Birthday overkill

Today was Natalie's 2nd birthday party. I'm sad to say I spent around $500 on it, invited lots of friends (too many for our small house), and instead of being joyful and fun, it was stressful. I pretty much hated every minute of it, hated myself for not anticipating the problems, for spending too much money, for overwhelming my two-year-old. She was in tears as I tried to get her to open presents. I had to just give up.

I hope my friends will forgive me for being a lousy party planner. I hope I can forgive myself.

Rob tells me people had fun, even Natalie. I take his word for it.

Sometimes my confidence as a mom gets shaken, and this is one of those times. No more parties, at least no more big parties, in this house. Martha Stewart I am not.

It's just pee.

Envisioning the family I would raise, I didn't realize how often that phrase would come up. Often enough, in fact, that my near-2-year old, Natalie, says it every day now, too. If it's not poop or vomit or something equally foul, it's probably just pee, and we and our belongings have been peed on enough now that we just don't care that much. Just wipe it up, throw it in the wash, etc.

Natalie drinks a LOT of liquids, for which I'm grateful; she's in good health and I never worry about her getting dehydrated, even when she's sick. But we use cloth diapers, oh, probably 75% of the time, not all of which are that great at keeping the pee from leaking out. In fairness, I'm probably not changing diapers as often as I should, now that I have two sets to change.

Even with disposable diapers, even overnight disposables, Natalie's pee makes it to the bedsheet at least 4 days a week, either in the morning or after nap. Rachel has been peeing the bed lately, too. So I'm doing even more laundry. It's a good thing I can find a way to enjoy folding clothes and hanging wet diapers on the back porch. (Note: Benefit of a drought in TX, those diapers dry really fast, maybe even faster than in the dryer.)

A friend mentioned the pee-in-the-tub phenomenon in her blogtoday. I don't worry about my kids drinking peed-in tub or pool water anymore. It's sterile, right? There's probably enough chlorine, etc, in the pool water to kill it anyway. I'm actually more concerned about their drinking that much chlorine. But not that concerned. So far, their little bodies are pretty good at determining when they need to spit up.

Oh, and it'll probably get worse before it gets better. We haven't started potty training yet. Dun dun dun...

Amigos y amigas

 

Natalie and Piper, enjoying some popsicles at Piper's house after a hot and cramped (but fun!) Art Day in the Park with the Biscuit Brothers. Rob says they look like the Comedy and Tragedy drama masks in this photo.

People often ask me how I handle having two little kids, babies really, so close in age. If it weren't for good mama friends, I don't know how I would. We spend the morning hanging out with a mama and toddler at least once during the week, sometimes two or three times, basically as many playdates as I can schedule. Outside of the precious few minutes I get to spend with my husband now and then, and weekend trips to my parents' place in Dripping Springs, playdates are my only source of adult interaction.

Even when the playdates are chaotic, which is always a possibility with toddlers and a baby, they're therapy for me. Just talking to another mom (and sometimes dad) is reassuring and refreshing, knowing they're going through similar things with their kids.

They're even more important for Natalie, I think. She has never been in any type of daycare or Mother's Day Out program, and she's only been in nurseries a handful of times, and never with any predictable caregivers or friends in class. That will change when she starts MDO two days a week at Covenant UMC in September. But she has good friends already that she has come to know through regular playdates. Lately she talks about her friends when they're not around. When she goes to the park she asks for Lyla. When we're getting in the car she often asks for Piper. If I mention that we're going to Adriana's house, she won't stop talking about "Yana" until we get there. She knows Owen is our neighbor and asks about him when we're going to the pool.

In planning Natalie's 2nd birthday I'm delighted to reflect on how many friendships she has with little girls and boys close to her age, and how those are extensions of treasured friendships I have with the parents. Not surprisingly, most of the guests are parents and kids. There are some important significant others who are not themselves parents. I'll devote another post to these special folks one day soon.

I'm grateful for the friendships that have carried us through the joys and trials of these early days.

TV, or not TV?

So, since Natalie was born, I've been hesitant about letting her watch TV. Lucky for me she doesn't seem to have any great inclination to watch, until recently anyway.

