My dear, sweet Madeline Rowe was born on the 19th of May. Yes, dear friends, she is a mere 24 days old. I can't believe I haven't posted earlier. Wait, I totally can. She is such a handful. Here I sit, at 3 a.m., watching her totally awake self squirm around in her Moses basket & shoving her little fist into her mouth. Little baby bear, why aren't you sleeping? You should cherish this time which you can sleep hours upon hours with nobody judging you. Some day, you'll be a mommy. Does anybody else miss nap-time?
Recovery has been hard. Almost too hard. Enough for me to want to give up completely. Sometimes I want to run away. Not from Maddie-Bear, no, but from myself. I'm still dealing with the pain of tearing ALL THE WAY TO MY BUTT. Yeah, she ripped right through that sucker. Well, with the help of forceps & a suction cup. The first night home I cried all night because I couldn't get lay down in bed, I couldn't sit on anything but a heap of pillows, peeing hurt, blah blah blah, and Madeline wanted to feed on my bleeding/peeling breasts literally every thirty minutes. My poor husband had to deal with both of our screaming for about a week. Oh, and my ankles/legs/thighs/fingers everything is still swollen. It's called "edema", and - wait, she just spit up on herself - it sucks. Does it seem like I'm complaining a whole lot? Good, because I am complaining a lot. We should be allowed to complain. Women push 8 pound babies out of their lady gardens for crying out loud! I will complain.

Now for the good stuff: even though she's COMPLETELY awake right now I cannot even be mad at her. I mean, God, she is so beautiful. I can't believe my ridiculous husband Christopher made this sweet little baby. Man, she's fiesty tonight. It must be boob-time, so I'll cut this short. Babies are good stuff.

Can I get an "amen"?