My daughter is four weeks old today. As I sit here on my loveseat, she is nestled in her Rock n' Play in her swaddle sack, loudly sucking on the bright green pacifier that's almost as big as her face. She is beautiful-- absolutely breathtaking. I still cannot believe she is ours. Somehow at four weeks old she already has the instinct to bring her sweet little hand to her face and hold her pacifier in her mouth so that it doesn't fall out every five seconds. Isn't that amazing?
I want to write about her, and us together, and I will. But today I'll write about something a little more stationary. The suitcase that I took to the hospital.
Before my daughter Bonnie was born I kept copious lists of all the things I needed to do, buy, prepare, assemble, and just generally complete before she came. It has to be part of the feverish nesting instinct that sets in during the last trimester. Of course, on one of the "Things to Buy" lists I had a suitcase listed as one of the really important items. My husband and I only had one that was a reasonable size between the two of us--I may or may not be the kind of woman who has only obscenely large pieces of luggage-- so it was time to get a new one.
When I had over 8 weeks to go in the pregnancy, I went to TJ Maxx and chose a basic black suitcase. I took it home and packed it over a month in advance and then my husband put it in the car so that we would be prepared in case I was one of the 10% of women whose water breaks on it's own. You know, the woman in the movie whose water breaks in public at some really inopportune time and place. Like...when she's in a really long line at Starbucks and the water gushes in the floor then she screams and thirty minutes later the baby is born. (Just so you know- that hardly EVER happens in real life, especially for a first time mom).
In any case, we were prepared. And when the time came I did have pretty much everything I needed in that suitcase to make it in the hospital. In fact, I was really happy I had over-packed for once since I had an emergency C-section that meant 6 days in the hospital rather than the usual 48 hours following a vaginal delivery. When we got released, my sweet husband packed the suitcase back up and loaded everything into the car and we drove the one mile to our home (at five miles per hour) with our sweet new baby.
That was almost a month ago. And now the hospital suitcase still sits on our guest bed, packed exactly as it was the day we left the hospital. I have barely touched it, except to rummage through it once or twice to find something I thought might be in there. My husband asks each weekend if its time to get it unpacked and put away, and for the last four weeks we've laughed as I say, "this might be the day."
Why haven't I unpacked that suitcase? I am feeling much better physically and have enough energy to do so, but that does not lead me to complete the somewhat simple task of unpacking. Mentally and emotionally I feel pretty good, too. And yet I still haven't brought myself to do it. I wake up each day with the intention of getting it done, and it sits there staring at me at the end of the day. Maybe it is some weird representation of all that we went through during our baby's labor and delivery, or maybe it's the fact that when I open it I can't bear to unpack the photos of my mom and me because it is too painful to see the reminder of losing her this year. Maybe I am just an exhausted new mom that struggles to find time to do basic things such as this mundane task. Or maybe it's some combination.
My Bonnie turns one month old on Friday. And it is my goal to have it done by then. Time will tell.
