Oh Baby

Obviously, there's the birth, which is no spa pedicure. Toby's was light years easier than his brothers would be two years later. I was induced in the morning and he arrived at 2:05 under the covering of the single greatest breakthrough in modern medicine: a la epidurale.

Emily was greasing up the wheel bearings on the baby jogger a few days before my six week Dr. visit. Her optimism was flattering. I don't know how she saw any hope at all, since I had been through six weeks of extreme sleep deprivation, raging mastitis, and accidental undernourishment (who had time to eat?). Miraculously, my Dr. sent me home with a clean bill of health, which seemed a little sadistic since I looked like a corpse compared to my former self. But apparently, actually being alive is not a prerequisite for caring for your newborn, or in Emily's case, resuming an exercise regimen.

First hurdle: the baby jogger. When I put Toby's eight-pound self in the seat, the shoulder harness hit him in the forehead. Uggh, maybe in a few months... I left him with Greg knowing this completely unnecessary stint away from home would cost my husband his Shalom for the next thirty minutes.

When Emily and I set out, my sports bra felt like a vice holding two leaky water balloons (which was reeeeeally ooky). "You can make it a mile," said Satan, skipping off unencumbered. It was really hard. Really, really hard. I panted and wheezed and took it one mailbox at a time. It didn't seem fair that I was starting over. I ran a half marathon the month before I got pregnant and now I was back at the beginning again.

I did make it a mile, but it was different. It took more out of me than my nursing and overtired self had to give. Something had changed in me -- something deeper than my lack of fitness. At home, I stood over my baby boy, swaddled and beautiful in his Moses basket.

He would come first.