Waiting For My Real Life To Begin

So, as I mentioned very briefly in the last post, I had to return to work today, as I only got two days off for the baby delivery. Luckily, the scheduled delivery dates fell in between two holiday days here in Japan, so I was able to be with Sara and Emi for some extra time. I missed them so much today it was ridiculous. However, time marches on, and I’m here with an update for everyone.

So, Sara is up and moving around fairly well now. They took the epidural tube out of her back this morning, and she seems to be handling everything and recovering very well. I told her that I needed proof to show people that she’s doing ok, which led to this…

I trust that will suffice to be appropriate visual evidence of her road to recovery. She still has some pain when moving in some directions, particularly sitting up from a laying position, which is logical. The doctors say that the incision seems to be healing well, so hopefully that trend will continue. Right now, Sara’s biggest concern is trying to get the food supply going for Emi, because it’s a slow start, as is to be expected. Right now, Emi-chan is being supplemented by small amounts of sugar water when she gets inconsolably hungry, but luckily she spends a good deal of time sleeping her cares away as well. The upside is she looks really cute while she does it.

    

The downside is that’s all I got to see her do today. I went to hospital for about a half hour this morning, but then went to work from 945 am to 715 pm. I spent most of the day wishing I was at the hospital, and the rest of the day telling people about Emiko. I got back to the hospital at 730 pm, and got to spend a little time talking to Sara, but Emi was sleeping again. I had missed her being awake by about 20 minutes. I managed to snap off a couple of pictures, but she never roused enough for me to really interact with her. Then, to top it off, I had to leave at 830 pm to make sure I could make it to the grocery store before it closed.

So, in total, I got to spend an hour and a half with my girls today, all of which my baby girl spent sleeping. I didn’t get a chance to talk to her, interact with her or hold her at all today. I’ve had this unshakable “Deadbeat Dad” feeling all day, that has only gotten worse as the night here has drawn on. Luckily, I did have a little heart-melting moment when Sara had to get up from the bed for a bit and I got to watch the little one. She started to fidget a bit while she was sleeping so I reached out to her and she grabbed a hold of my finger and wouldn’t let go.

I was thinking a lot on the walk to the grocery store and then home about little Emi, and I was remembering her first couple of hours in this world. When they first called me into the nursery area as they were cleaning her off, she was crying up a little storm. She’s got a set of lungs on her, that’s for sure. I remember being very scared at first because her hands were a little blue, and her feet were very purple. Luckily, her color normalized as she warmed up some. They had her under the heat lamp and were trying to clean her a bit as she cried inconsolably. It nearly broke my heart to see, so I went over to her and started talking to her. When I started talking, she started to calm down. I reached out to her and she grabbed a hold of my finger, just like she did in the picture above. (The picture of that is in the post announcing her birth.)

When I had to step back for a moment to let the nurses work, she started crying again until I came back and started to talk to her and let her hold my finger. If that wasn’t the strongest argument for her remembering my voice from in her Mommy’s belly, than I don’t know what could be. She responded to me very well, and it was the sweetest feeling I had ever had.

I started to get really down tonight after thinking of all this. I started to feel afraid that after a day without any interaction with me that she might not respond so well tomorrow; like maybe she would start to forget me. It stands to reason, considering she’s only been alive for about 56 hours and she hasn’t seen me for the last almost half of that. Thankfully, my mom made me feel a little bit better when I told her how I was feeling. Momz told me to remember that she recognized me as soon as she was born, and she had 9 months to get to know me before we actually met. That was exactly the right thing to say.

Honestly, I know it’s a silly feeling, and I’m sure it will be all good when I get to see her in the morning, but missing my two girls today really took its toll, I think. I was feeling down to begin with because of that, and the more I thought about it, the worse I got. It may seem cheesy, but here I am living on the other side of the world with a family of my own, and still my Momz managed to make me feel better. I’m really thankful for that.

After talking to Momz for a few minutes, I started sorting and resizing the pictures from today, and I ran across this last one. When I saw it, I knew she was right.

It’s the closest we’ve got to a family portrait right now. It’ll do for now. I’ll be working on remedying that situation this weekend, hopefully.

Tomorrow, Daddy gets a lesson in bathing the baby. I’m already getting nervous. I’ll try to leave this one on a lighter note, since it got a little depressing earlier.

“Just being with Baby Pooh makes me smile.” You know what? It really does.

Sometimes I love Japan.

Sweet Dreams, Emi. I’ll see you in a few hours.

M

P.S. — Ceebs, I don’t know if you’re reading this, but if you are, thanks for the dare, brother.