family

...our first family portrait - taken just a few days after Harlow's birth. this was my first time really holding her and looking her all over after the surgery. it was perfect and amazing. from her giant feet to her hairy little back, i was in love. the best part about being a family? watching Gen with her. her Papa Gen has the magic touch. she is so gentle and sweet, it is amazing. Mama may have the only way to feed the little monkey but Papa Gen has the magic soothing trick. smitten yet again with Harlow and, as always, with Gen.

mama's favorite pictures

time to start getting up to date on the pictures. this little monkey is two weeks old today and i am shocked by it! here are my favorite pictures of the last two weeks. she has changed so much in such a short time!

brand spanking new on April 11th.


at the birthing center for a week...






GOING HOME!!!



and then now look at this chunker...two weeks old and an entirely different baby. she grows so fast!!!

on being a mama to a new born

i am obsessed. smitten, in love, and i can't get enough. i am clearly nuts as all i do is take pictures and videos of her doing nothing all day long. and when she sleeps, i watch them. nuts nuts nuts.

i am starting to feel better. i can get out for longer stints of time now. although it usually means a nap in the car and some major cramping when i get home. i went and saw the doctor that did the c section today. she said that i need 6 full weeks to heal but that i can start doing some light stretching and walking. yay! maybe we'll try out the stroller tomorrow. we also grilled her about the birth. of course, she couldn't tell us exactly what happened but she could give us her theory. she said the cord was wrapped tight on her body and didn't let her descend to assist in opening my cervix. she also said that her head was tilted and facing the wrong way. while it may have been possible to birth her if my cervix was opening, she wasn't all that confident. she also said that my c section is healing great and the chance of a VBAC on future children is possible. that warmed my heart as i am still feeling like i missed my natural birth. however, she said the way her head was tilted could have been from the cord wrap or it could have been from the shape of my pelvic bones - no way to tell. so it could or could not happen again with a 2nd child. urgh. just wishing for a magic report to fall out of the air to tell me what happened.

on a better note - she pretty much sleeps through the night. we have some freak show baby. she either sleeps the entire 8hrs or she wakes up once around 4am to nurse and then sleeps the rest. either way, i'll take it! i'm sure other parents out there want to kill me - so take hope in the fact that i probably just jinxed myself. ha.

other than that - i am exhausted. breastfeeding is for real. she took to it great and eats like a champ...every hour to two hours. while it's great and she is fattening up, i am sooooo tired. i mostly just want to eat and nap all day long. when do they eat less? 3mo? great.

her umbilical stump fell off today. i was terrified of it. Gen kept it in a bag. aha. how is this for a cute little belly button...

what's in a name...

Harlow: This is a name that has stuck with us for years after we drove by a road name sign. Not a very auspicious story...but it is the truth. We just like it and feel that it fits this person.

Vienn: "Vie" means life -as in: "C'est la vie"
(French) "that's life", "such is life", "that is fate" or "that's how things happen") This little child has already taught us that while we were busy making a plan for her birth, that "life" would find its own way.

Locke: Old English origin, and its meaning is "forest/woods; or fortified place". This child was made with many of our community members way up in the forests of Vermont. We wanted to honor the love and unity of her inception because we believe that the love of our village fortified that space and ushered in the miracle of her. Gwen, Harlow and I are now the Locke family. We will keep our own last names and add Locke to our identities to join with Harlow.

the little monkey is here!!!

she was born on April 11, 2010 at 12:30am. weighing in at 7lbs and 5.7ounces. way smaller than i thought she would be. she is ten days old today and i already can't imagine life without her. i have avoided posting on here for ten days because i know that means i have to talk about the labor. emotionally, i am still pretty much a mess about it (although i am pretty much about everything right now with these pregnancy hormones pumping). but i am happy to give a factual account of what happened. that seems do-able. then we can start posting pictures!!!

as many of you know, i had my heart set on a natural labor. we took 8,000 classes, we weren't scared, and we were ready for what would come our way. even though Nina told me (from experience) that i could plan as much as i wanted but things tend to take their own route - i was still convinced that i would have a beautiful natural birth...floating in the massive tub at the birthing center. while i did get to float in the tub eventually, it happened more like this...

my water broke first. i woke up at 6:45am and imedietely rolled out of bed onto the puppy pad that i had put beside the bed the night before. i screamed for Gen but she couldn't hear me, so i stomped on the floor for a while. she came up and fashioned me a diaper out of a puppy pad so that i could walk around for a while. it was pretty funny. the plan was to labor at home for as long as possible. our doula, Michelle, came over to assist. sadly, my waters turned green with marconium...so we had to head to the birthing center. we got to the birthing center around 10am on Thursday. i had a light labor all day Thursday. luckily we had amazing midwives and our doula there to support us. they suggested pitocin every day but still let us do whatever we thought was needed. we brought in a woman to do accupuncture, had an amazing Mayan womb massage, tried cervadil, and also early pumping. i stayed in "light labor" all day Friday as well. two days of trying anything possible to really get the labor going. finally on Saturday morning, after little sleep for two days, i conceeded to the pitocin. now that i look back on it, i am 98% sure that i would not do the pitocin again as it strengthened the labor but didn't help the dialation at all. but everyone was scared that i was leaking marconium water and worried for the health of the baby because of it. i was on constant monitoring. Saturday + pitocin = 12hrs of long and hard labor. by 9pm on Saturday i was spent. they checked me and i had only dialated 3cms and i still wasn't even fully effaced.

all that work, 65hrs total, lead to a midnight c-section. one of the nurses mentioned that her cord was wrapped tightly aoround her body and was "possibly" keeping her from assending down and opening my cervix. so that "might" be a reason for all of this but we will never really know. it was all much more traumatic that it sounds and i still have a lot of emotions surrounding it. but the baby came at 12:06am weighing 7lbs and 5.7ounces. she had a full head of hair and her stubborn lower lip was hanging just like mine does.

it was an intense experience. Gen was the most amazing support that anyone could have ever asked for. we also Michelle there, which was amazing. she was so powerful and helped us get through some very difficult times. also - Kate, Linder, Heather, Tin, and my amazing family where all there for the entire 65hrs. intense for them but amazing to know they were there.

we named her a few days later...Harlow Vienn Locke.

un de plus...

finally got around to having dinner with Bunty last week...after years of talking about it. funny how we saw her more in Chicago and Michigan than we do here in Noho. either way, it was really nice (even if i was 40 minutes late - yikes!). how about this cute little French number? can someone translate it for us? Bunty's partner, Julie, picked it out at home in Montreal and Bunty couldn't remember what it said. aha. take care of the planet? Amy Miller, help me/us out?