After some serious carseat wrangling we managed to get out of the house yesterday, to attend Mass and eat dinner at my folks’. It went fine, and everyone at St. Michael’s was delighted to see Trixie. I had her in the sling, which is a grey twill, and only her little head was poking out of the top when Father Remski walked by. She was pretty much invisible to a casual glance because I just looked sort of still pregnant. Father Remski waved to me and continued walking for another 6 feet at which point he did a Bugs Bunny-esque double take and said “Hey! You had the baby!” It was pretty funny.

On the sleeping front, she seems to be getting much more into a typical pattern. She sleeps from midnight to about 3AM, then is awake for an hour or so intermittently nursing, then back to sleep with less noticeable wakings until we get out of bed around 8:30. It helps a lot that she’s able to nurse lying down fairly well. I think my ability to manage that at younger and younger ages has gotten better with each kiddo, because I remember Faith and Abby still needing to nurse upright for the first two weeks or so since I couldn’t get a reliably good latch in the dark on my side.

I have some pictures but they’re on Sean’s computer - I’ll try to get them up today sometime.

Mother, oh Mother, come shake out your cloth
empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
hang out the washing and butter the bread,
sew on a button and make up a bed.
Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She’s up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I’ve grown shiftless as Little Boy Blue
(lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
(pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo).
The shopping’s not done and there’s nothing for stew
and out in the yard there’s a hullabaloo
but I’m playing Kanga and this is my Roo.
Look! Aren’t her eyes the most wonderful hue?
(lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).

The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,
for children grow up, as I’ve learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust go to sleep.
I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.

by Ruth Hulburt Hamilton

h/t: abigailvr

She was 21.5 inches long and 8 pounds 12 ounces. Her Apgars were 9 and 10 and she has blue eyes and dark brown hair.

I haven’t had a chance to even start my version of the birth - it will have many details that Sean’s version does not contain, I am sure.

does the title say enough?

oof, tired. she’s cute though!

A photo of Beatrice at a little less than one day old, trying her very best to grow some eyebrows. Trixie is an amazingly alert newborn, with perfect reflexes.

My father-in-law once said that “all newborns look like Winston Churchill.” To see if he was right, I uploaded Trixie’s photo to MyHeritage.com, which uses facial recognition technology to match your face with that of a celebrity.

The computer matches Trixie most closely with Shirley Temple.

Thanks everyone for the well wishes in labor and the congratulations after. It gave me a lot of strength during the labor to know you all were thinking of us.

I’ll post a birth story soon. In brief: everyone is in splendid shape, but tired.

Gnite!

Well, hi there! I’m number five! Pleased to meet you.

But hey! Where’s my hat? And what’s for lunch?

That’s better.

Sean will have a post recounting all of today’s wondrous events, but probably not till after dinner. Check his blog tonight!

Thank you for all of your comments and prayers! And thank you, God, for our beautiful daughter!

was born at 3:57 p.m., and everything is just perfect! Will post very, very soon with pix and details.

Doing well, moving along! Took a bath - I like to labor in water, but I never seem to manage a birth tub. My mom’s here and Sean went to run a few errands. Contractions are strong, but no back labor so the pain disappears as the contraction ends.

Slightly gloopy details behind the cut for the squeamish.

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I managed to sleep about an hour or so with the aid of my much beloved disposable heating pad. i have used them in my last three labors and they are so wonderful. my ctx slowed down whle i was sleeping but are getting stronger and closer together as the day progresses. they never stopped entirely, but went to ne every 15-20 min.

I’m thinking today is the day. Washington’s birthday and we’ll know soon whether it’s Beatrice Anna or Theodore Daniel.

I’m going to go make some tea. And Sean will be posting later too, I’m sure, so go to blog.gleeson.us to see all our posts.