Six months old.

Today was Essie's six-month birthday, or half-birthday as I like to call it. We didn't do anything to celebrate, of course, since she could care less and we had other things to do. Well, I did, anyhow, having an appointment to keep this afternoon. Andrew goes back to work at the end of the month so it's nice to take advantage of being able to go out by myself!

Anyhow: Essie is six months old and we're completely amazed. Yesterday was also her four-month homecoming anniversary, so we had two notable days in a row to feel great about. It's incredibly strange to remember what it was like to hold her as a brand-new preemie. It's even a bit weird to think what it was like to bring her home! I have pictures to look at of that time, but I have to admit that I find it very difficult to go back and look at the Facebook albums I made when she was in the hospital. This is odd to me, since at the time those pictures were precious and I couldn't stop myself from poring over them whenever I was at home where she wasn't. I loved to gaze at them, inspect her every tiny feature, obsess about how much weight she'd put on and whether it was noticeable yet.



Now, though, I get extremely emotional and upset when I look at them. Back then I was trying to be so strong and for the most part succeeding. I didn't have a lot of choice, really, and so I just did it. It was hard and it felt hard, but Essie herself was more important to me. Now that she's home, she's healthy, she's happy and chubby and thriving ... well, maybe now I'm feeling the backlash of how truly difficult the whole experience was. I've got some distance from it and gained some perspective that tells me just how traumatizing it is to nearly lose your baby, nearly die yourself and then have to deal with your baby being very sick and requiring intervention just to survive each day for two months. It ... kind of sucks.



It makes me overwhelmingly grateful for the baby she is now. She's so alive and every day Andrew and I look at her and marvel at her. She reminds us to stop what we're doing and just enjoy life since that's what she does all day long. Her smile makes us smile back every single time. It's impossible not to smile back at her, so smiles have increased exponentially around here. Watching her discover something new or figure out a new trick is like watching a magic show. Every day she's a little brighter, a little stronger, a little bit more aware and alert.



I didn't expect a baby that looks like me, but the older she gets the more people say she does. I don't mind, certainly, and I see so much of my family in her. Her hair is still indeterminate except for the two stubbornly white-blonde spots on the right side near the front. Her eyebrows seem reddish-blonde, but might be darkening up a bit. Her eyes are definitely not blue, but haven't settled on a positive true brown like mine and might end up being hazel; that particular brown-green that a few of my family members share. Her legs don't look especially long to me, but it's hard to find sleepers with long enough legs for her in her age range and so she might end up tall, something that would surprise me but not shock me totally since there are some taller women in my extended family, and there certainly are on Andrew's side of the family.



It's just exciting to watch her grow. She's only three months adjusted and keeping up well with the milestones for that age, but the changes just pop up every few days and I haven't gotten used to one when suddenly she's on to the next thing, soaking up experience as quick as she can. She saw her feet a while ago and watched them suspiciously, not sure how to get them within tasting reach, but grabbed them for the first time the other day at my mom's place while she was playing with an overhead toy, kicking at Big Bird and Cookie Monster. She still doesn't really understand them and hasn't grabbed them since, but to see her grip her pudgy toes with her fingers was amazing to me.

She's a baby, normal and lovely as can be, and I'm so very, very lucky to have her in my life.

Caring more than I should.

At the infant massage class I talked about in the last entry all the other moms were breastfeeding their babies and we were the only couple bottle-feeding (with formula, no less.) I had some angsty pangs about that which irritated me since I've stressed to myself a million times that bottle-feeding Essie is NO BIG DEAL.

Well, apparently I didn't believe myself, but I think my issue is more with the opinions of other parents than it is with Essie or her health. Essie is obviously thriving, getting fatter and happier and healthier all the time. My angst stems from the fact that I feel like I may be looked down on for my 'choice'.

It wasn't much of a choice. Essie resisted breastfeeding very strongly. I was never happy with pumping at any point anyhow, and when my milk supply got harder and harder to maintain it got a lot easier to mix formula and bottle-feed her; something she was entirely content with. Instead of an agitated, unhappy baby at every feeding I had a happy, satisfied baby. It made sense to me.

I could explain that to anyone I suspect might be raising a mental brow at me when they see us bottle-feeding, but since I am a paranoid person at the best of times it's more likely that there are no mental brows and I'm being overly sensitive to perceived prejudice. While Essie was at the hospital, though, the pressure to breastfeed or at least pump breastmilk for bottle feeding was overt, and I've heard from other new moms that even with a regular, non-preemie birth there is still great pressure placed on them to breastfeed over anything else. So I do get anxious that the moms who have bought into it and think that anything less is wrong will be judging me when they see me with a bottle.

All that said, I was very aware of the fact that at the massage class Andrew was the only dad who also fed his baby, and I'm pretty sure he was the only dad who burped his baby (although I could be wrong on that one.) It's a positive about this bottle-feeding business that I'm appreciating more and more. It affords me more freedom, yes, but it also allows Andrew to bond with Essie and take on aspects of her care that he wouldn't otherwise be likely to. I love that when we're all in bed together she'll lay there quietly watching him for long, long stretches, just staring at him. He gets great smiles from her and she'll do all she can to catch his attention when he's absorbed in something.

