Liesel's Birth Video

Here is our experience with Liesel's birth in film. It was much harder than I thought it would be, it was ugly and beautiful and scary and so wonderful. Here it is:

mid-March update

With an almost 3-month old, sometimes the only free time I have to write is at 4am when I can't fall back to sleep after a middle-night feeding. Ah, well. Like everything else I've gone without in exchange for this new life (coffee being a key example), it's worth it.

Liesel has become very expressive in the last couple of weeks, which brings us unending joy. She smiles bigger and bigger every day, coos and gurgles adoringly at us when all is right in her world, and is defining her different cries for different purposes, which is unbelievably handy. Her needs are usually simple; a full tummy, enough sleep, a clean diaper. 

I vacillate between feeling like I have an expert's handle on how to be her mom (when she falls asleep easily at the right time and is in an unbelievably good mood) and feeling like I'm clueless and my mistakes cause her pain (when I'm trying to put her down to sleep because I think she's tired and she won't stop crying because she's actually hungry). Contrary to a previous post where I touted that I'd figured out how to keep her healthy, she ended up getting sick during her 7th week and I learned on a gut level that my new greatest heartbreak in life is going to be witnessing the suffering of my child. You know when you fall in love and start to realize that you're in so deep, you can get hurt really badly if the recipient of your love fails or falls out or otherwise stops reciprocating? I'm in that place with my baby. Constantly quelling the "what ifs" of her lifelong health and feelings towards me. 

It's an impossible frame of mind to be in; whatever may come, I haven't the tools for it yet. And as complicated as it can be to decipher a crying baby's needs, I try to remember that my relationship with Liesel now is in its most primal form: she has basic needs, and I meet them with the resources available to me. It's usually milk. 

Onward. I feel like we've been in hibernation since the end of my pregnancy, and I'm so ready for Spring and socializing. It's hard to leave the house in the winter with a tiny baby who needs a nap every two hours and then thirty minutes of nursing after that. I can't just pull up my shirt on a freezing Chicago streetcorner or expect her to sleep well in my arms while I'm having a conversation with someone else. It's a perplexing situation, because I'd really like to be a friend, especially to other moms who are trying to figure this out too, but how do I get to the coffee shop or over to their house during naptime or expect them to take their babies out in the snow to get to mine? My hope lies in the Spring. Maybe when warm weather comes it will be easier. Until then, I'll keep spending most of my energy on family relationships (my sisters in law are becoming some of my best friends these days) and thanking my good Lord for giving Tim and I the opportunity to work from home most of the time. He is my favorite friend, and being able to talk to him all day while he edits pictures is a blessing of which I'll never know the end.

We're headed down to Florida next week to visit my parents and I think he and I will actually get to go out on a date together and take Liesel on walks outside. Outside! I can't wait.

every tiny detail

"I just love the back of Liesel's head. Isn't it so sweet? When I was pregnant with Jenny, I didn't put much hope in her. I knew the Lord had been so good to give me the twins after I lost my other baby and I just couldn't believe I would get to have another girl. But then Jenny was born healthy and at first I was only able to see the back of her head before they brought her over to me...and just seeing that tiny bit of her gave me this huge rush of emotion. I couldn't believe I got to keep her. Even now, sometimes I'll see at the back of Jenny's head and feel all excited." 

--Jeannie (my mother in law)