We Live in a Haze of Beauty

Today we had a really sweet naming ceremony for Haraldur, something we'd been thinking about for a long time but never solidified. With all the grandparents in town for what might be the only time in a while, we suddenly felt the urgency to do something and wrote up a ceremony basically the same morning (with months of brainstorming to inform it). Cati has been pushing for an official christening, and I'm somewhat uncomfortable with churches, so we were trying to come up with a compromise. We did the same kind of inventing for our wedding, and I really loved how we navigated that, so we mushed together various traditions and added our own twists. We had a few little ceremonies and then had all the grandparents say a few words to Haraldur to send him on his new life. Every one of 'em just about cried or had to stop for being choked up, which made me think this hobbled together secular/spiritual/religious ceremony had hit the mark. In fact, everyone (including me) got choked up while speaking except Cati, who cried while everyone else was speaking. No one knew what to expect, including us, which made the surprise of the emotion even sweeter.

Then Cati and Haraldur and I spent the rest of the day in the bedroom cooing and nudging and ogling and staring and crying and smiling and touching and holding. Many more days like this and I'm afraid I'll lose my skin and dissolve into the clouds. Which would be ok, as long as I could still be around to embrace that little one.

mama love from Arne Johnson on Vimeo.

No more belly

I'm happy to report today that there will no more pictures of Cati's belly. The belly you will mostly see now is that of Haraldur Collus Johnson, born at 11:26am on July 24, 2010. 7lbs, 10 ozs. There is much to say about the amazingness of Cati and her spurning conventional wisdom and having a baby her way (I kept wanting to shout "We're not even supposed to be here!" and chest bump someone, but it wasn't really a macho kinda atmosphere), but I'll save that for a day when I've had more sleep. Suffice it to say, it was an incredible experience that has shaped our souls differently from here on after.

For now, a few pictures will tell some of the story...

Not yet borned, but close!

2 Minutes old

Happy Parents at 4 Minutes Old

10 Minutes Old

30 Minutes Old, Already Latched on and Hungry

1 Hour Old, Being Weighed

7 Hours Old, Dressed to Leave the Hospital

10 Hours Old and Home

Goodnight darlin' boy...

Due Day

Our due day has come in a squall of various waters. Cati both started and ended the day with tears, and there were some fluids that we thought might be her water breaking, but extremely slowly! We had an exciting morning, thinking that one way or the other we might be near meeting our little one. But the midwife tested and not only assured us it wasn't amniotic fluid, but reminded us that we don't want Cati's water breaking without labor (thus dampening our excitement in two different ways). The reason you don't wish it, is because you then have a short window before you have to induce (72 hours). Not at all like the movies where the woman suddenly wets herself onstage while accepting an award then rushes out to a taxi cab and proceeds to give birth in the backseat. Real water breaking can come in trickles, gushes and floods, and may just mean you have a day of labor ahead of you.

The first trickles for Cati are actually coming from her eyes...A couple days ago we heard a great birth story about a homebirth from some new and immediately dear friends, and the mom mentioned she was very weepy just before she went into labor. Well, if tears was babies, we'd have ourselves a mess of them today! I really do think Cati's pretty close now, though...Spork has been kicking like crazy, rolling and punching and diving deeper into her pelvis. There's a palpable feel in the air that this baby is ready to come out, but just hasn't figured out where the hormonal switch is yet. If he/she is anything like his/her dad, the switch is sitting right in front of his/her face, while he/she looks wildly everywhere else except right there. Maybe that's why Cati keeps crying, because Spork is accidentally hitting all of her hormonal switches instead.

I could be completely wrong, never having had a child before, but there's that electricity in the air like just before a thunderstorm (and certainly there's been some initial rains). I know you Georgia peeps know what I'm talking about!

Or maybe it's what animals sense just before an earthquake. Potentiality is heavy in the air.

