Isaac Collins Forster 18th of June 2009

I'll have to set about changing a few things on my blogger profile - because the forster fam has changed size and shape this week. I think shape is a good way to describe it - because our little (or not so little depending on your point of view) family is such a unit - all of its separate parts ultimately intertwined - that when something or someone changes, the shape of life changes for us all.

I know my own shape has certainly changed...

First, briefly, labor and delivery: fairly short (6 hours roughly), entirely drug free, complication free. Very painful. It was the exact answer to every prayer I've uttered about it over the past 6 months. Now I must remember to be thankful - it would be such an easy thing to put in the past and ignore, even though I am still being blessed by it through a much easier recovery.

I recommend highly a few things:
1) reading Ina May Gaskins's Guide to Childbirth - first for humor's sake, but very much for her techniques and advice about having as natural a childbirth as possible in the hospital.
2) being pregnant with a good friend. The second is obviously a bit harder to orchestrate, but I have benefited enormously from sharing my pregnancy with a good friend who delivered 4 weeks prior to me. It made labor and delivery preparation funnier and more ever-present than it would have been otherwise.
3) have a funny, loving, supportive husband. and make him read Ina May as well.
4) have an amazing labor and delivery nurse. (also hard to orchestrate, but pray)

Now, the name.

He's going by Collins.
i recognize that some will lament the 'going by the middle name' curse that we've given our son, but, oh, I don't know, kiss my tail.
First, if going by his middle name becomes a big burden, then we won't have passed on any level of humor and lightheartedness that we hope is intrinsic to all of our children by the time they fly the coup. Second, I love the literary sound of a first initial followed by a name. I. Collins Forster. Plus it has that funny/epic "I Claudius" sound.
Third, my dad is Paul Brooks Eason, but goes by Brooks, and he's managed to lead a fairly happy, successful life, not professionally or personally hindered by this great curse. And, like Paul Brooks is better than Brooks Paul, Isaac Collins sounds better than Collins Isaac.
So, again, kiss my tail.

Collins is a family name on my side of the family. I've loved it for a good long while, and lobbied hard for it out of the gate. Paul liked it too, so we checked that off the list. The other name was a much more prolonged decision. I told Paul early on that he could just pick - Obviously, I retained veto power, but since Collins was coming from my side of the family, I wanted the other name to come from wherever he wished. He vacillated among a few of the Forster male names - Paul, Michael, William being the main three, if I remember correctly - and then about three weeks before Collins joined us, he asked me what I thought about Isaac. Paul loves the Isaac story in Genesis and loves that it means Laughter in Hebrew.
I think Isaac is pretty, complements Collins well, and who can refuse the title of "Mother of Laughter"?
Not this girl.

So, little Collins is here. And delightful. So far. =)

He weighed 6 lbs 11 ounces at birth. (Smaller than his brother by a good bit and his sister by a small bit). He was a week early (11 days earlier than his brother or sister, who were both 4 days post term), and we can tell by his behavior that that last 11 days makes a difference. He's quieter and sleepier than they were at the beginning. Which doesn't hurt my feelings.

He has the saddest cry. He rarely cries, but when he does, it breaks my heart. And if you know me and my mothering, my heart is not easily broken.

My intuitions about his personality thus far are that he's going to be quiet, serious, sweet, and dry-witted. I could be wrong, but, I will say, that I've been right so far about both of the older two. Which could be because I've projected on them what I thought they would be like... =)

I'm so excited for Eason to have a little brother so close to his age. And excited for Ada Brooks to have another little person around.

So far, it hasn't been stressful having an extra child - I mean, it has added some stress, as any person tends to do, but it isn't an upsetting amount of stress. We've been well taken care of - I haven't had to cook yet - and Collins is sleeping at night fairly well - only waking up once to eat - which makes all the difference in the world.

His eyes are navy (So were Eas's and Ada's - i assume he'll have blue eyes - but maybe, one day, i'll have a child with my weird, blue, green, grey eyes - he has three blue eyed grandparents and then my daddy has the weird, blue, green, grey eyes referenced above).
His hair is very, very dark (So was Ada's). His eyebrows and eyelashes are almost white.
He is very ruddy right now, but I think that's just new baby redness.

Babies are amazing. Life is amazing. We are so very blessed.

While I've been writing, the children have appeared, fully dressed for the day, and Eason just asked for a squirt of lotion. I said sure, squirted a dollop of Aveeno Baby into his hand. He promptly rubbed it in his hair. "Eason's hair is dry"

I am so very happy to be un-pregnant.