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| I'm out, baby! |
As most of you know, we finalized a baby last week. What?! Yep. Even though I carried the little parasite for most of 2013, her actual physical presence into open air has been wild. For those of you that don't know, Misha Eleanor Ford was born at 9:30am on Dec. 1 in Bangkok. She was 6.8lbs, 20 inches long, and didn't even have a weird cone head. Her name has a lot of meaning to us. Misha is the diminutive form of Michael in Russian, chosen in honor of my dad. Eleanor was Gavin's wonderful grandmother, who passed in 2012.
30 hours of labor was a good time (NO IT WASN'T). Luckily all the talk about a near immediate amnesia once baby is there is pretty true. I have been on strict orders by the doctor to stay in our apartment and take it easy, which I absolutely hate, but am doing. Gavin is doing all errands, dishes, diapers, and unreasonable-screaming-baby soothing. I also have a fun game I play with him now where I settle in to feed her and then forget just one thing that I need (iPhone, remote, water, socks, etc). It keeps him from getting too sedentary.
I'll keep the writey portion of this pretty short, mainly because I only have a tiny window of freedom before it's time to get peed on again. Overall, we're all doing very well and hope to be home in Phnom Penh at Christmas. Having the baby has really driven home how much we miss you all. We should also find out this month the status with Gavin's fellowship applications, so hopefully will be able to soon say with certainty where we'll be in September.
Here are a bunch of pictures from Misha's first week. Disclaimer, some of these are even worse quality than our usual photographic masterpieces. When you are spinning in a no-clue-what-you're-doing vortex, some things just have to give. Apologies to all of you on FB and Instagram who have seen a lot of these already, I hope it doesn't hurt too much to get another look at the cutest/sweetest/probably-a-genius baby in the world!
Love and heartfelt misses to all of you. We wish we could just teleport and clown car you into our apartment with us! Not really, you're probably all crawling with germs...
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| Waiting to go to the hospital. Contractions 8min apart. "Gavin, this is no big deal! Seriously. I bet I get this done in like 2 hours." #lieswetellourselves |
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| Our awesome natural birth suite. |
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| Isn't it fun how they make it look like a place where you won't soon feel like you're dying? |
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| Juicing up for a long night. |
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| Lots of hours and gory details later, a wee baby! |
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| First bath with dad and a nurse to get the funky side of life off. |
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| And... perfect. |
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| These feets, though.... |
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| Always good for a laugh! |
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| Quiet time in the hospital. |
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!!!
(Eyes a little puffy from crying her precious little face off for an hour) |
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| First bath at home. Absolutely terrifying. |
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| The sleepies. |
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| Cuties. |
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| We is in love. |
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| Drunk old man in a onesie, or baby in a shiny faced milk coma? |
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| We are incapable of getting a clear family photo. |
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| Or one without hair shadows. |
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| But nothing wrong here! |
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| And seriously with these feet! |
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| Baby's first walk! Through the hotel hallways. |
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| Tummy time, like most time, turns to passed out time. |
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| Meanwhile, back in Phnom Penh, someone is developing a "habit".... |
