Don’t flay the sheep.

She’s here!

Zora Jean arrived on August 24. Finally. (Maybe this is why we chose a name that begins with the last letter of the alphabet.) It was a big wait, and in the week and a half after she was due, we prepared for just about every possible type of arrival. At different points, we were actually scheduled for a C-section, then an induction, and I had false starts to labor. We kept packing up the suitcase, heading to the hopsital, and winding up with afternoons downtown or at my parents’ home. My Dad expressed the sentiment of the week leading up to her birth one afternoon as we pulled into the parking lot by their condo and he said, “Well, once again, we return to Oak Park, defeated.” (The poor man kept taking vacation days thinking she was about to arrive!)

I finally REALLY went into labor in time for us to arrive at the hopsital 15 minutes before we were scheduled for the induction. My amazing labor team (Mom, Dad, Erik, and Aunt Mary) was so wonderful that at one point the nurses were asking what class we took (none, but I did find choral training for breathing and yoga classes really helpful), and at another point Mom and Mary started discussing the idea of starting their own doula service. But, in spite of them and a lot of really good pushing and fabulous doctors and nurses, we had to have a C-section in the end. (This is about the most exausting combination possible for birth…)
So far, this is what we know about Zora:

• She’s a bit petite for a Schemper, but LONG. 22 inches. And, we know she is one of us because she has giant feet.
• Erik has been humming and singing to her. He says her favorites so far are the Doxology and “Will You Come and Follow Me.” She is definitely on a good start to being Reformed/Presbyterian in her preferences. (And how could she not be since her middle name is “Jean” and her church is in Geneva?)
• She likes her mom so much that she has been allowing me at least one 4 hour plus round of sleep a night for the last three nights. Also, she does not care that I have not taken a shower in a while, or that I was completely completely snowed by some sort of drug the anethesiologist gave me when I first met her. I’m still her favorite.
• Other than people, her favorite things are her hands. Also, she might be showing some tendencies toward pentecostalism because she keeps raising them in the air. Erik wonders if this could also be an early sign of skill in conductiong music.

So, for now, we will just keep getting to know her. And, I think she’s waking up and I just missed the window for that shower…

This entry is filed under Journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.