I turned on PBS a few times between when Natalie was, say, 10 months old and 18 months old. I didn't really dig the programming, not even Sesame Street, which I remember having enjoyed somewhat as a kid. I let her watch Clifford, which seemed a little more playful and less preachy or teachy than some of the other shows. Natalie never really got interested to the point where she'd ask me to turn it on, or ask for a particular show. She'd watch a few minutes, if that, then wander off to do something else.

Some of our well-meaning relatives sent us a Baby Einstein video, Baby Mozart or something like that. I remembered that a friends' mom had said it captivated her daughter and she could actually get a few minutes to herself when she put it on. Half hoping for the same magic, I popped it into the DVD player. Nah, not interesting enough for Natters, who was probably 15 months old at the time. Might've worked on a younger baby.

Nurtureshock discusses Baby Einstein and how there's little to no evidence to support their claims to build brighter babies. Several other books, including Bright from the Start warn that TV for infants and toddlers may actually hinder neural development. The American Academy of Pediatrics advises against TV for kids under 2.

Okay, so parking your baby or toddler in front of the TV every day for children's programming is probably a bad idea; lots of overstimulating colors, sounds and ads, ads, ads. But I'm hoping occasional viewings of ad-free documentaries aren't too terrible. Because, as it turns out, Natalieloves them.

"Planet Earth" and "Babies" are the two documentaries she has seen. Neither was made for kids. We have to skip parts of both that we fear might be too violent and scary. She doesn't need to see a shark devour a sweet, lovable dolphin. Nor does she need to get any ideas from an older brother smacking his baby brother with a scarf. Sure, these probably aren't the first or worst images that come to mind with the word
"violence". There's plenty of bad stuff in pretty much all TV formats, yes, including kids' programming. But we're in dicey territory letting her watch TV at all.

We have a running dialogue with Natalie about what happens to all four babies throughout "Babies", her current favorite. "She's with her Daddy. Daddy's giving her a bottle", "he stepped on the goat", etc. It might be a stretch to claim that watching it has taught her anything--I think she had this vocabulary anyway--but I hope it's at least somewhat innocuous. Because it's nice to have a calm, engaged Natalie for a few minutes while I type a blog post, get the dishes done, or fold some laundry. Or change Rachel's diaper.

Oh, and I don't let Natalie watch TV every day. Sometimes we go a week or two without any TV at all. Rob and I don't watch TV, and we don't keep it on in the background.

That will change with the arrival of football season. Having grown up with three brothers and no sisters, and in a sports-watching family, football on TV is familiar and comforting to me. It's a rite of autumn that I treasure, and so does my husband. Natalie might have seen more football than anything else on TV in her lifetime--she's been alive through two football seasons so far. She was saying "football!" this past season, so she is definitely somewhat familiar with it already. Granted, we'd probably all be better off if we were outside playing football during those hours. But it's something of a family tradition that we treasure, so it's here to stay, vice or no.

Natalese

Every day Natalie's speech gets clearer and more sophisticated. It has reached the point where I'd better jot down some of her toddlerisms before they're gone and forgotten.

"Lello"		Yellow
"Killerpiller" (formerly "Coddiedater")		Caterpillar
"MEElk"		Milk
"No Mommy sing."		Don't sing, Mommy.

Off the top of my head, I can't remember more examples right now, but as I stumble on them I'll try to remember to add them to this post.

Mid-week slump

Happy Hump Day, everybody. Although I know it hasn't been an especially hard week, for some reason I'm feeling more burned out than usual.

Rachel is now five months old. She is newly able to sit without support for a few minutes, which is exciting, but I think perhaps it's making her impatient for more mobility. She can lean pretty far forward before she slumps off to the side and quickly gets upset. She still seems to be teething a bit, no teeth yet of course. She's taking a long time to get to sleep at night, but fortunately doesn't stay awake any longer than it takes to feed during the night. Last night I think she actually spaced out her wakings/feedings to maybe every 2-1/2 hours instead of 1-1/2 to 2. I don't know because I don't have a clock in the room at the moment. She even slept in until 7:45 when Natalie woke her up. In spite of this, I still felt very groggy upon getting up for the day.

