Comedy and chocolate everywhere

I'm thinking a lot about my baby and what I am doing to help her grow. At church this past Sunday, we had a male teacher in our Young Women class, which was the first time I'd ever had this happen to me, in all my years as a girl and a leader in YW. He went around the room and spoke to each girl, made her laugh, asked her name, asked her something interesting about her week. At first, I wanted to signal to the clock and say, okay bro, don't you know we only have twenty minutes left, get to your lesson, but he surprised me. After each person had said their name and highlight of the week, he explained that at church, "in Zion," we often focus on doctrine and repentance and ordinances and scripture. Which are all critical aspects of growing oneself in one's religion. But Zion, he said, is about people, it's about relationships and understanding and compassion and growth. And I realized how meaningful it was to me when a whole room full of people asked and wanted to know how my week was, and listened when I told them something that made me happy. It made me feel loved by my Father and Mother in Heaven. The rest of class we talked about why women are important, what makes women important, and why we each love being a woman. I said I love being a woman because of my great capacity for sacrifice. Which is something I have learned as a mother. Because it seems that everything I've learned in life has happened as a mother, apparently.

There are parts of being a mother that everyone talks about. There are other parts that people don't talk about as much, but not really anymore, since our culture is so willing to bare all. One thing that I always heard about, that people always seemed to be blogging and posting and publishing and reminiscing about, is these little moments that happen. These moments when you just look at your kid and you're so in love with them. I heard about those and thought they seemed nice, prior to becoming a mom. It was impossible for me to internalize them because I had no context, at the time. But now, those moments happen to me. Not all day long, but one or two a day maybe, if I'm paying attention. This morning I was just feeding my daughter and watching her, and we randomly started laughing at each other, and it was like a miracle happened. As I observed her observing me, and understanding the joy of comedy, it was incredible. To anyone else reading this, it probably doesn't make sense, or I am probably not properly recounting the moment. But it was magic and I'll never forget that feeling of "This is exactly why being a mother is divine."

Aaannnnddddd because there seem to be so very many moments where we are kind of in survival mode, here are some photographs of my child the mess. Yes, I stopped and shot some film before hosing her down because ALL good mothers would. Right?

For heaven's sake

Our baby bunny is about to turn one year old and I need to write it all down. Here I go. 

Lately she is less of a baby and more of a person. Like a full on person. She likes jokes. She has unique posture. She's kind of bossy. Church is not her favorite place. Swinging on the swings is her favorite thing on any planet in any universe. She responds to her full name and her nickname. SOMEHOW SHE LOVES LEMONS. 

I like letting her explore her world. I tell myself it's okay to let her do that while I focus on emails or editing or 100 other things I have to do staring at this screen. Hopefully she knows I love her? Hopefully she will always want to hang out with me like she does now. I've already decided a lot of things I want to teach her, how I want to teach them, when, why, how often, with or without humor, alone or with her siblings. Things like being kind, being creative, using fear to keep you safe, what modesty means, what covenants mean, what I believe about this life and the life to come. 

Kindness is the most important attribute a person can possess. It is something she has taught me uniquely and now that I am a mother I am so much more focused on being kind. My dad recently taught me that his dad taught him, "John, in life always extend as much mercy as you possibly can." That is written on my brain right now and I want to write it on hers. Every person on the planet--me, my landlord, Barack Obama, my mother, her mother, her mother, supermodels, homeless people--every person was born, through a woman's body, in the most immense amount of focus and pain and emotion imaginable in a few human seconds. Everyone. And everyone's mother looked and them and thought, what in the world has just happened. This? This is a miracle. It's impossible and incredible and I don't know what to say. And that's why we must all be kind. Because women. 

Women, who are so often treated weirdly or badly, in my culture, in other cultures. Women who uplift and laugh and dedicate thousands upon thousands of hours to the betterment of themselves and the people they love and the earth they live on. Women who cruelly cut down others and themselves because they believe other women have set up a standard to which we must adhere very exactly in order to be desired. I want Eleanor to be a woman who loves caring for other women, emotionally and literally. I want Eleanor to be a woman who knows her own divine worth, and does not worry whether her choice of clothing will affect another person's thoughts, but rather looks in the mirror and says, "Do I look happy? Do I feel happy? Am I comfortable? Would I feel comfortable wearing this in the presence of the people I love most in the world?" Because that's what makes beauty, and that's what makes modesty. Not skin or shoulders or floor length or cover-ups or standards. Modesty and femininity are determined by an individual woman, not by a rule book or the mistakes a boy might make. I want Eleanor to know that in her bones, I want her to know it so well that it would seem silly if anything else were argued to be true. 

