The Miracle of Life

My last entry was titled "The Best is Yet to Come," but I had no idea! I was 29 weeks pregnant in my last entry with work to be done on the house and especially the nursery and my baby still kicking away inside of me. Needless to say, with time comes change and we have had a lot of it. The nursery is finished and the house...well...almost finished.
Isaac Paul Witter arrived a week early...he just couldn't wait to meet us. Steve and I were happily playing a game of scrabble (I was winning with words like "byliner") when I started having contractions. No bags packed and totally not ready for this at all. As my contractions started getting more frequent and increasingly intense, we decided to start packing our bags. Steve started doing laundry (yes, laundry) and I was putting on MAKEUP!!! Really??? I had no clue but I wanted to look good for the pictures afterwards. What was I thinking? We laugh about it now but we were totally out of our minds. This was it...this is what we had been waiting for.
My labor was very difficult but was very fast and my midwife was brilliant. She was from Ireland so made it difficult to understand her but she knew what she was doing and I was happy just to follow her instructions. The only problem was I couldn't understand if she was saying "push" or if she was saying "pant." I still don't exactly know what "pant" means but I think it means don't push. Another thing that we laugh about today.
And at 6:15am on May 15th, Isaac Paul was born and he was born perfect. Steve putting diapers on backwards and me dazed and confused made for an interesting few hours. I will just skip over the other not-so-nice things that happened in the hospital and right to being at home with our sweet boy.
There is nothing on earth like labor but nothing, I mean,  nothing like being at home with a new baby the first few nights for your first baby. We were clueless and at one point, laughing hysterically at 3am after being up all night for 3 nights in a row. It's either laugh or cry...Steve laughed a lot and well, I did a lot of both. It was so hard and nothing prepares you for it...nothing. Three weeks later and we're still not sleeping. I am still breastfeeding every hour, Steve is laughing still and at this point, I am not laughing anymore. I struggled a lot with breastfeeding as Isaac was feeding every hour for almost an hour. This makes for loooong nights and really difficult days.  I was physically healing but mentally and emotionally exhausted....we had to make a change.
A great book was recommended and it has made a world of difference. "The Sensational Baby Sleep Plan" really put things in to perspective and helped us get in to a routine. After a lot of hard work and perseverance, Isaac is sleeping 12 hours a night...10 weeks old and sleeping 12 hours!!! What more could we ask for?? The days are still a little difficult as Isaac can't seem to get the hang of nap times but I am not complaining at all...at least now, I get to sleep and feel human again!
I think that the whole thing changes you...being pregnant, labor and the first few weeks of being a new mommy. It changes you as a person from the inside out. It's the miracle of life which is just that. It's a miracle. It's perfection at it's finest few hours. I feel stronger, and I have grown as a person - mentally, emotionally, physically and most of all, spiritually. It's hard not to. I am still amazed at the miracle of life and always will be.