Thank you cards

One of my friends asked on twitter if there's a point at which you get to declare wedding thank you card bankruptcy, after a few years have passed or when you have your first child, which is ridiculous of course as new babies are the ultimate source of unfinished Thank You cards.

A few weeks ago, on our way home from visiting Granddaddy (formerly Aged Parent), we passed our* gardener's house when he happened to be out front with his granddaughter. They called for his wife and other granddaughter to come meet the tiny baby.  He handed his wallet to his wife who took out  £10 and tucked it in Little Djinn's pram. I used the money to buy her a swimsuit.

Fast forward to yesterday and he came to mow the lawn. Perfect! I can give him his thank you card and not have to remember which house is his (hint: the one with his business' van in the driveway). I quickly write out their card but he's talking to our neighbour so I write her card as well and the card for the one other neighbour I'd not yet done and Little Djinn and I headed off to drop them on porches** and through letter boxes. Our gardener was off with his lawn-mower and I didn't want to interrupt (and give him a card he'd then have to carry with him) so I put his under the left windscreen/shield wiper where he'd be sure to see it when he returned to his vehicle. Sure enough, he finishes for the morning, goes out to his car gets in on the right side and drives home for lunch.

Crap. I'd forgotten that the British drive on the wrong--I mean right!--side of the road. Um. Oops. We saw him on his way back when we walked into town for my dentist appointment and it was still there. At least I'd placed it securely. The story does have a happy ending: Chris passed him again on their respective ways home. It had just started to rain and he'd turned on his wipers and finally noticed the card, pulled over, and retrieved it. Seeing Chris he asked, "oh, did my wife give you something then?"

We plan on being that couple in thirty years.

* the home-owner's association's

** over hear a "porch" is what I'd call a storm room, an outside door that opens to a small room and another door so that one can come and go without letting the heat out or bringing the weather in. Needless to say, I read about them in books such as "Little House on the Prairie"; we don't have them in San Francisco. If it's not actively storming, the done thing appears to be leaving the outside door open.

Two updates in one week?

I've installed the blogger app on the iPad and, if this works, I should be able to update more frequently. Maybe.

Yesterday was my birthday: I continue to be thirty-something (which was kinda the point of describing myself as such). With a little help from her daddy and input from the kittens, Little Djinn got me a boot of baby bootie patterns (she doesn't even know about Yarn Harlot!), a pair of socks, and a plush Boofle. She's clearly her father's daughter. I had, on several occasions, expressed a desire to fill the house with rainbows so Chris gave me 77 prisms. No, I don't think the number has any significance. I've made a few strings of five prisms to hang around the house but, while we purchased a box of suction cups with hooks, I can't for the life of me find it. I even pulled the Christmas box down from the attic but they're not in there.

I made a lemon some-kinda-torte for my cake and it turned out really well. I got the recipe from one of Chris' Delicious magazines back when they had the Deliah special (and Paul Hollywood -I want to Bake All the Things!). It was relatively easy, just the extra step of whipping the egg whites like an angel food cake, and at 6 servings it's not too much cake for two people. Did I mention that I made brownies last week? The ones from Nigella's _Kitchen_. I've never been a particular fan of chocolate baked goods but since I had Little Djinn I'm starting to see what all the fuss is about.

My mother, a life-long sewer decided that I should have a sewing machine and ordered a little beginner machine for me. I'm not a beginner sewer (my first project was a Victorian ball gown from the bloomers out) but I'm not particularly adept either (advanced beginner? Low-moderate? I have restaurant sewing?) and my sewing needs will probably be modest. I don't see any Victorian or other balls in my future. She mentioned the brand but not the model so I spent a bit of time googling to try and guess which one she bought until I decided that that way madness lies. After my dentist appointment (boo, hiss) I stopped by the quilting shop in town to pick up some fat quarters* and bias tape so I could test my sewing machine on a simple bunting project, but alas they were closed yesterday and today :o( Other prospective projects (Sew All the Things!) include a little lap quilt to protect Chris from the enthusiasm of Libby's kneading/puddings or little project bags for my knitting projects.

