MERRY HO HO!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS… I know, it’s just a tad bit late.  I had no idea how busy we were going to be taking care of one tiny little baby!!  I think of some of our fellow bloggers who have had two or three and I think HOLY MOLY!  I don’t know how you all do it.  I hope you have plenty of help.

I hope everybody’s holiday was AMAZING!  I can without a doubt say that this is was the best Christmas EVER!  Even better than the Christmas where I got a bionic woman doll, complete with wardrobe (sigh I miss you Lindsay), and an Incredible Hulk big wheel all in the same year!  Since we are still in the apartment for a little while longer until the house is finished, we decided it would be fun to get a small potted tree.  That way we can plant Zoey’s first tree in the yard.  I know she has no idea what was happening around her, but Zoey was the star of the show this year.  Everywhere she went people were clamoring for an audience with HRH.  I cannot say enough how much I love this kid, and how much I love watching our family and friends fall in love with her as well.

We are still not sleeping enough, but we are figuring it out.  We are together and we are healthy… who could ask for more?

Wordless...

2 weeks old!

Zoey is 2 weeks old today!  I love her more than I ever imagined was possible.  She is a really good baby, and as long has her diaper is fresh and she is fed she doesn’t usually get fussy at all.  Our TV is on A LOT less now, we would rather just stare at her all day.  And we’re not the only ones, it seems that everyone wants to see her (THIS must be what Mary and Joseph felt like when the FIRST Messiah was born...allegedly). 

 Zoey and one of her god parents, Guncle Brian

Zoey and her other "Fairy Godmother", Bill and Guncle Eric

Life seems right and complete, but I will admit that I miss my husband.  Oh I see him every day, but our dynamic is absolutely changing.  It is all for the better, but still changing none the less. 

Daddy and Zoey at the beach

Speaking of change, So the other day someone asked me “Hey what’s that on your wrist?”.   I looked at my wrist and calmly said “Oh that?  Looks like poop”.  Yeah… poop.  I also went to the grocery store with a huge spit up spot on my shirt… I’m THAT guy now.  And I love every minute of it.

Finally a Papa...

Papa here.    Yep,  I’m now truly Papa.

At one point of my life I wondered why I’d have kids.   Now, I don’t know how I ever even thought that.  There are the moments where the baby is shrieking because her diaper is blown out, or her bottle is not delivered in a timely manner, but I do it all gladly just to have her look up at us, to grab my pinky, to watch her let me know that anything other than me holding her won’t do.

Mike and I are sleeping in shifts.  Long term I’m not going to be able to handle that, but with a newborn, it’s what we’ve agreed to.   If one of us isn’t off in another room when we need sleep, she’ll wear us both out.    Every two hours there’s a diaper change and a bottle feeding.   Megan has been amazing with providing us with breast milk, and it’s worth the effort to get it bottled, warmed, and ready.



1 week old Zoey

As I helped my husband give our daughter her first bath last night, I realized how much our lives are changing.   It was heartwarming to watch Mike wash our little girl.   I call her “Baby Kitten”.  Our lives gratefully revolve around her right now.   The sleep deprivation and cabin fever are just temporary.  The initial chaos is slowing gelling into a routine.



I have another month from today before I return to work.   I need every moment frankly.   We’re renovating our house right now (please don’t do this when you’re expecting a baby!!!!), and the 30 minute drive north is excruciating.     All I hear is a song called “Highway 20 Ride”, it’s on YouTube.  One of the lyrics is “I count the days, and the miles back home to you…”.    I’m not even 10 minutes away and I’m sobbing.   With a newborn you’re constantly in an emotional hangover.   I miss my husband and baby even in the other room.   I know….get a grip Papa.

We’ve had some great moments.   Some of them are the look on Mike’s mom’s face when she saw Zoey for the first time, and our re-enactment of the Lion cub presentation scene out of Lion King.   If you’ve seen “Modern Family”, it’s the scene with Cam with Lily.   BTW, Mike IS Cam.   Only more butch.

Seeing Zoey grow and change already is something to see.   She’s found my chest hair, and she has a really good grip.    She seems to recognize faces, and has a strong neck for looking around.   Her first Pediatrician appointment is this next week.   My job has been holding Zoey for pokes and shots.   We haven’t started shots, and we’re conservative with what we’re doing for immunizations, but I have been holding her for two blood tests.    I hope she won’t remember it, but she looks me square in the face.



Whatever awaits us going forward, I love our Baby Kitten, and she’s simply wonderful.

1 week...

Dear Zoey,

You are one week old.  I have to admit to you that I had no real concept of how intensely you were going to change our lives.  It is as if every experience, every lesson, and every mistake was so that I could be prepared to be your dad.  Even though you mostly just eat, poop, pee, and sleep right now, your papa and I have a new favorite past time.  We love watching you.  You make the funniest faces and we spend most of the day with a camera pointed at you and exclaiming to each other “Did you see that?”. 

Even the lack of sleep is worth it.  I am so enthralled with you that I don’t even care that the place is cluttered and I am more likely to leave the dishes on the table and play with you then I am to rush them to the sink to wash.  By the time you read this you will know that is saying something.  It seems every morning I wake up to you and realize I love you even more than I did when I went to bed.  Your umbilical stump fell off and I teared up a little, I know it is silly, and your papa laughed at me and said “She’s not going off to college tomorrow.”

