Happy Thanksgiving!

This has been a busy week, with Emilia’s birthday celebration on Tuesday and Thanksgiving festivities today. I wanted to post a few pictures from both events. Above our new little one-year-old tries out some of her birthday gifts with grandma. Emilia wasn’t quite sure what to do with the cake when we plopped it in front of her in one piece, but once I broke it up in small pieces, she scarfed it down in no time flat.


Here’s a cute photo I took of Little Miss Serious in the car on the way to grandma and grandpa’s for Thanksgiving.

And here’s Emilia enjoying “the game” with the boys (grandpa and Uncle Jordan).

As a final note, we are very thankful for the amazing first year we’ve had with Emilia in our lives. We hope you all have much to be thankful for as well!

The Story of Emilia's Birth

Above: Emilia shortly after birth under her oxygen hood (see below for one-year comparison photo)

Tomorrow is Emilia’s first birthday, which makes me feel the need to finally record my memory of her birth. I’ll try to include only the parts that make me look like a hero and Agustín look like a putz, just to fit the stereotypes. But honestly, my husband was as helpful as he could have been without actually giving birth himself.

One year ago this evening, after experiencing two days of increasingly frequent contractions, I said to Agustín around 7:00pm, “I think it’s time to go to the hospital now.” To which he responded, “Oh, now? I still have to shower.” (He’d been working around the house all day while I alternately worked desperately on finishing a final paper and lying in pain on the couch watching the only channel that Agustín had been able to program on our new TV—one football game after another.) On the way to the hospital, my contractions were exactly five minutes apart (which is when we were told to go to the hospital). Upon arrival I was dilated to six and got the epidural I requested an hour or so after check-in. All was good with the world for many hours as Agustín and I attempted to get some sleep in between frequent visits from the nurses to check my progress. In the early morning hours I was told to start pushing, which I did with such vehemence that Agustín told me later he was scared and surprised at just how intense it was (how did he think I’d push—daintily?). At first it seemed like all was going well, but after about a half hour of pushing the nurse realized the baby had turned sideways, so they made me lay on my side for an hour to try to turn the baby. By this time the epidural was wearing off, I was tired from the pushing and the fact I hadn’t been able to eat much before coming to the hospital, and the world was just a little less wonderful.

Luckily, this painful lying in wait turned the baby and we were back to pushing—hours of pushing. For some reason she wasn’t coming out as quickly as we’d initially expected. Meanwhile, my epidural was continuing to wear off and exhaustion was setting in; I swear I blacked out a little at the end of each push (I just remember briefly thinking, ‘Where am I?’ at the end of each contraction). After more than two additional hours of pushing, I finally convinced nurse #3 (funny, when the first one had to go home she was convinced I’d be delivering any minute) to get a doctor to assess whether they could use a vacuum on me (the modern-day equivalent of forceps). By this time they’d realized I had a temperature of 101 degrees, which supposedly meant I had gotten an infection in my uterus during the labor, so they forewarned me that the baby risked having an infection as well, and so they were going to take her away for monitoring right away. I think I was too exhausted to be very concerned, but they acted like it wasn’t a very big deal.

Finally a doctor (I think it was the third one I saw) came and decided it was indeed time for the vacuum. I thought that meant just another push or two, but I actually had many more contractions while they set things up, then even with the vacuum I had to push a half dozen or so more times. But she came out! Monday, November 20th at 9:32am, she finally arrived. Agustín says she looked a little sickly, and she supposedly also had a temperature of 101. I was too exhausted to notice or feel much of anything, so it was just kind of weird when they set her on my chest for a second and told me to kiss my daughter before they carted her off to the nursery.

With the help of an oxygen hood and an IV, Emilia gained her strength over the next few days and was able to be released from the hospital only 12 hours after I was released. We arrived home the night before Thanksgiving.

Tomorrow we plan to celebrate the special occasion with a small family gathering. I’ll post photos of the event. In the meantime, here's a photo of almost-one-year-old Emilia modeling her new winter coat.

A Swimming, Climbing Boogery Girl

Several weeks ago I reported that Emilia was not enjoying her swim lessons. Well, after she screamed through two lessons with her grandma, I decided to get into the water with her. Not one scream, which meant poor grandma had to sit on the sidelines and watch Emilia and I at swim lessons for the next several weeks. Today was the last class, which we had to miss because Emilia was too sick, but they’ve obviously paid off because she started blowing bubbles in the bathtub this week!

Not only has Emilia been sick, but our whole family has gotten the bug. First me, then Emilia, then Agustín. Thankfully I think we’re all in the recovery phase now. But it’s the first time Emilia has been sick, and although it’s just congestion, it’s been a pain. She has a face covered in snot whenever she wakes up and does not like the bulbous booger sucker one bit!

Emilia is constantly on her feet these days. Last week, when I found her pushing around the upside-down laundry basket, I realized it was maybe her way of saying, “Get me a walker toy, you cheapskate!” So, we borrowed this fun toy from a friend, and Emilia has been having a lot of fun with it. They say people resemble their pets, but I think in this case Emilia resembles her toy. Am I the only one who sees it?

Emilia has also become a big fan of climbing through, under and over furniture—the side table (see photo) and the legs of her high chair or the dining room chairs, in particular.

Emilia's Developing Personality

I’ve been a bit delinquent about posting lately, but our camera (or, more specifically, our batteries) have been on the fritz lately. So we’ve had to survive with only a few dozen photos of Emilia over the last week or two rather than a few hundred (remember, she’s our first child, which means we’re a little overzealous with the photos).

It’s been fun to watch Emilia’s personality revealing itself more every day. She seems to experience some separation anxiety when she’s tired, but apart from that she is extremely curious and quite outgoing. We are involved in a play group, parent/baby class, and story time. At all of these, Emilia spends most of her time exploring and paying little or no attention to mom. Yesterday she helped our teacher play the guitar; maybe she’ll turn out to have more musical talent than her parents—let’s hope! When we go shopping, she sits in the cart and smiles and often laughs out loud at anyone that will pay any attention to her. As a result, we get lots of comments on how cute she is and dumb questions like, "Is she always this good?" (anyone who's a parent knows why this is a dumb question--of course no baby is always an angel). Emilia is also learning to be tender and affectionate (something I just learned is natural around 12-18 months of age), but has trouble with the concept “gentle.” But she knows how to kiss Baby (her doll), kiss doggy (a toy), and kiss mommy—although she’s selective about when she chooses to do so. She's also very good at hugging.

Emilia continues to not want us to help her stand up, but instead prefers to do it on her own by pulling up on furniture or her toy basket.

This is a photo I just had to post because I think it’s so funny. No, we do not have Emilia begging in the streets and we don't give her alcohol. Agustín burns a DVD full of photos every month or two and sends it to his parents so they can see how Emilia is growing. This was the final photo on the last DVD we sent them. Agustín took it when I wasn’t home (no worries about the rubber band around her neck; he didn’t let her out of his sight for the few minutes she was wearing it). The sign says ‘Grandma and grandpa (this part is in Catalan, a language from northern Spain where Agustín’s parents are originally from), prepare my room, I’m coming for the holidays.’ That’s right, we’re headed to Spain just after Christmas for Emilia’s second visit. This trip should be a lot more interesting (read ‘difficult’) because Emilia has developed overly-good sleep habits and is incapable of sleeping in our arms. Not to mention the fact that she wasn’t mobile the last time we made the long flight (it’s actually three flights---argh!).