Speaking of knitting, I know I said I wasn't really making any progress and I was resisting the urge to Knit All the Things (is anyone else sensing a pattern?)? Well, I caved and took some yarn from my stash (artyarns super merino) and picked a patten I recognised Thistle Cap by Liz Abinante, the woman who did The Great Cowl Knitalong. The main pattern was free with a small charge for lots of sizes and I probably could have worked it out, but I feel she's earned my $3 (seriously. I'm neither that poor nor that cheap.) My yarn was listed as Aran but knit up more like sportweight so for Little Djinn's 16" head, in the hope that she'll be able to wear it past tomorrow, I wound up knitting the women's medium (and found an error in the pattern, but I reported it and her tech knitter is on it). I can't decide which I love more: the yarn, the pattern, the colour of the yarn, or the way the three came together. Look at how perfect that bluey-purple yarn is for a "thistle" hat! And such buttery yarn, too. I'm super happy to put it next to my baby's skin. Even if she wouldn't sit still and have her picture taken.

And segueing from Little Djinn not being able to sit still, she's super close to crawling. Tonight, before bed, she finally figured out that she needs to get her knees under and her bum up though she can't seem to keep pushed up on her arms at the same time so she was scootching along like a little inchworm: head up, bum up, scootch, head up, bum up, scootch. So close!

 * "fat quarters? Now I have to filter out sewing jargon, too?" sorry, Shaun. They're bundles of samples of coordinating fabric prints.

16 Weeks

Kristina is 16 weeks now, 17 weeks tomorrow and a week ago today she weighed 11lbs 5oz. I look at her and I see both how big she's gotten and how tiny she still is. She's smal but strong and active and interested in everything.

We went "away" for the weekend the 11th-14th, down to the Crieff Hydro hotel in Perth. Chris was attending the Scottish Ruby Conference (or as the signs around the hotel proclaimed it, Scotland for Ruby) and Little Djinn and I went for a little holiday. She loved it. She liked the train ride, she liked all of the people, she liked going swimming for the first time, she liked everything but not getting to pick her own bedtime. We did leave her with a baby-sitter for the first and second time after discovering the hotel has a baby-sitting staff that we could hire. Paying someone else to watch her sleep (read a book?) was an improvement over the first night when we went to bed at 9 having run out of things to quietly entertain ourselves after she fell asleep. The woman from the second night complained that Little Djinn was such a good sleeper as she'd been hoping for a cuddle. Sorry, our baby goes to sleep and is out for at least 6 hours. Such a good sleeper.

She loves swimming. I bought her a little swimming costume because people were confused by a baby in just a swim nappy. There was the double confusion of "person swimming in just bottoms = male" and "but that's not a swimsuit". I expected that would be how all of the babies were attired, but they mostly seem to come in little wetsuits*. Is this a Scottish vs Californian thing or a non-body conscious one? There's a class at the leisure centre across the river from us for babies as young as 6-months and I have information about when and how to sign her up (June 17th for a class starting Sept. 2nd) and in the meantime we'll go sit in the shallow end and she can kick and splash and rediscover time and again that one can't breathe water.

Little Djinn is sitting up and standing with help. She hates laying down, she wants to be able to see what everyone is doing. She's getting very coordinated with her wiggling on her tummy but still isn't going anywhere and that's very frustrating for her. She's moved to her big-baby cot (and I may have found someone to pass the basket on to**) and while she's a champion sleeper at night, she'll only nap on me after nursing or in her pram or carrier when moving. I see a lot of walks in our future as the weather improves. Our little booboo is getting very coordinated at holding things and can usually manipulate them into her mouth. Her sounds are coming along, there was an amusing weekend when she figured out how to blow raspberries and that's all she did for a couple of days though her latest thing is a high-pitched squealing or shrieking and we can't tell if she's happy or sad without looking at her face. This is a lot less amusing. The changes from month three to four, from new born to infant, have been astonishing. The next big developmental milestones should happen around 6 months: sitting up unsupported, crawling, babbling (as opposed to just vowel sounds), starting on solids...Exciting times.

