Sorry to Keep You Waiting

Goldang free Wi-Fi!   I have been Internet-access-free since Wednesday and haven't been able to figure out how to send so much as a text message to the blog. The Wi-Fi at the hospital evidently doesn't work and yet keeps telling me I'm connected. What the bleep??   THE NEWS:  I am thrilled to announce that the latest member of the Blah Blah Tribe has indeed arrived: Celia Lucy came into the world on Wednesday, October 22 at 3:51pm. She weighed 7 lbs, 2 oz and measured 19.25 inches long. All is well now, but it was rough at the beginning. She is, as I write this at 3:07am Saturday morning, still in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit because she had trouble breathing when she first got here. Happily, I have been able to breastfeed her (my milk is coming in with a vengeance!) – she latches on well and seems to have managed to get some colostrum, that really nutrient-rich pre-milk.    I have to say Thursday was the worst day, mainly because I'd been told they'd keep her in the NICU only overnight and then bring her to my room in the morning.  That was a big fat lie. I was awake and waiting for her and unable to get any real information due to a nurse shift change. Sweet Dub was home with Viva because my mother-in-law ended up having to go to work and couldn't stay with her. Viva was distraught because she hadn't been able to see the baby yet, and she has a nasty cough anyway so we knew they wouldn't let her into the ward. I had talked to Viva and she was crying over the phone because she wanted to see C. so badly, which made me feel worse. When I finally got to talk to the doctor in the NICU, she told me that because C. was on oxygen and an IV, they'd have to gradually wean her off of both and she probably wouldn't come out of Intensive Care until Saturday morning. Since at that point I was hostage in my room because I had both a catheter and an IV stuck in me, I did not yet have the option of going up to see her.   I hung up the phone and started bawling. Let me just say that there are few things more painful than crying when you have an abdominal incision, which led to this ridiculous vicious cycle of crying because I couldn't have the baby and then crying because it hurt and then crying some more just on principle.   To add insult to injury, my cell phone battery had died and the charger was at home (!!!). So I spent most of Thursday isolated, watching crappy TV, trying to get on the Internet, reading crappy magazines, and jonesing for my baby. Finally, they unhooked me from everything and I got to go up to see her at around 3:30pm. By that point, Viva and Sweet Dub had arrived and they went up with me. Viva was able to see her through the window of the less intensive area of the NICU – the section where they put the babies who won't be there long. Her face lit up just at the sight of her.   Words are completely inadequate to describe holding a newborn. Celia is so small, and so warm, and so Zen.  It is like holding a hug in your arms, if that makes any sense at all.   By the way, the name? We decided on as we were driving to the hospital Wednesday morning.  So that will evermore be part of family lore, that somewhere between Echo Park Animal Hospital and Jack in the Box on Glendale Blvd., we finally agreed on what to call Miss Thing.   "She looks just like you," Sweet Dub says. But then I must tell you she has dark, very straight hair, and beautiful dark eyes. Right now her skin is very pink. It seems she will be lighter in complexion than Viva, but one never knows with babies of color. Viva started "getting her chocolate" just a few days after her birth, so in the early "home from the hospital" pics, she is already quite brown.  It's hard to tell with Celia. I am fascinated by the recombination of our genes. She resembles Viva but she has her own thing going on. Shorter arms and legs – Viva was very long and leggy (and still is). Noses are similar, as are lips and chin.   I am writing this in the wee hours of Saturday morning to post later today. I've been told we should both be able to be discharged from the hospital today. Update at 8:27am: It appears that I have a few seconds of connectivity and I'm trying to post this. I will post pictures when we get home…