Your Papa… well he can barely put you down.  He stares at you for hours and hours.  He loves taking care of you, he didn’t have much practical baby experience before you, but you are QUICKLY turning him into a pro.  It is amazing to see this big man melt into a pile of goo when he is changing you, singing to you, or just holding you.  I caught him singing “Itsy Bitsy Spider” to you, complete with the hand motions… I love you both so much.  You’re starting to stir so I need to get your bottle ready.  I love you.

Love,
Daddy

Zoey says hi!

She literally swam into our hearts...

Zoey’s entrance into the world was by far the best and most important day of our lives.  We had been on edge for the week leading up to her birthday, so when Megan let us know late Saturday night that she was having contractions we were excited, but decided to get some rest.  2 hours later our phone started ringing and I jumped up.  Megan in a very calm voice said “Yeah we should head in”.  Tony and I raced to pick her up.  As I helped Megan into the car I was hit by the first wave of emotion, this totally unexpected moment where I realized that I was about to meet my daughter. 

I was thrown off by how far she really was into it because between contractions Megan was laughing and telling jokes.  As soon as we got to the Birthing Inn Megan got into the birth tub.  Our AMAZING midwife Amy was oozing out calm and serenity, and I am pretty sure this is ALL that kept Tony and I sane.  I kept looking at Megan in the tub and thought to myself “OH MY GOD!  This is actually happening!  In moments I will be a father.” 

From there time sped up, Megan was like a SUPER HERO!  I have to admit that when the baby started to make her entrance I did not even know what was going on, because Megan’s head never spun around, she never spit split pea soup out of her mouth, nor did she cuss or punch  either one of us (even though I totally volunteered Tony!!!  So when Zoey came swimming into the world I turned to Tony and said “Wait!  Is this happening RIGHT now?”  I hadn’t even called our parents yet.

As Amy placed Zoey on Megan’s chest I heard Megan say, with pure love in her voice “That’s your daughter!  Mike Tony, there she is!”  And as I saw her face for the first time my heart almost hurt with the love I felt.  People try and tell you about the love o f a parent.  They try and prepare you, but nothing prepared me for that moment.  Had I not already been on my knees at the tub I am sure they would have buckled. 

Tony cut the cord and they placed her in my arms.  Tears began streaming down my face.  This was what it has all been about.  Every experience I have ever had was in preparation for this moment; the day I became someone’s dad.  Not just someone, but this perfect baby.  Tony came over and looked at both of us with tears running down his face and said “Baby we’re a family”. 

I think the only moment that comes CLOSE to when I first held her, is when I handed her to her Papa for the first time.  Seeing my husband and daughter together was something I had been waiting for. 

Megan is recovering well.  We are coming to the end of our transition period.  Tomorrow we will all go home.  As much as I am looking forward to having Zoey in our own home, I am going to miss Megan being in the very next room.  Thankfully we are all bound together now and I will see her all the time.  She has a huge part of my heart.

This is my life now.  I am a husband and a father.   I have a family and I cannot believe how blessed I am.   So when I hold my daughter at 4 a.m, after only minutes of sleep all night long, I am smiling.  I am smiling because THIS is what I have dreamt of and it is so much better than I ever could have imagined..

Megan....

Our surrogate.  Our friend.  Our family.  Our angel.   I am so overcome with emotions right now for the woman who carried our baby under her heart for 10 months.  Zoey is healthy and amazing because of her.  I will never be able to express to you what this means to us.  She has given us our dream, a dream that we had very nearly let go of. 

As I hold our daughter I get choked up and think of all the months of morning (afternoon and evening) sickness, the aches and pains, heartburn, swelling, and finally the labor that she went through in order to make this possible.  What an incredible person to give so freely of herself in order for us to have a family.  Her generous spirit and loving soul is something that I pray my daughter has gotten from her; that and her appreciation for John Hughes films and all things 80s.  Megan can do a perfect impression of Molly Ringwald’s dance in “The Breakfast Club”, and it makes me laugh every time.  She can recite practically every line in “Joe Dirt”, she has been late to work to sit with a dog she saw get hit by car, just so that it didn’t have to die alone, and finally she had a baby for a gay couple to fulfill their greatest wish.  For all of these reasons and SO MANY more, I love her with all of my heart.  I am so grateful that we are all stuck with each other.

I love you Megan.

2 days old.

I PROMISE Tony and I will post the whole story soon, right now we are just so wrapped up in staring at our princess.  Everyone tells you to sleep when the baby does, which is impossible because we have so many important things to do while she's sleeping, like stare at her and tell her how beautiful/special/loved she is.  Megan is good, Zoey is healthy, we are so beyond grateful!!! 

Zoey and the amazing midwife Amy 

 Zoey and Papa

 awwwww...



Slightly jaundiced so we have to be in front of the window with our legs showing for a few minutes a day.

The most impossible love...

Dear Zoey,

You’re here.  You came into the world today and I feel… complete.  I thought I was prepared for how much I was going to love you, I was so wrong.  Right now you are sleeping and Papa is staring at you, and I am watching you both.  My family.  The two most important people in the world.  You are way more perfect than I ever could have imagined.  I am going to go be with you now, I will write more later.  I love you so much my baby princess.

The date stamp is wrong it was 12/4/11 @ 3:45a.m.

Love,

Daddy