It has been seven days since Sasha was born. She is still alive and breathing, and I count that as a success. Though some challenges are different from what I expected, overall it has actually been easier than I had thought.

As the boxes and boxes of baby stuff continued to overwhelm the limited space in our condo over the past month or so before Sasha was born, it dawned on us that it wasn’t going to just be the two of us plus a tiny little baby. The reality of the situation was that we had a new roommate moving in and we needed to make space for a whole person’s worth of stuff and we were going to have to get rid of and rearrange a bunch of our own stuff to make room for the baby. Cupboards were cleared, books and DVDs given away, and the craps table (around which my friends spent hours throwing dice many years ago) was converted into a crap table (AKA diaper changing station). Continue reading →

(Posted @ 2:12am) The first 24 hours. As dawn broke over the city, I nearly cried as I realized it was her first sunrise. Sleep deprivation and overwhelming emotions swirl around causing a mad mix of anxiety and elation. Insecurities and instincts, both the previously known and the unknown kick in. I have no idea what I am doing and yet some things just happen so naturally. Continue reading →

(Posted @ 1:09 am) Sitting on the DASH bus carrying an empty baby car seat is not exactly how I imagined the rush to the hospital to go down. The plan was to wait until contractions were 4 minutes apart before I drove her to the hospital. Enter from the main entrance, or from 6th street through the ER if it was after 6:30pm. Leave the car at the door on the way up to the eighth floor. None of that happened. Continue reading →