Do you see that?  That?  Right there?  Yeah.  That’s spit-up.

Poor Donald.

When I gave birth, I was surprised to find that my immediate emotions were not particularly maternal.  Somewhere along the road, I had picked up this vague notion that when I expelled a baby from my uterus, the world would magically fill with rainbows and dancing butterflies.

Instead, I found myself 10 centimeters dilated, clinging to a strange man who called himself a doctor BUT COULD HAVE BEEN AN AXE MURDERER, WHO KNOWS, screaming that nothing was worth this agony, nothing, and could I change my mind now?  Please?  Because I’d like to take it all back, thank you.

My husband, on the other hand, took to fatherhood like a fish to sea.  She had him wrapped around her finger the minute she slid out of my body, and for the first month of Charlotte’s life, the two of them were never apart for longer than an hour.  Even now, as I type this, Donald is blowing raspberries on her feet and tickling her toes with his stubble because it makes her giggle.

Told you so!

He’s been at it for a little over an hour.  I mean, I love my kid and all, but A LITTLE OVER AN HOUR.  Do you know how much patience it takes to spend an hour blowing raspberries on a baby’s feet?

Yeah.  Neither do I, but I suppose it’s right up there with how much patience it takes to change every diaper for the first week of a child’s life or how much patience it takes to walk your baby around tirelessly because you’re “showing her the world.”

When Donald returned to the office a couple weeks ago, our daughter’s life turned upside down.  Until then, I was pretty sure that if you couldn’t control your own drool and if you regularly wet your pants then you probably wouldn’t notice if someone went MIA.  As it turns out?  Wrong.  AGAIN.

The highlight of Charlotte’s day is when Donald comes home in the evening.  She progressively becomes more fussy throughout the day and then, just as the situation becomes dire, her knight in shining armor comes through the door.

How’s my little munchkin? he sing-songs at her, How’s my beautiful little girl?

And just like that: HAPPINESS.

I flipped this picture horizontally when I applied the watermark so that it would look more balanced.  Instead, it looks like Donald isn’t wearing his wedding band.  He is, I promise.

Not exactly dancing butterflies, I know, but I’m pretty sure it’s just a little bit better.

Guess what?  I finally stopped bleeding.  Finally.  SIX.  WEEKS.  LATER.  Finally stopped bleeding.  Finally.  Stopped.  Bleeding.  Finally stopped bleeding finally stopped finally stopped finally stopped.  FINALLY STOPPED BLEEDING!

Did I mention the part about SIX WEEKS LATER?  Because I’ll tell you this: when I got knocked up, I had no idea that I would bleed over a month after I gave birth.  That little gem of information totally passed me by.

In fact, I have counted it out and found that all of my postpartum bleeding is pretty much equal to the number of days I did not spend on my period this past year.  Yeah.  So that whole “how COOL, no period!” thing about being pregnant?

Bullshit.  I wound up with all the hassle after the baby’s born anyway, only it hurt more.

As luck would have it, there isn’t much overall that feels different between three weeks postpartum and six or seven weeks postpartum.  (Besides, of course, elation at having FINALLY STOPPED BLEEDING).  The healing process seems to have really slowed down in the past few weeks.  The most notable difference is that when I put a mirror between my legs and gather the nerve to peel open one eye and look at the damage, I am not nearly as traumatized.

At one week postpartum, despite everybody’s warnings, I did the mirror trick.  I still think it is pretty amazing that seeing my vagina so beat-up and bloodied didn’t cause a heart attack on the spot.  But now?  Now I am no longer swollen to the size of a hot air balloon and there are no longer jagged white stitches holding things together.  I think the technical term for that is PRETTY FUCKING COOL.

At seven weeks postpartum, I am also starting to realize that just because I am near my pre-pregnancy weight does not mean that I am near my pre-pregnancy body.  Some objects seem to have shifted during take off and landing.

The best example is probably my belly button.  Before I got pregnant, my belly button was a cute, taut little blip of an innie.  It is now about three hundred inches depressed into my belly.  You could probably stick an entire apple pie and maybe a small elephant in there and I would never be the wiser.

OH WAIT!  I have a better example: my hips.  I am pretty sure that my birthin’ hips are even larger than they once were.  Here I am, within spitting distance of my pre-pregnancy weight, and my hips SCOFF at my pre-pregnancy jeans.  I should probably just purge my closet of those jeans right now because a lovefest with size 4 is NEVER HAPPENING AGAIN.  So either all five pounds left are congregating on my hips, or allowing someone to nudge their head against my pelvis has taken its toll.

All I have to say is that it’s a damned good thing Charlie’s so cute.

The first time during my stint as Incubator Extraodinaire that I truly felt PREGNANT was at my baby shower.  I looked around at the people who had come together to celebrate with us and I thought HUH, they all think there’s a baby in my belly, WHAT A COINCIDENCE.  Until my baby shower, I periodically had moments where I would wonder if I was, in fact, pregnant, or if my brain was playing an elaborate hoax on me.  And then, surrounded by family and friends, it all just clicked that I was going to have a baby.

Yesterday, a bundle of photographic prints arrived in the mail.  We won’t be keeping any in our home - they’re all for relatives - but we had to separate them into a few piles.  Looking through all of those photographs was like sifting through tangible evidence that I have a daughter.  Never mind holding the kid, I need my pictures to prove she’s mine, DAMN IT.  I never realized it before the photographs arrived, but until I held a picture of my baby, having a child just didn’t seem possible.  And then, in the middle of five piles of images, it all just clicked.  It all just felt REAL.  I am a mother now.  Wow.

Several weeks ago, my husband got it into his head that the two of us needed to unwind and reconnect.  He chose a film, popped some popcorn, rocked the baby to sleep, and PRESTO! it was date night.

That doomsday end-of-the-world piece of crap movie scared me shitless and now, in the quiet moments of the night, something horrible happens.  I imagine my daughter.  Dead.

I cannot rid my mind of the nightmares.  They wake me every night.  Twice.  Three times.  Sometimes they come in waves, four or five in the span of an hour.  And I cannot silence them, I cannot banish them, so I wake up terrified, haunted by my greatest fear.  It takes every bit of self-control I have not to let the scream in my lungs erupt into the room, every bit of strength I have not to shatter the calm where my family sleeps.

The nightmares are never the same.  A cataclysmic meteor strikes the planet and we are consumed in the aftermath.  A blizzard and we freeze together in our car.  A flash flood and we drown.  A toxic gas is released into our home and we suffocate while we nap.

A murderer breaks into our house and I cannot protect her.  A sun flare envelops the Earth and I cannot stop it.  A devastating plague rips apart countries and I cannot quarantine her.  A fire burns our home and I cannot run away fast enough.  A truck rams into our car on the road and I cannot maneuver out of the way.

I die in the nightmares too, but that never bothers me.  Let me hang or burn or freeze or be shot.  Let a tidal wave overwhelm me, let a beast tear me from limb to limb, let a trash compactor crush my bones.

But do not take my child.

Every night, I crawl into bed, kiss my little girl, and close my eyes.  And what bothers me is that I know that in a matter of hours, I will wake up frightened and distraught and on the brink of tears because I could not save her.

The only up side to the nightmares is that I have learned a valuable lesson from them.  Next time my husband suggests we snuggle on the couch and watch a film?  I’m picking it out.

Thankfully alive and well.  And cooing and smiling and giggling =)