I’ve been thinking about how to refer to the new baby. I thought to fit with JellyBean and Sweetpea I would go with either PoppySeed or Raindrop.

Any thoughts?

“We are in love with him already, ” a friend told me when she called from her hospital room after the birth of her son. I have heard such declarations from friends, and I have always been happy for them but also a little envious. When my first baby was born, I knew I would probably not feel after delivery the instant gush of emotion that many moms do. I don’t feel such things quickly.

It is not because of the baby; I felt the same way with Az the husband. I married him because I respected him, I valued the effects he had on my character and I thought he was really hot. The gushy love stuff in our wedding vows was a promise of future behavior more than a description of my then current feelings. When JellyBean was born, and then later Sweetpea, for the first six weeks I was full of gratitude for their healthy birth and relief that they were finally here, but my love was the care I gave them, not the feelings I felt.

I don’t know why six weeks is the magic number, but at six weeks I melt into a puddle of goo everytime I look at them. I effuse. I adore. I find they have stealthily snuck into my heart, never to be absent again.

Imagine my surprise to find this time around that all those mushy feelings were waiting for me and the new baby in the delivery room. From the moment I saw her fine dark hair (and I paid for that hair in weeks and weeks of heartburn), I was smitten. I luxuriate in her scent. I love the way she cuddles into my neck when she falls asleep in my arms, the hearty way she eats, the wideness of her waking eyes. I am in love, instantly and irrevocably.

It has been two weeks since the birth, and my body is bouncing back. I have had my blood pressure checked repeatedly (apparently 172/106 is, um, dangerous) but it is closer to normal today, and the doctor thinks I am out of the woods. I slipped on a pair of non-maternity pants yesterday - size 16, but still, not maternity - and buttoning them, I felt my stomach, soft and deflated like a balloon.

Suddenly I was eight-years-old, resting my head against my mother’s stomach. When I was a child, my mother rarely sat. There was always something to be done, some project to be accomplished. The moments when she was still were rare and precious. A couple of tv shows (Remington Steele, reruns of the original Star Trek) could lure her to the couch where I could snuggle her, and when I was small, if I didn’t squirm too much, I could lay my head in her lap at church. When I was bigger, her stomach was where my head rested during a hug.

My mother is a tall, athletic woman, and has always been slender and strong. When I was a kid my friends sometimes mistook her for my brother, a mistake that troubled her not at all. She is not a vain woman, and like many sports-lovers, finds joy in what her body can do rather than anxiety in how her body looks. I am confident she has never spent a full minute worrying about what her stomach looks like after giving birth to four children. She is lean and powerful all over, but her “mummy tummy” was soft and welcoming.

In Classical Greek medicine, doctors believed that the baby had to fight its way out of the womb. If the child dies, they reasoned, it meant the baby was not strong enough to successfully overcome the mother. Childbirth became easier with each successive pregnancy, they claimed, because the mother’s womb had already been broken and beaten, and the next child did not have to fight as hard to emerge.

The theory is nonsense, of course. But metaphorically, there is something to be said for the worn and broken body that welcomes a child more easily than a perfect one. My body and my heart are experienced and well-worn, and my children nestle into both more easily than ever before. Love comes quickly, following a familiar and clearly marked path.

Tuesday was Az’s day off and my mother was in town waiting for me to have the baby. We decided to take advantage of our eager, trustworthy babysitter and go out without kids for the day. It was positively datelike.

It was a beautiful spring day, so of course our first stop was the library. He picked out a couple of grammars he hadn’t read yet (really - Spanish, Arabic and something I don’t remember) and I chose some travel narratives (my favorite postpartum genre) and got a couple of movies.

After the library we went out for lunch at PF Chang’s. I started having contractions during lunch, but they were light, and I’d been having those on and off for a month. They continued for over an hour and were four minutes apart, so after lunch we decided to go to the hospital just to check.

Predictably, almost as soon as I got into a hospital robe, the contractions stopped. The nurse told me I was only two centimeters dilated, and that the doctor would probably tell me to go home. After a few minutes the doctor came in and started to tell me the same thing. Then they saw my blood pressure.

Apparently my bp was creeping up into the danger zone. The doctor said, “Hmm. I think your blood pressure just bought you a ticket to stay.” I threw my arms in the air and said, “Woo-hoo!” (my mom-in-law assures me this will be the only time in my life that I will be grateful for high blood pressure).

They started me on pitocin at 5:30 pm. The doctor came in to break my water with that enormous darning needle. I don’t respond quickly to pitocin, so they inserted some gadget that measures contractions from the inside. Gradually my contractions increased.

During my last delivery, the epidural was so strong that I could not move my legs for hours. I hated that even worse than the pain, so I tried to hold off this time until the contractions were good and strong. The epidural took the edge off and I got a break from the pain for about two hours. I took a brief nap.

By 11 pm the contractions were hard and painful and almost constant. The epidural was not as effective as last time. It was my most painful labor. The baby was ready to come, but the doctor had not arrived yet. I spent the last half hour before the doctor arrived clutching the side of the bed and moaning and hollering. I am not a “silent birth” person. Az did the only thing a husband can do: he stood by the bedside while I was in pain and he tried not to be annoying.

Finally the doctor came in. I pushed through two contractions and saw her little head. He told me not to push through the third but to let the contraction ease her out on its own. And then there she was, all 9 pounds 8 ounces of her.

Az had our name list, which he had been pestering me with all day. He teased me in front of the doctor and nurses about how many names were on it until I finally snapped, “Would you stop making fun of me? I just had your baby.” Then he shut up.

And the name that JellyBean had been pushing for the last month until even her daddy capitulated was perfect. It suited her exactly. I had no doubts. We gave her my mother’s name for a middle name.

The baby was born at 00:09 this morning weighing nine pounds, eight ounces and twenty-one inches long. Mother and baby are healthy and resting.