Waves.

I really thought, up until three weeks ago, that the grief had been permanently softened. I hadn't cried about it in a long time. But now that Isla's here and we're truly in the next chapter of our lives, it comes back in ways I didn't expect. Is this what people mean when they say grief is like a series of waves?

I dismantled my Nuggsy's diaper cake today, the one our friends made for her shower, so Isla can use the diapers and we can pop the champagne hidden inside at some point that feels right. It had been sitting on the dresser untouched for almost two years. Taking it apart feels like acknowledging, again, that she's really gone.

Two years ago, and today.

Their roads diverged.

It's a strange new world; the lights are bright and, like Isla, I'm still adjusting my eyes.

It was so surreal to leave the hospital in the opposite direction, outgoing, with the Nut in my arms. I'd gotten so accustomed to being incoming, arriving at triage full of fear, the hospital a place of anxiety, mystery, and ultimately reassurance, but never of joy. A nurse wheeled me out, retracing the same path we had taken in three days earlier, but everything looked different and unrecognizable to me. We emerged into the bright sunlight and drove home through SF streets that looked distantly familiar. I felt like I had been gone on a long, long trip.

I marvel at Isla's perfect face and find it unbelievable that something so sweet was inside me just days ago. I think of my pregnancy with her, until now the only part of motherhood that I knew, and it now feels unreal. The daily walks with Schmorgy to the park, the countless doctor's appointments, the weekly and then daily antenatal testing, the panicked trips to triage, the twice-daily kick counts, the big belly that I protected but was too afraid to think much about even as it grew and grew and became a casual topic of conversation for the outside world. That whole time, I was walking around with this little girl growing inside me. Now she is out and shared with the rest of the world, no longer just mine. I felt her hiccup on the inside, and now all can see her hiccup on the outside. People buy her soothing baby toys that play simulated heartbeat sounds and I think, that's my heartbeat they're trying to replicate for her. The practice breaths I watched her draw via ultrasound on the inside, her diaphragm moving up and down, I now hear as sweet, tiny heaves as she lies on my chest. The regular, liquidy thuds of her heartbeat that I listened to on countless fetal monitors now happen outside of my body, beyond my hearing.

I wish I could have enjoyed that time more, the time when she belonged wholly to me.

The first night in the hospital after she was born, I held her to my chest as she slept, her head nestled just under the right side of my chin. The room was dark and quiet, and D was asleep on the couch. I realized I was holding Isla much the same way I'd held Mila on her first and only night, and I cried.

Mila and Isla don't look entirely alike, but they share many features. Their hair, eyelashes, and little lips. Even their birth weights were the same. For the first couple of days, Isla's every gesture and grimace reminded me anew and in vivid detail what was lost for Mila. I'm so happy for what we have, but it still hurts to think of what my first sweet girl was denied. It's not fair.

On my left forearm there is a scab from my IV from Isla's delivery and, just inches from that, a faint white dot, the scar from my IV from Mila's.

In our living room, the remainder of Mila's one-year yahrzeit candle sits on the same shelf as a photo of Isla at one day old. They're both flanked by plush llamas from our Chile/Argentina trip for Mila's first birthday, during which Isla was most likely conceived.

It's still confusing to me, how things were so much alike and yet so different. Their roads diverged.

Isla's birth story.

Isla's birth story is straightforward, and blessedly without surprises -- just as I wanted it.

As if we were heading to SFO, on the morning of September 7th D and I packed methodically, cleaned out the fridge, and called an Uber. We assured the driver that it was not an emergency. He was a cheerful guy and cracked the "labor on Labor Day" joke, and when he apologized for the cliche, I told him I still thought it was funny. It was a quiet morning with minimal traffic, the city sleeping in after their Labor Day beers and BBQs the day before. We rode, unimpeded, along the route we'd driven ourselves countless times in various states of mind -- anticipation, anxiety, panic -- since February of this year. It was a surreal ride.

We checked in at 10AM, leisurely. Our nurse got us settled into a large, clean room and went over a bunch of paperwork with us. Then it was just waiting. I skimmed a book and texted pictures of the L&D suite to M to pass the time. The doctors started me on misoprostol and told me they'd give me up to four doses, four hours apart. The first dose came at 1PM. I waited expectantly, remembering how quickly things had started moving with Mila, but the few contractions I felt were sparse and fizzled out. At 5:30PM I took the second dose. I stared at the clock; I'd thought I'd be in labor by that time, but I felt only the gentlest, most tentative of tightenings. By the time I took my third dose at 10PM, I was losing patience and worrying about what would happen if the induction didn't take.

I needn't have worried. At 10:30PM I finally felt something. An upset stomach, I thought at first, but the pains were too regular and rhythmic. Eventually the contractions were unmistakable on the monitor screen. I was 3cm dilated, and the doctors left me to progress on my own.