My lower back is very sore lately, as is my left hip flexor and knee. I hope I'm not headed toward round #2 of post-baby sciatica. At least if I am, it has taken longer to develop this time, and I'll know what to do to tame it. Methylprednisone was what finally knocked it out last time, after months and months of chiro and PT. Sometimes Western medicine is necessary.

So I love Natalie to pieces, she is a great kid and fascinatingly cute and precocious, but boy is she challenging sometimes! Lately she's been intentionally slapping Rob and me, and hitting us with toys and other objects. She occasionally goes after Rachel, but fortunately that's pretty rare. I try to calmly and patiently stop the aggression (grab the hand, toy, etc) and get down at eye level with her to verbally remind her "no hitting", but I'm losing my patience lately. I get frustrated and yell, which is totally ineffective, and if anything, only makes both of us more upset. I haven't ever hit her back, but I am tempted sometimes. I draw the line at punishing her physically. I've read plenty about discipline that says that spanking and such is misguided and ineffective at best, and at worst it stresses the child and leads to increased aggression all around.

All punishment is misguided, says Unconditional Parenting. I need to re-read it, because I'm not sure what to do to help Natalie and us get at whatever it is that's causing the hitting. Part of it is her desire for more attention, but with Rachel here, it's always a challenge to give Natalie as much as she wants and needs. Some of this is probably just a question of time, and nothing we do will make a difference, we just have to get through it. But I never like that answer--I don't like being totally out of control.

Natalie also reflexively says "No!" to every request now. I'm thinking I might try some reverse psychology for a while. The Love and Logic parenting folks emphasize giving a choice between two options whenever possible. It seems to work well for Natalie when she's in a good mood anyway (not overstimulated, tired, hungry, etc.) But yes or no questions almost always produce a no. Sometimes she even says no to something she obviously wants, like a bottle of (coconut) milk.

The days are long, but the years are short, the saying goes. The days are definitely long!

My parents came over this past Sunday to watch the girls while Rob and I slipped out to the Alamo Drafthouse to see Horrible Bosses. This is the second "date" (sans kids) we've had since Rachel was born. It was great, but over way too soon! Logistically, though, it doesn't make sense to leave Rachel for longer than that. She has to eat too often, and neither Natalie nor Rachel will stay happy without Rob or me around for very long. It's not easy to get even two hours carved out for us to be a couple.

We tell ourselves we will look back and laugh, and I'm sure we will. But oh, for a solid night of sleep, more than one glass of wine, and an uninterrupted conversation!

Playing around

Outside

One of the best things about being a stay-at-home-mom is getting to be outside with my kids every day. Even now, with triple-digit temps every afternoon for months, we can get out early in the morning or after 7PM or so, and it's quite bearable, even enjoyable. Besides, if Natalie is cooped up inside all day, there's hell to pay! Good thing that's exceedingly rare here in Central Texas.

Over the weekend, Rob and I took the girls for a walk in a nearby neighborhood, not ours, for a change of pace. We were also eyeing xeriscapes to get ideas for our own yard. We parked near the entrance to a small wooded area and made a short walk around the neighborhood before we ventured into the woods.

I forget how refreshing it is to walk in the woods. I forget that I believe it's absolutely essential, like a vitamin for your soul. Thoreau was definitely on to something.

Fortunately, it's not just the woods. Being outside anywhere in nature makes me feel like all is essentially right with the world, in a way that I can't tap into indoors. Our little human drama is just that, little, in the grand scheme of things. I can't feel that here, thinking about it at my computer. Not looking out a window. You have to be there, outside, surrounded by it, to feel it.

We spent a good part of this morning on our back deck, as we often do if we aren't over at Schroeter Park on the playground. Natalie played with a simple teddy bear, changing its diaper, making it fly like a butterfly, sending it down the slide of the dry kiddie pool. Rachel fussed until I put her in the Ergo carrier, then she settled and quickly fell asleep. I hand-watered a bit of the yard missed by the sprinkler yesterday, then assembled and folded cloth diapers fresh from the laundry. It was simple, but wonderful, to be outside doing ordinary things with my two daughters. It was warm, to be sure, but we have a fan and a roof on the deck, and with the morning breeze it's not bad at all.

