The first week was delicious. By midwife's orders, I was on bed rest. Baby and I spent all of our hours together. We slept, we snuggled, we nourished ourselves. I breathed in the scent of his new skin and stroked him. There is no touch like that of newborn skin; there's nothing smoother or softer. He spent his first several days naked, wrapped in blankets or wool sacks. No diaper to squish his bottom into. No forcing his arms and legs into tiny clothes. And he never left the room. So there was no wrestling this tiny, fragile frame into the straps and buckles of a car seat or exposing him to the harsh elements of the outdoors. No swirling cacophony of people, places, lights, sounds, and smells to fill his senses. Only calm, only us.
When we slept, he wriggled his way to my breast, latched himself on and fed. Breastfeeding has been so easy this time. Painless and easy. And when he pooped, I held him in my arms and put a little bowl or blanket under him to catch it. The beginnings of EC, and it went really well. On day four, I caught four poops. I knew him, his rhythm, and his body language already.
Everything was easy, and so natural. Effortless. I felt myself naturally become Mother in a way I never had with my first.
At night, Baby slept, skin-to-skin with either George or myself. Regin slept with us too. And something strange happened to him that first night that became more and more obvious that first week: he grew about 3 feet and gained about 20 pounds. George laughed about the teenager that was suddenly in our bed. Our little one had become our big one, relatively speaking anyway.
Regin loved his brother right away. We had to hold him back a little from smothering the tiny infant with his kisses. And in their sleep the two brothers kept drifting towards each other, trying to snuggle. We tried to keep them separate early on, because we were worried that Regin would be rough in his sleep.
Everything was easy, except for the little matter of his name. We'd chosen three candidates, but when Baby Boy arrived, we didn't agree on the name. I leaned towards one of the Faroese names, Andrias, George leaned to the Spanish name, Eliseo. We waffled on it for several days, and on her check up visits, our midwife, Sena, reminded us that she needed to send in paperwork with the name by about a week. My pull to my cultural heritage made me want to choose Faroese, plus his hair was light and reddish, like a viking! But it was only fair to give George the choice, since I'd made the final call on Regin's name. So, at around 6 days old, Baby lived with the name Eliseo for a day. We told my mom and I was surprised to hear her highly linguistic tongue absolutely struggle with the name. Then I began to feel more and more guilt over not passing on my culture to him. Latin culture, after all, is so prevalent in the world, but there are only 50,000 people in the world that call themselves Faroese. Plus Regin had such a lovely story to go along with his name. So, we decided to switch back. Andrias it was. Sorry George. Eliseo is a wonderful name. We told everyone else his new name, and it seemed we made the right choice. Even my mother-in-law had negative associations with the name Eliseo, the only person who preferred it was my dad, who still thinks Andrias sounds like a girl's name. Haha! Well, that's why family wasn't invited to be involved in the naming process!
The story behind Andrias's name? Other than just being a Faroese name we both loved, it's also one of my grandfather's nine names. He was named after the crew of a boat from his village that all died at sea. His name was Oli Hans David Frederic Andrias Guttorm Elias Mellamgord Jacobsen and his named wrapped all the way around the back of his driver's license. He's also one of my favorite people who has ever lived, an artist, a teacher, a giver of deep, warm hugs, and I miss him.
Andrias's middle name is Micael after my father, Michael. Who is also wonderful and thankfully still with us.
I've been surprised to find that his name is difficult for some to pronounce, so once again it's: Ahn-DREE-ahs Mee-kah-ELL. And for those who don't know, big brother's first name (Regin) is pronounced RAY-ihn, I assume you all know what to do with his middle name, Oscar?
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During my week of rest, my mom and George were both there taking care of me. Sena made several house calls to check on me and the baby. That's another thing I love about home birth and midwifery. There's so much respect for the mother's recovery process and baby's need for calm, quiet, and being left in the comfort of home with the mother. I think Andrias was 6 weeks old before he really needed to venture outside of the home (by car).
I stayed mostly in our bedroom, lying down. Occasionally I'd venture out to the loft to sit and watch a show with the others. But the pain of sitting was intense. My tailbone and all was extremely sore. We bought me a donut to sit on, but it was still unbearable and I mostly stayed reclined. After a week, my body began bouncing back already, though I still took it easy, and at that time my mother left just as George's mother arrived in time to celebrate George's birthday. He had a very special birthday present this year, one I worked really hard on!
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