...when my daughter yawns and stretches both her arms over her head as she's waking up, just like the cartoons

Ya know, when you hear Italian being sung operatically, you don't expect them to be singing about Cylons and toasters

Battlestar Operatica
Maledetto sia tuo cuore Cylone

C'è una tostapane nella tua testa
E porta tacchi a spillo

Numero Sei ti chiama
Il rivelatore Cylone impone
La tua ragazza è un tostapane
Maledetto sia tuo cuore Cylone
Ahimè, disgrazia! Ahimè, tristezza e miseria!

Il tostapane ha un bel vestito
Rosso come la sua spina dorsale ardente
sussura Numero Sei:
"Per tuo comando"

Maledetto sia tuo cuore Cylone

...

Woe upon your Cylon heart

There's a toaster in your head
And it wears high heels

Number Six calls to you
The Cylon Detector beckons
Your girlfriend is a toaster
Woe upon your Cylon heart
Alas, disgrace! Alas, sadness and misery!

The toaster has a pretty dress
Red like it's glowing spine
Number Six whispers:
"By your command"

Woe upon your Cylon heart

~Battlestar Galactica, Season 1 Soundtrack

When I think about the people I love, I am filled with a fondness and appreciation for them. I think about the experiences I've had with them, their personality quirks that are endearing and some that are less endearing, the ways we've been there for one another. Clearly, love in this light is very history dependent and doesn't apply to babies.

When I became a mother, I was dropped into this new status with the arrival of a small squirming mini. The mini has no past beyond her gestational wiggles. She doesn't have a discernable personality other than hating change. And frankly, she doesn't have much to offer; she's a giant ball of need. Nevertheless, I was shocked that I didn't 'love' in the mini the moment I laid eyes on her. Isn't that the way things are supposed to go; the baby pops out and you're in love? The mini popped out and between being exhausted and the nurses taking her to get checked on, I didn't even look at her for the better part of her first hour. For the first couple weeks, I thought I was a really wacked out mom because I didn't feel warm fuzzies about the mini, particularly @ 2AM in her "purple howler" form. I thought I didn't "love" the mini and that was really weird/jacked/wrong.

Reflecting on the first couple weeks of new-momness, I have the old DC talk song bouncing around that "Love is a verb." Love is attending to these needs that the mini has, which are in fact fairly basic: 1) I am hungry 2) I have soiled myself 3) I am uncomfortable gassy 4) I have a mystery need. And we have been lovingly attending to the mini since she was born. Whew. So maybe I did love the mini. It's the fondness and appreciation that has taken longer to develop.

I'm happy to report that at about 2AM on Monday, the mini had finished feeding and was asleep and I realized that I did delight in her. (Or perhaps so I thought in my early morning delirium.) She was maybe 2 and a half weeks old, but that was apparently enough time to develop some history between us. The mini has a wonderfully expressive face, and we've been able to watch her morph her features from bliss to despair, from Stewie to Yoda. She doesn't have a whole lot of personality, but we're enjoying what we've got.

I wonder if we actually love the people we delight in? In these early weeks of parenthood, I've realized that my expectations of love are really expectations of delight. While love and delight often go hand in hand, if love truly is a verb, am I serving all those people that I feel fondly about? Beyond my feelings, how do I actually care for them? 

In recent years Easter has become a bigger and bigger holy-day for me. I'm not the most sentimental person around, but I'm learning to love the celebration of Jesus' death and resurrection more and more. This year, I've not been able to corporately celebrate Easter because our little Mini and I are still recovering and resting at home.

That sadness aside, I find that holding the Mini on Easter morning fills me with hope. During Lent, I fasted from reading the news and focused on reading the Bible. Now that Lent is over, I'm wondering if I want to go back to the news. It tends to be dark and depressing. I get angry, and I feel hopeless against forces that seem so much larger than anything I can handle. Sometimes we joke about what a cruel world we brought our daughter into and how sorry we are that we have done so. But today, when I think about the cross and the redemption that God extends to us through the cross, I am reminded that the Kingdom of God is near, that God is actively at work in the world now, that the good news is not just in the future after we die, but the good news is now. Because of Jesus' resurrection defeats death, our Mini has an open invitation to join in the life of God's kingdom, to participate in God's beautifying of the world, to live fully in a decaying world. So maybe we should stop joking about this little life in this dying world and instead marvel at the grace that triumphs over filthy injustice and dark evil and pray that she would choose life in the kingdom.

Well, our little mini became an air breather last Friday just after lunch which puts Lillis as the guesser closest--although her guess was a little cheap: 4/3 @ midnight? There are 2 midnights there. Maybe I'll send her half a prize, split the difference :)

I don't know if it was a good idea, but I re-read Genesis 3 before labor and delivery to remind myself what exactly was cursed about women and childbirth. This is what it says:

To the woman he said,
"I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing;
with pain you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you."

I got the sense that childbirth hurt, but under the curse it was going to hurt a lot more. I think my NASB version said. "multiply your pains." Well, yep. Labor pains hurt. I gotta say that I was looking forward to labor and delivery because I wanted to know if it was as bad as everyone says it is. Having studied martial arts for a long time, I wondered if any of the pain management skills I learned there would transfer over to managing pain in labor. The short answer is yes and no.

