Having a child really is everything I expected it to be, and more. When going through treatments and losses and the absolute mental hell it’s hard to really know that it will all be worth it in the end. I mean if you’ve never had something how can you possibly be sure that it’s what you want? Something inside you says that it is, so you just push forward and trust that gut feeling. It’s a relief – a wonderful, beautiful, miraculous relief – to know that you were right.

I remember my freak-out of the first week at the thought that she’d get bigger and change; I loved her exactly how she was at that moment. My friends, you were right: it gets better.

She’s started smiling not just because someone is smiling at her, but in recognition. Sometimes when she wakes up from a nap she opens her eyes, yawns, then gazes up into my face and gives me the sweetest little coy smile. Then she starts talking to me in a soft, content little voice. You can just see how happy she is to wake up in mama’s arms, how safe and secure she feels. It utterly melts my heart.

I frequently watch her as she nurses. She’s a fidgeter, arm swinging front and back, legs licking. As she relaxes and drifts off to sleep she settles into her favorite position with her arm extended over her head, resting on my chest. I adore her baby proportions, her extended arms barely reaching over her head. So disproportionate, yet somehow just right for a human baby. She starts with her hand clenched in a fist, grabbing at my breast and shirt, but it slowly releases. She likes to sleep with my shirt held in her hand. I tell Den that at night I feel like a mama cat, laying on her side feeding her kitten, especially when she kneads and nuzzles my breast.

Babies are truly little miracles. I think often about what we went through to create her, how she exists through the wonders of science, created in a little dish in a lab. I think too about the embryo we have frozen, created at the same time as Kate was. Maybe someday that one will become a baby too. We plan to try, at least. Not for a while yet – I am want time to exist just with Kate. But someday.

::

Yesterday was Kate’s 2 month appointment with the doctor. She’s growing well but it definitely going to stay a little peanut, she’s in the 20th percentile of weight and around the same with height. She weighs in at 9lb 9oz. Though to me she feels so big, compared to what she used to be… Until I see another 2 month old, then she looks tiny!

Unfortunately the 2 month appointment means shots. I spent some time over the past month researching the different vaccines they get in the first year. What I finally settled on was doing them all, but spaced out more. So yesterday she got only two shots, she’ll get the next two at 3 months old (though they don’t typically have an appointment at 3 months, so we’ll have to pay a co-pay since it’s not a well child visit).

I don’t think the shots would have been as stressful if she hadn’t already been ticked off and very tired from too-short naps that morning. She had been remarkably patient with being undressed, weighed, examined. But after a while she decided she’d had enough and started crying. We only barely got her calm when the nurse came in with the vaccines. She didn’t just cry, she turned bright red and screamed. Holy moly was she pissed off, nearly inconsolable.

After we got home she slept and cried. She was exhausted and developed a mild fever. She’d sleep for a little while then wake up crying strongly. I ended up laying on the bed nursing her to sleep, as that seems to be a position she feels very comforted in. I rubbed her back and whispered to her and ended up sleeping a few hours with her because I didn’t want to move and disturb her. She woke up crying again. After a few more restless naps in the evening the fever lifted a little and and started feeling better, smiling at us again and cooing. I was relieved she only had one half-day of feeling ill.