Things really started to hurt. I hunched over the bed to relieve the growing pressure on my back. The sound of the fetal heartbeat monitor through the gathering haze was distant but reassuring. I inquired about pain relief but everyone seemed to think it was too soon for an epidural, and the nurse offered me a couple of doses of pain relief via IV. They took the edge off for a little while, but remembering how quickly things went with Mila, I insisted it was time to pull out the big guns. And not a minute too soon -- I found out later that the anesthesiologist was called into a c-section right after she saw me, and even as she prepped me, the pain began to snowball in a way that felt familiar.

Once the epidural was in, I slept for a couple of hours, until it began to wear off on my left side. Not long after that, I felt what seemed like a head bearing down. I remembered the sensation from Mila's birth. I called the nurse and things started happening quickly after that. Pushing took about twenty minutes, and as Isla advanced, the docs started setting up the table for the baby, spreading plastic under me, and calling in the attending doctor. He arrived a few pushes from the end, in time to say Congrats, you did it! and rush out to his next birth just as Isla's head was emerging.

The doctors maneuvered her body through, and Isla emerged, as grey and slimy as Mila had been. But unlike Mila, as she tumbled out onto the plastic sheet, she squalled -- and then, just like that, we were in wholly new territory. I cried and cried as they plopped her on my chest and turned their attention to the afterbirth, but as far as I could see, D was all smiles.

Isla.

D and I are so happy to welcome Isla Frances, also known to us as the Nut. She was born on Tuesday, September 8, 2015 at 6:06AM at UCSF Mission Bay, weighing in at 6 pounds 14 ounces and measuring 20 inches long.

She has D's eyebrows, long eyelashes, and nose; and my hair color, eyes, hands, and weird big toe. Her full lips, one of her most noteworthy features, are still of indeterminate origin.

She is a daughter, granddaughter, niece, cousin, and precious little sister to a beloved big sister. But most of all, she is her own sweet self.

Welcome, Isla. We love you.

Labor Day.

Happy Labor Day! And appropriately enough, happy induction day to me. D and I will be heading off to the hospital for a 10AM appointment. I'm scared and anxious but cautiously excited, and I keep checking on the Nut to make sure she's still there. It's a surreal feeling, having something as momentous and normally unpredictable as a birth scheduled like this. Amidst all the packing, fridge cleanout, dogsitter planning, and well wishes, it almost feels like we're preparing to get on a flight. We're even going to take an Uber to the "airport."

Everybody gird your loins. You too, Schmorgy.

Where is u going? Wut is a baby? Is like hooman puppie?

Minor observations.

Obviously, this pregnancy is different from my first one in a lot of important ways, but in some minor ways too.

Skin.  My skin is fine but not particularly glowy and perfect.  At thirty-five and a half weeks last time, it was so great that I'd regularly leave the house ecstatically without a lick of makeup.  This time, not so much; but happily, I've again made it this far without stretch marks.

Swelling.  I have only minor swelling, and as a result no carpal tunnel, in my hands at this point.  My rings still slide on and off without unusual effort.  Towards the end of my first pregnancy, I had trouble making a fist and I'd stopped wearing my rings.

Aches.  I have a lot more achiness this time, leading to full-on pregnancy waddle.  I don't remember if I waddled last time, but if I did, I certainly wasn't conscious of it.

So weird how different even the little things can be.  Reminder to self: this is a different pregnancy.

On the calendar.

I'm officially on the calendar at UCSF L&D for an induction on Monday, September 7th, 10AM. I will be exactly 37 weeks along.

Omfgomfgomfgomfgomfgomfg!!!1!!!!

It was as simple as Dr. R making a one-minute phone call at my appointment last week, as D and I traded bug-eyed astonished glances at each other behind her turned back.

As if spurred on by this development, the next day I started having contractions that were mild but uncomfortable and so frequent that I went in to be seen. As I lay there hooked up to the monitor, I wondered ruefully if I'd be admitted, caught unawares in the hospital for a chaotic delivery for the second time, after all these months of quiet, clenched-fist waiting and planning. I wound up being watched in L&D for eight hours before the contractions started to subside and the doctors sent me home with instructions to avoid exerting myself and to stay hydrated.

My number one hope is to come out of this healthy and with a healthy baby, and my second desperate hope is for all this to just -- go -- according to plan, this time. I would dearly love to just be able to pack and prepare at my leisure, drop off my dog with his sitter as discussed, show up calmly at the hospital at the appointed time with a bag carefully packed with all my toiletries and comforts, and be monitored by medical staff from minute one of my fast, smooth, and relatively pain-free labor. No surprises. Please.