Day 1

This event is so different from when we had Nyssa. Nyssa was a blur, I was exhausted and spastic and in the end I didn't remember anything. Yesterday, was a nice day. Pretty much we sat around and napped, I watched TV, and played with Leila (pronounced Layla), Nyssa came to visit twice. She was a visiting Champ! Although maybe not the most gentle champion ever, she is more gentle than most.

Both Katy and I were surprised by how excited she was to see BB Leila. Nyssa has been, for the most part, ambivalent about learning about the baby, hardly ever bringing her up, but yesterday she ran in from the parking garage. We'll see how long the cooling down process is.


So, the way it went down was that Katy was spitting out her mucus plug on Friday afternoon and we had a Appointment with the Midwife, who thought Katy would have 3-12 more days (she said 7-12 and then 3-4 after the fact) and when Katy said she was having contractions, "Oh, those are
normal they could go on for a long time." We went home had dinner with our friends Zach and Darci and their baby Oscar, and Katy's contractions were getting to the point where she could bugged her. They left, Katy got ready for bed and was like, "I'm going to have these contractions for 12 days?" and we called our friend Jess, "Would you like to come up and try a test run, because we are feeling contractionish, but the midwife said it was a no go for today," because now they were painful enough to stop here. Jess said no, but she would come up for waffles and hamsteak in the morning. We were like, lets see what happens and I went to sleep. About 45 min later Katy said, lets go to the hospital so we called Jess and told her to come up. She was so great, spending the night with our dogs and her dog on our sofa. And then spending most of yesterday playing with Nyssa. We wouldn't have been able to do it without her.

After only 3 hours of hot and heavy hospital labor we had Leila. Katy was a baby bearing champ. She doesn't know it, but she has a high tolerance for pain and discomfort. For instance, today she is already complaining about taking 4 ibuprofen, thinking she's done it 3 times and should now only take 2. I am really proud of her.

Here we are in the hospital bed, all one big family. What strikes me is how happy and excited Nyssa looks. I have seen lots of photos of her, and these smiles are genuine.

One palliative step we took was to have baby Leila give Nyssa a gift when she came to visit her at the hospital, so we gave Nyssa a wash and play doll. Nyssa loved the present, but was visibly confused about how Leila could have given it to her. She's tiny after all.

For myself, I have mastered the art of looking far more tired than I really am. as a way to get people like Sarah Muermann to feel sorry for me. Because if you can make her feel sorry for you, you can get sympathy from anyone!

Really, I am just happy to be here, excited to learn about what baby Leila is going to do and watch the relationship between her and Nyssa grow. It is my fervent wish that they becomes allies and friends.



And, because the technologies allow it so easily, a video: