New . . . everything!

I must say that this is an inauspicious commencement of my blogging activities. I had composed a really stellar post -- witty, clever, insightful and filled with fabulous information about our doings -- and blogger ate it.

So allow me to try again.

I thought I would start a blog about our "new life." Our little girl is now two months old, and we've been in our new house for one month. That means, for those of you who are Batchelders and can't quite manage the math, that we moved with a one-month-old child, which means we're crazy. Fortunately, the move was all of several miles. We've really moved up in the world, too. From Kenmorons to Barbertuckians. I look forward to discovering to which rung on the societal ladder the Fates will guide us next.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

We found out we were pregnant in June of '09. I quickly discovered that my pregnancy had left me with a serious aversion to the smell of barbecue, just after we had bought Matt the grill of his dreams at the Rural King of Ohio. He took it well.

Then we went to a conference in Illinois, which was very fun and informative -- all about the American West. I know. It doesn't sound riveting. But I have to say that, to my surprise, I enjoyed it a great deal. The farewell dinner was the kicker, though. They had a pig roast. That might have been fine because I couldn't smell roasting, but they took the carcass and slapped it on a platter and put it on the buffet table. So there he was, head and all, stuffed and progressively more gutted as the evening wore on.

I ate fruit salad for dinner.

But that is a minor matter. Our big focus during the pregnancy was on my not being a whiner. But after that, our focus was on having a natural birth. We enrolled in Bradley classes in my fifth month. Matt was fantastic. He never missed a class, even though we had to drive 45 minutes each way on school nights after he'd had a full teaching day. We learned all about being consumers of our health care, and having the right to say that we didn't want what was being offered to us or to question what we were told. After lots of preparation, we were as ready as we were going to be.

Meanwhile we were house hunting, recognizing that we were a bit touched for doing all of this at once. Our realtor was phenomenal. We ended up with a lovely ranch with 3 bedrooms, a completely finished basement with an extra kitchen (who knew I'd be able to say, nonchalantly, "Oh, you can put that in the *extra kitchen*"???), a huge backyard (huge for us; it's on nearly .7 acres) and a lovely back deck. Charlie loves it. More on him later. (More on . . . moron . . .)

AAAAAAnyhoo, we had one heck of a realtor arguing for us. She got us a fair price and we were set to have a home inspection on March 1, my due date. Noooobody goes into labor with their first child *on* their due date, right?

Apparently, a home inspection that includes a healthy tromp around the grounds through snow drifts, followed by a biscuit bowl at Bob Evans does in fact bring on a rapid labor. Or something. I've suggested to the home inspector that he could use this as a marketing point, but I want a cut of the ensuing profits. He's dragging his feet.

After a successful inspection and a lovely biscuit bowl dinner, we went home. 45 minutes later or so, I was in labor. It wasn't one of those, "Hmm, is this labor?" things. Nope. It was BAM, that was a contraction. Within 15 minutes or so, another BAM. And after that, it was off to the races with no two contractions more than 10 minutes apart. By the time we got the hospital just before 10:00 p.m., I was 7 cm.

My midwife was beyond description -- but "phenomenal" will have to suffice.

(Sue, saying hi to BC 7 weeks later.)

I also had a fantastic doula.


(My hands were not relaxed. I was trying to keep the rest of me relaxed!)

But the real props go to Matt, who kept me mostly calm and was a rock himself.

(During labor, between contractions!)

I am proud to say that I didn't ask for any drugs at any time. I was absurdly obstinate and refused to change positions to help the labor along, but I'm not pregnant any more, so it must have worked out okay. On 3/2/10 at 3:21 a.m., our little Bear Cub entered the world. Actually, it would be more apt to say she burst onto the scene. (I got a little sick of pushing and not feeling like I was getting anywhere.) She was screaming before she could even be suctioned (and not much changed for about a month) and was pink and healthy. Her daddy caught her on her way out, but just barely. It's okay. Sue's hands were there if his missed.

I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw that she was a girl. We were so prepared to have a boy. (No official word that it would be; just a remarkably misled hunch.) She was amazing.


And I was hooked!


So now here we are, a family of three.


Plus Charlie,

who does *not* understand why we've brought home a cat.

We have already had many adventures. Today, for instance, our adventure started at 6:30 a.m. and didn't end until 12:45, when we finally decided to take a for-crying-out-loud nap. Apparently the nap was brought on by the massive blowout in the disposable diaper that then came undone and leaked all over our playmat, prompting Mummy to whisk us into the bathroom sink for a bath, during and after which we were required by the Code of Baby to scream like a banshee having her nails pulled out one by one. It was utterly exhausting. Mummy uses cloth diapers, and this episode is why. That'll learn her to run out of diaper covers before washing them all at once.

But, as our dear friends have reminded us, G.K. Chesterton once said, "An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered." Perhaps G.K. Chesterton would've liked to babysit.