I went into labor about 3 in the morning on Friday. We had been waiting day after day beyond the due date and by Thursday I was starting to feel like this was going to happen in the next 24 hrs. My mom happened to have gotten engrossed in playing hearts on her computer and was still up! at that time. I drew myself a bath and kinda dozed and had contractions there for a while, alternating between the tub and my mom's futon. About 5:30 she started timing my contractions since the midwives had said to come in when they were 4-1-1, four minutes apart, for one minute, over an hour--that's 15 contractions an hour. All those years of controlled breathing in martial arts seemed to come in handy and I was basically ok. Around 7 the contractions seemed to be coming every 5 minutes and I woke N to get him in the direction of out the house, I sent a pre-written email to a bunch of folk letting them know we were headed to the hospital, and I called the hospital. But I did so well talking to the midwife through a contraction that she said I was still in early labor and to keep going at home, and to rest when possible. So we didn't go to the hospital then. I ate breakfast and the contractions kept coming. N and my mom took care of me, getting me water, petting me, and taking care of all the details like timing contractions. At some point, heeding the midwife, I decided I would labor in my own bed so I could doze between contractions. This seemed to slow the contractions down so we weren't headed toward 4-1-1 any more. That was fine with me because sleeping was nice and having my husband and mother around was comforting. But at some point, N says around 11, the pain went from managable to managable + 1. I was starting to lose it and I certainly wasn't sleeping between contractions any more. In the background I could hear N and my mother trying to figure out if we had hit the magic 15/hr. However they figured it out, eventually they called the hospital and talked to the midwife again. I don't know if they convinced her that I was ready or if she heard my howling in the background and said I was ready, but either way we were going to the hospital.

At that point, I totally lost it. We were at managable + 10 or managable + infinitiy, i.e. NOT managing the pain, not sure I could make it to the car from the apartment (our apt and car are at opposite ends of a large complex). I had two contractions on the walk from the apt to the car and both times was hoping there wasn't anyone around because I'm sure I was really scary looking. N drove to the hospital and I have no idea what mid-day traffic was like because my eyes were closed the whole way and I was totally freaking out. N says he was really stressed; I would be too if I had this whale sized woman in the seat next to me screaming bloody murder at the top of her lungs every 2 minutes.

Between parking at the hospital and the delivery room I don't have much memory of anything except that the air was cool and I liked that. The next thing I remember was a nurse holding my hands and saying, "If you don't get control you won't be able to give birth naturally." I interpretted this as, "We will pump you full of drugs if you don't calm down." That scared the crap out of me, but I also had this little thought, "She thinks I can get control. That is novel. Maybe I should try." So I tried and they seemed happy with me just not screaming. So I guess that's what "control" is; I still felt pretty out of control. Somewhere in there, I got on a bed, and somewhere in there they said, "You can push now." Yea, well I had been pushing so no big diff there. Apparently, I was already fully dilated when I arrived at the hospital, but no one knew. Various people said stuff to me that was encouraging, but there were only two things on my mind, 1) Why doesn't this woman who is making me sign consent forms between contractions have a clipboard? This would be so much easier if she had a freekin clipboard. 2) I hope this kid comes soon cuz this pushing seems to have no effect.

And then all of a sudden our little girl was there. They put her on my chest, but i couldn't see her because she was inside my focal range. There was a ton of buzz around the room, but I was pretty out of it. They weren't happy with the way the mini was crying so they took her away to another station and N went with her. In the out of it state, I was thinking, "I'd like to see her so we can name her. What does she look like?" I don't have much of a memory of the first hour of the mini's life, just a lot of buzz, and I was happy that the pushing was done and the pain was done.

The mini's middle name is Chinese as I mentioned earlier and means to praise God's grace. We have a ton to be thankful for--

I am thankful for having both my husband and my mom with me at home for 90% of the process. That was a real treat. We were in the delivery room for only 45 minutes before the mini popped out. Aside from a crazy car ride and having to consent to stuff under duress, 45 minutes is way better than 12+ hrs which is how long the midwife says she is usually with laboring mothers.

About that car ride: now knowing I was fully dilated at the time, we're pretty happy the mini didn't get bounced out in traffic.

The mini is a happy healthy little girl. She's a bit on the wee side, just under 6 lbs, but she's feeding well and we look forward to baby sausage legs eventually.

My recovery: It's been going really well. I do have to remind myself to take it easy, but I'm reminded everytime I get out of a chair and my butt is sore. Plus I have my mom who is cooking awesomeness for me to eat. YAY YAY YAY.

The proud papa: Before the mini, I did the cooking and N did the cleaning. After the mini, well habits continue. I do the cooking (feeding), and N does the cleaning (for the most part). This little girl has a great dad.

So yea, we're a little sleep deprived and kinda out of it, but we're amazed by the graces around us. Thanks everyone for the warm well-wishes.

If you'd like to see photos, send me an email or message me through xanga.