Meeting Dora's new daughter

Yesterday evening I went to visit Dora of My Preconceived Notion and ISO the Golden Egg. It was great to get to visit her and meet her beautiful new daughter. Dora is the first URL friend who crossed the bridge to become an IRL friend, and someone whose story I've been following a long time, so it was extra special to get to see her and meet her new little one.

Little baby girl S. is just scrumptious. I found myself just staring at her, looking her over from head to toe in awe. (Sorry, but no pics. You'll have to wait for Dora to post at her discretion after she's discharged from the hospital.) It was hard to imagine that just a couple of days ago, this little baby girl was tucked inside Dora's belly. Baby S's skin is so healthy and pink and she had her arms and legs curled up around her. She has a lot of hair, very straight and light brown. And she has long fingernails! (Already she's a girl's girl!) Not to mention that beautiful new baby smell. Throughout our visit, Dora's daughter slept curved peacefully in my arms and in my lap, giving Dora a bit of a break from holding her - apparently this little one prefers mama's arms to the bassinet already!

Dora seems great. She looked and sounded fantastic - you'd never know she just had major surgery on Sunday. She was getting in and out of bed like a champ, despite her C-section. And she was just beaming with happiness.

It was a great way to wind up a day at work to get to see these two! (Dora delivered at the hospital where Will and I work.) I plan to stop by one more time for another visit today before they get discharged tomorrow.

It is so wonderful, but also bittersweet, to get to celebrate someone else's success in the midst of so much uncertainty about our own reproductive future. I was worried that it would feel unbearable to go up to the postpartum area of the hospital where I work and see all the babies in the nursery and their happy families. I tend to cringe seeing all the women leaving the hospital in wheelchairs surrounded by balloons and flowers and holding their little ones, so I was concerned that this might really get to me. But it was ok to go and visit Dora and her baby. It was almost like the abstract is harder - that the idea of someone having a baby hurts more than seeing my friend Dora and her baby. It helps too to know that Dora struggled long and hard to have her daughter and used a donor embryo. This is one of the many options open to us too, should we need it, and in that way Dora is a model to me of how to succeed in this crappy business of infertility and come out the other side with a precious child. No matter what, I wouldn't have stayed away, but it was a relief that it wasn't a tortured experience to be there on the unit where I have for so long also hoped to deliver my own child. Does that make any sense?

So Dora, congratulations!!!! You're a mom! (and you're going to be a great one!). Little S., welcome to the world. Will and I hope to provide you with a Manhattan playmate just as soon as we can.

Mo

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