miss etta z,
you are quiet. you are calm. you are patient.
you are wide awake, miss wide eyes. and then, just like that, you are fast asleep for long stretches. i’m not going to count my chicks before they hatch but this is a good start.
so far, everything is so good. you nurse like a champ. you love to be worn. you prefer to be swaddled. you go with the flow. you take a pacifier (which is odd for me since ramona didn’t until she weaned). people say you look like me! i love hearing this. i am most often holding you.
there will be more letters, baby girl. and longer ones. i promise. right now, we’re adjusting to the four of us. but let me tell you this: you were always meant to be here and to be a part of this family. we cannot even remember what it was like without you and it all just makes sense. welcome.
i love you.
love, mama.
dear etta z,
you will be three weeks old tomorrow. it’s insane to imagine our life before you and, yet, it has certainly been an adjustment period with you here. ramona is potty-trained, sleeps through the night and in her own big girl bed, and has enough vocabulary to have interesting and helpful conversations with her father and me. you’re not quite there yet.
i knew having a newborn would mean nights of waking up and nursing and rocking and shushing but i had conveniently forgotten what a toll that can take on relationships (snap at my husband much?) and productivity (what else is there to do besides sleep?!). each day this gets easier and easier but, overnight (literally) my whole routine and schedule and habits got turned upside down. and for some reason, stupidly, i was not expecting this. perhaps it’s bc we had done this before. so we assumed it would ALL be easier. well, SOME things are easier. but some things (like losing hours of sleep each night) are impossible to become easier. silly us.
but don’t take this the wrong way, my perfect, late winter baby. i’m just stating there were changes that i wasn’t prepared for. but we’ve got you now and, as cheesy and trite as it sounds, you’re worth every second of adjustment, you, our amazing little girl who completes our family. you’re a loud sleeper, but a hesitant cryer. you’re a snuggler and an observer and a champion nurser. you respond well to loving shushing and swaddles. you, like your sister, came out with her father’s chin and furrowed brow. but you, miss harriet, more closely resemble me overall.
and your papa is the perfect yin to my yang, especially when it comes to helping me fare well in these transition periods. he’s here with us in the mornings, which means he gets to snuggle you in bed while ramona and i get ready for the day (start the day with a shower?! so many other new mothers are going to hate me just for that!). he makes the bed bc he knows i need that to move forward with the day (your mama can be quite particular). he asks me how i’m doing and makes sure i take my vitamins. he changes your diapers and plays silly games with ramona. he is a great listener and mediator. you’ll learn so much from him.
once papa had to go back to work (we had him at home for nine whole days!) i worried about how i would get anything done. but we powerdrivers are surrounded by a powerful and generous community that has lovingly and selflessly brought us meals and scheduled play dates with your sister and passed on needed advice about clogged milk ducts and offered words of encouragement and delivered packages of love in the form of handmade baby quilts. we could not do it without the gracious help of our friends and family, who we know will continue to nurture and look out for our two little girls. they are why, harriet, any crazy adjustments to you joining our world, are completely doable, manageable, survivable.
we’re still getting to know each other, etta. and we’ll be developing our relationship for years to come. but i hope, that as you grow and learn and soak in what you see, it is so clear to you how absolutely loved you are and how we –your mama and papa for sure and many of our friends and family– will do anything for you. and i hope that you will take what you see about the value and importance of love, community, generosity, grace, respect, and insist you have it for yourself as much as you have control over who you choose to surround yourself with in your older years; i pray you find people who are supportive, encouraging, constructive during the many adjustment and transition periods you will go through.
we’ve got so much fun ahead of us as we slowly but surely exit this hazy, sleepless, fumbling stage. i can’t wait to introduce you to the world.
i love you, harriet zona.
love, mama.
she’s here. our family is complete.
harriet zona. born at home, 3/16/14, 7:03 am. 7 pounds, 13 ounces. 20.25 inches long.
all are well. just really really tired.