On the craft front, very little is happening. I got plastic tubs for storing my yarn and now I can see how much I have, a thought I try to keep in the front of my mind when tempted by squishy yarns, and given that I have maybe one hour at night to work on something my three projects (socks for Chris, a sweater for me, and a cross-stitch for Kristina) will probably keep me busy until Christmas. I am making good progress on the cross-stitch but I'm second-guessing my sweater so maybe I'll get to cast something new on sooner rather than later. I got a birthday cheque from my FiL and part of me really really really wants to buy a sewing machine but the rest of me is being quite snarky about where would I put it and when would I use it (not what would I make with it, no, never doubt that there are thousands of things I could want to make with it).

On the media front, I finally caught up with The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher (there was one novel outstanding and I'd missed a few of the short stories), and I just finished the October Daye books by Seanan McGuire who you may remember is also the woman who wrote the Newsflesh trilogy as Mira Grant. I also read her Sailor Moon inspired fairy tales and I want someone to illustrate and publish them for Little Djinn so she can hold them in her hands. They are exceptionally delightful.

~ * ~

* They're heated indoor pools so that's not the issue.

** We both like the idea of having another child in the abstract*** but if we do decide to have another it won't be for years yet and we don't have room to store every baby thing that has passed into our lives on the off-chance that we'll need it again some years down the line. Most of the baby stuff came into our lives very easily and we're happy to send it back out into the world to be used by other people in the assurance that we can acquire similar things again when and if we need them.

*** I had a bad night when I realized that it was too late to have a second child also born in 2013 which was odd on several levels including that it wasn't something I'd ever considered, it wasn't actually something I would logically want and I've not started menstruating yet so even if it was something I desired it's not something I would have been capable of. Nonetheless there was a night when I was suddenly very depressed**** that it wouldn't happen.

**** While I don't have PPD, I have been very emotional (for me). There are times I get a little choked up, which is my equivalent to bawling one's eyes out, usually when thinking about how much I love Little Djinn and our family. It's been very weird for me.

8 Weeks

Big news in this second month of Little Djinn's life: she's started looking at her hands and (drum roll, please), she rolled over! She rolled over for the first time on Thursday when I lay her down for tummy time and went to the loo. That's right, I was out of the room. I came back and she was on her back crying. Later, after she'd nursed and cuddled and was happy again, I set my mobile to record video, lay her down on her tummy and she rolled over so quickly I missed it again. Don't blink around this baby. I took a video which I can't seem to embed. I showed it to Chris (a few times) and Libby, on the bed before us, did a few corkscrews as if to say, "why are you so impressed? This is easy." We're over the moon. She's very close to rolling over from her back to her front and I was convinced she'd get that first but I didn't expect either to happen this soon. I really was completely floored when I returned to find her on her back.

We had our 6 week checkup after my last post and both of us are fine though the doctor wasn't able to hear Little Djinn's heart clearly so we're going back this week and on a different day we're going for her first round of immunizations. The Health Visitor will be out Monday to weight her again and check in. Little Djinn continues to like going for walks in her pram, though the grocery store and back seems to be too far for her patience. She's also lost patience for napping in her basket. She'll still sleep there at night, though she often cries for a bit before settling, but during the day she just won't do it, she'll only sleep on me. So I'm back to not getting much done during the day. On the plus side, she's sleeping 5-8hrs at a stretch and then going back to sleep for another 3hrs so I'm not too sleep deprived. Last week I was getting a bit worn down but she slept for 8hrs and then we took a nap together and my reserves filled back up.
Aged Parent is still in the hospital, no real change there. They think he'll be in hospital for 12 weeks from when they transfer him to the physical rehab hospital so that's a bit of a downer. No word on when a place will open for him.

I finally made Chris' birthday cake, a sticky chocolate pudding with coffee custard (I gave him a baby and he still wanted a cake). It was absolutely delicious, well worth waiting for, and it served eight not the suggested four. I also knit a little cabled hat but it doesn't quite fit over Little Djinn's head - it's big enough around but too short and of course I wove in all the ends before trying it on her. Now I'm trying to decide if I want to try and rip back the extant hat or just start over.

In book news, I'm reading the Shetland Quartet by Anne Cleeves after watching the drama "Shetland", based on the third book Red Bones, the book I'm on now. The adaptation is...curious in what it changed. Detective Perez' girlfriend, out of town in the book, is his dead wife and her young daughter is suddenly his teenage step-daughter. The girl's father is merely referenced in the book but they worked him into the show. They set they adaptation during Up Helly Aa, the fire festival at the end of January (which is when the first book takes place), instead of the spring, but how could they be working on an archaeological dig when the ground is still frozen? I'll find out tonight if they changed Whodunit. Mostly I wonder why they didn't just adapt the first book.

