The New People

Sunday night was quite eventful in our little TV family. Not only was Diane pregnant, but Aimee was too. Aimee works in another building, so I wasn't able to follow her pregnancy very well (actually, her announcement of going away for maternity leave was my first clue). As it turned out, both of them were due on the same day.

That day came and went. Diane had planned to work right up to the end, but was so tired and so ready to be done being pregnant that she called in on her due date and said she wouldn't be in anymore and that hopefully she'd be busy breathing or something...

We kept waiting for the call. And waiting. And waiting... Finally, on Monday morning, Diane's husband called Darling Man and informed him that it was a done deal - the baby had arrived! Being men, you would think that stats would be important, but apparently that only applies to baseball or football or some other sport involving balls. All I got out of him was that the baby was 8 lbs, 5 ounces. And that it was a girl (which we already knew).

Guys.

Anyway, shortly after that, I heard another whoop across the hall from Suzanne - she'd gotten a call saying that Aimee had had HER baby too! And all we got out of that one was that it was a girl (which we didn't know).

Sheesh. I guess if you want to know anything, you have to find it out for yourself.

So this afternoon, I left work a little early and headed over to the Woman's Pavillion to check out the new people.

Visiting the "maternity ward" is very different these days. I had to check in through security, surrendering my driver's license and getting a visitor's pass for the room I was going to. Since Aimee didn't have any visitors at the time, I decided to go visit her first and got my pass to her room.

Down the corridor all the way to the end and turn the corner, knock on the door. Her husband answered since Aimee was in the shower. Baby Girl was being fed by a nurse and oh, my - what a gorgeous baby! I had forgotten how tiny they were when they were new.

Aimee emerged, looking tired but refreshed at the same time. She'd had a c-section, which I'd had, so I could totally relate to finally being let out of bed and getting the scum washed off after living with it for a couple of days. Actually, Aimee's experience with birth seemed to have mirrored mine once they made the decision to do a c-section. Aimee had gone into labor, whereas I had not. Their baby is Kendall Amelia. 7 lbs, 9 ounces, 19 inches long.

I kept my visit short - Aimee was tired - so I went back down to the security desk and exchanged my visitor pass for one letting me go to Diane's room.

She already had a visitor in, so I joined them. The baby was asleep on Diane's lap and looked so much bigger than Kendall. What an amazing difference less than a pound makes when a person is that small! Diane's husband was there as well and they had just finished lunch. When Diane offered to let me hold the baby, I jumped right at it. Thank goodness I'm well again, or I'd have had to say no. THAT would have been a bummer.

So I stood there, with this tiny being nestled up to my shoulder and swayed and patted and did all those things you do without thinking when you are holding something tiny and precious in your arms. She woke up and looked at me, so I switched her to laying across my arms cradle-style and we sat down and had a little conversation, her and me. She opened her eyes and screwed up her face (ha! I recognize her mother in that expression!) and began sucking on her hand. It was lovely.

Finally, I had to go to pick up ZBoy from school and reluctantly turned her back over to her mother. She doesn't have a name yet (oh, yeah - honey, we need to talk about that tonight, said her mother), but she weighed in at 8 lbs, 5 ounces and a little over 21 inches. Hello, Baby Girl!