this past sunday, 18 dear friends squeezed into my tiny home for my mother blessing. my doula and dear friend, kimmy, threw this for me as a way to gather the women in my life around me to offer up words of encouragement and surround me with good energy as i enter the last weeks of pregnancy (she can come any day now!).
when i was pregnant with ramona i had beautiful baby showers thrown by both friends and family, near and far. they were so special and meaningful and certainly helped set jp and i up with what items we needed for the arrival of our first child. a mother blessing is different. it is all about the mama and enveloping her with love and courage and community. i was blown away. you will see that in all photos i am trying so very hard to hold it together (a feat not accomplished. there were some ugly-cry-snort-laughs that made their way out of my mouth).
the afternoon started with us all going around introducing ourselves with our first names, as well as the names of our mother and our grandmothers. “i am emily. daughter of marcella. granddaughter of marilyn and gloria.” (seriously, if you’re in the market for a beautiful girl’s name, have all of your friends send you the names of the women in their lineage!). we all come from somewhere and from a line of women and to hear these names verbalized by all of the women i cherish connected me deeply to them and their story and to all of the women that have come before and given birth generations ahead of me.
then robin and lynn (you know them from how much i gush about r.l. linden & co) sat down at my feet and gave me a foot bath, followed by a foot and hand massage. while they did this, the women went around and shared blessings and positive words they had chosen for me for this occasion. i was a weepy mess, so overwhelmed with the kind and generous words people were bestowing upon me and the unborn little bug in my belly. i even had friends from new york city and washington state send in audio blessings. like i said, a weepy mess was i. there was wendell berry, mary oliver, heather armstrong, anglican blessings, and the words of many others read. words about the strength of my body. words about the legacy i was continuing. words about my strength and life force. words about family and daughters and sisters. words of humor and words of the utmost seriousness.
following this the women filled out two cards. the first was wishes for baby, an idea i had stolen from a baby shower thrown for me for ramona. friends filled in the blanks of wishes for little bug. then these are sealed up in an envelope for jp and i to open on little bug’s birthday. my friend, cate, from kin collective designed these for me. then on a sheet of gold vellum, they put down mantras for me. these were then strung up in the corner of my dining room where the birthing tub will be. and they’re great reminders for me to look at in the days leading up to whenever little bug decides to arrive!
my friend, lashley, gave each woman a candle to light upon hearing that i’m in labor. and finally, i made bracelets with african trading beads for the women to wear up until the birth as reminders to think of us and send good juju our way. phew. so much love and so many good vibes. it was a sacred time with the special women in my life. and i have no doubt that i’ll be able to carry what was given to me on that sunday afternoon into labor and a safe delivery for this little one.
girl!
we were surprised with ramona but wanted to have a heads up with this one. we’re only planning on having two children and thought that knowing the gender of the second would enable us to do some organizing and preparing for our ultimate family (sell old girl clothes to free up space in our teeny home if it was a boy). also, jp was pulling for a boy. but, being the amazing man he is, just knew that he needed some advance notice if he was to be fated with three spirited women in his life. so though his vision of being a father included having a son, we’ve been talking about all the perks of having two daughters and ramona having a sister. we are thrilled. over the moon. elated. my hubby will make the best father for these two young ladies.
oddly enough, (and not that i have any control over it), but i never pictured myself as a mother of two girls. perhaps it’s because my vision of motherhood growing up was one of each: a boy and a girl. and i grew up as the only daughter in the family so the idea of sisters is a bit foreign to me. however, as we’ve talked about the positives of two girls, i am relishing in the idea of ramona having a sister as many of my close friends have sisters who they are so intimately close with in only the way sisters can be. i’d love for her to have that. (for those of you that know i have an older brother –who i love dearly and admire greatly and consider a friend as well as a sibling– have no fear: i am not offending him; we’ve talked about how different it would be if we were the same gender. there would be a closeness there not possible with different sexes.)
either way, it’s a girl! and we’re pretty set on a name but you’ll just have to wait for her birthday bc there’s got to be something to look forward to.
welcome
