just have to start

tomorrow is my 6 weeks postpartum appointment. how and when did that happen? i printed out the best cerclage picture from belinda, dylan made a thank you card that says "thank you for baby" with a cut out heart and a picture of a baby that he drew. on the back of the card was a poem i wrote this past week:

Stitch


A stitch is a bond.

Innocuous and plain.

Joining the impossible with the possible.

Defying nature and her vein.


A stitch to give us hope,

To string a family together.

To make us whole, even when

One lives in our hearts forever.


A stitch that gives us love,

Bursting at its seams.

Contracting reality,

With what was once just a dream.


A stitch by any other name,

Would not be the same.


Because when his stitch ends,

Is the moment when life begins...

i guess because the firs few weeks of newborn haze was really a haze, in which the days and nights all blended together and time was marked by when austin wanted to nurse and my throbbing nipples. So I would probably start with the delivery day and my stay at chez CPMC

April 14th
With my c-section scheduled for 12:15 - we had time to drop the boys off in foster city and take a few photos. belinda was going to meet us at the hospital at 11:30. it was a bit unnerving, this time somewhat knowing what to expect, still not knowing the gender of the baby, and not knowing how difficult the recovery would be. i wore my new musubi, cherry-blossom scarf and off we went to the hospital. once again, i was nervous about the IV and the nurse was able to get the needle in, but something had popped off and i felt this big gush of warmth (BLOOD) over my left hand. of course my eyes were closed, and belinda and brian told me to keep my eyes shut, which did not help with my anxiety, but they had to change the pad, wipe the floors, since almost a pint of blood squirted out from the puncture. this was NOT the way i wanted to start my day.

we had belinda join us this time. i did want her to capture the exact moment when the baby was out, and when brian could see the gender. i wanted to see the look of shock, awe and love captured in the photograph, since i wasn't quite able to see much from my vantage point. just like i had remembered, i hated getting the spinal. there's something so terrifying about something paralyzing you from neck down, and the small margin of error that makes me extremely anxious and uncomfortable. i could NEVER be an anesthesiologist. and this time i was so antsy, and skittish - with my head constantly rotating to the left and right. there were not many options for me to release my anxiety. there's definitely that "get me outta here" sense when you're on the table so vulnerable, cut open and exposed.

i'm not sure exactly how i felt when i was told that it was a boy. i'm not sure who even said it first - i believe it was brian. your first instinct is if the baby is ok, was he/she healthy - is the baby crying. although i had always thought i would have a girl, there was a part of me that most likely thought that the baby would be a boy. so i don't i was super surprised at the outcome, although I carried so differently this time. brian said that i was less wide, the line down my belly was very faint - and clearly the gestational diabetes was also a new nuance as well. Well, c'est la vie. i had another beautiful fong boy.

he was so small, had near perfect, if not perfect apgar score and brian went with him to the nursery and belinda stayed with me. that's when it got real. the procedure this time took so much longer, with dr katz removing the cerclage, taking time for some photo ops with his work (belinda was brave enough to take pictures), and also removing the keloid and closing me up differently than with evan. again, the feeling of "get me outta here" was the pervasive feeling. they wheeled me into recovery and then brought the baby over (still nameless at this point, the reality of having another boy was still sinking in (it is still sinking in). it's amazing how you put a newborn on your chest and how by instinct it just moves over to your nipple for milk. speaking of which - it's time for me to be a cow now. T.B.C.