Mothering Sunday (Six Weeks)

Today is Mothering Sunday, my first as a mum, though it feels a bit weird as I'm used to Mother's Day being the second Sunday in May in the US. Little Djinn, clever girl that she is, ordered a few little presents off of the internet the highlight being a "Bestest Mum" mug and yesterday went tot he shop to buy a card for me, for her grandma, and a birthday card for grandma. She really does leave things to the last minute, doesn't she? I could have sworn we raised her better than that. Fortunately Grandma, whose birthday was yesterday, is in Israel right now so her birthday card should beat her home.

My baby girl is 6 weeks (and two days) old. I wanted to post at least once a month about her development and what we've been up to but until this last week she wouldn't let me put her down. The first two weeks I could (but didn't want to because I got endorphins from holding her and that's what kept me bright and chipper on little sleep and no down time) and then she became such a light sleeper that any attempt to shift her off of me resulted in her waking up. Leaving her on her back, no matter how tired she was or how long I left her, just lead to screaming. It was a lot easier to hold her during the day and let her sleep on me at night and work around the baby than to have her be so distraught.

This last week I said "screw it" to the warnings about never ever ever leaving one's baby on their tummy and lay her down that way and lo and behold, she'll sleep. She naps in her bassinet during the day and she sleeps there at night. These last two nights (of three sleeping this way) she didn't even fuss when I put her back after nursing, just fell asleep again. And for all of you nay-sayers, sleeping on the tummy is verboten because of a slightly increased risk of cot death, of smothering in the bedding. Little Djinn doesn't have loose bedding, just her mattress and fitted sheet and she's very advanced in the head-lifting and turning departments. She can already push herself all the way up on her arms and even in her sleep she can lift herself enough to turn her head. She's also sleeping through the night, or at least she would be if I wasn't waking her up to nurse. Chris ordered a breast pump for me so I can express rather than waking her up as I don't want to teach her to wake up every 3-6hrs the way I taught her not to sleep in her basket.

She's visibly changing week on week and almost day by day. She passed her six-week assessment early (the health visitor could see her performing most of the "tests" like staring at my face and smiling so she ran the rest). She spends a lot more time with Daddy and just today I think she started mimicking facial expressions. She likes it when I sing along with music and she's getting really good at grabbing and holding things, though not particularly on purpose. She's gained 2lbs and almost 3" and has started outgrowing her footie-pajamas in the 0-3mos size (purely a length thing, she's only 25th percentile weight-wise). We take her for walks, either in her pram or in our carry system. She sleeps when being carried, but looks around when in the pram which makes it a shame that pram-walks have almost always been at dusk or after dark. I have two slings for around the house, thus far the mai tai works best. She doesn't always want to be in it but for a while there it was the only way I could do things around the house with both my arms. Now that she's napping alone I'm catching up on much-needed housework and was able to bake a cake yesterday (what is Mother's Day without coffee cake?).

In less happy news, Aged Parent is in the hospital and has been for just over a week, after complaining about being short of breath. They diagnosed him with "water on the lungs" and put him on diuretics and then an IV drip and more recently found blood clots in his lungs so they're treating that as well. They're hoping to transfer him to a different branch of the hospital where he'd been going for physical therapy twice a week as soon as they have a place open. That'll be nice as it's in easy walking distance and it's not full of contagious people so Little Djinn and I will be able to visit as well. Within 24hrs of AP being admitted one of his neighbours knocked on our door to say he'd not seen him around and was he all right, and the next morning we got a call from his BFF saying he'd not been able to ring him on the phone. It's nice to know people are looking out for him.

In knitting news, I actually finished a 6 mos size cardigan for Little Djinn which hopefully I can blog about in more depth when I've finished weaving in the ends, blocked, and sewn buttons on. I'm working on the formerly-for-my-mother socks, having just turned the heel on the second one, though I need to rip the first one back probably all the way to the toe and re-knit it. I can work on that while my baby girl is sleeping on my lap or nursing (or most often, when she's sleep nursing, a skill I wish I possessed) and when she's napping in her basket I've been working on a cross-stitch project for her.