So I guess I need to let go of feeling so self-conscious about not breastfeeding Ess. I am aware of so many positives as a result of bottle-feeding that it's just stupidly self-indulgent at this point to think it's any big deal, especially since it's having no adverse affects on the one it matters to most: our daughter.

Oh, how you've changed.

Becoming a mother for the first time is scary in a lot of ways, but one of the less talked about ways is that it can be a problem for other people in your life. Your life changes drastically, and so your interactions with others change as well. I understand that well, and understood it before I had Essie. I never said to myself, "Oh, motherhood will never change me. I'll still be the same old Keltie!"

What I was most afraid of? That it wouldn't change me. That I'd be the same old Keltie.

Being pregnant was overall very odd for me. Just when it was getting real and fun and far less tiring I was suddenly an early mom. I didn't get a lot of opportunity to get past the 'this can't be real' phase before it was incredibly real and twice as terrifying. I looked definitely pregnant for about, oh ... two weeks? Tops. Nobody ever gave me their seat on the subway or patted my belly.

So I don't feel as if I changed much as a person during that time. I hadn't made room in my brain for the reality of Shaughnessy since I thought I had more time to get used to her being inside of me. She was a concept, and a pretty major one, but not part of the world yet. She was yet another oddity about my physical being that I was contending with, I guess.

The circumstances of her birth were kind of equivalent to being thrown into a pool when you can't swim. And the pool water is freezing cold. And not very clean. I had to learn to swim with a quickness. Once I was discharged from the hospital I had to do all kinds of things that I wasn't thrilled about doing, but having a kid takes choice away from you completely. You don't have a choice about taking care of your baby. YOU had it, you silly thing, so you have to take care of it. I had to pump if I wanted her to have my breastmilk and I had to get out of the apartment every single day to go see her and take it to her (something difficult for my agoraphobic self, even if it doesn't sound like such a big deal.)

Now that she's home I have even less choice. 'Sleeping in' doesn't actually exist any more, even if Andrew is taking care of her while letting me sleep. On a very visceral level I'm so attuned to being her mother that the sound of her crying or making any other baby noise will wake me and I'll be on high alert even when I'm trying to get myself settled back to sleep. But when I do have to wake up to her cries or whimpers for a bottle or a diaper change it sucks as much as waking up to a strident alarm clock. It feels shitty to rouse yourself from comfortable sleep. There is no choice though, and so I do it.

So on that level I have changed. I have a giant new responsibility and I'm doing what is necessary to fulfill it and changing my entire previous lifestyle to accommodate it. The nice thing about babies is that the longer you work at it the greater the returns. She's started smiling at us now when she sees our faces, which is pretty awesome at a time when you're feeling sad about having to be awake.

I've also changed in some ways that I was worried I wouldn't. I worried I wouldn't love my baby enough, which is so obviously not the case that I feel relieved every time I think of it. She is heart-splittingly lovable and I can't decide if it's that I have an exceptionally awesome kid or it's a built-in failsafe kicking in deep in my brain. Whichever; I don't care. I love this kid. I spend all day with her and it's all about her needs coming first now, not mine. It's not painful in the way I feared it would be, though. I worried that I'd be the mom sitting there staring at her wailing baby trying VERY hard not to smother it with a pillow and yes; there are frustrating moments so far, but no murderous instincts. I know that there are tantrum times coming down the road that I'll have to contend with. For now, though, I'm just happy that I've turned into a mother, one who loves her daughter when she's unhappy as well as being smilingly adorable.

So, um ... I've changed. I'm finding that it's hard to put into words how I've changed, I guess. I am embracing the all-consuming aspect of it right now in a way that might be surprising to anyone who knew me before Essie was born and had heard my many reservations about motherhood back when I was contemplating never having children. She's here, though, and I am now throwing myself willingly into the water rather than being forced in. I'm taking all the pictures I can, talking about her all the time, noticing other babies more as a result and maybe squee-ing a bit over them. I'm not trying to retain my concept of what I was before she came along; rather I'm excited about watching what I grow into now that she's here.

My hope is that if you love me, so are you.

Home again, home again.

We spent the last two weeks in Kingston with my mom. It was awesome and I knew that the danger in doing so would be that once the time came to leave I wouldn't want to. I was right and it was really, really hard. Essie had gotten used to her grandma's love and attention and it was so difficult to tear her away from that. I also hate that my mom can't see Ess whenever she wants to. :(

So I was pretty blue when we got home but Essie doesn't let me sit around feeling sorry for myself too much, so it's been the usual day-to-day stuff. It's amazing how much she changed over just the last two weeks, though! She grew her eyelashes in, finally, and looks like a real sweetie with them. She lost a ton of hair on the top of her head and it's already growing back in super-fast. The biggest change, though, is her activity level. She's suddenly much more interested in what's going on around her and while she's always been a wiggler, now she's a REAL wiggler and seems to want to be moving around a lot.

