Baby

babymoon

July 12, 2013 / 25 Comments

out_to_sea nantucket downey_flake

I pulled out my computer to write a post and the last window left up my screen was the ferry schedule to Nantucket. Last Friday we taunted fate and caught a boat to the island three days before my due date. On the boat I told people I wasn’t due for a week or two so they would leave me alone. I bought our tickets and the lady told me it was “outside seating only” so we sat in the sun at the back of the boat and Joe and Lux were misted with saltwater for the hour ride over. I kept looking over to see Lux licking her lips to taste the salt. When we left Boston the city was turning into something of a steaming bowl of broccoli fresh from the microwave, every day. We would wake up and it was already 80, with the threat of rain, which meant a sticky 90 degrees by lunchtime and even with AC going in the bedrooms you would find yourself torpid and uninspired for the rest of the day. The ocean breeze and dramatically cooler nights, plus just a little time with wonderfully refreshing friends, were exactly what we needed. Science still doesn’t know what starts labor (they think it’s the baby’s initiative) but I wonder if it might be a deep moment of contentment and peace that triggers the fusillade.

Our friend David moved out of his bedroom, the one off the kitchen with a window that is perpetually open to the sound of the backyard, and slept on the couch while we were there. We came with our pack n play, our bathing suits, and our books. I often like to bake things before we go out there and arrive with fresh bread or banana bread with chocolate, or snacks. But this time it was too hot and I was too pregnant to do any of that. So we arrived and bought what we needed from the grocery store–steak tips, marshmallows, corn on the cob, an enormous watermelon, fresh portuguese rolls, and those cheddar and peanut butter cracker packs that everyone should eat once a summer. Because of fog the island fireworks had been postponed to the 5th, and that night we found a spot on a dune atop an almost abandoned beach to watch them. They were downwind from us, so there was almost no noise, and it felt a bit like we were watching a light show on another planet, like the Little Prince. The next morning I woke up hours before Joe and Lux and went to get donuts from our favorite spot.

Then, on Sunday morning I woke up with more serious contractions than I’d had so far, and I said, we’d better go.

backyard_light books_in_bedheading out on an adventure

We’ve been home for a few days and I’ve done little besides lounge on my bed, read, and eat. Medium rare steaks from Paramount and Toscano’s (also a banana caramel shake from Paramount….genius), eggs benedict and bacon from the Whole Foods breakfast bar, lots of kefir (attempting to make up for the all the probiotics lost with the two rounds of penicillin I had to get), several bins of blueberries, and chocolate chip cookies. My mom’s been to the grocery store a dozen times, and Joe and my mom alternate with taking Lux outside on adventures, doing the dishes, vacuuming, and cuddling Joan while I nap. In short, it is the babymoon we all hope for and I am relishing it. I’m quite sore, my milk rushed in which means now I’m sore in two places, and I swing from moments of complete contentment to moments of total fatigue and retreat. Lux has burst into tears more times in the last few days than in the last months combined. Joe and I are trying to be patient but we also find ourselves looking at it each other, wide eyed with befuddlement and shocked by her outrage over whether she wants help taking off her shoes. Like me, she has mood swings. She has been ignoring Joan, but in a respectful way, like “I don’t know what this is, so I’ll just leave it alone.” So far my best idea has been to ask her to “go check on her” which she jumps up and sprints off to do. The last time I asked her to do that, she stood in front of the crib and shouted back to me that the baby was still napping. : ) Joan just had her first night of trying to stay up at preposterous hours, but it makes it much easier to relax when you know you can sleep in the next morning.
 morning_sleep
This birth was everything I hoped it would be—without fear, without pestering, a climatic incredibly intense 12 hours within my own body with Joe at my side. If you’ve had a birth that wasn’t what you hoped, I can tell you that I’m right there with you and I know how you feel. I can also say that perhaps you will decide to have another, and perhaps it will be exactly what you hoped. It’s not too much to tell yourself that.

…more on that, I promise. : )

 

 

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