Amber Hope

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WARNING: This post is full of idealisms and joy and love and perfection and gushy, mushy stuff.  It may or may not actually reflect true reality as felt in the next weeks and months!!!!!!!!!!

INTRODUCING:


Amber Hope Glick
Born: February 20, 2015
Time: 10:51 AM
Place: Hayward Area Memorial Hospital
Weight: 7 lb 7 oz
Length: 20.75 inches
Features: Completely angelic




Here she is at about 23 hours old: alert and attentive and taking life in. 


Here she is 23 hours and 2 minutes old and is reciting back to us what we had just told her :) :)


This is at 2.5 days old looking sweet and angelic.  The blue and white striped shirt you see was worn by her cousin who is almost 6.  This picture is all innocence in more ways than one because you really need to see the expression on the face of her cousin.  It was not innocence--it was gleaming with mischief and teasing as he played with her hat, putting it on his head and then on her head and just overall giving his little girl cousin a hard time.  She remained oblivious to it all and kept sleeping. Good girl--that should put her in good stead for later on in life.

I have more pics I could post, but I am way too lazy to go and get my camera bag and find the SD card converter, etc. etc.  So maybe later.

One of the meaning for Amber that I found was "precious jewel".  That meaning really cemented the name choice in my mind.  And Hope?  What explanation does that need?

We have been in awe for the last couple of days.  I am still not sure reality has set in, that this really is our baby and we get to keep her.  Nobody is going to come and pick her up in a couple days and remind us that we were just temporarily babysitting.  I am going to be the one to feed her and change her diaper (her father runs fleeing the room at the slightest hint of a problem in that department), comfort her when she cries and try to teach her and train her to love the Lord with all her heart.  It feels like a huge responsibility and yet right now it is nothing but sheer joy.  

Yes, I am tired; yes, the nights have not been one solid sleep, but they hadn't been for weeks already anyway.  But last night, I could get up and smile through the yawns and rock my baby and tuck her into her cradle that her grandpa made for her mother many long years ago.

Last night, I sat in the recliner in the living room holding her and the tears just came, just like they are coming right now.  People talk about how when they see their baby for the first time, they just have this maternal love that overwhelms them  and they are just sucked in.  I can't completely identify with that.  I loved her when I saw her, but mostly I was relieved that the long months of sitting around and waiting were over.  I had loved her from the start, but I still felt bad that I didn't have the instant mental acknowledgement.  Not to say I wasn't happy; I was completely overjoyed to see and hold and touch my baby.  But when the nurses wheeled her out of our room to take her to the nursery, it felt like a piece of our hearts had disappeared and you wondered if everything was going to be okay with her until she came back.  But back to last night: I sat there in the rocker and the tears just came: tears of overwhelming joy and gratitude for the gift of life, for my healthy, screaming, completely adorable little girl. The tears of such a different nature from a year ago and it was good.  We are so blessed.

Things are so different now: the Facebook comments, the gifts, the care, the tears-- everything is happy filled now.  Yesterday morning, I was taking a shower and thinking back to 13 months ago when I was also taking the first shower since I was home from the hospital, but after that shower I had to put on a black dress and go to a funeral, a funeral for my little girl I never had the chance to hold and love. Yesterday, I put on comfy clothes and I went downstairs and I held and loved and showered my little girl with love and affection.  And it felt right; it felt good, really , really good.  

And so this morning, I sit here holding my sleeping baby girl and I rejoice in the gift of life.  Yes, I am holding her while she sleeps and yes, some would say I am spoiling her, but that is all right.  We have waited a long time for this moment and I want to enjoy every single moment of it, to capture the memories and hold them close in my hear.  Today, my agenda consists of two things: feed the baby and sleep.  And if I get nothing more than that done, it will be okay.  I will likely have to repeat that to myself over and over today, because there is plenty of things I could be doing, but today isn't about that and I hope my scheduled brain will be able to remember that over the next weeks and months.  

This song has been running through my head over the last couple of days:

Butterfly Kisses


Photo credits go to Heather Kuhns and Hannah Glick

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