Of course she can't do too much, so this pisses her off a tiny bit. Poor bug.

We had a pediatrician's appointment today and Essie weighed in at 11 pounds, four ounces! So a bit of a gain since this past Thursday at the hospital. The doctor said she hardly even recognized her from the last visit and admired how she's chubbed up and looks bright and happy. She said that Ess was due for her next shots, though, so did them and this did not go over well with our little girl. They're given in the fronts of the thighs so the doctor had me hold Ess while she did them and while the first one made her squawk, the second one made her cry for real and it broke my heart. Essie has the saddest cry ever, especially since she never really cries. We thought she'd been working on crying lately, but this ... this was a cry.

I jammed her soother in her mouth and she resorted to sucking it sadly instead of crying. My poor, poor bug. For the rest of the trip home (including a stop at the grocery store) she was solemn and a bit sad, but she was OK once we got here and I cuddled her, fed her and then sent her off to the bedroom with her dad so I could do some stuff. They're both sleeping hard on the bed now.


Shhhh, they're 'leepin.

Anyhow, things with Ess are great. We're getting really spoiled by the reactions from health professionals about how great and healthy and vibrant she is. It'll come as a shock if anyone just goes, "Meh, she's all right. Pretty average." Even if she is average for a baby of her adjusted age, the way she started off will always make me look at her and marvel, I'm sure.

LEEP LEEP!

Yesterday Essie had the most awake, alert day of her life. It was like she was at a day-long party or something. It started at around seven in the morning and I hadn't gotten quite enough sleep. I wasn't horribly underslept, I just didn't have quite enough under my belt. So I was not prepared for Essie's sudden baby party.

You can only hold a baby for so long before you need to eat or bathe or go to the bathroom or crouch in a corner and weep. When Ess is awake, though, she wants you paying attention to her because she's pretty dependent on others for her entertainment. If you lay her down she is not satisfied. She's no dummy. She knows you're not HOLDING her, stupid, and so she will begin to prompt you to get with the program and pick her up. She does this through adorable wiggling and baby noises and it takes her a bit to escalate to anything more serious.

I took this video during the approximate middle of the party:



Twitch, twitch, wiggle, wiggle, gasp, wiggle, twitch, gasp. No crying, no real anger. Just persistent, focused action designed to alert you to her non-held, fully adorable status. I tried hard all day to get her to sleep. I used all the tricks I knew and her grandma did too. Mimi came over at one point with July and Rowan, both of whom seem very taken with Essie and like to admire her and hold her. Essie stayed awake during their visit. Usually when they come over Essie is asleep or on her way to it so Rowan (who turns four this month) will say, "The baby is 'leepin." He's also accused me of choking her to death when I'm trying to burp her on my lap with her chin propped in my hand which is not as accurate an observation, but hey. He's four.

Anyhow, Essie stayed mostly awake and kept partying. After they left, though, the baby party was winding down and Essie was becoming that partygoer. You know the one. The one who likes to talk and who has reached the point of not really enjoying the party any more but don't want to actually leave yet. So they latch on to someone and talk politics or religion or some other possibly anti-social topic and it's strident and kind of off-putting and uncomfortable to the remaining party-goers. That's who Essie became. The baby party had gone on too long, she was no longer happy about it, her eyes were red and her grumps were grumpy.

She kept falling asleep for ten or twenty minutes, then waking up and saying, "HEY, what happened to the party?" This went on until I decided to just take her to bed already and I guess once we hit the mattress she got the idea and had a normal night's sleep from then on. A normal night's sleep means waking up every three hours and demanding food, but at least there is sleep in there, right?

Oh, man. It looks like she might be entering a partying phase of her life where she's more wakeful during the day and sleeping longer stretches at night which is FINE, I just want to be aware of it so I can adapt. I'm really looking forward to her sleeping through the night if she's the type of baby to do it!

Anyhow, today hasn't been quite as party-ish. Check it:



The baby is 'leepin.

O noes! It's an emergency!

Last night we had our first emergency room experience with Essie. Thankfully it wasn't a terrifying emergency at any point. Essie'd been kind of out of sorts for about a week since starting on the thrush medication. Last night Mom and I went shopping with Mimi and when we got back Andrew said that while we were gone Essie had been fighting with drinking her bottle and then throwing up pretty much every drop she drank after each eating session. I fed her a bit more and she did exactly what he'd been talking about; struggling and fussing while eating like it was uncomfortable, then barfing it all back up.

Seeming a bit uncomfortable is one thing; not keeping any food down is quite another. After a quick call to TeleHealth we decided to just go to the emergency room with her. We all loaded up into Mom's car and off we went.

I brought a full bottle with us in case the doctor wanted to see what we were talking about and since her stomach was mostly empty Essie got fairly quiet and calm. We had a bit of a wait to see the triage nurse, then another minor wait in the common waiting area. Things moved pretty fast for us, though, since Essie is so young and a preemie to boot. I felt guilty about that since I felt like she was doing well and in no immediate danger, but I'm no doctor and if there was something serious going on with her we wanted to know.