Now I'm enjoying some quiet time while the girls both nap. Yes! It happens! Not every day, but it does happen. And it's so nice when it does.

Anyway, I'm a big believer in "outside". It does wonders for the girls' disposition, and for mine. So lucky are we to live in a city of parks, where it is temperate almost all year.

Baby book? What baby book?

So I haven't exactly fulfilled my commitment to blogging about our daily lives as a family of four. Here we are almost five months after Rachel was born. Natalie is turning two years old at the end of this month. I kept hoping to get back to this blog, but I think I was overwhelmed by my sense of shame at not having gotten to it right after Rachel was born. That and, I've been soooo busy. Busy like I didn't realize I could be before Rachel arrived.

Things are good. Rachel's birth story is in the previous post. I hope to get around to telling you about the months I've neglected to write about so far, but not tonight. I have 20 minutes, so here's where we are today:

RACHEL: 4 months, 3 weeks old (or so). She still has most of the full head of black hair she was born with, only now it's thinning in the back and more of a dark brown color. She has startled-looking round blue eyes, a tiny cute nose, gargantuan cheeks and an anime mouth - ah-ooo-ah! Either her mouth is wide open or tightly pursed.

She's sleeping about like Natalie did at this age--one long stretch, maybe 4 hours, followed by wakings every 1-1/2 hours or so. This time it's much easier because I can make myself go to bed when she does, and she sleeps with me in the bed, so she doesn't ever have to cry to wake me up. So I get woken up frequently for quick feedings, but then she drifts off again quickly, so I can, too.

Rachel naps much better than Natalie did, usually. She'll often overlap naps with Natalie (great for me!) Some days she'll take 30 minute naps. Other days she'll take up to a 3- or 4-hour nap. I'm sure part of the inconsistency is because she's at the mercy of everyone else's schedule, but I try to let her nap as much as I can. Being a second child, she doesn't get a noise- and light-free environment, or one-on-one attention until she's fast asleep. Makes me wonder if I needed to put so much effort into getting Natalie to nap as a baby, but what's done is done.

Rachel is still exclusively breastfed, but she is so jealous of the food we eat that I don't think I'll be able to hold her off the full six months to introduce baby food. She squawks impatiently every time she sees us eat.

Rache is cute and playful. Uncle Brian nicknamed her "Sug", and it fits. She started laughing almost as soon as she started smiling, at around 3-1/2 weeks, and she laughs and smiles a lot. These days she's interacting with Natalie more and more, which is such a delight. She can roll over both ways, though she usually rolls back-to-tummy, gets stuck, and squawks or cries to be picked up.

NATALIE: Natalie is almost two, and is still cuter all the time. People often ask me how she reacted to getting a sister at such a tender age--19 months. She has always been affectionate and playful towards Rachel, but there have been several tough moments in which she wanted my attention, or Rob's, and couldn't get it right away. I'm sure it hasn't been easy for her, but overall I think she's handling it beautifully. She has had the occasional unconsolable crying fit (tantrum? not sure whether to call it that). She wakes up with night terrors once in a while. Rob and I pretty much acknowledge what's going on and try to validate it, i.e. "I see that you're upset/angry/scared. That's okay. I'm here if you need me." And we wait it out until she's ready for physical contact (being hugged/carried). Often taking her outside on the back porch and pacing with her, humming, seems to help.

Natalie is extraordinarily verbal. She is already speaking in sentences, and very clearly. I lament that we haven't been able to record her more--she stops what she's doing as soon as she realizes we are trying to take a picture or video. Her "baby talk" days are quickly going away. Just today at HEB she said, "I lost the list," and sure enough, the shopping list was on the floor behind us. She recently learned how to say "I want/need", so we're hearing that a lot lately. She has a huge vocabulary and parrots things back to us, sometimes days after we said them, with eerie accuracy. She sings all the time, and lately makes up her own songs to familiar melodies, stringing together pieces of songs and books she's memorized, and phrases she hears all the time. She recently learned all the basic color words. She still says things like "wed" and "geen" for red and green, but it's very clear what she's trying to say.

