And then she turned five

Over Thanksgiving weekend, my first baby, Clarie, turned five years old. She woke up with a look of sheer glee on her face and chanting, "I'm five years old! I'm five years old!". My resting place thoughts for days before and after were about her—how grateful I am for her, how in love I am with her, how proud I am of her, but mostly about the first day I met her. Claire was born at 10:51pm on Thanksgiving day, November 23rd, 2006. She weighed in at 8 lbs 6 ounces and was 21.5 inches long.

She never had her first moments blogged about,since I hadn't even heard about blogging at that point, but I did record her birth experience in my journal. I read it today and want to post it first because I am a sucker for baby stories and second, because I am a sucker for anything about my kids.

We waited for Claire for a long time. We tried to get pregnant for almost a year and a half and when we had finally threw in the towel and determined we needed professional help, she was conceived. In fact, the day we were scheduled to get the results of our fertility analysis, we officially found out I was pregnant all on our own.

My pregnancy went beautifully with only a few hiccups at the beginning—morning, afternoon and evening sickness. Poor Dave went through it during this time because it was too soon to tell everyone else, so he got the brunt of all my complaints about the smells that I couldn’t take and the food that made me nauseous. I can’t complain though because the rest of the pregnancy went so smoothly. Claire was a real trooper and grew perfectly and gave her me plenty of time to adjust to my growing belly.

I can’t even express how wonderful being pregnant felt. I loved holding my stomach and feeling little Claire frolic around. I felt that she would be sweet and calm as a little person from the gentle way she would move around in my tummy. She received plenty of love from both Dave and me and from everyone else she encountered. Typically hostile New York subway riders would even smile and offer me their seats. Strangers would wish me God speed and congratulate me. Restaurant goers would rush me to the front of the line at bathroom queues. My co-workers loved her into this world, patting my tummy daily and talking to her, leaving little goodies on my desk to make sure that Claire had enough to eat. One co-worker insisted on calling her Tara Jr. my entire pregnancy. I loved the attention and was grateful people were so interested in her.

Before Claire was born, Dave and I had been working at the temple as ordinance workers for about a year and we felt that Claire was a direct blessing from working in the temple. In fact, it was at the temple that Claire became Claire (although we didn’t know that would be her name at the time and even fought it for a long time—up until the second day at the hospital when we had to fill out the birth certificate). When I was about five months pregnant, I dreamed one night that our baby’s name would be Claire. We had discussed a bunch of different names, but Claire wasn’t even on the list. Chloe, Noelle, Olivia, Tessa, Abigail, Isabella, Butterball (in remembrance of Thanksgiving Day—Uncle Ian strongly objected) and many others made the list at some point, but Claire just wasn’t a name we had thought of. The day after my dream, I was working at the temple as the follower in an endowment session and was thinking about our little one. I held my stomach and the name Claire kept coming to mind. In fact, in my mind I called her Claire Bella and spoke to her throughout the duration of the session.

Claire was loved and wanted for so long that both Dave and me felt truly amazed when she finally arrived. When we got closer to the due date, Wednesday, November 22nd 2006, we kept debating when she would come. Dave and I both felt she would be late because she was riding so high in my tummy, also because we just didn’t feel a sense of urgency. Dave called her the little bat, because he felt she had hooked her tiny toes around my ribcage and was refusing to come down. Her grandma Cheryl had arrived on Monday and I suspect that Claire might have just been waiting for her to arrive, so she didn’t have to be delivered and then cared for by such amateurs.

On Thanksgiving Day, Claire decided it was time to make herself known to the world. Around 11am, I started having small and what I would later realize fairly painless contractions. I spoke with my brother, Jared, that morning and he suggested that I baste my tummy and then stick a turkey thermometer in my belly to determine if Claire was done. We had planned to go to Thanksgiving dinner at the McAdams and despite the fact that my contractions were becoming more regular, we went around 2pm. We spent a good three hours at the McAdams feasting and enjoying the company of friends (and washing Claire’s new clothing, which I didn’t want to wash at the corner Mat for the first time). By 5pm, my contractions were getting pretty regular and we decided to go home. When we got home, we started timing the contractions and they were five to seven minutes apart. We spent the next hour and a half at home, trying out all the techniques we learned in Lamaze class with the marvelous Jane Weiss, who we owe our calm pregnancy demeanor too. I got massages and took a warm shower and then we called the doctor. He directed us to go to the hospital and were at Mt. Sinai by 7pm. We took a cab there and on the way we laughed with the cab driver that we were going to name Claire Madison, for Madison Avenue the street she was born on or even, 5th or Avie for Avenue.

By the time Dave, my mom and I arrived at the hospital, I was already dilated to a seven and that is when the real work began. Dave and I had decided during Lamaze class that we didn’t think that I should have the epidural. We just wanted Claire to be herself when she was born and were worried that I would be pretty out of it with the epidural. From the moment we got to the hospital though that “Are you ready for the epidural?” chant was the most frequent thing we heard. Without my mom there, I am certain that we would have relented and just done it, but she kept calmly replying we’re going to do this without the epidural. Laboring was hard, really hard, but I felt so much love an support from Dave and my mom. Locking on Dave's eyes and having him help me breathe was amazingly helpful.

Around 10pm, the nurse came in and offered me the epidural one more time. She said she didn't think there was anyway the baby would arrive before midnight and that if she didn't start moving they were going to have to give me a C-Section. The minutes after she left were the hardest of my pregnancy. I started panicking and wondering if I could handle the contractions for several more hours. I even started wondering if I was doing something wrong by not having an epidural. I remember looking to my mom for reassurance and she said definitively to me, "Your baby will be here within the hour." Then Dave and my mom and I said a prayer that I could finish my work, feel peace in my labor and have a healthy baby. This prayer grounded me and not very long after that I started feeling like I needed to push (but was confused over what I needed to push out, if you get my drift). Dave went to get the nurse to check me before I went to the bathroom and after she checked me she went and got the doctor.

I don't think my doctor does many natural births, because for an experienced doctor he seemed pretty anxious. Pushing was really tough for me, so tough that the first time I looked in the mirror after Claire was born I was shocked to find out that I had broken small blood vessels on my forehead, shoulders and both eyes (which made mommy/baby shots really attractive). When Claire came out at 10:51pm (just like my mama said she would), I just remember feeling elated, feeling like it must feel to complete a marathon and being overwhelmingly grateful (even for my nasty nurse and anxious doctor) and especially for my coach/husband and my mom. I also remember thinking how BIG Claire was and perfect. They swept her away from me really quick and I told Dave and my mom to go be with her. I was so worried she would feel alone.

We loved her from the start, but had no idea how exponentially that love could grow. I am so happy she has been mine, at least on this planet, for five whole years.