**Scroll down to read Part 1 first**
She wasn’t given to me right away, and though I had been warned that that would be the case with most American hospital births, it was still a little sad for us. Also one seemed to realize that we didn’t know what we were having, so I spent a solid thirty seconds or so repeating, “What is it? What did I have?” to everyone in the room before Trevor finally got a glimpse and said, “A girl. I think. Is that right? Is it a girl?” Yes, another girl – just perfect and exactly what our family needed. (Incidentally, my *next* question was, “Is she bald?” and Trevor’s startling reply was, “No, and her hair is dark!”)
We did get to hold her once she was assessed and eye-gooped and cleaned and dressed and bundled and whatever else they did to her. It was love at first sight. I think some of my first words on meeting her must have been, “She’s so pretty!” Indeed, she was the first of our newborns not to come out squashed or swollen in some way, and I was struck by how perfect her little nose was. She was darker in every way than either of our other girls, but otherwise looked and felt very like Pippa (their birth sizes were just about identical, as well as the shapes of their faces.) She was absolutely lovely.
The nurses asked us almost immediately after she was born what her name was, and I told them we needed a minute. Unlike with our other girls, we had brought a list of possible names to the hospital this time, and didn’t feel at all settled on one going into the birth. I said to Trevor, “I know what I think her name is, but what do you think?” He must have thought that I was going to fight hard for the name I had wanted earlier on in the pregnancy, but I knew as soon as I saw her that she was Beatrix through and through, and Trevor confirmed it. We never even took our list of names out of the bag. (Her middle name, Joanna, was more settled before she arrived than her first, as it was chosen to honor Trevor’s grandma, Joan.)
The next half hour or so was a little fraught, unfortunately. I needed stitches again, and the doctor was in a terrible mood (possibly annoyed at the nurses for not getting him sooner, though we know they had paged him earlier. We suspect it was more to do with missing the baseball game he admitted he’d been watching in the other room before we’d interrupted him). As he was stitching me and I winced, I had tried to lighten the mood by saying, “I guess this should be the easy part, huh?” And he said, flatly, “No.” After that I dropped the small talk and let him get on with his stitching – you don’t want to annoy a person in that sort of situation.
Bea and I spent two nights at the hospital, during which the girls and plenty of other family came to visit. The “big girls” loved her instantly, and it was as though there was never a time before we had her in our family.
And that is how we came to have Beatrix Joanna in our family. She arrived, for those of you who like to collect details like these, weighing 7 lbs 15 oz and 19 1/2 inches long. She was born on her Uncle Nathan’s birthday 7/7, but with the added distinction of being born in ’07 at 7:22 PM (though the clock was wrong by a good 10 or 15 minutes, so we’ll never know an accurate birth time).
Stay tuned for details of our next little one’s arrival. Not long to go now! (And, I daresay you might have to endure a little more birth talk before then, but I’ll leave you hanging on that one for now.)
Oh, and please share your birth story, too. Not one person has taken me up on it yet. Don’t be shy!