I want her to know that messes are okay, cleaning up is important, struggling is part of it, creating something you're really proud of is magical, sharing creative things is scary but so very rewarding, that there will always be someone more clever, someone who has done it before, someone who thinks your work or your style is stupid. But you create anyway. Because your creativity is god-given. And mother-given, thank you very much. I will give you the finger paint and the silk flowers and the glue gun and the fabric scraps and the paper and pencils and cameras and palettes and nail polish and scissors.

All of these things are so much a part of me, and I feel that she is so much a part of me as well, that I am desperate and giddy to teach her all of this. I'm in a rush and I'm taking my time, I'm thrilled and freaked out, but beyond all I just love her. That's all. Here I go.

SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS

Let me begin with this video because it's funny even while slightly obnoxious.

To parents who choose to forego vaccines, I'm curious if you're as fearful as I am of your kid catching the measles? Does it worry you that your baby might get exposed to polio? Forget all the other children in the world that you're putting at risk, I'm just wondering if you worry about your OWN KIDS catching diseases long-eradicated. 

Also, I'm wondering if you require your kids to wash their hands. If so, why? Are you concerned about germs? 

Don't really see the difference. 

In the meantime, if you don't have your shots, stay away from my kid.

Growing up and getting shots

Our girl is two months old!

In some ways it feels like it's flown by (how is she so not teeny anymore??) and in others it feels like she's always been here. 

Right now her specialties are:

- giant smiles

- figuring out what to do with her voice

- watching baseball with Dad

- sleeping nights like a champ (mostly)

We're pretty into the whole "being parents" thing. Although, sometimes we just stare at each other and say, "I don't know what to do." "I don't know either." And that's hard. But we usually figure it out. And our baby doesn't seem to mind us too much!

I'm adjusting to my mom bod. Slowly I'm starting to feel like I look normal again; people have, for the most part, stopped asking me when I'm due/staring at my belly/etc. I have been really down on myself for not looking like Karlie Kloss yet (because that's realistic) (HAHA) but Nate has been very kind and patient with me as I come to realize that I'm different now. And that's not bad. My muscles and bones and skin went through a dramatic process of changing, and growing a second human within me, and it's okay to look kind of stretched out and, well, weird, in some ways. I'm eating less sugar and fat than I did during my pregnancy and drinking less soda (Coca-Cola classic, though. I'll never stop 100% because that stuff is amazing) and that's helping me not be so chubby. But I've decided my weirdness is interesting because it's mine. But it's not just mine. It's Eleanor's. It's my future babies'. It's all postpartum women's. It's part of me, and I like that I still have a physical reminder of the amazing thing that my body did. It's no cakewalk to grow a person, it turns out!

Today she got her first round of vaccines. It was especially tough because she was in such a good mood all morning while I was getting her ready -- grinning at me, wiggling around, just being so happy to simply be awake. It was torture knowing what a hard day she was about to have! And the doctor said she looked wonderful, which made my heart happy. (She's tall, apparently!) She was a champ until the nurse administered the shots, at which point she burst into tears, of course (I was already crying, oops). I know that not vaccinating is very popular right now, and after doing some research, I decided it would be best for my sweet girl to give her these shots. I truly believe that, especially because we live downtown in a city of 3 million people, she will be healthiest this way. It was so hard today, seeing her struggle with the pain, but I know it will ultimately be for her benefit. While I was trying to calm her down (before Dad got home with the tylenol -- it was only a few hours but felt like days), I sang her some of my favorite songs from the LDS Hymnbook, and I realized how truly divine it is to be a mom. More on that another day.

I just love you to pieces, sweet girl.

(From our Sunday evening outing to the lakeshore this week. My sweet baby.)

Eleanor's birth story

The story of Eleanor's arrival is very precious to me, and I am sharing it here because I gained so much--emotionally and mentally--by reading other women's birth stories online in the months leading up to my own delivery. It was a very spiritual and personal experience for me and for Nate. If you'd rather not read about some of the more intense details of labor and delivery, stop here! (By the way, Nate took these pictures, with the exception of the last three.) .. Early in the morning on Tuesday 6/3/14 I started feeling miserable contractions. I had been having contractions for about seven weeks already and they had been really painful the past ten days especially (I was now 41 weeks 1 day). The pain was so strong that it woke me up from a weird dream at about 3am. I had two contractions, so I decided to try to go back to sleep sitting up. I had a bi-weekly OB appointment scheduled for 9 am that morning, so I didn't bother calling the doctor. I slept sitting up til I felt another really painful contraction at 5:09. I felt one again at 5:17, then 5:25, then 5:31. At that point I woke Nate and told him I thought I might be having labor contractions, but I didn’t feel optimistic, because I was so overdue and knew I would be getting induced on the ninth day. I had convinced myself my body wasn't going to be able to do this on its own. I was in very poor spirits.

