Dear Delilah...

May 20, 2011


Dear Delilah,

Someday, when you are old, you may like to read about what you were like. Today, you are 10 weeks and 4 days old. Your daddy just brought you down to work so I could give you kisses on your bald head. He had you out for a walk in the sun with Cousin Krystal. We spent the morning together at the house and I took you outside to smell the mint and lavender in the herb garden. You took deep breaths when I held them up to your nose and sat in your bouncer chair and watched while I watered everything in the greenhouse.

You have started moving around all over the place, like a worm. It’s amazing to see you wiggle and squirm. You kick your legs like you are running a marathon and wave your arms in the air. And the smiles are the most amazing things I have ever seen. Your whole face lights up and you open your mouth so big in a giant, toothless smile that takes up your entire face. Your smile is so big that it takes up my face too. I spend hours playing with you, just to get one more smile because I am totally addicted to them. I even watch videos of you smiling when I am not with you, just so I never have to be without it.

This week you have discovered something wonderful, your hands. You think your hands are the greatest things ever invented in the history of inventions and you don’t know what you would do without them. Daddy and I are having debates about if you are going to be left handed because you always try to shove your left hand in your mouth first. You would think you wouldn’t like seeing how much of your hand you can fit in your mouth since most of the time you can’t breathe out your nose. You seem to have inherited your mother’s sinuses and I have rubbed your weight in Baby Vicks up your nose in the past few weeks. I thought you wouldn’t like it, but every time I get that bottle out you just sit there and wait for the cooling vapors to open up your little, snotty nose.

You also squawk at me now when you try to get my attention and then you smile and wiggle when I come in to your view. You did that last night when daddy and I took you to a bonfire on the peninsula. Everyone wanted to hold you because you are so cuddly and cute, but you only wanted to cuddle with me. You squawked so much, it sounded like a flock of seagulls. But all the other people there had arguments about who got to hold you next. They kept saying “but I haven’t held her yet!!” We skipped bath time last night because you were so tired when we finally got home, so we all went to sleep smelling like the beach and smoke.



I love you more than chocolate and dinosaurs,

Mom

And Now, For the Rest of the Story...

Ok, to be honest, I didn’t really disappear. I was around the whole time, just busy and lacking motivation. It’s hard to be motivated to type about your life when you are poor and miserable. You think to yourself “would I rather tell people about how I have a Master’s Degree and all day today I got to stock shelves in a yarn store and work for a psycho or would I rather sit here on this couch and watch and watch Dr. Who?” In case you are wondering, Doctor Who will always win an argument like that.


But, a lot has happened in the last year, life changing events have taken place, and who can write about life changing events while they are happening? You need distance and perspective before you can accurately process what has happened and how it has changed you. Actually, I am not so philosophical, and really don’t need distance or perspective from the last year. I know what happened, I lived it. So let’s start at the beginning shall we?

In early March 2010, I had my first appointment with a new fertility doctor. This doctor was funny, friendly, had been through infertility herself, and J and I immediately liked her. It probably helped that she gave me a pelvic exam while wearing pink bunny ears, since how could you not like someone who discusses ovarian cysts while camped out at your lady parts with big, floppy pink bunny ears on their head. It was sort of like what I imagine an acid trip would be like, if I had ever done things like trip on acid. I got an Rx in May to do a tolerance for some medication that was going to turn me into a psychotic, freak show, but the doctor said she would be very surprised if I didn’t get pregnant in 6 months, so I said “bring on the psycho”.

Life marched on and by mid April I had an application in to work in my hometown in Alaska. J and I had both talked about moving back, but hadn’t had jobs, or money and both of those things seemed pretty important at the time. J wasn’t working because he had hurt his knee at work, and was out on leave and I was working extra to make up for the reduction in his salary and praying to God that I didn’t get hit by a buss because when he wasn’t working, I had no health insurance because we couldn’t afford the co-pay when I got a magical phone call. I am not a jumpy, shrieking, squealing kind of girl but on June 4, I jumped and shrieked so loud the people in the isle next to me at Safeway dropped their milk and backed slowly away from me. That job in Alaska was mine, and they were even going to do crazy things, like pay our moving expenses. After over 3 years, I finally had a “real” job and that master’s degree didn’t just seem like toilet paper anymore.

By this point, J and I became so engrossed in moving that I basically forgot about the tolerance test. I was still working a bajillion hours a week, packing, and handling super fun chores like taking the dog and both cats to the vets for their health certificates. My last day in Seattle I went for a test to see if I had passed the test, and then I jetted off to Alaska and didn’t think much of it. Ten days later my doctor’s office called and said that I the drugs had worked and we could start trying to get pregnant just as soon as my cycle started over. Well, I waited and waited but nothing happened. I got frustrated and would scream at my uterus “why can’t you just work right this one time so I can start this stupid cycle and have a baby!!!” Finally my friend suggested that I take a pregnancy test. I scoffed at this of course, how could I possibly be pregnant, I hadn’t even had time for sex the last month. After 3 years of perfectly timed baby making, why on earth would anyone think I would get pregnant when I wasn’t even really thinking about it. Three days after starting my big, fancy new job, while huddled in the employee bathroom, my pregnancy test came back positive.

Ten months later, here I am, working at a real job, and raising a daughter with J. Of course now, I live five houses away from my mother and half of the people in town are my In-Laws…

So with new dedication, I am going to start writing again. Read it, don't read it, it's up to you. And while my daughter is understandably a huge part of my life, I drive a minivan before I become a Mommy Blogger.