocery shopping with me and held my hand in the parking lot and rode in a race car cart and said hi to people at the store because you wanted me to tell you how nice you are.

Tonight you brushed your teeth with your new Spider-Man toothpaste and we read “Grow, Flower, Grow” and sang “Twinkle, Twinkle” instead of the ABC song (in keeping with the astronaut theme, I think). I kissed you goodnight and you were tired but determined not to be. I thought you were asleep but then you started laughing when I yelled at Jack for drinking out of the toilet. You put five thousand stuffed animals in bed with you and kept making the barking dogs bark until I threatened to take them away if you kept it up.

How long before this isn’t an ordinary day? Not long enough, I’m afraid.

Ready and Not.

Baby girl is officially full term plus one day now, which means that prescription I never got filled for stopping contractions can be tossed. Bring on the pain! I have a feeling she’s going to be stubborn and unpredictable, though, and what’s more that she’s going to make me work up until the very last minute because I can’t conceive of much less appealing—and I’m an expect-the-worster from way back.

The long weekend taught me that “cankles” are actually made worse by too much sitting; I had almost no swelling whatsoever the entire weekend, which I spent cleaning and walking and otherwise doing. Which means, by loose association, that being at work is hazardous to my health. I knew it.

Alex has decided that my going to the hospital to have the baby is simply out of the question. He’ll miss me too much, and that’s that. He wanted me to promise that I wouldn’t go, and because I was not emotionally prepared at the moment for a tearful scene but I also have an aversion to outright lying to appease the kid, I mumbled some cop-out like “We’ll see,” and distracted him with tooth-brushing and bedtime-story-reading. Could be he’ll be fine when the time comes; could trigger trauma that will have him in therapy for the next twenty years.

We’ll see, indeed.

And it could be he was just worn the heck out from a day of playing hard and launching rockets and baking brownies and making a conscious effort to do everything his dad was doing at any given moment. Plus, at one point while he was grilling the ribs, Steven had him running laps around the backyard to burn off some of the energy that was coming off him in waves of pure mania.

And then there was the hair-washing incident from hell, complete with a near-slip, which resulted in his choking on a mouthful of still-being-chewed pork rib, which I’m sure set him back both in the hair-washing phobia and in the misplaced belief that Mommy reacts appropriately to things sometimes.

I'm hoping for a speedy week and some progress toward D-Day and a better attitude and less back pain and relief from this internal bruised feeling. Also for an immediate and generous infusion of patience, as Alex stabbed me in my guilt zone by saying, “Maybe when your tummy goes back to normal you’ll feel better and be in a better mood.”

From the mouths of babes come things that make you want to relinquish your mama badge, crawl under the covers, and sleep till their predictions come true.