Our second baby, a girl

I’ve overhauled this blog as of this entry – converted it over to the WordPress blogging platform, with a new design I found and modified. Like it? Older image galleries aren’t working at the moment – they’ll be fixed.

This last June 17th, Father’s day, our second baby, a daughter, was born at 4:35 AM. Happy Father’s Day to me 🙂

The arrangements for and the delivery of this second baby were much easier than for our first – which I thought the midwife astutely referred to as the Pioneer – though still grueling and exhausting. We’ve named this baby (my decision less pathetically lethargic than for our first) but refer to her on the internet by a pseudonym. In a bit here is blather about that, her particular date of birth, and Mago’s first interactions with and comments about her, but first a photo slide show taken the day she was born, courtesy Picasa Web Albums, photos taken by an uncle, and also by Tia’s stepmom.

At this blog we call her by a pseudonym. First, “Nem-nem”, which is whimsical nonsense. Second “Niamh”, Irish and pronounced “Neve”, which I expect to confuse, fine for a blog. In Irish mythology (I’ve only just read this), Niamh is the princess of the land of promise (as Niamh, though my sister who served a mission in Ireland informs me there are many little girls over there with names spelled Niamh). I’d wanted “Niam”, Irish for “Bright” in addition to all this before “Nem-nem”, and further nicely confusing as it sounds just like you’d mispronounce Niamh/Niamh, but Tia doesn’t like it.

So her pseudonym here is Nem-nem Niamh. Why the Irish pseudonyms – our firstborn as Mago Elf Liam (Gaelic: Great Elf William)? A tradition of Irish blood on one of my mother’s lines, Mago being born on St. Patrick’s day, and his cousin also born on that date, and..

Now our second baby here, Nem-nem Niamh, shares her birthday with a cousin who has a quintessentially Irish name, who was born six years ago – also on Father’s day. And on the same day of the month as Nem-nem’s older brother born on St. Patrick’s day, the 17th, and his cousin also.. there you go.

The 17th day of the month is also shared with one of Nem-nem’s uncles, and her great-grandfather, and.. I think some others I forget 😮

And on top of all this a cousin – second cousin – was born on this very same day and year that little Nem-nem was.

I was going to do this this entry, but for lack of time, some videos I’ve promised will be posted in a future entry.

Mago has been very eager to meet his sister for a long time since before she was born. He would talk to her through mommy’s tummy, and long since adopted a mistaken reference to her as “FisterBruver”, or Sister-Brother. Since her birth I’ve had an inkling he may use this as a description of their relationship, as he said a day or two after her birth that “Now I’m a FisterBruver.” But it’s clearly also a title, and I suppose especially for her. And he also fondly calls her by her real name.

The first Mago came into the hospital room where mommy was holding Nem-nem, he was very enthusiastically but gently all over her, calling her FisterBruver, softly caressing her head with his hands, and wishing to kiss her, which we couldn’t let him because he had a croup cough. We got a mask for him so he could be close to her, as you see in the slides and video. I don’t recall all he said but one of the first things he said, when I took him a bit away from Nem-nem and held him, was:

“I love that baby.”

Also, speaking to Tia:

“Did she come out of your tummy? Is she going to go back in? Can I go back into your tummy?”

This is no indication at all that he doesn’t want Nem-nem here – though Tia has noticed he’s been more ardently seeking attention as an apparently permanent change since her birth. It’s simple curiosity. A verbose 2-year old informing us of the wonderful ideas that go through his head figuring out how things work.

I had meant to amend this previous entry with a comment after my brother wisely cautioned that you can’t take a kid’s feelings too seriously – indeed that’s true. Sometimes when Mago sadly or sourly insists on something that cannot be, I throw him a loop – he’ll say “Yes!” – I say “No!” – and back and forth “Yes!” – “No!” – “Yes!” – “No!” – “Yes!” – then I suddenly exclaim “Yes!” and he willfully exclaims the opposite, “No!” – not what he wants – and realizes he’s been hoodwinked and laughs. I’m sure many parents have discovered this fun trick.

You may note in the photos that Nem-nem has a lot of dense, short, dark brown or black hair at birth.

She is strong. She lifts her head right up if you hold her on your shoulder. She’d flop right out of your arms if you didn’t hold her close and tight. Her legs are very difficult to raise up from the pinned bend she keeps them in when you change her diaper.

She has Billy Reuben (is this how you spell the affliction? – ah ha ha! I just looked it up. It’s bilirubin – but I’ll keep that), that fairly common yellowing of infant skin from.. too many red blood cells? – which count went up for several days, but which today went into a decline. Thank heaven. Mago did not enjoy being in a light box to combat it for weeks, and we didn’t enjoy inflicting that on him.

A gripe you can skip if you wish – [spoiler]all the same I’ve maintained since Mago suffered the malady – why provide a light box only when the malady becomes really bad? Why not provide it if they suffer much at all? Wouldn’t that prevent the risk of it getting worse? I’ve heard it criticized that our most widely respected medical paradigm is often not health-oriented, but crisis-oriented. I’d say “health” is a state that can ward off illness. Disease is a crisis. If you take action only when there is disease, you are focused on crisis – not prevention, health. I don’t think it’s true on all counts, but here? Yes. Let’s make things better while they’re okay, not okay when they’re worse. Mind, I’m all for all the miracles we have available for when things are worse. Also, the midwife’s comment to me about the anesthesiologist forbidding my wife to drink water after her spinal anesthetic is that this is treating the situation as if she would have a caesarian section; if the throat is well-watered when there’s general anesthetic (and there is general anesthetic in that situation, but not the one we were in) there’s greater risk of the throat collapsing and suffocating in numbness. So he’s responding to the situation as if she’s having a caesarian, while we are well past that – this was at a stage of labor where that is neither necessary nor possible. So not only can we think too much in terms of making bad things okay, we can behave as if bad things may happen when there’s barely or truly not any risk of that. Welcome to your sue-happy society. This is malpractice risk overreaction. Sigh.[/spoiler]

I think she’s a beautiful, mild baby. I’m surprised how distinct and new but inexplicably, unsurprisingly familiar she is. The unknown novelties of having a baby aren’t as impressive, but she still is. My first impressions are that her cry and voice sound a whole lot like Mago as an infant, but gentler. .. I only recall her howling so far when given a needle shot (not unexpected) and when bathed. She does not like baths. It seems to be horrific for her. I think sometimes her sounds of alarm reflect Tia when she’s surprised or uneasy.

Today (or Saturday as I started writing this :p – hey, it’s her one week anniversary three hours after I click “publish”) I enjoyed my first moments with her where she didn’t seem hungry or otherwise distracted, just holding her as she was awake, and she seemed to be really taking in my face and just watching me talk to her.

As for us, we’re lacking sleep but happy.