The ER nurse was a former NICU nurse so she was extra-great with Ess, but the funny part was that she'd forgotten we were the parents of the preemie baby and couldn't tell until I mentioned it. She was totally surprised and said she'd never have known unless we'd said something about it. She took us off to weigh old Essie and I was wondering how much she'd have put on. Last time she was weighed on June 8th she was eight pounds, four ounces, and this time she was 11 pounds! This kid is not kidding around about being big and healthy.


Sucking back a bottle in the emergency room like nothing was ever wrong with her.

The ER doctor (Dr. Cottle, for all you BSG fans) pretty quickly determined that Essie doesn't have anything wrong with her other than ongoing thrush issues, and that the vomiting might be because the thrush is in her throat as well and it's irritating to her. So she just told us to continue with the meds four times a day, and assured me that no, the meds will not harm her in any way even if she seems uncomfortable. After the diagnosis she praised Essie up like gangbusters and told us we were obviously taking great care of her and that she was a superstar.

I always love hearing stuff like that, especially that it's obvious that we're taking good care of her. It does make me wonder, though, how many babies they see that aren't receiving good care. Is it in any way remarkable or are they just being reassuring? Babies are pretty straightforward when all is said and done. Keep 'em clean, keep 'em clothed, feed 'em when they're hungry and talk nicely to them. They grow! They're even amusing and interesting a lot of the time as a result.

They're not quite as simple to take care of as houseplants, but then every houseplant I've ever owned has died a horrible death of outright neglect. Essie, on the other hand, is doing just fine. I think the reason for this is that a houseplant has never once smiled at me.

Mid-trip update.

So we've been here at Essie's Grandma's place now for over a week and it's been so incredibly awesome for me to see the two of them getting so much quality time together. I think there's nothing in the world my mom loves so much as a tiny, sweet baby and if that baby is in the slightest distress she's ON IT.

Like, the other day my mom had had insomnia the night before and hadn't slept a wink. She went off to bed, but got up when she heard Essie crying in the living room with me, took her from me and walked her around until she was soothed and sleepy again. Then gave her back to me and went to bed! That's love.

Essie's been more cranky than usual the last few days because she has thrush and the medicine for it is making her feel sick. The med info says it can cause diarrhea, intestinal discomfort, stomach pain and nausea. Poor little bug. She hasn't been freaking out but she's definitely been more serious when awake and seeming more uncomfortable overall. When Essie cries you know she's in actual discomfort, not just complaining for complaining's sake. She doesn't cry much at all, this kid, so hearing it at all is startling and worrying.

Hopefully the thrush will be all cleared up soon and she'll be back to her normal, mellow self. Other than that excitement we've pretty much just been chilling out and hanging with my mom. She's bought Ess a bunch of cute clothes, of course, and we finally managed to find a couple of sunhats after discovering they're strangely difficult to find during the actual summer season. Here are some pics from the last week:


Crashed out on the sofa on a pretty brutally hot day. Just a diaper was sufficient for clothes!



After her hot nap, cooling off by a window on Grandma's lap.



Getting some morning cuddles on Grandma's shoulder.



Leaving WalMart, the only store in which we could find any sunhats for newborns. Essie's rocking it.

Essie is more of a mellow yellow kid.

I can't stop kissing her. It's mostly her cheeks. She has the most pokeable, kissable, pinchable cheeks ever and when she's awake and interactive I just HAVE to kiss them. This, of course, guarantees that her first words will not be anything like 'boo' or 'gee' or 'dada' but will instead be, "If you do not stop invading my personal space I am moving in with GRANDMA."

Sucks to be you, kid. She'll kiss you too. Plus take you to Sunday School.

But O, how I love this baby. Her Aunt Jenny is in town this week and we went to Fresh to have dinner with her last night. Jenny commented that Essie is a pretty chill, calm baby and she really is (for the most part.) Of course she had a bit of an out-of-character cranky period after we got home but that's OK. Her cranky periods are so few and far between that we just count our blessings every day and make the most of what could very well be a temporary state. For the other 22 hours of the day she is so fun and funny and charming. And chubby.

I read in someone's blog a few years back (and I don't recall which blogger it was although I know it was one of the upper echelon of 'mommybloggers') that they would totally stalk their baby on MySpace. I laughed at the time because it's funny, but OH MY HECK it's true. Andrew and I have been trading off every other night of taking the 'Essie shift' where one of us is responsible for waking up and taking care of feeding and diapers when she needs it. The thing is that when I'm in bed and I wake up and hear her making some kind of noise out in the living room with Andrew it takes everything in me to just stay in bed and go back to sleep. I want to go to her, I want to hold her in my arms and snuggle her close and kiss her head and nuzzle her neck. She's so freaking nice and lovely and I enjoy her so much.

