where have you been?

Wow . . . we must get the award for going the longest between posts.

It's hard to believe it's been two years since I wrote my last entry . . . here's what's been going on. After I finished my stint in Ecuador I went "down under" to visit some friends that I met in London. I ended up getting engaged to one of them! What a friend, you might say! Now I live in Australia, I'm married, and I even have a kid!

That's what I wanted to write about actually, becoming a mother. It's a big deal, to become a parent. I read a lot about pregnancy and what labor and childbirth would be like. In the end I felt really prepared for all of that. But then I was in my room at the hospital, and all my family and my husband had gone (which is the policy in the public hospital we went to here) and I had this baby who was totally dependent on me. Not only that, but I discovered that my baby was not going to be like what they show in the cute Huggies ads. In my somewhat quixotic mind I had pictured one of those newborns that sleeps most of the day and night, eats really well, smiles a lot, and cries but a little. After the third night in the hospital with the babe screaming and keeping me and the woman who shared my room up til the wee hours of the morning, I started thinking, "Nobody told me it would be like this."

Well, it's been two and a half months since the little one was born. And yes, he still has his moments of inconsolable crying. [Ok, I'm going to get kind of cheesy here, so I apologize in advance.] But he really is the joy of my life. I've felt like this since the moment they put his bluish bloody newborn body on my chest the moment after he was delivered. And while some people would say what I experienced was a rush of hormones, I know that I also experienced the birth of a new, unconditional love for my son. It has only continued to grow.

Really, nobody told me it could be like this.