this is fun:

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1855000,00.html

things we need

people are always telling us, "if there's anything you need, let us know."

well, since they can't give us a whole night's sleep, i don't really
know what to say.

but i know what i want: a margarita. very badly.

life is getting more manageable. ...I think.

I got to run errands today and felt like a new person.

life is still hard...we haven't really fallen into a rhythm yet, and
Iris is getting bigger and so her eating schedule is changing anyway.
I'm not very good at patterns anyway, so this would be a struggle
anyway. But I do so much better with routine, so I don't know how
we'll work things out. We'll have to have some sort of schedule by the
time I go back to work, so I guess we'll work something out. Iris has
started sleeping longer, which is nice, but it makes feeding her
confusing. We are still bottle-feeding her breastmilk, so it's not
just a matter of letting her eat as much as she likes. But it's
cheaper than formula!

I did go to the lactaction doctor and was going to try straight-up
breast feeding, but I realized that my attempts just made me really
unstable. And since I'm high risk for post partum depression anyway, I
figured it was better to have a sane mommy...especially since she's
still getting breast milk. Maybe for our second kid, I'll have had
enough therapy and know what I"m doing enough to be a good breast
feeder. But I do like being sane.

This is not very coherent. Sorry. I still definitely feel like I'm not
sure what the heck I'm doing--and I'm still nervous about bathing
her--which is why she smells so milky. But we are both champion diaper
changers. And fortunately, Iris doesn't explode too many diapers.

Okay. I think I need to feed her.

She's really really precious. I tried to take pictures of her today,
but the camera batteries didn't work.

a little catch up

so... wehadababyitsagirl.

this is what i wrote for facebook:

So, last night (well, october first) at 7:03 (19:03 military time),
Iris was born.

We went to the hospital at 5:30 AM to be induced (this meant I
couldn't eat or drink anything after midnight the night before--it
stunk.) They gave me pitocin and broke my water (roy thought it was
really scary) and then I labored and labored and labored...and it was
painful, though not the end of the world, and the reason why it wasn't
painful enough was because I didn't make very much progress--not
enough to have a baby. So after ten hours of labor(during which Roy
rubbed my feet and back at great sacrifice to himself), the doctor
told me that I probably needed a c-section, because I wasn't making
progess. I was kinda scared of that, but I'd been in pain for a long
time, and wanted to have a baby, so we decided to go for it. A funny
thing: I wanted to ask my sister Betsy/Elizabeth, because she's in
physician's assistant school, but when we tried to get in touch with
her, her husband said that she had just gone into surgery (she's
observing them right now) and I said, "well, if she's in surgery, why
not me?" And then Roy and I talked for like 30 seconds and I said, "My
righteousness is in Jesus, not how I give birth." And he said, "Yeah,
you can do what you want, I love you."

So we had to go chase down the doctor, who probably didn't expect us
to make our decision quite so quickly. And then I got ready for
surgery. Roy got to wear a doctor outfit (I'm sure you can find
pictures) and loved it. I actually really enjoyed the c-section. I'd
been in pain for so long that to not feel pain just made me feel
WONDERFUL. I had a spinal block, so I couldn't move my legs (and even
way up into my trunk)...it feel like my legs were in concrete and all
prickly. They poked me with things to make sure the feeling was gone.
Roy got to come. I was happy. There was a sheet in front of me so I
couldn't see what was going on, but I could hear. The doctor said,
"Oh, that's a big head!" and then "that's a big baby!" I couldn't see
at that point, but Roy watched. I did hear the doctor grunting,
though, and I threw up multiple times, and between the big baby being
pulled out of a small hole and my throwing up, one of the nurses
hyperventilated and had to run out of the room. It was really
exciting. We got to see her really quick before they took her back to
be cleaned up--she was light purple looking. and Huge. Then Roy got to
go see her (but I was still stuck in the bed and I couldn't move
except for my arms). And they made someone go get a camera so he could
take pictures. The staff at the hospital was super sweet. It was
really funny, they made predictions about how big the baby was as they
were pulling her out. She ended up being 9 pounds, 2 ounces. I mean, a
big ol' baby! Also, 20.5 inches.

And so she was born and I got to see her for a little bitty second and
Roy got to take her to the nursery, and then I had to go "recover." It
was really crazy waiting for the feeling to come back into my legs and
body--it was a while before I could wiggle my toes.

After a while I finally got to see Iris (at first it was just
pictures) and I fed her and it was really sweet. She's such a
beautiful girl! We think she looks kinda like a tomato or an eskimo.
We love her so much--there's a lot to love.
_____________________________

so...now our little girl is two weeks and a day old. and i don't know
how much she weighs. but i think it's close to ten pounds. she is
absolutely the most beautiful human being i've ever seen. she's also
congested right now and i'm glad her mumsie is coming so i can make
sure it's not a big deal.

having a child is so weird. besides the whole loss of sleep thing,
there's so many things to worry about. for instance, iris doesn't
like to breast feed. and she was jaundiced when we left the hospital.
of course, she would be, since she wasn't getting any milk, so she
couldn't pass anything. so that ol' bilirubin didn't have any place to
go and it just stayed in her body. they send us home with a
biliblanket and made us come back the next day. the nurse said that if
she didn't get better, we'd have to put her in the hospital! talk
about scary! and since she cried everytime she saw my breasts, they
taught me how to pump, and let me rent a pump from them. but it's
really hard not to feel like a failure because iris doesn't want to
breastfeed. she is getting breast milk, so she's getting everything
she needs, and pumping is actually a pretty good deal for me, because
it means that roy can feed her without me--so I get more sleep, but...
and i'm not sure that i'm not going to not try to breast
feed...but...even though no one has been mean about it and mostly
everyone has been encouraging, it's hard not to feel like a second
class mommy because my daughter doesn't like my breasts. that's a
pretty intimate rejection, especially to occur repeatedly....'cause
you have to keep trying to feed her.

there's just so many things to worry about if you're screwing
up...like if she got a pacifier too early (and if that's one of the
reasons she doesn't like to nurse) or if we hold her too much while
she's asleep, or if we don't play with her enough when she's awake....
etc., etc., etc...

all this makes me feel more like an incompetent little sister caring
for someone else's baby than a real mom. but she's still alive and
roy is great with her, and she's really Jesus' baby, not ours, and He
won't let us screw her up permanently. roy is really encouraging, too,
even though i think we've also been more unhappy with each other than
ever before--but I think we can chalk that up to lack of sleep--and
different philosophies of pacifier use. we've also had really sweet
times together, too, and not just emily-roy-iris times, but roy-emily
times.

So... God is still good. and i'm a little bit more basketcase-y than
usual...definitely very insecure about being a "mother." I'd probably
be a lot more confident if i were like a pioneer wife or something and
had to do it all by myself, without other people to compare myself to.

A note about pictures: because there are mean people abounding in the
world, we don't want to put pictures of iris up just for everyone to
see--so there are some on facebook. if you can't get to facebook, let
me know and i'll send you some pictures. because she is beautiful! and
worth all the insecurity.

okay. bye!

i had a baby

and i'm really tired. that's all.