I want to describe to you so badly what the things are that fire me up so much with love for her. The problem is that it all sounds kind of crazy or too commonplace. Like how she drinks her bottle. The way she puts her hands on the sides of it and makes a little 'nyuck nyuck' noise when she swallows and how she keeps her eyes on mine. Then she stops drinking and sighs and takes a little rest (never letting go of the nipple, mind you) then digs right back in.

See? I just described a baby drinking a bottle. But ... but it's ESSIE drinking it, see, and she's ESSIE and ... and ... argh. I can't make it work with words.

I joke that she's the best baby ever and there will never be a better baby, but at the same time I feel very strongly that I want to raise her with the most realistic expectations possible. I don't want her to be saddled with the idea that she's a special, special flower and a total genius and a cut above most other kids. I don't buy into this Indigo Kid bullshit which is where a lot of that 'You're the greatest and other people just don't understand you!' stuff leads. Here's a freaking awesome quote from the Wikipedia:

Skeptics suggest that the indigo phenomenon is due to parents preferring to believe their children are special, rather than having a medical diagnosis which implies damage or imperfection. Also criticized are the traits used to describe children, which have been compared to the Forer effect - so vague as to be able to apply to anyone.

Yeah. Pfft. BUT: I want Essie to be who she is. I want her to go to school and play with other kids and learn what she learns and be good at some things and not so good at others. I want her to gravitate toward the things she's interested in and help her pursue the things she's most passionate about. I don't want her to feel any pressure to always be better than the rest and the smartest and the one that stands out most. I just want her to be happy to do her personal best and understand that that is what's most important.

Wait, wait!

Descriptions of indigo children include the belief that they are empathetic, curious, possess a clear sense of self-definition and purpose, strong-willed, independent and unconventional. Indigo children have also been described as having a strong feeling of entitlement, or "deserving to be here." Other alleged traits include a high intelligence quotient, intuitive, resistance to authority, disruptive, impatient and easily bored. According to Tober and Carroll, indigo children function poorly in conventional schools due to their rejection of authority, being smarter than their teachers and a lack of response to guilt-, fear- or manipulation-based discipline.

HAhahahahahaha! So ... basically they're assholes? Got it.

One month, baby.

Essie's been home with us for a month as of today! It's so strange. On the one hand I can't believe she hasn't always been here with us, but on the other hand it feels like just yesterday we brought her through the apartment doors for the first time.

I don't miss going to the hospital every day. I don't miss the feeling of having her care be something I had no say in. I don't miss feeling like it was a special occasion when I could hold her or do regular, every-day things like change her diaper or bathe her.

I DO miss having medical professionals around all the time to let me know when things are OK. Not that it often happens that I think I need an immediate answer or that she seems sick or anything. It was just a luxury, is all. I also miss free diapers. That was nice.

It's been a strange transition. Very different from bringing home a newborn directly after giving birth, I am certain. She wasn't 'new' in the same way, and was already pretty stoic about a lot of things. We'd had the opportunity to get to know a lot of her quirks already and had some practice when it came to many aspects of her care. I wanted very much to get her used to lots of human contact and love and I've been very successful in that regard, if success means she never wants to be put down now! I joke, but I also like it. I certainly don't get tired of holding her and snuggling her!

I am kind of reluctantly trying to ease her into sleeping on her own, though. Not at night (or whenever I end up getting the bulk of my sleep, anyhow) but during the day when I should be able to put her down and get some things done. She doesn't always want to be in the sling, so I can't depend on it for her sleep times. She definitely knows the difference between being held and simply being set down in warm, cozy blankets and she'll protest.

Anyhow; in the month that she's been home with us she's already gone on two road trips, attended a comic arts festival, ridden the bus and subway and met a bunch of family on both sides. She's outgrown all of her preemie clothes and is quickly starting to work through her newborn stuff as well, fitting better and better into the 0 - 3 months sized stuff instead. She's out of preemie diapers and well into the newborn size, with the Pampers brand newborn size getting a bit tight. She likes having baths (or at least doesn't seem to hate them), loves having her tiny bit of hair brushed and has decided that she's too big for swaddling. Swaddling is for preemie chumps, not grown-up full-term babies like herself.

She'll allow the modified arms-free swaddle but ... come on. That's a toga.

Hells no

OK, so Essie's due date is on Sunday and recently I have been looking at her and thinking there is NO WAY THAT CHILD COULD HAVE COME OUT OF ME ... you know, the 'natural way'.

It's her head, you see. Her head, it is really big. Man, when she was born I was fascinated by the eensy-teeniness of her eensy-teeny head. When we'd do Kangaroo Care I'd cup my palm and fingers over the curve of her skull and marvel at how miniature she was. Now I place my hand on the top of her head and it sits there, flat. Big-headed babies are not uncommon in my family and if this is how big our heads and my sisters' kids heads were when they were all born (the natural way) all I can say is, "Wow. My vagina does not envy yours at all."

