first letter to my daughter

dear Molly,

you are almost six months old.

i really can't wrap my head around that, but it's true.

your brothers had their own websites on which i wrote to them. Matthew's has about six times as many entries as Gavin's. you, my dear, will be lucky to have half as many as Gavin. welcome to being the youngest of three. but you have something neither of them had until recently—all of me, all day, every day. which i hope will prove a lot more meaningful than posts on a website.

still, i want to remember this time in your life, and i want you to know what you were like, how i felt,  and why. in particular...

— it's true that when i first learned i was pregnant with you, i was very, very nervous. i was worried for you, worried for your brothers, worried for your daddy and for myself. but not a day goes by now that i don't think she was meant to be. you are a gift, Molly Claire. the best kind of surprise in the world, and in fact i spend a large part of every day feeling gratitude for your very existence.

— you are sunshine personified. you smiled your first smile before you were a month old, and you haven't stopped smiling since, and anyone who catches a glimpse of your smile turns into sunshine themselves. it's amazing. you exude joy and happiness (and, yes, drool and a few other things), and if there's one thing i wish for you right now it's that you always do, that you grow into one of those people who can find the joy and happiness where no one else can. because the world needs more of those kinds of people.

— you are growing so very quickly, and it makes me both ecstatic and melancholy. it's thrilling to watch you discover new things—like what you can do with your hands, or that you can pretty much stand up holding onto something for several seconds at a time already—but jeez, it's all happening so fast, there's no time for me to soak it all in. i remind myself constantly what a privilege and adventure it is, being here to see you grow, that you are, indeed, growing. there's no room for melancholy! i just wouldn't mind it slowing down a little teeny bit.

— you are adored by many, many people, but it's hard to find bigger fans than your brothers and your daddy. (and judging by the look on your face when any of them is near, the feeling is mutual.) you have three fearless protectors built right in to your family. god help them the first time you experience any kind of pain—they will take it far harder than you do! you are a very lucky little girl to have such a circle of strength and head-over-heels gaga love around you. so please forgive them when they act like boys, stink up the room or pull your hair or (accidentally) hit you in the head with a ball or a truck. just do what i do—roll your eyes and let it go. 

— you're my best friend forever. i told you that the other day when we were shopping together. i said to you, as you sat in your car seat tucked in the cart, chewing contentedly on your thumb, "you don't have a choice: i'm your best friend and you're mine, the end." some people don't believe parents and children can or should be best friends, but i'm not one of them. i am all for it. you may, someday, find much cooler, hipper, more exciting friends to hang out with, but i'm pretty sure you'll never find one who loves you as much as i do.

— but that doesn't mean i'm never going to make you mad, or annoyed, or that i will always understand you perfectly. and vice versa. we are both going to mess up so much, Mollybean. confession: before you came along i had convinced myself that i was meant to be the mama of only boys, as i've never been very good at being a girl. (it's taken me 38 years to realize and accept that it's plenty good just to be me. i hope i can pass that along to you—by example more than anything else—long before you find your first gray hair.) anyway, i want you to know that while i am here to guide and teach you, for as long as you need me to, you've already been teaching me. i know i will be learning just as much from you in our time together as you do from me. probably even more. and i think that's pretty fantastic. 

you have changed my life, little Bean, utterly and completely and absolutely perfectly. thank you so much. 

i love you forever & always,

mama

mbm

Molly Claire: a fashionably late (and all-around pleasant) arrival

Molly is now five months old and i think it's time i share her birth story. i shared her brothers' and i am so glad i have those tales recorded. it's only fair she gets her turn. especially because it was so wonderfully pleasant.

yes, i said it: pleasant.

which is funny, because i was dreading it. the closer my due date grew, the more fearful and anxious i became. i'd only done the whole pushing-a-baby-out-of-my-body thing 15 months earlier. (and Gavin came out face up, completely thwarting the whole second-baby-is-easier theory. i think we're both still traumatized from the ordeal.) fifteen months was not enough time to forget what an awful business it all is.

deep down, i was really, really scared.

because i couldn't control how my Mollybean would enter the world (or when), i used my last days of pregnancy to plow through a mile-long to-do list. i anticipated having no time for anything at all once i was officially a mama of three, so i wanted to work as far ahead as possible. which explains why approximately 48 hours before i gave birth, i was out front trimming our hedges with the giant clippers my dad had gifted me when we moved. i am sure i looked ridiculous, but i felt a hell of a lot better when it was done.

welcome to my neuroses.

anyway. perhaps sensing her mama's need for inner peace (or maybe trying to mentally prepare for her two big brothers) Molly stayed put on her due date. she stayed put for another almost-three days, in fact. on November 11th, Michael was scheduled to work from four to midnight. i told him a million times to go into work, i'd be fine, don't worry, he was only 90 minutes away, et cetera et cetera et cetera. well, i think he'd been at work for less than a half-hour when i called him and told him to come home. nothing was imminent, but i was feeling contractions stronger than the good ol' Braxton Hicks and though my parents were only a few towns over, i really wanted my husband with me. good chap that he is, he got right back in his car without complaint and came home.

