Elsa is getting the help she needs

Katie and I had to take Elsa to the emergency room today. Apparently, she just wasn't getting enough food, and she became very dehydrated as a result. She's spending the night in the intensive care unit to make sure her weight stops falling, and then they'll transfer us to a regular room sometime tomorrow if nothing else comes up. They have her on a saline and glucose solution, and we're talking with a lactation specialist in the morning to see what we can do to make sure she gets enough in the future. We'll keep you posted, one way or another.

At last

Elsa Zadi Bishop was born on Monday, July 2nd at 10:46 pm. Katie was absolutely amazing. I think we did an incredible job working together to make sure she was completely relaxed during the contractions and attentive to what her body needed to do. The labor was only 4 hours 15 mintues long, and had we known what each stage of labor was really like, the labor could have been an hour shorter still. Elsa is here. She is here.

I have had the most radical shift in focus over the last few weeks. I like change, I like going with the flow, but the currents are starting to ebb and fade. I've felt for a long time that I was older than what I looked like, like I've been a young adult instead of a youth for the last seven or eight years. Now I'm no longer a part of the typical social or scholastic circles that we typically affiliate with youth, and to some extent my new situation is liberating me from being typified as an adolescent and a student and the assumptions and other people's baggage of what that stage "naturally" entails about my identity. I won't miss that condescension. But more and more, I'm exposed to the trappings on the other side of the fence, a whole new set of questions and expectations, not just for me but for my family and now for my child. I just want to be without at best politely and at worst, recalling my not too distant past, forcibly going along with expectations and priorities that aren't my own and prevent me from being myself.

I miss Illinois so much.

So much to say, so much to say, so much to say...

"People who are ready for things would be laughing at us right now." Said by me when Katie's uncle Mark visited us last week and asked if we were ready.

It's on. Katie is showing signs of pre-labor, but she hasn't had any birthing contractions yet. She's been Braxton-Hicks'ing for the last few weeks, though. Katie doesn't think anything will happen for the next couple of days, but she's pretty sure that when the birth does happen, it will be fairly quick.