Day 36

   

Ellie is five weeks and one day old today! She had her four week check up on the day before Christmas Eve and had grown quite a bit.  In sixteen days, she grew from 7 pounds and 3.5 ounces (20th percentile) to 8 pounds and 13 ounces (37th percentile).  This precipitous weight gain is reflected in her multiplying thigh dimples.  We were delighted, but not entirely surprised, that she grown so much -- if Ellie is awake, she prefers to be eating!

Ellie also stretched out between weeks two and four, growing from 20 inches (40th percentile) to 21.25 inches (67th percentile).  Do we have a basketball or volleyball player in our midst? (Let's hope that Ellie inherited dad's athletic acumen!)  Ellie continues to have an enormous head -- 14.5 inches (74th percentile) -- a cherished Cronin family trait.  Dr. Rhue, Ellie's pediatrician, is very gentle with Ellie and reassuring to mom and dad.  This time, we remembered to bring the diaper bag!  And Ellie did us the favor of keeping her diaper clean throughout the appointment.  But the visit ended with tears -- poor Ellie didn't enjoy receiving her Hepatitis B vaccination at all.

On Christmas Eve, Ellie visited our church for the first time.  She slept through the service, but mom and dad enjoyed singing traditional Christmas carols and watching the Christmas pageant.  The celebration of the birth of a new baby felt especially poignant this year.  Like all newborns, Ellie's whole story is still unwritten.  The past year has been an incredibly painful and challenging year in the world, but our unconditional love and devoted care for our precious children is a bright beacon of hope for a better future.

An aside: the discovery of my staggering love for my child also brings me into a deeper kinship with other parents around the world -- parents and children who are refugees, parents and children without clean water or access to basic medical care, parents who want, like I want, to provide a safe and joyful childhood for their beloved children and to deliver them strong and whole into adulthood.  I want her to live in a peaceful world where the ice caps are not melting and access to education, clean water, and basic health care is universal.  I want to raise her to live a life of service and meaning, to borrow language from the church service we attended, which makes this world possible.

We celebrated a quiet Christmas at home.  We strategically allowed Zoe to open the gifts in her stocking first -- a rubber chicken, three tennis balls, and a pig ear, which kept her entertained while we opened the rest of our gifts.  Ellie received a Braves hooded sweatshirt, a baseball cozy, and four plush jungle animal puppets from her grandpa and grandma, in addition to the stuffed giraffe and stuffed puppy they brought Ellie during their visit before Christmas.  We decided that Ellie was a little bit young for Santa this year -- and our loved ones have been so generous that we are not sure what else Santa could have brought Ellie!  Next year, we will leave cookies and milk out for Santa, and he is sure to have a few items for Ellie's stocking.  We took Ellie and Zoe for a festive walk in Del Ray, which had been decorated beautifully for Christmas -- Ellie slept through the walk, as she loves the motion of being pushed in the stroller, but it was special for us to retrace the steps of a walk we had taken many times before we knew we would be blessed with Ellie one day.

We visited friends for brunch the day after Christmas and were reminded of how quickly these little ones grow and develop.  Ellie's buddies Izzy (born in February) and Anne (born in April) can stand by pulling themselves up and "cruise" by holding on to objects about their height.  We are excited to watch Ellie learn to explore the world around her and express herself in the months to come.  As I've mentioned in previous posts, she already has quite the repertoire of facial expressions!  We are keeping our eyes open for "social smiling," which is supposed to be just around the corner.  One recent development we have appreciated tremendously is longer stretches of sleep -- Ellie has developed the habit of cluster feeding at night, and then sleeping for long stretches (four hours or sometimes even longer) at night.

This morning, Ellie returned to the hospital for the first time since her birth for an ultrasound of her hips, a routine procedure for babies who were in the breech position in utero.  Ellie slept peacefully in her marshmallow coat until we undressed her for the procedure.  When the radiologist stretched and rotated her hips and legs, Ellie resisted by kicking up a storm -- no surprise to mom, who had been hosting such kicking sessions for months before Ellie arrived!  The radiologist assured us that Ellie is not at risk for hip displasia, and also expressed relief that he was not leaving with a black eye!  The radiologist was not the first doctor to take note of Ellie's strength -- her pediatrician also expressed surprise at how forceful Ellie's movements were.  To quote the great bard, "Though she be but little, she is fierce."  Well done, dear daughter.  We are grateful to have one more fierce lady in our midst.