I feel ready, and I sometimes find myself talking a red streak to others about how ready "we" are and how "we" feel this or that and then look over at Cati and see she's nodding politely but without conviction and wonder if she's thinking "Who's this 'we' you're talking about, white man?" It's really an intense feeling to know I'll be there to help her however I can, but ultimately she's doing the heroic work. In that birth story we heard recently, momma decided she didn't want to be touched or for anyone to even stand close to her for a good portion of labor, so her husband's good training in helping with pain and whatnot hung from his tool-belt like a broken hammer. He, of course, did many other important things, but it was a good reminder that ultimately Cati is running this show. And those of you who know me well know that that is going to be a challenge for me! And it may be a challenge for Cati to demand what she needs too, but I have a lot more confidence in her...

I want to just be a river that flows into whatever pools she needs me in. If I was a praying man, that's what I would ask for the strength for.

Sunday Street Picture

Some requests for pictures of me and Arne, in addition to Spork/Belly, have inspired me to add this to the blog. They closed streets near our house this past Sunday for bikers, walkers, rollerskaters and hoola hoopers. Arne and I had some friends over to watch the World Cup match (Orange for Holland!) and then took a Sunday Promenade down the middle of the usually very busy 24th street. Our friend Nadine took a few lovely pictures which she doctored with a filter that makes them look very 70s and very cool!

Here comes our soccer player

Spork has been inspired by watching the world cup, it seems.
Here's our big footed soccer player.

Winner: Baby Words of Wisdom

We had a contest for words of wisdom for the baby. Finally, I'm thrilled to announce the winner. It was hard to decide (like many things these days), but only having one entrant made it easier. :-)

"Listen to your grandparents. They're smarter than they look."

Any Day Now

Well, y'all, the time is nigh. Though she's not due until later in July, we hit 37 weeks last Saturday, which as I mentioned in a previous post, means Cati's at term. Any time little Spork decides to emerge s/he will be perfectly ready for the world. Considering all wham-pow going on in Cati's belly, Spork is definitely primed.

We, too, are fairly ready. We have a funny relationship with our midwife, who kind of terrifies us. Not in a bad way, but in that mentor/teacher/coach/parent way where you spend a lot of time trying to impress them. She's just a shade over 5 foot, but is as immovable as a rock. I spend a lot of time trying to make her laugh, and when she chuckles a little I feel it's a major victory and go home glowing. She's scolded us a couple times, once because Cati wasn't gaining quite enough weight, and then again later when Cati had apparently too enthusiastically embraced that advice. She also gave us a stern look when at 37 weeks we still didn't have our infant car seat purchased. Recently, we've met several people who also have Maria as a midwife, and we've been very relieved to laugh along with them as they relate similar stories. It's nice to know we aren't the bad kids at the back of the room...

I think part of the problem is that the baby-hospital culture has made people a little inherently lazy when preparing for birth. Even though we're doing a homebirth, we still managed to fall into the general fog of "Oh THEY'll take care of it, or IT will get taken care of..." In fact, when you birth at home, it's YOU that's doing everything. Our midwife's job is to be there to assist when needed, be there for emergencies and go into action at crucial moments. The rest is me and Cati, roving about the house, trying to get comfortable, making crazy sounds together, singing, talking to the baby, and ultimately making life. We've also been purchasing supplies and arranging the house properly. At first it's daunting, like "Damn, are we really ok being responsible for all this?" But now, with all our birth supplies laid out in the hallway and our various massages and movements practiced, and phone trees set up, it feels really good. Even if we end up having to go to the hospital in the end for some reason, it feels like we've really embraced this birth in a way we wouldn't have if we'd gone to the hospital right off. I don't know how every midwife is, but part of the effect of Maria's stonefaced yet gentle urgings has been to make us really turn inwards. There's no one out there who's gonna make this baby happen or make the pain different or anything. Cati really is strong enough, and I'm really ready. I don't know that we would've known that about ourselves otherwise.

That's what he said

Me: I *did* have plans this afternoon. I was going to come home, get the house tidy, put on something slinky and wait for you to come home.

Him: Can you still slink? You could slink like a snake that has eaten a deer.