It really hit me this morning. Essie was clean and dry and fed and had fallen asleep against my shoulder. I was supporting her with one arm and she was folded up into a very classic fetal position, head curled into her arms, legs all tucked up under and against her, her spine a cute little curve down to her butt. She was compact and bean-shaped and it struck me that yes, even though it seems entirely unimaginable to me, she actually could fit inside of me at the size she is now. Getting out is another matter altogether, but the way she was all tucked up against me really made me see it.

So. WEIRD.

Please don't mistake me; I'm still not mourning a natural birth. I thought maybe I would over time, but almost three months later and I'm still relieved I had a painless delivery. I guess I'm just not that invested in experiencing pain, you know? Obviously I wouldn't choose to give birth under the circumstances that Essie was born in a second time. Given the choice between her being a preemie or experiencing the pain of natural childbirth I'd choose the natural childbirth, pain be damned. But there's a certain relief in knowing that if she's our only child, I won't have to endure the pain of labour in this lifetime.

Because that head? Is way bigger than a grapefruit.

My first Mother's Day.

Mother's Day was pretty awesome. I kicked it off by getting up early and giving Essie a bath so she'd be fresh and clean for a day full of meeting people. Then I dressed her in the outfit I'd been saving for that day; one that her Grandma gave her. It's pink and brown with polka dots and a flower on the front of the onesie, and she rocked it with pink socks and her clean, fuzzy hair. I have a slight obsession with finding nice outfits in brown for her since it's not as usual, but they're hard to come by!

We stopped at TCAF so I could meet some of the people Andrew had met the day before, and specifically so I could pick up Meredith Gran's second and third published collections. I stuck Essie in the sling and she was snuggly and happy in there until we got to the webcomics section and I pulled her out on request. After she was out of the sling and in my arms she got a lot of attention and loving up from various artists and inspired Kate Beaton to create her comic about meeting her. It was a LOT of fun. This was Essie's first public appearance and she was totally cool about it. I got my first taste of the public appreciation for teeny babies, something that was kind of on my radar before but not something I've been on the receiving end of as a mom.

So after that we bombed off to Kingston as fast as we could, which was not fast at all due to insane traffic on the 401 and having to make a baby-feeding pitstop. It was also a parent-feeding pitstop since we desperately needed some lunch, so it was slow going. But eventually, eventually we arrived and LO, the Essie-loving did begin.

I gave her to her Grandma to hold first, of course, and I was thrilled to finally see my baby in my mom's arms. It had bothered me so much at the hospital that she couldn't hold her there, and if we'd spent longer at St. Mike's I had planned to pretty much just put Essie in her arms and fight with anyone who tried to stop me. What actually happened was a much nicer scenario, of course, so it all worked out in the end.

Then La and Mimi took turns holding her for the first time, and after that the cousins all got a turn throughout the rest of the visit. Essie was a superstar. She was calm and content the whole time. I mean, she did do her usual growling and groaning but it was all good-tempered and she was pretty alert for much of the afternoon, which surprised me. I think overall everyone thought she was a cute, yummy baby as evidenced by the threats to steal her and eat her cheeks off entirely.

In all the madness I didn't end up doing much reflecting on it being my first Mother's Day. Things were busy and hectic, but good. Which is fine by me.

Mission Basic Hygiene: Accomplished

I'm the last in my immediate family to have kids. Most of my extended family (cousins and whatnot) either have kids or siblings who have kids. Babies and spending time with babies is nothing new to any of us. Most of the friends I grew up with have kids and actually started having them years ago. So, I'm somewhat of a latecomer to this mom party. When I write about my epiphanies and the minutia of each new experience I know that they're reading this and either nodding sagely or laughing at me outright.

That being said, I'm still doing all this for the first time on my own and whenever I go through something as a first-time mom I want to write about it. Yes, because I love writing, but also because I don't want to forget how this felt.

So laugh at me if you want, but today I had a shower with no one here but Essie and me and I was stressed. I put her snoozing little self in the bassinet in the bedroom (on her back to comply with the Back To Sleep guidelines) and closed the door on her as she began to mildly grunt, then tried to have the fastest shower I could without compromising hygiene and social acceptability. I didn't skip any steps, but I did try to complete them all with efficiency.

While I soaped and lathered and rinsed (no repeating) and conditioned and scrubbed I imagined that I could hear her screaming over the sound of the running shower. I thought about how I've maybe only ever seen one actual tear from this kid since the day she was born since so far she's not much of a crier and I've been able to head off any major upset by meeting her very simple needs. I dreaded turning off the water to hear her wails and having to rush into the bedroom to find her covered in tears and the drool and snot of despair and abandonment.

When I was finally able to turn off the water I stood still and held my breath, listening. And I heard nothing. This wasn't entirely comforting as I immediately feared that she'd died from crying too hard, so I (very) hastily toweled off and rushed to the bedroom.

Where I found her angelically sleeping, looking as serene and untroubled as any perfect baby in any random advertisement featuring perfect baby products for perfect babies has ever looked. She continued to sleep as I got dressed, and is sleeping now on the sofa near me as I type. I have to rouse her to get her fed before we leave for her first pediatrician's appointment in about forty five minutes and I hate to do it, she's so content and comfy. If I don't, though, by one o'clock she'll be an angry, grunting, squawking noisebox that could very well produce a multitude of actual tears for me to wipe away.

