As the fourth trimester nears an end...

The first 3 months of a baby's life is usually dubbed as the "fourth trimester." When human babies are born, they are not as developed physically compared to other mammals. Think about puppies or other baby animals - they can walk within a few hours of being born... and such. What do human babies do? They sleep, cry, eat...but they don't do much else. The world is scary when they are first born. They've spent the last 9 months all warm and cozy in a floating environment...and all of a sudden its cold, bright and just really different. This is the reason why newborns are so difficult. This new environment is so confusing for them - and it takes a lot of effort from the parents to comfort them.

The thing is though.. the fourth trimester is really scary for the parents too. Here we were, living the (relatively) simple life, and all of a sudden here was this thing that was squirmy (yet beautiful) and whose very existence depended on us - two people that knew absolutely nothing about how to care for a newborn baby. I'll be brutally honest and say that the maternal instinct wasn't really there from the get-go. Don't get me wrong - I loved her from the minute she was born.. but I don't think I felt particularly mommy-ish right away. And then came the endless days and nights of trying to feed her, comfort her and let her know that the outside world was just as safe as my tummy. At times, I felt like I was up to my shoulders in milk and diapers - I just wanted to collapse and go to sleep. Where was this warm, fuzzy picture of the couple adoringly gazing at their daughter, by the warm fireplace, with the house all clean? I tried every trick in the book - swaddling, white noise, pumping, different bathing techniques...some of them worked, some of them didn't. But as I went through my arsenal of different things to try on her the maternal instinct got stronger and the mother/daughter bond started to form. She transformed from a "thing" into a real "person." Izzie was slowly learning how to trust that this outside world was safe and that somebody would always be there for her, and Albert and I were slowly learning what it meant to parent and take care of another person. And here we are...the fourth trimester is coming to an end.

The first couple of months really were a blur to me and it seriously went by so fast. It didn't feel that way when I was dead tired at 5 am in the morning after waking up 4 times ... but now I can see why people say to really cherish this time - its just way too short. She will not be this small ever again. One of my favorite moments of the day is when she falls back asleep in my arms after her morning feeding. It's one of those golden moments where I know if I set her down she'll still sleep for another 2 hours, but I still hold her and just stare at her. I love the look on her face when she's sleeping like this: peaceful, relaxed and not a worry in the world. It's moments like these where I truly think that all those hardships are totally worth it. I remember wishing that babies can just skip the fourth trimester and go straight to happy, gurgling, smiling beings. But now I know that I never would have grown so much as a mother if I hadn't experienced all that I had experienced.

So thank you fourth trimester! I learned a lot from you, and while I'll miss the moments that you've given my whole family to experience, I can not wait to see what Izzie's future will bring to us.