Cries(is) of Confidence

So my candidate for most gut-wrenching new mother experience is my all-too-slowly developing ability to read Freya's cries correctly. Is there anything worse than seeing your baby in apparent agony and not being able to figure out how to make it better? Half the time I end up crying right along with her...

"Eh-la", usually delivered in a vaguely mournful, and increasingly more urgent cadence, is Freya's cry for food. It stops the second I put her in ready position, which constitutes our first proper conversation: signal and response :-)

Then there is the sudden screech, after waking from a nap: sometimes that means she is too hot, especially after having slept against my skin in the triple-digit heat we have been "enjoying" in California. Another good candidate for what's wrong is a full diaper, and those cries have taken on an indignant character now that we have switched to cloth diapers during the day. If it's neither of those two, we just wing it and try various diversions.

Her hiccups sound bad, and look even worse, what with the inch-deep indentation of her diaphragm, but don't seem to bother her, thank goodness.

Not so the high-pitch scream/desperate gulp combo that we first encountered the second night at home -- when Freya was hungry and my milk not yet in -- and again the other afternoon with what appeared to have been her first bout with colic. Hour after hour of pitiful, inconsolable crying like that, with Freya turning lobster red all over and writhing in apparent pain, wore me down. In German we call this cry "zum Steinerweichen", meaning the ability to melt rocks -- needless to say I was reduced to a puddle after the first hour. Eventually my mother managed to soothe her, and we later figured out that it must have been something I ate. We modified my diet, and so far, no further colicky episodes.

Anyway, it's been an instructive four weeks. I used to consider myself a fast learner, but not nearly fast enough to make things right by Freya in time every time. I also have my first pet peeve of new motherhood: The Secrets of the Baby Whisperer book, which makes it sound as if it should be easy and straightforward to read your baby's body language, and made me feel like a dolt for about half an afternoon, after which I threw the book in a corner to be burned along with my maternity pants.

Got Milk?

As it turns out, one of the most important skills of motherhood is also one of the simplest. Unlike learning to ride a bike, running a marathon, or getting and advanced degree, producing breast milk required no practice, training or coursework. It just showed up, about 12 hours later than Freya would have liked, judging from the intensity of her crying one night last week, but show up it did. With a vengeance. Turns out these breasts are not just for decoration. And while we haven't perfected the art of night-time nursing without groping for my glasses and turning on the light yet, Freya's eating like a champ and I get to enjoy an entirely gratuitous sense of accomplishment.

The best laid plans...

... went haywire and got us our beautiful daughter two weeks early!

On July 31 Lufthansa went on strike, delaying my mother's arrival in Portland by two days.

Later that afternoon, my water broker while at the midwife's for a routine visit. She discovered that OHSU Labor and Delivery was "on divert", meaning that there would be no room at the inn (and, more importantly) the water tub if I showed up there too soon. So she sent me home and told me to come back when the contractions are at 3-5 minutes.

I called Steve, who was at that moment in Spokane on a college tour with Beau -- they started the trek home immediately, getting back to Portland by midnight. A big thank you to our friends Jennifer and Marcus who sat with me, watching stupid movies and chatting as my contractions slowly built.

It's true, you really can sleep through the early part of labor, or at least in between contractions. Steve not so much, he was busy timing them all night... Contractions were down to 5 minutes by Friday morning, which saw me in a frenzy of work triage, essentially designating a number of pinch hitters for some rather hairy deadlines.

We went to the hospital, where they indeed did not turn us away, but we had to wait for a couple of hours until a birth suite became available.

Naturally, the water tub was in use -- but OHSU was prepared for this contingency, and we became the inaugural users of their new inflatable back-up tub.

I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that labor progressed in predictable fashion, and I was able to see it through unmedicated and mostly in good humor; at least until those famous last three pushes. Yowza.

And then: There she was!!!

Freya Rosa Cowan joined us at 9:15 p.m. on Friday, August 1st, weighing in at 8 lbs 3 oz, and 21.5 inches long.

We are smitten, and of course she is the most beautiful baby in the world .