Claire

Trying a few different things here. It is really hard to take photos of a newborn baby. And it is even harder when you are exhausted and dazed. 

Our first week home with Claire was full of family and firsts. It was really nice to have Mom and Chris staying with us. Mom helped with the baby, and cooked and cleaned for us. Chris was really cute with Claire, taking tons of photos of her. We had a visit from Steve, Erica and cousin Scarlett. It was nice to be at home enjoying our Christmas tree, Christmas movies and treats. I took photos constantly, feeling a crazed need to capture every moment. The nights were pretty sleepless but I kept running on adrenaline, excitement and happiness.  Claire was a perfect little baby, never crying except when she was hungry. I felt so lucky to have such a sleepy little baby. Given her parents’ temperaments, I was expecting a real screamer!

Our two and half days at St. Francis hospital were a blur, at least for me. I was recovering from major abdominal surgery and trying to figure out how to take care of a newborn baby at the same time. It was pretty overwhelming. The nurses were all really nice, and even took the baby for a few hours each night so I could get some rest. We had a few visitors, any more would have been just too much to handle!

In the midst of this disorienting experience we still had to decide on a name for our new baby. We had some name ideas but had decided to decide when we saw our baby. I had the romantic idea that a name would just pop into my mind the moment I saw her face. This didn’t happen. Maybe it was the hormones, or the drugs, or the pure exhaustion but I still had no idea what this baby should be called. The opinions of friends and family just made it even harder to decide. There seemed to be no perfect name; no name good enough for our baby.

Finally the morning of the 12th arrived, the day we were to leave the hospital. I was still undecided, wavering between names like Caitlin, Casey, Caysee, Elizabeth, Katherine, etc. I was starting to feel like a bad mother; I couldn’t even give my baby a name! Eric had always been attached to the idea of “Claire,” a name I had suggested a couple weeks before while looking up French names. We looked up the meaning of the name online. It means “bright” or “clear.” To me it also seemed to have a freshness, like a new start for a new person and our new family. It also reminded me of one of my all time favorite pieces of music,”Clair de Lune” by Debussy. When I looked at our baby, it seemed to be a fit. She had big curious eyes, and a perfect fresh face. In my percocet-induced daze I still felt unsure, so I told Eric it would have to be up to him to fill out the birth certificate. If he loved “Claire” that is what he should write. And he did!

Just a couple hours before we left the hospital, I had a meeting with a lactation nurse. She helped me with some nursing techniques and then suggested that I try some skin-to-skin time with my baby. I had read about the importance of “skin-to skin” time in various books but had just accepted my baby for the last three days in the tight swaddle the nurses wrapped her up in. So on the third day I finally unwrapped my baby down to her diaper and held her close to my skin. It was the first time I really got to see and touch her from head to toe. An overwhelming wave of emotions came over me, and I finally felt that intense connection to my baby that I had been missing. It sounds like such a small thing, but it really was one of the most memorable and emotional moments of my life. It was an unfortunate result of my c-section that I didn’t get to experience this feeling in the first moments of her life, but the moment was still very special and important even if it came two days later.

That afternoon we wedged the car seat into the back of the GTI and our new family headed home.