Birth Story

I need to write this down before thousands of years of evolution and my genes' only chance at further replication erase my memory of events completely. If there ever was a post that written with an audience of one in mind, it's this one.

My story really starts on Wednesday the 23rd. I was due on Friday the 18th but for the first time in my pregnancy I was unable to get an appointment for the same week I called and thus my 40 week checkup was almost a 41 week checkup. My midwife looked me over and confirmed that there wasn't even the slightest sign of labour starting. She tried a "cervical sweep"* which sometimes can get things started, but my cervix hadn't come forward at all and was unreachable. Yay.

Thursday morning I woke up around a quarter to 6 on with a wet trickle between my legs. It doesn't feel anything like peeing (except for the warm wet running down your legs) but it does feel a lot like leaking while menstruating. That's the best description I have for what it's like to have one's water break. I'm told that outwith Hollywood, one's water breaking is the first symptom of labour for a relatively small percentage of women and in most cases it breaks or is broken by the midwife when the cervix is already several cm dilated. I am that stereotype.

Chris woke up when I turned the bathroom light on and immediately figured things had started. My waters were clear, no signs of Little Djinn having moved her bowls in utero which can be a sign of fetal distress. I had passed the mucus plug which I had imagined more as a gelatinous plug but clearly the emphasis is on mucus as it looked like something large had cleared its sinuses in my knickers. I cleaned up and changed into clean (dry) clothes and climbed back in bed for our regular morning routine, Chris bringing tea and a satsuma for me and coffee for himself, checking our phones and nattering away until we were ready to get up, only this time with mild but noticeable contractions approximately ever five minutes. The adrenaline of rushing around to get to the hospital can cause labour to halt** so we waited until 7 to call the labour ward (calling the maternity ward first by mistake) and the midwife on duty said to go ahead and come in for an exam. And my contractions magically stopped.

My mother, who is still jet-lagged and not sleeping through the night, saw our light was on and when she heard us get up rushed out to ask us to give her a chance to get ready before going to the hospital. I assured her that she had plenty of time, that we'd not yet called a taxi, and that we wouldn't be doing so until my contractions had established themselves again. Personally we would have preferred to sneak out, leaving the phone and a note with a number to call, but I recognize that sitting in someone else's house twiddling one's thumbs while one's baby has a baby is a much longer day than being there for it, so I let her come and even repeatedly requested (each time we changed rooms) that the one person in attendance rule be bent to allow both Chris and my mother to be present.

After half an hour my contractions started up again, again about 5 minutes apart, so we called a taxi and went to the labour ward where I was examined*** and pronounced to be a mere 2cm dilated. This didn't count as labour. Baring a pressing need they wouldn't examine me again until 12:30 (4 hours later) and not wanting to take taxis back and forth all day I opted to leave my bags (one with stuff for me, one with stuff for Little Djinn) in the room and go to the cantina and wander the hospital for a while. It became clear that my contractions, still five minutes apart, were significantly more painful when sitting than when standing (and that it wasn't possible to switch from sitting to standing when I felt one coming on) so I stood at our table, then paced around it, with frequent trips to the loo to urgently pee an ounce at a time.

We hung out in the cantina as long as we could (past the point when they'd closed after breakfast and hadn't yet opened for lunch) and then took to the halls. I mostly tried to keep walking through the contractions, though I stayed close to the wall and clung to the handrails or Chris' hands as needed. By noon I was exhausted from standing for almost 4 hours and I made the executive decision to return to the labour ward a little early. At this point I didn't realize the was a 4-hours between exams policy and thought the half noon timeline more of a suggestion, a round number, but they let us back into my room, had me pee in a bucket****, and eventually did another round of exams, this time hanging around so she could feel a contraction which was a lot less fun than it sounds. I was still only 2cm (!!!) and one is not considered to be in labour until 4cm so they gently kicked me off of the labour ward and down to the maternity ward and the pre-labour room.

