The baby Oscars - or happy go lucky meets her name-sake

I am feeling incredibly productive at the moment. It all started with Isobel sleeping since 8pm tonight and also with a very very good day with Isobel, Susan, and other baby mamas. I guess it started with me getting up at 8.30am which is our new wake up time. I know, I know! I am making you all sick. I get it. Somehow, I believe, Isobel has internalized my body clock rhythms and even though she is not genetically related to me, biologically she very much is. Don't get me wrong, 8.30am is not my chosen pre-baby, post-employment, baby wake up time. In fact it's more like 10.30, but 8.30 will do very nicely thank you. I am actually enjoying getting to see parts of the day that I have not been familiar with since I stopped walking our dogs ( now deceased) and also stopped working due to stress/ depression / crazy pregnancy hormones. Mornings have been my least favorite time of day for a long time. It takes me forever to feel happy about being up and I just would rather stay in bed and wallow in my milky sweaty self. Even the sight of jolly Isobel smiling and making eyes at me is not always enough to make me jump out of bed and shout Hallelujah! But I do begrudgingly give her smiles and cutches and kisses and snuggles and lots of milk and eventually I am happy to be up and about being domesticated, taking care of diaper business and dressing  and all that fun stuff. And if I get my oatmeal and my tandem cups of Rooibos tea and decaf coffee, then the day is even better! Some days I get to stay in bed for about half an hour and Susan will get up with Isobel and I will hear them playing together in the next room, with Isobel chuntering away and Susan laughing and telling her stories and singing songs. That is a real luxury, because it feels like I never get to be alone in bed anymore. In fact the last time I was alone in bed, was the night before Isobel was born, when I was sleeping alone in the spare bedroom, snoring my head off like  a steam train and wondering if my ankles would ever be winsome again!!! That wasn't so much fun.
Two month's after Isobel was born, we did a cute Christmas card with Isobel's stats on it and sent it out and thought that might be instead of the announcement. We had announced it all on Facebook and by email and we weren't sure that we needed an announcement. But that meant our Jewish friends didn't get a nod, and we decided that for posterity we needed to do a card. So about a month ago we made an announcement with four chronological pictures of Isobel where she goes from infant baby blob to smiling 5 month old. It was posted on my blog for about a minute by Susan until I realized all our info was in it and though I am not really extremely careful about anonymity, if someone ( say an old client who shall remain nameless) did a search on the internet for my name she might come upon my blog. Or something.
Well this morning the nurse from the fertility clinic called because she had not heard from me and needed the stats on our baby for her records. In fact she didn't even know the sex of the baby. We had not been in touch with them since we were graduated from them to an OB. Although we did email the doc when we were concerned about my past fibroid surgery and the impact it might have on trying for a vaginal birth. I know, we are not really the kinds of people who do all the right etiquette things, we didn't send them flowers or thank you cards, we didn't buy candy for the nurses at the hospital, and we actually only just got around to sending the wonderful amazing egg donor a thank you card, for the cycle that she completed in December 2009. Wow that  is  a long time ago!
I lied and told her that I had a card already addressed to her on my desk ( why, TG, why?) but she didn't seem too bothered and she was just glad that I called her back and that we had a lovely baby girl and I could tell her what she weighed and when she was born.  She did tell us to come in and show off our baby soon, which I promised to do.
So that gave me the kick start I needed to finally put pen to paper and write and address the birth announcements doubling as Thank You cards tonight when Isobel went to sleep. It has taken me over an hour to do the  cards to the professionals  who were involved in the conception and birth of Isobel.
And that's what made me think I was part of the baby Oscars - thanking all these people and almost choking up, and the words flowing and the warmth in my heart radiating.
In all I wrote 8 cards to a combination of 1 fertility doctor, 1 fertility nurse, 1 adoption lawyer, 1 egg donor agreement lawyer, 1 nurse egg donor coordinator, 1 egg donation agency, 2 midwives, 3 OBs, two OB nurses. Oh and I forgot to add the psychologist who did our interview about third party reproduction, who happens to know a family friend of ours, which turned the interview into a kind of reunion by proxy.  That makes 9 cards. Must send her an announcement. All these people helped us to bring Isobel into the world. And funnily enough it just makes my heart sing a bit louder to know that so many people helped us. It doesn't feel the slightest bit odd to me. Not the usual way of making a baby, certainly, but that's fine with me. I didn't send them a card but I mustn't forget the two egg donors who had to bow out through ill health at the last minute, prolonging our wait for egg donor number 3, who turned out to be perfect!
As I was writing the cards, I would describe, Isobel, as beautiful, funny, lively, cute and - here's a thing -  happy-go-lucky. Those three words just kept tripping off my fingertips. I told Susan about it, who reminded me that Isobel is also incredibly passionate about things - and as she discovers things that she loves, such as splashing her arms and legs in a frenzy in the bath - she also lets us know this - either by her squeals of joy and big smile when she is in said tub, or by her  angry wailing when she is out of the tub and Susan is dressing her while I have five minutes in the bath by myself.
And as I was writing the words over and over so many times, I realized that Isobel could be the happy go lucky that I have been summoning into our lives by naming my blog happy go lucky. What a circle we have navigated to get to this point. Not so much a circle as a very meandering path that is kind of S shaped. And before I get tangled up in that metaphor I will take my leave and rest my Ergo- induced aching back and rejoice that Isobel is still asleep, 3.5 hours after I put her down, which is good for her, and good for her mama.  Before you hate me for all this Pollyanna stuff, please remember that it took me a long time to get here. And I got sea sick on the way. Okay, this is really the end of metaphor butchering. For tonight...