I kept having the contractions every seven or eight minutes, and they were bad enough that they made me kind of gasp/moan. So in order to help Nate stay asleep, I went out and dozed on the couch. They kept coming, some at five minutes, some at eight or nine, and by 8:45 when it was time to walk to the doctor, I was so deeply uncomfortable that I told Nate we needed to just drive there. I walked in while he parked and told the receptionist I needed to go into a room right away because I could NOT labor in the waiting room in front of all those pregnant people.  She didn't really understand what I meant but I didn't have time to explain so I kind of ran right into the nearest room and just laid down. One of the doctors at my practice came in and talked to me for a little while, and saw on the monitor that my contractions were getting closer. She confirmed that I was officially in labor, though still early. I asked her if I should call my mom and tell her to get on a plane and she said definitely. She told us to go home and call her when they got so bad that I couldn’t bear it, or when they were three minutes apart. She off-handedly mentioned that she bet I would be in the hospital by lunchtime. I was at 2.5 cm.  .. We left the doctor and I was now in great spirits (though still considerably uncomfortable). We were having a baby today! Nate called work to let them know he was starting paternity leave. I called Mom, who was dropping my brother Danny off at school (it was 7:55 in CA) and told her it was happening. She hurried and got herself onto a flight leaving just about two hours later. We stopped at the little farmer’s market outside the Modern Art Museum and bought a little bouquet of peonies from a very nice farmer, for baby girl's birthday. Walking made the contractions much more intense and frequent. I had to stop and lean against a building and count every time I had one. By the time we got to the car, I was having them less than five minutes apart. We timed them and they were over a minute long (as they almost all had been all morning). When we got home, Nate ran around and got all the stuff together in the bag. He made me eat (I had had a bowl of cereal and a banana at about 7 am) and I could hardly choke down a granola bar. We were home less than an hour (about 10:30 am to 11:15 am) and I was in such pain that I was howling with every contraction. So I finally decided it was time to go. Once, I screamed at Nate to call the doctor and then I started crying because I felt horrible for being so mean. He was extremely patient. 

We were planning on walking originally (the hospital is only five blocks away), but I was struggling too much so we got a cab. I about died while I was having a contraction in the backseat and trying not to scream. When we got to the hospital, they took a few minutes to get my paperwork done and finally got me in the prep room around 11:30. It was only ten minutes but it felt like hours. Once we got in there, I quickly became very grumpy with the nurses--they were poking me, checking me, sticking needles in me, and putting on those horrible itchy bands that held my heart monitor and baby’s heart monitor, while expecting me to hold still and be quiet. The pain was so intense and unbearable that I asked Nate to give me a priesthood blessing as soon as the nurse stepped out. Finally, finally, after I straight up begged them to get me the epidural, at 12:35 they wheeled me to the elevator and took us up to Labor and Delivery. 

I went into a room where a wonderful nurse started coaching me through the pain. She taught me how to slow my breath and not scream with each contraction, and after about ten minutes the anesthesiologist came in-- I had never been so happy to see a doctor. They made Nate leave, which was kind of scary, but I was so distracted by the pain that I didn’t really have time to freak out. Also, my nurse was helping me breathe through each contraction, looking me right in the eye and breathing with me, holding onto my hands and counting out my breaths. My anesthesiologist was very kind; he answered all my questions and explained the whole epidural to me as he was working and only had to try twice, but it was so intense I couldn't help but cry. As soon as the medicine kicked in (within about 60 seconds), I felt immediately overwhelmed with relief. And started crying again, of course. It was exactly 1:00. Nate came back in and he was so obviously relieved that I wasn’t in pain anymore. It was like a dream. It was a total miracle. All hail the epidural.

After that, I kind of took a nap. I put on a little makeup, hung out with Nate, texted my sister Emily, talked with the nurses, tried to relax. They came in to check me about an hour later and said they were going to break my water. Before the resident got there, I asked Joy (my angel nurse) if she thought I would be at 4 cm yet, and she said yes probably, but who knows. When they pulled back my sheet, they were shocked to see that my water had broken on its own already, and they asked me if I had felt it (nope!). The resident checked me and I heard her say something about not feeling a cervix, so I was a little concerned about that, but then she used the little tool to finish rupturing my amniotic sack (it hadn’t yet totally), and Joy told me that I was at 9.5 cm. I was like WHAT? It was only 4:15! They had me flip onto my side and put one of my feet up on the stirrup so that I could help the baby move down into position. I stayed like that for a while and I think I even took a little nap like that. I told Nate not to tell Mom that I had progressed so far because she still had to take a cab from O'Hare when she landed and I knew she would be worried she'd miss it.