Day 29

Ellie is four weeks and one day old today and to celebrate, she visited the library for the first time.  Priorities in this family being what they are, the library was the second trip to a non-medical destination.  The first, naturally, was a visit to District Taco to accompany dad as he enjoyed huevos rancheros.  Ellie's formerly skinny legs have grown increasingly dimpled, and she is spending longer periods of time awake.  She continues to entertain us with her repertoire of dramatic facial expressions, many of which are borrowed directly from mom and dad -- the furrowed brow, the pouty lip, and a resting position of generalized skepticism.

Ellie's social calendar is growing, too.  In the first few weeks of her life, she wheedled her way into the hearts of her grandma and her nani.  Uncle Dylan also visited and held Ellie during the moment she first tried a pacifier, at about a week old.  (Ellie has also charmed the close friends who have visited, bearing soup, books, and cuddles.)  In the last several days, Ellie met both her grandpa and her Uncle Brendan for the first time.  We also received a special visit from cousin Djuna and Eric!  It turns out that sweet babies with huge eyes and chubby cheeks are quite the draw, and it has been wonderful to visit with family and friends alike.

In addition to being Ellie's four week birthday, yesterday was also the winter solstice.  On these short and dark days, we often spend the morning taking in the sun in the south-facing office, and migrate down to the enjoy the twinkling lights on the Christmas tree and heat of the fireplace in the evening.  Ellie is still sorting out the difference between night and day; she spends most of her time sleeping, but seems no more likely to sleep for long stretches at night than during the day.  It will be fascinating to look on as she continues to grow and change at a rapid pace.  We are told that soon, she will begin to smile "socially" -- that is, her smiles will begin to signify that she is happy! (We have already spied smiles, but the wisdom is that at this age, they are either involuntary spasms or related to gas...)

I'll sign off now...because it is time for a bath!  Ellie prefers baths in her white Puj tub to the "baths" we administered in the first week or two of her life, before her umbilical stump fell off -- she enjoys the warm water, thrilling mom, who (not so) secretly hopes that she'll love the water!

Day 22 - Evening

At times I stare down at her and wonder how these velvet cheeks emerg from that flickering heartbeat.

Day 22

We have been taken aback by how quickly the first few weeks with Ellie have flown by.  And just in three short weeks, Ellie is changing before our eyes.  The newborn size diapers are growing snug and her chins and dimples are multiplying.  Her eyes, which wandered (sometimes in different directions) in her first few days, now move in coordination with each other and often fix themselves on us.  She still seems most relaxed sleeping on top of our chests.  Her stretches of sleep have grown slightly longer and having received approval to let her sleep longer than three hours at a time at her two week appointment (because she had rebounded back to her birth weight), our stretches of sleep have somewhat increased as well.

It is also remarkable how much longer it takes to tick any particular item off of our list of tasks.  We stay in bed until late morning in an effort to reclaim some of the sleep lost during the night.  We carefully coordinate our moves from one room of the house to another, planning the items that need to travel with us and the order in which they should be transported.  When one of us showers or prepares a meal, the other is with Ellie.  Every two to three hours, a new cycle of feeding Ellie, changing her diaper, and pumping breast milk begins.  I wonder if the care of baby Ellie seems somewhat manageable only because both of her parents are currently working full time on meeting her needs!

We are avid, if sleep-deprived, students of hers.  Because her ravenous appetite can appear moments after she rouses from a deep sleep, we have dubbed her the baby dinosaur.  And because still, at three weeks, she spends most of her time in that deep sleep, I also call her snoozy.  Sometimes, in the midst of frustration, she pushes her lower lip way out, the way I used to do as a child.  And often she furrows her brow -- there are already tiny creases! -- the way that Nitin still does now.  She already uses her hands quite intentionally -- she holds the top of her bottle while she sucks, she has terrific aim for grabbing my sore nipples, and when I hold my finger near her fist, she uncurls her fingers and wraps them around mine.