Fatty Fat Fat

Suddenly my baby girl is getting some real meat on her bones! Breast milk must be amazing stuff because that's all she's eating (although they do fortify the pumped stuff at the hospital.) I'm sick AGAIN and haven't been in the NICU for the last few days, but Andrew is taking pictures and really capturing the sudden chubbiness of her cheeks. She's just, just shy of four pounds now. A few more grams to go and she'll have doubled her birth weight!





Craziness. As of today she's in a level 2 NICU! This is big news since it was all riding on her being off the CPAP for good, and after 48 hours with no desats or bradys she's clear. She was supposed to be moving to St. Michael's but they just haven't had the room, so they finally moved her to the level 2 NICU at Women's College. It's for preemies who have a possibility of being downgraded back to level 3. I'm thrilled that she's still at WCH because I really love that hospital and its staff, but I'm also kind of glad because I'm worried she might still need the CPAP after a few more days, like last time, and have to go back to level 3. As soon as a space opens up for her at St. Mike's she's supposed to move, but I'm in no hurry for that.

Anyhow, overall things are good except for me being sick and not able to visit my daughter. It makes me feel so guilty, even if it's the best thing for her right now. Happily she'll be meeting her great-grandpa today. Andrew's grandpa (and much more of his family) is in town for Easter weekend and she'll be meeting a bunch of them. Quick visits, and not everyone can make it who wanted to, but people are finally getting to see her! I want my sisters to come meet her as soon as possible, too. She changes so fast now.

She knows what she wants.

Ooooh, girlfriend.

Shaughnessy was in pretty fine form today. When I got to the hospital my mom was already there (because I was late, for shame) and told me that it had taken TWO nurses to get the CPAP back on her little granddaughter after she'd had it off, so mightily did she fight it. And after it was on she smooshed her face against her blankets and knocked it right back off her nose again.

She spent the rest of the day battling her CPAP and her feeding tube. Erin A. came for a quick visit as well and while she was sitting there with me the nurse let me hold Shaughnessy for a bit. Not Kangaroo Care; just cradled in my arms in her head hugger. Well, little miss thang got seriously overwrought about the CPAP at that point and began twisting her head back and forth against the sides until the prongs were out of her nose and the hat part was askew. Then she worked her feeding tube out of the tape on her chin (tape which she'd already ripped free a couple of times) and they had to stop her feed and take the CPAP off, she was such a grouchy, growly mess.

After that, she calmed down and was a lovely little sweetie for the rest of Erin's visit. She (Shaughnessy; not Erin) did spend some time rooting around against the side of her head-hugger hoping to find a boob to nurse on but had no luck since it's a head-hugger and I was also fully clothed. I hate to see her rooting and not be allowed to try to nurse her yet, but they all say it's still too early. So: no nursing. And she pretty much slept and muttered the rest of the time.

When I say she's growly I mean it, though. She makes an awesome crabby little grunty growl noise when she's displeased. It's very particular to her and definitely means she's about to pitch a fit of some sort if what's bugging her isn't taken care of. They've taken to swaddling her pretty tightly in her blankets and head hugger when they want to be entirely sure the CPAP stays on and that does seem to calm her down some, which is understandable. Infants and preemies in particular respond well to swaddling as a calming device. So the growlies can be tempered that way after she realizes she can't move her arms too easily. It's when she's free to move her limbs that she really goes to town.

I held her again before coming home. Mom and Erin had both left and I was waiting for Andrew to arrive when the nurse asked if I wanted to do Kangaroo Care. Of course I did, and Shaughnessy again spent a little while rooting around with her mouth on my chest trying to find a meal. Poor baby. I'm going to point it out to the nurses next time and see if they'll bump up the intro to nursing schedule for her since she's obviously trying to get to the head of the class.

Despite all of the above, she really is a very peaceful baby when she wants to be:

Mother bear is gonna rough you up.

OK, so after singing the praises of WCH like I did in my last entry I will admit that there are a couple of nurses that I simply do not like. NICU nurses, specifically, since it really didn't matter if there was anyone taking care of me who wasn't sweetness and light all the time. Motherhood, however, apparently makes you very protective and the thought of someone not treating your fragile little premature daughter with anything but love and tenderness is awful.

Mom came to town again yesterday and we got to spend hours visiting Shaughnessy. The day nurse was nice, if a little bit less than self-confident about absolutely everything. I think she was pretty new, but it didn't matter because any time she second-guessed herself she got someone else to step in so there wasn't any reason for us to feel like Shaughnessy wasn't getting proper care. Shaughnessy's night nurse, though, was a nurse that simply rubs me the wrong way. I've seen her get impatient with crying babies before, and she just has a really brisk, clinical way of doing things that doesn't include the parents at all if they happen to be there.

