Two Rainbows

There was literally a rainbow the day my son was born. Utterly. Fucking. Amazing.

I didn't see it myself, but I heard and saw pictures. It's probably not amazing that there was rainbow somewhere in the world on October 15, 2012, but there was a rainbow in our part of the world on October 15, 2012.

Not only that, but he was born on Pregnancy and Infant Loss Day of Awareness. (His due date was the 25th.)

Without further ado, meet my rainbow Jed Leon:

He looks JUST like his dad:

Seriously, if I hadn't spent two hours pushing this kid out I wouldn't be sure he was mine. Oh, actually, he has my ear lobes. :)

Funny we have all these pictures of relatives holding him. A few with his dad holding him. And no pics of me holding him without a boob in the picture!

Here's the one from the delivery room. Our new family.

(Whoa. Babies look weird when they are just born!)

He made his entrance just after midnight on Monday. At 12:13. He was 8 pounds, 2 ounces. I can't believe I gave birth to an 8-pound baby! A week and three days before at the OB the doctor eyed my belly and said he was probably 5.5 to 6 pounds. Not. He was 20.75 inches long. So kind of a big guy.

I am having a little sadness thinking about his brother who isn't here. But for the most part I am just so overwhelmed with joy and happiness. When the doctor put him squirming on my belly and the nurse was starting to clean him up, I just couldn't stop saying "oh my gosh." I'm from the Northeast--we use the actual curse words. I don't think I've ever said "oh my gosh" before except to be polite around strangers.

Speaking of his brother...I think in a way I am lucky now that EVERYTHING is different. Blue would not have been part of THIS family. It would have been a different family. Just me and my baby. So Blue and Jed are so completely separate from each other. (Although when I was pregnant and we were calling Jed "Sprout" I would mix up their names every once in a while. Of course, I also mixed up Sprout's name with our horse Fuzz.) But I am still sad from the sadness of it all. We went for a walk in the park the other day and I was struggling to keep up and I remembered how the day after the abortion I was walking slowly around the National Zoo with my parents and just breaking down crying about every 20 minutes. So there aren't really comparisons, but reminders of how different it is between then and now.

You know, I feel like such a cliche saying this is all wonderful, it's everything I ever wanted. I spent a good number of years thinking maybe kids wouldn't fit my lifestyle. I travel, I rock climb, I do triathlons, I get drunk. Making those things past tense seemed like such a sacrifice. And when I started to feel like something was missing, and I wanted to meet a man and I wanted to have a baby, I still felt like I wasn't quite ready for ALL the changes. And then came Blue and I loved him so much from the moment I knew he existed. I remember a comment another mom posted on Glow in the Woods: I wasn't sure I had time for a baby, now he's gone and all I've got is time and nothing to do with it. Those were my sentiments exactly.

My point now is that...this is not that hard. I know it will get harder, I know there will be nights that seem to never end with a fussy baby. Days of boredom, fatigue, irritability. But I signed up for this. I signed up for all of it. And I wouldn't want it any other way.

Next post preview: The Birth Story.
In a nutshell, I got past 9 cm without the epidural. Ended up getting one. Everything worked out.