Pony: oh yeah, I'm 34
2.7.2007

Today is my birthday, and for the first time in my life I could care less.
I have barely looked in the mirror in days.
I have a perfect baby boy.

The first week has been the best week of my life. Every day Chris and I have woken up and stared at Gabriel and covered him in kisses, giving each other windows to take baths, check our emails (all read but most unanswered!). We feel truly blessed to have such wonderful friends and family who have stocked our fridge and freezer with beautiful food and helped us with every small detail of the first overwhelming week, from lending me larger shoes for my swollen feet to bringing me birthday cake and singing on my answering machine.

The milk story
Day 3, as promised by the midwives, was hard. Sleep deprived. Still too sore to walk farther than the bathroom. A hungry baby. My milk still had not come in. Every book says not to supplement with formula - that the milk will come and the baby will be fine, but i cried. It was my biggest fear that i would not be able to do it - it seemed too odd to conceive that I would be able to breastfeed or if i did it would be painful.

But it was an unnecessary fear. I have become a crazy milk fountain. Way too much milk is happening. I soak my sheets and shirts. I could feed triplets. Gabriel sings funny notes when he drinks and then falls into drunken milk stupors on my lap.
Can't get that song: "My milkshake tastes better than yours" out of my head.

The bris
Yesterday Gabriel had his circumcision at the synagogue. The mohel was a female doctor who was great and inclusive. The bris was a really difficult decision that we dicsussed for months. Something that used to be done without analysis to every boy in North America has now become super-politicized. It was impossible to find any articles about it that did not have a massive agenda. One day I will write a longer entry about this (but please, no matter how tempted you are, please don't fill the comments about it).


Is it still co-sleeping if you are not sleeping?
So far Gabriel has been sleeping with us in our bed. He wakes so often and I have felt, until recently, too weak to get out of bed to feed him. That, and he is up every two hours. Both of us want to have the bed be a place for grown-ups, but it is almost too delicious having him snoring away between us all night. Soon we will move him to his basinette. I swear.
Breastfeeding kills your back unless you sit upright in a proper chair. ow. My back.

Cold
I hear it has been colder than a witch's tit out there. Not that i have left the house.

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gabriel david maxwell stevenson				the birth story: ";let‘s get this labour started";

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