bumbum bumbum bumbum...

nora is just about to wake up for the day...and it's about 11:04pm.

so it turns out that she's a night owl. i can't blame her really, she gets the trait from me. however, spending these long hours awake in the wee hours of the morning have reeked havoc on daytime activities. nora does have three siblings, after all, and they keep regular sleeping hours...and waking hours. while she's settling in at about 5:30am...sophie and ellee are up by about 7am. capitol ugh.

but having a new born and being tired is nothing new. this is more than being tired. this is feeling weary. and this is where i need to focus.

it feels like i have walked through each day of nora's life bleary eyed and unkempt. when i look in the mirror, i can remember when i was the only person who needed to be fed in the morning. when i could wake up, shower, drink coffee and catch up on the news before i even spoke a word to anyone. i remember feeling 'put together' and important.

today feels like a different life to me...and really, it is.

i do try and keep some perspective though...in those moments when i feel like i can't take another second of being me (and there are those moments) i think back to when i thought we wouldn't have the chance to be parents and it helps.

the road to where we are has not been a smooth one for us. adoption is hard and the two years of unsuccessful infertility treatments before that was like a personal emotional holocaust. when i did get pregnant, it was always complicated and filled with risk. each time we faced a crisis with the pregnancy, i was instantly brought back to the winter of 2006 when we lost our very first baby. to say that surviving those days was 'hard' would be like saying that the devil is 'mean.' having a miscarriage made me so fragile and afraid of what each day of being pregnant would bring that i struggled to enjoy any aspect of it. except...the end. ahhh...the babies...i love that part.

on the day that nora was born, i was so excited to have another new baby. matt and i arrived at the hospital, checked in, and were shown to my room where they would prep me for the c-section. when the nurses came in and began hooking me up to the monitors, they suddenly became very quiet. they could not find a heartbeat. they looked. and looked. and looked. after about 3 or 4 minutes, they sent for an ultrasound machine to try and solve this mystery.

throughout those moments, i was frozen in uncertainly. i lay there remembering that in hours before matt and i were joking about names and wondering how we would survive the sleepless nights ahead. now i found myself imagining how this scenario would end. what way would this go? if it came to it, how would these women tell me that there was no heartbeat? or, when we finally did hear the heartbeat, would we all joke about this baby giving us such a scare? my mind was racing and fear was creeping up on me and pulling me back in time to a place i certainly didn't want to go. and then...bumbum bumbum bumbum. there it was. loud and clear. the nurse made a joke and i laughed along.

never before had i felt so sure that we loved her. that i was so grateful for my life and for each of my kids. that the challenging days ahead with our new born would be worth it as long as that heart would just keep on beating.

don't you find that we become prepared for the things that are to come with what we endure today? (to me, this is becoming so clear) i have thought of those moments in that tiny sterile room a hundred times since nora was born. i remember how lucky i felt when it went our way. it was more than luck, of course.

when i'm tired and gross and spent i remember what it felt like to think that we may not have her...that it could have gone the other way. thinking, even for a minute, about not having any one of my kids is so sickening to me that it puts into perspective how little it matters that some days are hard. however, it is true that a balance needs to be struck between me and them. i continue to juggle the hard work of being a mom with the importance of finding time for myself. i need to take care of me too. it's so clear that being good to myself will make me a better mom, but it's a tricky thing to bring to fruition. i'll keep working...and writing.

my dad told me a long time ago that no one ever said 'this' would be easy and nothing is more true. it is, however, worth every second spent.

so sleep on, little nora...it's only 11:21pm. i look forward to chatting with you when you wake up at 1:00am my sweet sweet night owl.