Mom and I stood back and gave her room while she did Shaughnessy's hands-on care and even though she wasn't being precisely rough with her it still made me feel uncomfortable to see the way she was flipping my baby around like a rotisserie chicken, fast and not exactly gently. Shaughnessy didn't cry at all and seemed more thoughtful about it all than anything and she's not a baby that's afraid to complain when something's not right. I'm sure this woman knows her job and knows it well, but parents of preemies feel like their babies aren't getting enough affection as it is so to see their major caregivers dealing with them like objects rather than a son or daughter is upsetting, to say the least.

I asked her if she wanted us to leave the NICU entirely while she worked with my baby girl and her answer was, "Oh, I don't care what you do." All righty then. You don't have to be Nurse McFriendlypants, but 'I don't care' is not a helpful answer. I asked a few questions and made a few comments but she just wouldn't engage, so I pretty much gave up and went and sat in the waiting area since my back was hurting and I didn't feel good. After she was done Mom came and got me and we sat with Shaughnessy a while more until Mom had to catch her bus back to Kingston, but I felt sad that for the rest of the night my girl had this woman instead of someone more affectionate and interactive.

I was also starting to get a scratchy throat last night and when I woke up today it was even worse, so I can't go in to see Shaughnessy until it's better. I'm hoping it gets better with a quickness because it WILL break me if I can't go visit her. I don't know how Andrew's managed since this is the worst illness he's had in forever and it's kept him out of the NICU for a long time now. I called today to see how our girl was doing and as it turns out she got an IV burn from the IV line they put in yesterday, which means that the vein the IV was in got compromised and the IV fluid leaked out and damaged the surrounding tissue. I haven't seen it yet and they assured me that it was being treated so I'm trying not to assume that it's horrible, but it's extra-difficult not to be able to go see her now that I know she was in pain the night before. Poor little monkey.

We had a baby.

I've been trying to write a weblog entry about the fact that yes, we had our daughter, we have a baby now, Shaughnessy Patricia Joyce Jeanes was born on March 3rd, 2009, at 1:35 in the morning weighing exactly one kilogram and breathing on her own.

Somehow, that weblog entry hasn't been coming out. I'd start it and have to stop really quickly. It wasn't flowing the way I wanted it to. I couldn't tell it the way I like to tell a story. It took me a while, but I eventually realized why.

Why? Because it sucks. I had preeclampsia. My daughter should not be outside of my body. She should still be in there giving me heartburn, kicking my bladder, bouncing my laptop at unexpected moments. I should still be carrying her and I'm not. I'm not happy about that in the slightest and wish more than anything that it wasn't this way. So when I try to write about the actual events and find the humour in them (of which there is some, believe me) it's just ... too soon, I guess.

This week has been the hardest of my life, probably the hardest of Andrew's life, and no picnic for Shaughnessy, either. Our families and friends have been amazing, supportive and right there for us from the minute we let them know what happened and we're unspeakably thankful for all of you.

I'll write about it. I'll write about it the way I want to, tell the story the way I like to, and it'll be REALLY LONG.

The wedding, friends, family and love.

Oh, man. Jen and Colin's wedding was just perfection. I'm sure if you asked them they could tell you which things went wrong, but from the perspective of someone who wasn't in charge of arranging the details and worrying about what happened when it went off smoothly, enjoyably and memorably! Hooray for Colin and Jen!

For reals, though, I was exhausted just being a bystander who helped with very small stuff that didn't require any heavy lifting (like bagging candy and putting tablecloths on tables.) I can't imagine how tired I'd have been if I was in charge!

We came back home to Toronto yesterday, bringing Jen. F and Paula back with us since we had room in the van. Now, the wedding had a daisy theme and Jen and Colin had tons of potted daisies left over that they weren't planning to keep so I asked if I could take a pot to my mom. They said that was fine, so we made a quick stop at my mom's house in Kingston on the way back to Toronto from Ottawa.

When we got there they were all in the middle of dinner but we came inside so that we could all have a bathroom break and I could hug my sister and mom and niece and nephew. I handed off the daisies and we hung out in the kitchen a bit while each of us had our time in the washroom. Mang, of course, came into the kitchen and presented herself to everyone and looked regal and lovely and I got some kitty loving in with her and Leeloo. Keller stayed hidden in one of her hiding spots and didn't come out to visit at all, unsurprisingly.

The best part, though, came while I was absent, having excused myself to the washroom. July, who is eight, apparently thought that Jen and Paula were VERY pretty and proposed the idea of having a Pretty Lady Party in Toronto sometime that they could come to as well as some of their pretty friends. Hee hee hee! That kid cracks me up! Jen and Paula are very pretty so she was totally justified in wanting to celebrate that, of course. I hope I'm invited, too.

After a too-brief interlude with my adorable family we headed back out on the road, stopping to get a bite to eat and then driving without stopping until we hit our city. Getting back to our apartment and hugging my cats was the best thing ever until I climbed into my bed and realized that being in my bed and hugging my cats was EVEN BETTER. Then Andrew got into bed and I realized that being in bed with my cats and my Andrew was EVEN BETTER THAN THAT. And then I fell asleep.