When I inhale her sweet scent, nose pressed to the downy peach of her head, I think of all the ages that she will be, God willing.  The prospects of pushing her swing and teaching her to ride a bike delight me and naturally, the likelihood that in the midst of her great adventures, she will bump her head and scrape her knees and have her feelings hurt makes me want to hold on forever.  And before any of that happens, the plan is for me to return to my work outside the home, and leave her in the care of someone who is not me or her father.  Parenthood provides many acute reminders that life must be lived one day, or even one hour or moment, at a time.  Careful planning remains indispensable, but the task of worrying about your beloved child's entire life in one sitting is daunting.

At this moment, Ellie rocks next to me in her rock 'n play -- a cradle that plugs into the wall and sways for hours on end, inspiring the envy of grown ups who wish the contraption came in adult sizes.  She is sated by four ounces of milk consumed an hour ago and she coos while drifting in and out of sleep, lifting one arm above her head and holding one fist near her face, as she has done since before her birth.  She is warm but not hot, shaded from the sun, cozy in a footed sleeper with tiny owls printed on it.

The journalist Hodding Carter noted in his 1953 book, "Where Main Street Meets the River," that a wise woman had told him that parents may make two lasting bequests to their children -- roots and wings.  Providing roots requires thoughtfulness and consistency; roots are instilled through the dailiness of parenting.  And roots may also require self control -- a well-rooted child belongs to a family in which bonds are strongly maintained, which may require forgoing shouting matches or snide comments.

And providing wings to one's child...requires so much courage.  I remember the tears my mother and I shed before I boarded a plane to Spain for a month in the summer after my junior year of high school.  I remember new tears when I left for college in Washington, D.C., a year later.  We cried because of that powerful constellation of roots, tying us to each other and reminding me of who I was no matter where I traveled.  And I traveled because, out of that deep well of love, she gave me wings.

Day 15

Two weeks and one day have passed quite quickly.  We went to the pediatrician yesterday for Ellie's two week visit.  She weighed in at 7 pounds and 3 and a half ounces -- surpassing the two week goal of reaching her birth weight (7 pounds and 1 ounce).  Ellie is a bit of a string bean -- 20th percentile for weight, 40th percentile for height, and 65th percentile for head size. Despite the relatively large size of her head, Ellie is surprisingly adept at lifting her head.  The pediatrician commented on her neck strength while Ellie was demonstrating her hungry woodpecker routine -- when a hungry Ellie is resting on my chest, she roots around looking for a nipple like a woodpecker and grabbing at my clothing.  

It is difficult to discern an infant's temperament, particularly when a parent does not have extensive experience with other infants, but I suspect that Ellie will have a strong and determined mind of her own.  And I am sure that will lead to debates over whether she must wear shoes and whether she can have a puppy and when she will receive a cell phone -- but I would be delighted by and proud of her strength of spirit despite the potential for extra parent child bickering.

Ellie has a new party trick in week three, which she debuted at her two week appointment -- wet, runny poops during diaper changes. Oops.  We are attempting to untangle all of the mysteries that typically confound new parents -- how to reset Ellie's sleeping rhythms so that more sleep happens at night, how much to feed her so that she is satisfied but does not erupt surplus milk.

My mom spent more than a week with us and left yesterday.  It was so special to see her and Ellie together.  Mom crooned sweet tunes from her impressive array of musical selections and rocked Ellie for hours.  Ellie was completely at peace in her arms and I was reminded of all the mothering my mother has done -- seeing and swaying newborns, patiently reasoning with toddlers, assembling thousands of brown bag lunches, bravely teaching her teenaged offspring to drive, listening for the click of the front door just after curfew.  It all lies ahead of us and the passing of each day is bittersweet. I am thankful for every day that our child feels healthy and loved and grows one day older.  I take none of this for granted; it is our lives' most meaningful work.  And yet each day is precious and happens but once.

And so the goal is to be as present as possible for all of it.  To learn to drink in the joy and rebuff the mundane distractions of the tidiness of the house, the unfolding catastrophe of unexpected election results, the uncertainty surrounding my future at work.  This family is the solid center of our lives.  Every other thing will grow smaller in the rearview mirror.

