A baby came out of me.

Well, it seems we have some catching up to do. So... I'll just go ahead and dive in.

After we returned from our trip to the UK in 2012, we started trying to have a baby again, but after our previous round of trying and succeeding and losing, I wasn't much in the mood for blogging about it. I was sort of in disbelief that it would ever actually happen—even after we got pregnant that fall. Even after we hit 12 weeks and everything looked great. It wasn't until we hit the 5-month mark that I allowed myself to start believing we'd actually have a baby at the end of it.

Still, on and on we trucked through the pregnancy, and baby ran out of fluid in my uterus during her 41st week. My doc said we needed to get the show on the road, so they started to induce, but my body decided to take it from there on its own, smart body that it is. 

As I contracted and dilated away, Thayer and I hung out in our dimly lit, wood-laminate-floored, warm-colored birthing room, ordered "room service," and watched several movies I could barely pay attention to on account of all the stabbing in my reproductive system. (For the record, the movies were The Truman Show on VHS, Adventureland, and I think The Social Network. On account of my Jesse Eisenberg problem.) The nurse finally gave me some pain meds through an IV and I blissed out instantly and couldn't keep from grinning. This labor stuff was no sweat. 

Unfortunately that bliss lasted, oh, 5 minutes before it wore off and I was cringing and huffing and puffing again. It was time for the epidural. I was stoked.

I'll pause here now and say: I had always intended to give birth in a hospital, with a doctor, with an epidural. I know it's controversial because these days everybody is really into "natural" birthing, at home, with a doula, without pain meds, with a written birth plan, etc etc. For me, though, coming up with a birth plan sounded about like my worst nightmare. My idea of the ideal birth was hanging out in a giant medical facility with a bunch of folks who had seen thousands of births and would tell me exactly what to do. Home birthing without meds? That's wonderful if that's your thing. It's not and never was my thing, though nearly everyone I spoke to during my pregnancy assumed it would be my thing and talked about it as if it were the only way to go. But I learned to perfect my closed-mouth smile, say "oh" in very interested tones, and change the subject.

And so, just as I'd planned, the tiny needle went into my back and became one of several tubes running to and from my body, and I was perfectly happy about it. So damn happy I even went to sleep. It was an oft-interrupted sleep, what with the nurse clicking away on her computer next to me and checking on me every now and then, but I daresay I slept better than Thayer did, flat on his back on the clammy, vinyl window seat they call a spouse bed. 

Seventeen-hour story short, morning rolled around, I progressed steadily, and my doc was back on duty by the time I was ready to push. Serendipity! I pushed for about an hour, and I'll go ahead and spare you the details and just say it took loads of energy and strength, but I couldn't feel any pain—again, just as I'd hoped/planned. Then, at 10:34 a.m. on June 13, Helen Kay slid on out, purple and grimacing in a silent scream that soon became audible, tiny and fragile as it was. 

My whole body convulsed in an uncontrollable sob when I saw her face and knew it had been her all along, squirming in my belly, kicking my ribs. She was as wrinkled as her 87-year-old namesake, and Thayer and I stared, dumbfounded, at her, barely able to believe she really existed, barely able to believe what we'd just done.

That was five weeks ago. She still really exists. And she's awesome.