She is terrified of men with facial hair, so we've had some unfortunate run-ins with her friends' daddies and grandpas. Otherwise, she's very sociable.

Rachel's Birth Story

Better late than never, right? Here's Rachel's birth story, from back when I wrote it up for my Yoga Mama friends:

I've been meaning to write Rachel's birth story, as it was both a happy ending and a new beginning for our little family. Feel free to skip to Rachel's story if you don't have time to read the background on Natalie's birth (or already know the story).

Natalie's Birth Story

I have to start by backing up to Natalie's birth, back in July 2009. I wanted a natural childbirth and thought I would get one. My OB (Stephanie McNelis) at St David's NAMC was casual about this point, but said "yeah, you can pretty much have whatever birth you want." Not knowing much more than that, I took her at her word. Then I went overdue.

The pressure to induce started a few days before my due date, when my cervix still hadn't dilated at all. She encouraged me to set up an induction for 7/25, 3 days after my due date. I gave her a tentative "yes", then went home to read up on inductions a bit. I found a general consensus that inductions were a little risky and not recommended unless medically necessary. At my next appointment, I asked why induction would be necessary. My OB warned me that the longer I went overdue without going into labor, the greater my risk would be of ending up with a C-section, because the baby would have a meconium bowel movement in the womb. While this might have been true in an absolute sense, it completely omitted the fact that inductions themselves double a mother's C-section risk. My husband and I told her we wanted to push the induction date out anyway, to give Natalie a few more days to get here on her own. Irritated, the OB told us that she could schedule it for 7/28 but that it was the last day she would be available to deliver the baby (perhaps because she had a vacation planned or something--she didn't explain further.) We reluctantly agreed to 7/28.

The induction itself was rough, but not the end of the world as far as I was concerned. Labor lasted 14 hours, and 8 hours into it, on 16 units of Pitocin, having not slept in the past 30 hours or eaten in the past 18, I consented to the epidural. I got it an hour later, but it wore off four times. In the meantime, Natalie's heartrate dropped a few times, possibly because of the epidural. I was 9.5 cm dilated when the OB came in and told me I would have to have a C-section if there were any more decels in the next 20 minutes. For those 20 minutes, I breathed very deeply, concentrated intently on the heartrate monitor, and prayed constantly. Fortunately there were no more decels, and then I was ready to push. 30 minutes later, Natalie was born.

I could get over all that, but then Natalie was snatched from my arms right as I was trying to latch her on to breastfeed for the first time. What ensued was a week-long stay in the NICU, while my husband and I camped out at the hospital. One by one, fears about Natalie's well being were dispelled, only to be replaced by new fears or hurdles she/we had to clear before we could take her home. First it was the fast breathing, then a distended belly, which led to 48 hours of IV antibiotics and 4 x-rays. Then they had to see that her digestive system worked properly. I insisted on breastfeeding, which was monumentally difficult with the stress, the pressure of a critical audience watching, the parameters she and I were expected to meet on the hospital's schedule, and the constant pressure to give her formula. We finally had to give her formula because breastfeeding was going so badly she was starving, but I insisted on trying to breastfeed to start each feeding anyway. Most frustratingly, we couldn't get anyone to explain to us what risk(s) the hospital actually feared for Natalie's well-being and why she needed to be in the NICU, hooked up to tubes and monitors, unable to feed or bond normally.

So it took us a week to clear all the hurdles, and we were even told "your baby belongs to the NICU" by one of the NICU nurses, after we asked for the 100th time when they would let us take our baby home.

All this being said, a few of the nurses in both L&D and the NICU were wonderful, constructive and compassionate; unfortunately after their shifts ended, we met disgruntled nurses who, probably under plenty of stress caring for other (truly sick) NICU babies, didn't appreciate us and the demands we made on their time and patience.