They were serving lunch as we got there, but we'd had second breakfast not long before, and having just arrived I'd not ordered anything but they had me fill out a card for dinner and breakfast the next day, and we waited. My timeline gets a bit fuzzy around here as I wasn't looking at a clock, but not terribly much later my contractions got a lot closer and a lot stronger so that I was having contractions about a minute apart and didn't feel like I'd even relaxed between them before the next one started and they really hurt. I started crying out with the pain (I remember saying "Ow" and "Owie" a lot when trying to breath) and it put a noticeable damper on the ward. Sitting or lying curled up on my side (I can't lie stretched out on my side) hurt more than standing so I stood, braced against a chest of drawers, rising up on tiptoe with each contraction, urgently requesting that we explore my pain killing options. Turns out the only option on the pre-labour ward (and they wouldn't take me back upstairs for another exam until half four, four hours after my last one) after paracetamol/Tylenol is diamorphine but the midwife had to call upstairs to check with the sister on duty***** before she could administer it, and then she was going to explain how it wouldn't effect my being able to use the birthing tub but I cut her off and begged her just to give me the injection already.

It took the promised 10-15 minutes to kick in and here my timeline gets really fuzzy because I was able to lay on my back which reduced the frequency of my contractions and the drugs took the edge off just enough that I could handle it, and had the side effect of letting me fade in and out of consciousness between contractions. And as I faded in, I blurted whatever dream-thought had been in my head, and I knew I was saying things that made no sense such as "but the mice don't like the colour purple" and as soon as I said them I knew, in the small pause that always followed such ejaculations, that they made no sense and I tried to remember what I thought was going on (because that would make it better, right?) and explain but the dreams faded too quickly and I eventually gave up and just went with "sorry."

At the appropriate time I got another exam (almost 3cm but not quite there yet), and dinner showed up and it was a shame I wasn't in a position to do more than pick at it as it was the best meal I got on the ward, and at some point we tried letting me take a bath but the water was warm, not hot, and didn't cover enough of my belly to help so I gave up on that rather quickly. The diamorphine wore off almost exactly four hours after administered, shortly after I inquired how long it would last and could there be more please, but it took a good half an hour after it wore off to get more in me. It must have been around 8:30 when they did another exam and announced that I was 3cm (finally!) and that was far enough along to use the birthing tub so they were going to transfer me back to the labour ward.

That took until almost 10, which was just as well as around 10 is when my diamorphine wore off again and they didn't want me in the tub, even supervised, if I was still fading in and out of consciousness. My mother, up since the day before, and Chris since a bit before 6 that morning, opted to head home and get some sleep after seeing me safely transferred back to the labour ward. They tried to get me to pee in a bucket again but I couldn't unclench. My new midwife, with shift and ward changes I was on my fourth now, examined me again before sending me into the tub and announced that I was 8cm and we should probably call my husband to come back, which we did and he got there just after I got in the tub.

I don't know how long I spent in the tub. My timeline suggests it was somewhere around 11 when I went in and that I was out around 1am, but it doesn't feel like I spent two hours there. I was having trouble not pushing when my contractions came but the midwife said I was probably 10cm by then, she thought I might have been expanding to 9cm while she was examining me earlier, and that if I felt like pushing I could. Being in the tub was nice, it was warm and big and deep, but as I moved into the second stage of labour I didn't feel like I had anything to push against so I got out and we returned to "my" room.

At this point the only painkillers I was allowed, the diamorphine having worn off before going in the tub, was laughing gas which I didn't think was doing anything for me except make me hoarse, but kept using because it was something to do and sometimes you don't realize something was helping until you stop. Anything stronger could make my baby drowsy at birth and then they'd have to give her something to wake her up and possibly take her away for observation so I conceded the point. I was still unable to pee so they stuck a catheter in and drained me, which was I remember was uncomfortable but have no specific memories of. And having officially examined me and measured me at 10cm, I got to take a break and lie down and try and sleep between contractions again for an hour before they, my midwife would be joined by another, asked me to push starting at 2:20am.

