I know... I'm way behind on the week-by-week updates but I think for just right now, I'm going to update for today, because by the time I catch up, I'll forget everything I'm about to say!
Six Months
Six months and six days ago, I started getting contractions and went into labor. Waiting for the contractions to become two minutes apart felt like forever. I remember sitting in our living room, slowly eating a Vietnamese sandwich, thinking how I'm so close but it sure is taking a long time.
Then finally that night, we went to the hospital and we had to wait in this awful triage room. That felt like forever. There was no space for me to labor and I kept having to pee, meaning I had to walk all the way down the hall in a butt-bearing hospital gown, stopping a bunch of times to breathe through contractions, swatting away J's hand trying to close up the back of my gown, snapping, "I don't give a shit!". That felt like forever. Waiting for that birthing suite felt. like. forever.
Magically, during active labor, I had no concept of time. I sat in the hot tub in my birthing suite, listened to my hypnobirthing tracks, and J fanned me with his clipboard. That felt like thirty minutes, it went by really fast. Later, J told me that was actually three hours. He was fanning me with a clipboard for three whole hours! So that part went by weirdly fast, but that's not really the point of this post, so I'll move on...
Pushing the baby out. That felt like it took forever. When I'd give a really good push, all the people in the OR would get excited and tell me I did a good job. This is how I knew when I didn't do a good job. I'd be done pushing, waiting for the "good job!" and it would just be quiet. The baby's butt would come out, then shrink back in. Come out a bit more, then turtle-head its way back in. I remember a point where I just knew that I was still in the beginning stages and that getting him out was gonna take forever.
Then M was born. We stayed up forever in the hospital because he wouldn't go to sleep. We brought him home and it felt like my milk was taking forever to come in. We were worried sick in the first week because he had not pooped in FOREVER (aka 4 days). Then suddenly, I blinked, and here I am. It's already August. No, it's more than half-past August, and I still feel like we're in February. I'm sitting on blankets in the living room, while my 6 month old baby is wiggling around on his tummy, reaching to grab toys to put in his mouth, and I'm stuffing what feels like the millionth load of clean cloth diapers.
When I was pregnant, strangers would tell me something along the lines of, "cherish these moments" or "it goes by so fast", and I'd smile and nod cause I thought that was just the "thing to say" to pregnant ladies in line at Trader Joe's. I mean, it had to be because everyone said it! But now, I'm looking through folders upon folders of baby photographs on the computer, wondering when I'm ever going to finish updating the last three months on this blog, and coming to terms with the fact that I'll probably never catch up on creating that baby picture book online because time is going by faster than I can document.
Time is going by so quickly that I asked myself this morning, "When did my hair get so long?!".
Time has flown by so fast that I'm already reminiscing back to the day I ate that sandwich and I'm thinking that's crazy. I probably won't be able to enjoy slow-eating a Vietnamese sandwich like that in forever. But also, how does that day feel so close and far away at the same time?
M is already wearing 9 month footie pajamas. That's the last size offered by Carter's before I have to shop in the next section up. The section that no longer offers baby prints, it's all sharks and sports now. Will they still have bears on the butt? My little guy is already growing up too fast, and I'm not sure how we got here, but I feel so so soooo happy and amazed and proud every single day that he came into our lives and that I am the lucky one that gets to be his mama. And what's better is that I get to feel this way forever. :)
