flight

the birth of baby Filomena

The baby was due on August 22. When I hit 10 days over I really couldn't believe I was still pregnant--Oscar was 10 days late, so that had been the outer reaches of my expectations. In no world did I expect to get all the way to September. But here I was, still pregnant, so pregnant that people at the grocery store started asking me if I was carrying twins.

So pregnant. Two days before she was born; since I
work from home I wanted to send some proof to
my colleagues that I was, in fact, still gestating.

The upside was that the heat wave that lasted all summer was finally on hiatus, and since I had pretty much transitioned my projects at work and stopped taking on new projects I had a lot of time for slowly walking to the coffee shop, afternoon naps, and acupuncture appointments.

After barely making it to the hospital with Oscar we had planned for a homebirth this time around; 42 weeks is the upper limit for when homebirth is still safe/legal, so the midwives scheduled me for an induction at the hospital on Friday morning at 8am. On Thursday morning I tried one round of an "herbal induction protocol" which involves swallowing yucky things at 15 minute intervals for 4 hours. No contractions resulted, and I decided not to go for round two. By Thursday evening I was frustrated but resigned; I was bummed that once again birth was not going anything like we had planned, but looking forward to laboring in a tub at the hospital and finally getting this baby born.

I had collected some inspiration throughout the pregnancy and written down parts of poems or paragraphs that I thought might help during the birth; I packed those in the hospital bag along with my robe and headphones.

I set my alarm for 6:30am on Friday and made plans for my parents to pick up the kids; at 4am I woke up with a strong contraction. I waited for about thirty minutes, timing contractions that were already only 5 minutes apart, then woke up Shaggy and called the midwives and my mom.

The midwives came and set up their things; my mom came and got the kids; I rocked on an exercise ball; I got in the shower; I got on the bed and worked on letting go.

Your child is a boat on the ocean. There are storms and rain and fog. You cannot control the course. Every time you exhale, the boat is carried safely toward the horizon, its distant harbor and home.

You are the breeze.^

-Karen Maezan Miller

 
It came time to push but nothing was happening; I was at a loss as this was the part I had been really good at before. The midwives thought maybe the baby had turned face up; we found out later that she had just decoded to come out with her elbow wrapped around her face. Coaching through several different labor positions and extreme effort followed (my biceps of all things were sore for days afterward); the midwives kept checking the baby's heartbeat and telling me it sounded great, but that just made me feel like the baby wasn't trying nearly as hard as I was.

Finally her head was out, and with the next set of pushes her shoulders followed. I could hear her crying, but we weren't quite done with each other: the midwife said I'm sorry, but you're going to have to keep pushing--she's not all the way out yet. My giant baby required three sets of final pushes to get her whole body out.

And then she was born.

How could we be replete
with the flesh of ripe tomatoes, the unique
scent of their crushed leaves. It would take many
births to be done with the thatness of that.

Oh blame life. That we just want more.

-Enough, by Ellen Bass

leaf jumping

having fun in life

*****Post delayed from last week because Lucy wanted to surprise Grammy and Grandpa!*****

Lucy has had two loose front teeth for so many months. A few weeks ago I asked her if she had been wiggling them, and she said no, she had been too busy having fun. In life? I asked. Yes, in life.

You can't argue with that.

Last night after bed Lucy came into my room, mouth bloody and formerly-loosest front tooth in hand: "My tooth came out," she said.

It has been almost a year since her first tooth came out after last Thanksgiving in Virginia. She put the new tooth in her tooth fairy box but wasn't ready to put it under her pillow yet--she doesn't want the tooth fairy to take it until she has a chance to show it to everyone.


Update:
The evening of the morning when I wrote this post we were heading back from Fred Meyer on a family walk when Lucy, normally our cautious child, missed a big bump in the sidewalk and faceplanted on her scooter, knocking out the other front tooth. (Not fully knocked out, just bloody and twisty until Lucy, in an act of extreme bravery, reached in and twisted it the rest of the way out.) After the trauma of that event subsided, Lucy was extremely pleased for two reasons:

1. She lost two teeth in one day. "I broke the record!"
2. She now looks like a vampire because of the differential between the gums where the two front teeth used to be and the little side teeth that are still there. 

She has been stopping strangers on the street for days to tell them both of these things.

At the end of that day, Lucy summed it up for us: "For a darn bad day, I'm having a darn good time."

three years, 7 months

Dear Oscar,

You sailed past three and a half in October, a big brother now but still almost exclusively wearing costumes and pajamas as everyday clothes. You love bats and fruit and books about superheroes; you are tall and stubborn and often frustrated and very very sweet.

Being newly in the middle is hard--you're not the oldest, and you're not the youngest; you're not big enough to do everything Lucy does but you're too big to get everything Filomena gets. It has been a bit of a rough few months with you: you have trouble not whining about even the smallest things, like asking for an apple or for a place on the couch, and I think you must be growing because your coordination is off--you keep slipping on things, or running into things, or falling down when you're practically standing still.

Yesterday we were sitting on the couch playing with baby Fife and I told you how big you're getting, and reminded you how you said when the baby was born you would not only be a big brother, you would be BIG. Your face crumpled and your eyes got tears and you said in a very quiet voice, I want to go back to being the little baby.

But you are such a good big brother. You love to snuggle her and kiss her; you bounce gently on the bed next to her and make her smile. In the car when the baby cries you sing to her, and you tell Lucy, I'm taking care of this.

After a slow start language has really blossomed for you lately, but you still usually need a little time to get your thoughts out, and you have your own way of pronouncing a lot of things. You get mad when Lucy interrupts you, or when we don't understand what you say, both of which happen relatively often. You say "Mom" a lot in your thinking pauses; sometimes it drives me crazy. You also tell us you love us a lot, just little asides throughout the day. Mom . . . . Mom . . . Mom . . . I love you. When I tuck you in to bed you reach up and touch my face.


Before you knew many words we used a few hand signs to talk to each other. There weren't many signs--there was milk, more, fan, banana, and I love you. Milk is a squeezing motion; fan is just a finger going in circles; banana is one hand peeling the finger of another. At one point Lucy made up a sign for infinity that followed after I love you--it was hands twirling around each other like a wheel. In the mornings when I would leave for the gym, I had to wait outside while you and Lucy climbed the back of the couch to look out the window and sign that you loved me, and I would sign that I loved you back. In your excitement your signs would sometimes get sweetly muddled and it always sticks in my mind--little you standing in the window, blowing me kisses, hands twirling and fingers catching together, signing about bananas and infinite love.

I love you, my love.

Love,
Mama