i woke up the morning of Wednesday, November 12th feeling pretty sure i'd be going to the hospital soon. and i was right. i think it was around three o'clock in the afternoon when we headed over (a five-minute ride with no tunnels or midtown traffic to deal with—joy!). it was a gorgeous day, sunny and unseasonably warm for almost-winter. i left without a coat and remember thinking, as i walked (gingerly—the contractions were gathering speed and intensity) from the car into the hospital, "i better enjoy this now." (smart girl: the next day it snowed.) 

this seems like a good time to tell you that when we moved in August and i was forced to find a new OB, i took it hard. i loved Dr. M and everyone in her Spring Street office in New York. i'd gone there for years and though Dr. M hadn't delivered my boys, i had hoped she'd deliver my girl. alas, having a long-distance OB is not very wise or practical (or so Dr. M insisted when i asked if i could stay on as her patient. dear god). as i started the search for an OB closer to our new home, i was dismayed to find that every single practice had at least one male doctor. Dr. M's office was all-female. i'd never had a male gyno or OB and the thought of it weirded me out. but everyone i spoke to (including Dr. M) told me i would be in great hands (oh, eek—no pun intended, i swear) with a male doctor, and that i should basically grow the hell up already.

maybe a month and a half before Molly's birth, i met Dr. D, one of two OBs at my new practice and the one who happened to be a man. i brought Michael with me to the appointment—because one should always introduce her husband to any man who might have occasion to become intimate with her lady parts. pretty much instantly i loved him. Dr. D was easygoing, low-key but personable, and exuded a confident calmness that i found incredibly reassuring. he had grown up in New York and had delivered something like 15,000 babies in his career. he answered my questions with ease and humor. there was no exam during that appointment, just a heartbeat check, but i felt fairly comfortable with the possibility that he might someday have to, you know, eventually go there.

between that appointment and November 12th, i'd grown a little fearful of the other doctor in the practice. her name was Dr. W and though she was nice enough (and, obviously, a woman), she started talking to me about induction two weeks before my due date. her type A intensity did not jive with my whatever-happens-happens philosophy. i imagined her yelling me in the delivery room, and i wanted none of it.

as luck would have it, Dr. D was on-call when i was in labor and i will forever thank my lucky stars for that. he was amazing. the entire experience was—as i said—so very pleasant, from arriving at the hospital and getting checked in (easy, quiet, peaceful) to receiving the epidural (timely, drama-free), to the moment Dr. D padded in wearing his blue scrubs and a kind smile. he asked me if i had any questions or concerns and i blurted that i was worried about pushing. that's where things had gone wrong with both Matthew and Gavin (fetal heart monitors, oxygen masks, a lot of anxiety and barked instructions), and i just did not want to do it again.

"so why don't you labor down, then?" he said.

"labor what?" i said

"labor down. when you get to 10 centimeters, if you don't feel like pushing, we'll wait. let your body bring the baby down on its own."

wait? WAIT? that was an option? why had no one told me that before? "okay," i said, still not entirely sure what it entailed but liking the sound of it. "i will labor down."

i got to 10 centimeters pretty quickly after getting settled in my L&D room. and when i got there, i did not feel like pushing, so i waited. Michael and i watched back to back to back episodes of "Friends" on TBS (utterly comforting to both of us) and i just let my body do its thing. at the risk of sounding crunchy, it all felt so very natural. i had mostly positive birth experiences at NYU with the boys, but man, the second i hit 10, it was "okay, let's PUSH." they're on a tight schedule there, not enough rooms for too many mamas. and what did i know? so i pushed before i was ready. and it was awful (see aforementioned fetal heart monitors and oxygen masks).

but this time, this experience—now i know why some people say childbirth is beautiful. of course it hurt like hell, but it was a different kind of pain. the contractions i felt after i was fully dilated were intense but—i don't know. i was able to breathe through them, calmly. i really just trusted my body. and my baby.

at one point—i guess probably around quarter to six—Dr. D came in to check on me. he took one look, saw the baby's head and said, "oh! we better get going here." he (calmly and efficiently) called the nurses in, got his tools ready, turned on the light, got me into position and—

TWO PUSHES LATER MOLLY WAS HERE.

two measly pushes! i couldn't believe it. i watched her come out of me—at five fifty-one—and i burst into tears and said, "you're my favorite!" Dr. D placed her on my chest and i laughed-cried forever, blathering to both him and my daughter about how awesome it all was.

it really, really was. i couldn't have asked for a more wonderful finale to my childbirth experiences.

if any of you reading this are pregnant or are planning to be at some point in your life, i strongly encourage you to talk to your OB about laboring down. i really, really wish someone had told me about it when i was pregnant with Matthew.

i am not sure if there's a true correlation between birth experience and the personality of a baby, but poor Gavin had a very rough first few months of life while Molly has been an extremely relaxed, easygoing and happy little bean since the moment she came into the world.

just a thought...!

mbm