Day 12

My water broke unexpectedly the night before Thanksgiving while I was on the phone with mom.  The house was up for grabs; we were chatting while I tried to clean the kitchen.  The water did not break in one spectacular gush.  It was at first a small amount that I come have disregarded, and then more warm fluid escaped as I called the answering service for the Dr, finished packing my hospital bag, changed into my gown at the hospital, and entered the operating room.  My water broke at 6pm; at 9:34pm, the doctors announced from behind the dividing curtain that our girl had arrived.

We had been engaged in a heated debate for weeks about whether to spell her name Madeline, Madeleine, or some other name because we simply could not agree.  We settled on Madeleine, which was Nitin's preference.  He misspelled her name in the announcement email we sent to family and friends and the pediatrician misspelled her name on her file.  But it is the correct spelling for the pronunciation were preferred and it it is also a word for a delicate French cookie. So.

We had not chosen Ellie's middle name until just before surgery.  We choose Lila, the Sanskrit word for play, over Amara and Amaya and a few other Sanskrit names beginning with A.  Naming a precious child one has not met yet is a challenge -- out feels terribly important and yet I came to realize there was not necessarily a name that would check all of my boxes of feel completely right.  There was no family name that we both loved that could belong to a Senator or a doctor or an artist that commands respect and yet feels approachable and offers a choice of affectionate, roll off the tongue nicknames.  So we just did our best and picked a name we both really liked that had a number of decent nickname choices.  An early lesson in parenting -- it is usually not practical to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Before we entered surgery -- six days before the planned c section for our breech baby, and ten days before our due date -- I asked the doctor if "this if probably going to turn out fine?" The medical team told me there had been ten c sections already that day.  A lot of babies who had to be out in time for turkey, apparently.  We had tried to flip Ellie -- prenatal chiropractor, acupuncture, moxibustion, inversions, handstands in the pool.  Sometimes a baby will not turn because a nuchal cord is wrapped around her neck.  Not so with our little one -- perhaps it was a matter of comfort? I can imagine not wanting to hang upside down for months, I suppose.

In the operating room, the wait for her arrival seemed endless.  I had one moment of panic when I realized I could not move or feel my legs.  Mostly I tried hard to focus on the arrival of our baby, rather than the grisly logistics.  I wept when she arrived -- she's here, she's here.  Nitin was composed, naturally; important for one parent, at least, not to be susceptible to hysteria.

She was coated in vernix -- that white cream cheese like substance -- and blood.  She did not wail immediately. (I asked about her lungs -- not to worry, they said.) Her birth was the incredible culmination of an entirely mysterious process.  Remarkably, with no forethought on my part, I had grown a perfect baby human with 10 long fingers and 10 long toes, and rosy sweetheart lips and an impossibly soft head coated in downy fuzz like a ripe peach.  Almost immediately she was sufficed with the telltale newborn scent.  When she rested on my bare chest the pain of the incision and claustrophobia of the hospital room faded.

Recovery from abdominal surgery is a painful slog. Lessons learned -- take the Percocet, the first few days are the hardest, and becoming a mother brings a deep and meaningful joy that far eclipses the temporary pain of childbirth.

And so I am now a mother to this incredible person.  We are learning about her, and about infant care generally, each day.  She emerged with a strong sucking reflex that surprised me; she also completely understood her destination.  Just as they had in utero, her hands migrated toward her mouth at every opportunity.  The days since her birth have flickered by so quickly and we are, of course, so in love with her that there is a desire to somehow capture every detail -- the sweet soft of her cooing in the midst of half-hearted crying, the moment when her gaze settles on me, the brow furrowed in contemplation.

I once read that in becoming a parent, one acquiesces to having the heart of oneself wandering around in the world, outside of one's body.  The vulnerability is shattering.

All of this helps me to understand more my own mother's seemingly endless capacity for forgiveness and love without condition.  As a child, I posed every type of hypothetical to test her love for me -- what if I was a murderer, I asked. She would be heartbroken by that, she said, but would still love me. I now understand this completely.  Of course.  Maya Angelou said she had become the type of parent her mother had been. Ellie and I would both be so lucky if the same were true for me.  She deserves no less than that.  What an incredibly precious gift, our beloved daughter.