It hurt. Worse, I knew it was going to hurt more so I really didn't want to push. I begged them to use the suction cup and pull her out and they just kept telling me I was doing fine. My mother says the worst thing I yelled was "oh, God!" which I remember and she and Chris agree that I occasionally cried when I don't. I started with kneeling and clinging to the back of the bed, then switched to lying on my side, then stood up for a while over the midwives' protests including the request that I at least stand in the middle of the floor (I wanted the rolling chest of drawers/fetal heart monitor to lean on, which they objected to in particular because of the rolling bit). Then I got stuck standing because, again standing made my contractions closer together and stronger and they wanted to check the baby's heartbeat while I was there and it took a fair amount of time before there was a pause in contractions long enough to let me climb back onto the bed and lay on my other side.

Eventually we were crowning (oh, how that hurt - and I got to hold it with her head starting to peak out of me while the midwives got ready, putting aprons on and doing who knows what while I lay there wanting her in or out, but not halfway in between. I did make them fetch a mirror so I could see what was happening a plan somewhat hampered by having taken my glasses off some hours before. But seeing her head helped, even if less was sticking out than I had imagined. They took the mirror away and I pushed and I pushed and my mother says she could see me split but going forward, not back, which isn't something I ever considered, and I felt her slither out and the dumped her slimy little body on my belly and at 4:05am Friday I had my baby.

I held her naked body to my bared skin and we nursed a tiny bit while Chris cut the umbilical cord (which was further trimmed by the midwife), and they gave me a tiny injection to hurry the third stage of labour, the afterbirth, which I didn't feel nor do I recall pushing for, and then they were ready to sew me back up. "It's just a little tear" wound up taking forever to sew up. The second midwife leaned over the first's shoulder and gave pointers on how best to go about it. I ignored the proffered gas and air as I still didn't think it did much for me and a few injections of local anaesthetic, however sensitive the region, wasn't that big a deal. The midwives told me that I was clearly mistaken when I said I was afraid of pain, but I think that's the sort of thing you say to comfort people because a few jabs is nothing compared to 22hrs of unofficial and official labour, including 90 minutes of pushing a watermelon through a lemon. And just when I was thinking it was taking a long time to sew up "a little tearing" the midwives looked up and said that was the muscles done, now they'd do the skin. And when that was done they explained that there was also some "grazing" which hadn't required stitches. Lovely.

I can't remember if they took Little Djinn to clean (though not bathe), weigh and measure her before or after I took my shower, but either way I left her with Chris when I did and he got to do skin to skin, too. At some point we got tea and toast, enough for all three of us (not Little Djinn), and they swaddled Little Djinn in two towels and a cellulose blanket and I wheeled her little cot down to the maternity ward where I was given a bed (and eventually the breakfast I'd ordered the day before) and Chris and my mother had/got to go home and sleep.

~ * ~

* two fingers up my vagina, wiggling them around and because I was pregnant she couldn't even buy me a drink first.

** a very reasonable evolutionary precaution

*** see *

**** a cardboard bedpan placed over the toilet

***** is this an honourary title? Or is she also a nun?

Welcome to the World, Baby Girl

Kristina Abigail was born exactly one week ago, at 4:05 am, after 22hrs of labour*. She was 3.35kgs (7lbs 6oz) and around 20 inches at birth, though at her five day weigh-in she was down to 3.15kg, an almost 6% loss which is entirely to be expected. Because my water broke more than 18hrs before delivery they kept us in the hospital for 24hr observation to make sure she didn't have an infection and we got to go home Saturday afternoon, Chris' birthday. He was amazed that Little Djinn had already had time to nip round to the shops and get a birthday card for him. She's pretty amazing like that.

Our first night got a bit rough with her not wanting to settle and me not having slept in two days, but since then she's been a peach, only fussing when we're actively thwarting her will, say by not letting her nurse. As soon as she thinks she's headed towards an active nipple she calms right down.

Mother and baby are doing fine, passing our daily midwife check-ups with flying colours. Grandma is over the moon, and Daddy is quietly stressing about everything except when actually holding his daughter and then he's calm and happy. Granddaddy hasn't met her yet, but sent a truly extravagant bouquet of flowers. People who know Chris think she looks like him and people who know me think she looks like me, so I suspect she's just a baby and we're all reading too much into it.

~ * ~

* 11hrs of "official" labour, counting from about 4cm dilation, 2hrs of hard labour, eg deliberate pushing. Believe you me, I'm counting from the first contractions.