Three weeks of baby.
Three weeks ago today*, Eleanor slid out of my vagina and pooped on the living room floor. Right now, she is sleeping on my chest after having nursed herself into inebriation. One of my favorite things about her is how she gets this really fierce, intense look on her face when she latches, and then goes right from that into looking ready to fall asleep half the time. The other half, she will calmly look around the room or into my eyes while she has her meal/snack. I take a lot of pictures of her nursing because she's so freaking beautiful and I know she'll hold still then. I even have one of her giving me the finger in her sleep while still latched. (Not going to post it--nobody needs to see these stretch marks.)
Unmedicated childbirth is awesome. It really is--I am definitely trying for it again if we ever have a second child. I feel so insanely lucky to have a happy, healthy baby, though, that I don't really care about if I have more kids or not right now. If you've ever been told that your body is broken and no good for making babies, and if you've ever had a loss that convinced you maybe it was so, and if you went so crazy after that loss that you became ashamed of yourself later and decided you don't deserve a child anyways, you will understand what I mean when I say that just having one feels like a miracle. Like I must have done something amazing in a past life to get this experience. Like if there is some higher power in the universe, he/she/it/them must be generous and merciful and made of neverending love if after all the mistakes I have made, I still get to have this baby. But, yeah, I felt everything in childbirth and even after a day and a half of prodromal labor before the active labor started, I didn't think once that I couldn't do it...and then I did it, and she was there on my belly, and Jon cut her cord when it stopped pulsing. My midwife, her assistant, my doula, and of course Jon were 100% there for me, and I am so happy they were the first people in the whole world that Eleanor got to meet.
I'm doing surprisingly well post-partum. I thought I'd get hit with the mother of all post-partum depression or have hard-core anxiety problems, but I'm actually handling things very well. I guess all that therapy was worth it, because the only time I act like a total nut is when I wake up in the night afraid that something has happened to her. Jon has been stepping up a lot to help me get extra sleep, and that's helping, too. Even with two plumbing disasters occurring since her birth and being kind of freaked out about where the money to fix it will come from, I am mostly able to just enjoy Eleanor and enjoy being her mother.
Here, without further ado, is a picture of my beautiful daughter. My daughter...crap, I love saying that.
* ETA: She was born three weeks ago YESTERDAY. Holy hell, do I forget what day of the week it is now that I spend so much time parked on the couch.
Unmedicated childbirth is awesome. It really is--I am definitely trying for it again if we ever have a second child. I feel so insanely lucky to have a happy, healthy baby, though, that I don't really care about if I have more kids or not right now. If you've ever been told that your body is broken and no good for making babies, and if you've ever had a loss that convinced you maybe it was so, and if you went so crazy after that loss that you became ashamed of yourself later and decided you don't deserve a child anyways, you will understand what I mean when I say that just having one feels like a miracle. Like I must have done something amazing in a past life to get this experience. Like if there is some higher power in the universe, he/she/it/them must be generous and merciful and made of neverending love if after all the mistakes I have made, I still get to have this baby. But, yeah, I felt everything in childbirth and even after a day and a half of prodromal labor before the active labor started, I didn't think once that I couldn't do it...and then I did it, and she was there on my belly, and Jon cut her cord when it stopped pulsing. My midwife, her assistant, my doula, and of course Jon were 100% there for me, and I am so happy they were the first people in the whole world that Eleanor got to meet.
I'm doing surprisingly well post-partum. I thought I'd get hit with the mother of all post-partum depression or have hard-core anxiety problems, but I'm actually handling things very well. I guess all that therapy was worth it, because the only time I act like a total nut is when I wake up in the night afraid that something has happened to her. Jon has been stepping up a lot to help me get extra sleep, and that's helping, too. Even with two plumbing disasters occurring since her birth and being kind of freaked out about where the money to fix it will come from, I am mostly able to just enjoy Eleanor and enjoy being her mother.
Here, without further ado, is a picture of my beautiful daughter. My daughter...crap, I love saying that.
* ETA: She was born three weeks ago YESTERDAY. Holy hell, do I forget what day of the week it is now that I spend so much time parked on the couch.