After that first week, all of us were miserable and I felt I had failed Natalie as a mother in many different ways. It took a long time to get over this feeling, as we suffered through colic, reflux and breastfeeding issues. I think at around 6 months I was finally able to feel a little bit competent as a parent.

Of course, after this experience, I wanted the exact opposite for my next child. No hospital, no unnecessary interventions, ample bonding time, peace and just to be home with him/her as soon as possible. I started researching the possibilities as soon as I could after Natalie was born.

I toured Austin Area Birthing Center (North) with the owner, Jean, who listened to Natalie's birth story and took time and care in answering my questions about my options for natural childbirth there. I loved the facility and my husband was impressed with them, too. We considered home birth, but liked the fact that AABC is super close to where we live, they have several midwives so someone is always available, and all the "mess" of birth would be outside of our home, in a well-equipped, safe and beautiful place. We found out our insurance wouldn't cover it, but even with going self-pay, the total bill (assuming no complications) would be considerably less than what we paid out of pocket for Natalie's birth and hospital stay.

Rachel's Birth Story

I had found out I was Group B Strep positive at my 38-week appointment. The usual protocol for this is IV antibiotics during labor. Aside from the minor concern of this being a bummer for me during labor, I was concerned that antibiotics would wipe out all the beneficial bacteria in my birth canal and breastmilk that my baby would need to build her immune system after birth. I researched the risks of GBS to mom and baby (remote but possibly quite serious--menengitis or sepsis, even in some very rare cases, death), maternal risk factors and the risks of IV antibiotics. I talked to one of the midwives at AABC about alternative treatment, got a second GBS test, and found out that we could forgo the antibiotics in favor of doing a local (vaginal) Hibiclens rinse before any cervical checks, or immediately after the water broke or every 6 hours thereafter. This treatment is common in Europe, apparently. Joan Smith, CNM at AABC, approved this alternative treatment plan.

I had been having Braxton-Hicks contractions on and off for a week. I would wake up at 2AM and have irregular contractions until 5AM. Or I would start having mild contractions at 11AM and it would fizzle out by 2PM. No one had checked my cervix yet, as it isn't AABC's policy to do so before 39 weeks unless there is a medical reason to.

So when contractions started up at 7AM, even though they were a little stronger than before and more regular--every 5 to 7 minutes--I hesitated to start making phone calls. I fed Natalie breakfast and gave her a bath, then started tidying up the house and packing the car, just in case this was the real thing. When a contraction would start, I stopped what I was doing to do Wall Dog, swaying my hips during contractions, or Cat/Cow. I did tell my husband, Rob, to stay home from work just in case this was the real thing. My husband had ordered some St. Augustine sod for the backyard, and the installer arrived at around 9AM.

Contractions continued at the same pace, same 5-7 minute intervals all morning. The grass guy finished up at around 10:30. At 11AM, wham! I had a REALLY hard contraction, followed by two more just as intense, so close together I didn't have a chance to time them. I yelled for Rob to call our doula, Melia Gordon, to meet us at the house, then called our parents to come pick up Natalie, then AABC.

When he got in touch with Joan at AABC, the contractions were 2-1/2 to 3 minutes apart, really really hard labor. She told us she would meet us at the birthing center in 30 minutes. Things were suddenly happening really fast. Melia arrived just in time and she drove me over to AABC. I live literally less than a mile from there, thank God! I had a contraction before walking out to the car, then one in the car, then one in the parking lot.

We got into the Santa Fe Room just in time for me to have another contraction. They couldn't have been more than a minute apart at this point. I tried to breathe and relax through them, which I could only do to a point. I howled and tensed up as each one peaked. "Try not to fight it," said Melia (our doula) and Joan. I tried and was only somewhat successful, but they reassured me this meant things were really far along. I did the Hibiclens rinse on the toilet, one more contraction. Then Joan managed to check me on the bed and said, "There's only a bag of waters holding your baby back, no cervix at all!" Talk about music to my ears!

Rob was waiting at our house with Natalie for my parents to arrive from Dripping Springs. He called Melia just as she was about to call him and tell him to hurry over with Natalie. I tried to hold off on pushing until he got there. Melia and Joan got me on my knees, head-down on the bed, to help slow labor just a bit.

