Remembering my First as a Baby

[CubasFamily]

I am 33 weeks today with my first daughter. I’m very excited that she is coming, but at the same time, not excited to see my baby son as a little boy and no longer my “wittle” baby. He’s been my everything since day one, and I just wanted to reminisce a bit about my baby boy.

Elijah was born March 13th after 24 hours in the hospital and 3 hours of pushing. The doctor suctioned him out and it was like all feeling left me – I was just speechless. Daddy was great and there to give him his first bath and check-ups. I fell fast asleep for hours while all our visitors came and got to spend time with the baby (great b/c they probably didn’t notice me there drooling all over the pillow).

He was a big strong baby at 8 lbs 11 oz. I’ll never forget that on the second day at the hospital, the doctor needed to check a back dimple by X-ray, and the nurse asked if he was 2 months old! He was so mad and he was practically clawing his way out of the baby bin. Later that day, we became the infamous “Doritos baby” among the nurses, because Daddy set the baby on an ottoman, something quite low to the floor, and the baby rolled over! Onto the floor? No, onto a bag of Doritos! I thought I was the worst mom ever and I cried for so long – ah, the things that are funny later on are so serious at the time…

The funniest of all my friends reactions to labor and birth had to have been Amy, who asked, “Didn’t it feel like you were going to die?” Umm, no. It was really hard, but not like I was going to lose my life.

Actually the hardest part of it all was the part that I thought would come naturally – breastfeeding. I couldn’t get him latched on comfortably, I got blistered and bruised very quickly, and I was bleeding and ick! I was lucky enough to have someone come to the house, but that was after two weeks of crying, feeling like a failure, a bad mother – oh, the joys of first becoming a mother is seriously strewn with its trials.

When Elijah turned three weeks, I got a job offer in Pennsylvania and this is probably the craziest part of all – we packed up and moved! We packed our Tracker full, and were planning on staying with a friend until we got our own place, and we drove from Alaska to PA in 6 days. We drove with a packed car, a dog, and a three week old in the cold across country. We needed more money and I wouldn’t start really working until the school year started, but I needed to be there to start paperwork and things. On the way, we ran out of gas at 4 degrees and I just got in the front seat and held the baby in a blanket, it was crazy and we just did it. I got peed on and had poop blasted in my face, my husband threw up a moldy gas station sandwich, we stayed in a hotel one night, and it wasn’t worth it to keep dirty baby onesies – I just threw them out and put a new one on. It was definitely crazy.

I miss all the firsts but mostly I miss just holding that tiny body. I hold him now but now he can push and get down! What’s that about!? I can’t remember when I couldn’t hold him like he was a baby anymore.

I look forward to the next years with him, especially to see how he will be as a big brother, because I’m sure he’ll do well. I hope to give him more brothers and sisters and just never want to forget what it was like when it was just the two of us, and to remember to get some quality time with the next ones too.