Starstruck

I held my new niece Alyssa Nicole for the first time last Sunday.

The entire time, a slew of thoughts whisked through my mind:

"Oh! She's so tiny!"

"There's that new baby smell!"

"Wow, is she supposed to shudder like that?"

"She kind of looks like Sprite when she was just born!"

"Sprite's head was MUCH bigger."

I remembered after the fact that yes, Jen, babies do shudder a bit when first born while trying to regulate their body temperature. (Although the repeated tooting she did into my right hand which was supporting her assured me that something was definitely cooking on high in there.)

While visiting with Jeff and Loni, I got to hear the birth story (which is much better than mine) and how, 18 hours after Loni's water broke, Alyssa was finally freed from her first home via C-section. Poor Loni had to endure induced labor since Alyssa decided she would be born on the 4th, she just didn't want to put forth the effort. (Basically, she didn't want to mess up her pretty face.)

I caught this air of something about both Jeff and Loni which I couldn't quite nail down at first. And then I realized,

They were starstruck.

They both seemed to gaze at Alyssa with an almost sort of reverence. Jeff was in a fog. (But a happy one.) Loni was moving around with some difficulty due to her incision (but still much better than my own recovery) and looking at Alyssa repeatedly as if to assure herself that 1. Alyssa was safe in my arms and 2. Alyssa was actually HERE.

And I remembered how John and I had done the exact same thing with our newly born Sprite.

I remembered the clueless admiration glued to our faces as we stared at our daughter and knew right then that we were looking at proof that God actually does exist.

I remembered comparing our own gargantuan fingers and hands to her impossibly small and seemingly fragile ones.

I remembered the blank fog in my head when I would try to recall something I had learned in childbirth classes only to have to resort to my own instinct instead.

I remembered feeling like someone just said, "Here, catch!", throwing this precious baby into my arms and expecting me to take her and run.

I remembered getting released from the hospital and thinking to myself, "That's it? They're letting us go with this baby? What makes them so sure we can handle her?"

I remembered the un-eclipsed joy and wanted to experience it again. I suddenly craved it.

I wanted Sprite's first year back, the highs and the lows. The first weeks of vague oblivion, the uncertainty of life and how it would go. The somewhat queasy feeling of possible doom and the ironclad certainty that life as I knew it was over. And especially, the overwhelming punch in the gut of love that swept me off my feet.

My uterus contracted a little (or maybe my stomach flipped) as I smiled foolishly into Alyssa's sleeping face and studied her perfect features as she grimaced and yawned in the way newborns do. She didn't cry. She didn't squawk. She DID keep tooting, but silently enough that I missed that too.

I know I promised John that I would wait until life seems a little more stable before I start charting my cycle and pestering John to "do the deed", (Oh, wait, my parents read this site. My mother-in-law reads this site too....Eh.) but I so want another baby. And holding Alyssa cemented that for me.

(Sigh) I'll be good. For now.

(Editor's Note: I have gotten some requests, but I'm not posting pictures of Alyssa until I can get some clearance from Jeff or Loni, and due to their lack of sleep or routine, I wouldn't expect them to remember their own names right now, much less give their sister-in-law approval to run baby photos over the Internet, so I'm giving them a little time to get their reality in gear before I bombard them with requests.)

(I''ll call them tonight.)

Comments

[Lisa]

Wow....this really brought back some memories for me too...especially this line...

"I remembered feeling like someone just said, "Here, catch!", throwing this precious baby into my arms and expecting me to take her and run."

Seriously...I was so freaked out at that point if I hadn't been so stinking exhausted I might have thrown that kid right on the floor and took off. I was that freaked...seriously!

Great post and congrats to the new mommy and daddy!

[Lisa]

I forgot to say that of course you can link to my post....oh and an update on my typepad account..I have to switch my domain host now because the one I have won't let me redirect. How fun.