"Can I get in the tub?" I managed to ask. They filled the tub for me and I got in. They used Hibiclens in the water, as an extra precaution against GBS. It was slippery in the tub, but the warm water was a very welcome sensation that was part of my slim grip on sanity while laboring so hard. I felt like I couldn't hold the baby back much longer, but I didn't know how much more I could take. Rob arrived and traded places with Melia while she went to the waiting room to help with Natalie. I had already started pushing in the tub. Joan suggested I use this ski rope-looking device--a handle on one end for me to hold with both hands, and another identical handle on the other end that the clinical assistant, Summer, held to counterbalance my pull.

With Joan's guidance, I tucked my chin to my chest and pushed with all my might and concentration. Quickly the baby crowned, still in the bag of waters. In the next push, I felt a little pop and saw a plume of what looked like grapeseed oil trickle under the tub water. "Your water just broke," Joan explained. A few more hard pushes and the head was out, but the shoulders were stuck. "Give me just a little grunty push with the next contraction," Joan advised. I did and it was a relief after the intense effort of the bigger ones. She eased a shoulder out, but we had one more to go. "More grunty pushes," Finally the next shoulder emerged, and the baby slid out. Shaking and euphoric, I leaned back to relax in the tub as Joan carefully laid the baby on my chest. "The cord won't go any further than this yet." I rubbed my new, purple baby with thick, black hair and they gave me receiving blankets and helped to rub and dry her. She was looking around and let out a few little cries, then coughed out some fluid and let out a holler.

We stayed in the tub as it drained and we waited for my placenta. I pushed it out easily and then studied it for a few seconds, as it sat on the floor of the tub. I hadn't seen my placenta when Natalie was born, and thought it looked big and impressive, with so many veins and dark jewel-like hues of red, purple and blue. They scooped it up carefully to take it off for encapsulation.

"So do we know the gender?" Joan asked. In the shock of new birth I had forgotten to check! I picked up a tiny leg and looked--a little vagina. "It's a girl!" I laughed. We hadn't known, but Rob and I had suspected all along that it was a girl.

They clamped the cord once it stopped pulsing and waited for Rob to cut it. They helped me back to the toilet and then to the bed, and handed my me sweet baby. Finally, as she and I were left alone for a brief moment while the tub was cleaned, I cried tears of long-awaited relief and joy. It was the birth I had longed and prayed for, and my baby and I would not be separated. She fussed a lot for about 30-45 minutes while I tried to latch her on to nurse. "She just has a lot to say about that birth," Melia assured me, helping as best she could to get us going. She really helped me stay calm about it and keep trying without overwhelming Rachel. Finally I did get Rachel latched on the right side and she calmed down immediately and suckled ambitiously for a long time.

We had to stay until 6PM to make sure my vitals and Rachel's were okay. We sat in bed and nursed and looked at each other. She spit up a little and dozed off on my shoulder. It was pure bliss.

My mom had gotten lost on the way to the birthing center, but did finally make it and popped in for a minute to meet her new granddaughter, Rachel. Then she scooped up Natalie and took her back to our house so she could meet her new sister before going to my parents' house in Dripping Springs for the night. While they waited for us to come home, my mom cooked us dinner.

We got home right after 6 when dinner was ready, and Natalie was waiting.

"Rachel!" she said. My mom had already taught Natalie her new sister's name.

"Baby!" she continued, reaching in gently to pat Rachel's hair. She offered her a blanket. So touching.

It still amazes me how beautifully things fell into place that day for us. It was a blessing to have such a fast labor, and I'll never forget birthing Rachel holding onto a ski rope in a jacuzzi. It was the exact opposite of Natalie's birth, in all the ways that mattered to us.

We are doing well and I almost feel human again. Rachel sleeps and eats well so far, just a little angel of a baby. Natalie is curious about her sister and is starting to realize she's here to stay. Sometimes she says "Mommy? Daddy?" in a distressed little voice, reminding us of the extra love and assurance she needs right now, and we hug her close. Our little family is growing, and growing up.