Around 5:30, my epidural started to wear thin, and I was getting really really uncomfortable with each contraction. They sent in another anesthesiologist around 6:15 to redo the dose or something. Nate told me Mom was really close. Around 6:30, I was facing the window and I saw Nate’s face light up and I knew Mom was here. I felt her arms around me from behind and I twisted around to grab her and hold her. We both started to cry--I was beyond relieved and overjoyed she was there. I had been missing her so much. 

Within about a half hour of her arrival, Dr. Buscher came in and said it was about time. I was SO excited that it was finally here. I started pushing around 7:40 I think. It was really hard because they were telling me to do all these different things: push, pull your legs back, relax your legs, lift your elbows, hold your breath, now deep breath, now push again, now stop. By the time I had remembered to do everything they were saying, the contraction was over. It was sort of frustrating because I felt like I wasn’t making any progress. Nate was standing on my left, next to my shoulder, counting out the contractions. He was so, so good at just coaching me through each moment. Mom held my left leg and a new nurse (Joy went home) held my right.  .. After an hour or so, I was kind of starting to have more pain, which was a good thing, in a way, but also kind of sucked. The doctor seemed kind of unimpressed with my efforts of pushing, so I was having a hard time feeling like I was really getting anywhere. But then Mom suggested that I feel the baby’s head. I didn’t want to. Too weird. But after a few more pushes, she explained that yes, I was progressing, even if it didn’t seem like it, so stop beating myself up about it. And that it would help a lot if I could feel her head and realize how far I had come. So I did. It was the strangest feeling. But it helped a lot. Then over the next hour I focused harder and tried to go above and beyond with every single push. I was starting to feel like I was really doing it. The very end is a little bit of a blur because of the pain. I just remember that I was so determined to not have to use the vacuum. It had been 2.5 hours and I knew Dr. Buscher would do it. So I used all my might and took all their cheering and concentrated harder than I ever have on anything in my life, and finally I felt her leave my body and they told me she was born. I heard her voice and I knew she was my daughter. It was 9:53 pm. I had done it. I had succeeded. I have never accomplished something like that in my life, and it was an incredible feeling.

   Nate cut her cord, and I couldn’t help but say “I know you!” as soon as I heard her voice. Immediately they kind of dumped her on my chest and were rubbing her down to get all the guts off and get her blood flowing. She was just so... familiar. I held her on my chest for an hour or so, and I didn’t really even get a good look at her in her entirety until the next day! She started nursing immediately and was very good at it. I was so proud! She was amazing. Nate and I were just completely stunned by what had just happened. But it was such a good feeling. After a little while they did all the footprints and shots and all that stuff. Then finally, after almost two hours!, Mom got her turn to hold her. I was so happy for her. Nate handed El to her and she was clearly overjoyed. Her first grandchild! I took one of the proudest photos of my life from my bed about ten minutes after they finished her shots--Nate holding her and smiling at me like he just won the lottery (just as he was giving her to Mom).

  We decided on her name officially sometime on Wednesday around lunch. They kicked us out on Thursday at 11 am. Everyone was very nice to me and helped me so much. I felt great in there, emotionally, and the pain was actually a lot less than I was anticipating. Probably because they were giving me lots of good pain meds :) Nursing was very painful, even though she was great at it, they said. Mom told me it would hurt really bad for two weeks and then I would be fine (which of course came true). Lanolin was my best friend! When I left, I thought I would get to leave in a wheelchair, but I didn’t! I had to walk out, and I really didn’t want to. Mom thought it was weird too. There was a lot of postpartum stuff that I experienced following her birth that's mundane and normal and boring, but one thing that was so clearly present in my mind over and over in the hospital was how incredible my body is and what a gift it is to have been able to deliver a baby into the world. It was just the most surprising and empowering feeling.

I didn't feel the overwhelming wave of so-in-love-with-my-baby-the-second-I-met-her that people talk about; I was mostly just amazed by her and her presence. Every hour I loved her more and more, and now she's already been here for seven weeks somehow. I love her more today than I did yesterday.

Baby girl has arrived

Eleanor Steele.

She is two weeks and one day old.
And we are beyond in love with her.

She always sneezes twice.
Loves to be held.
Looks like both her mama and her daddy.

I'll share my birth story here within the next few weeks, but for now, here are a few photos of her perfect little self.