A New Arrival to the Holly Cottage

Beautiful Irish girl - all wrapped
up in Granny's hand knit cardigan

The last few weeks have passed in the blink of an eye. The last time I wrote here, it was to herald the onset of autumn and the promise of the fruits of spring and summer's labour. We spent the first few days of September getting ready for that promise - busying ourselves with long over-due jobs like cutting back the now tiny hedge, taking the dying stalks off the spuds, cutting back unruly spinach, rocket and oregano plants, freezing the glut of rhubarb for darker winter days and making the place ready for the weeks that were coming when there would be no time for such leisurely activities like hoeing drills or pottering about admiring the sweet peppers, chillies and tomatoes developing on the vines. 

This day two weeks ago, time and nature put a stop to my bending and stooping and lolling about as Holly Cottage's lady of gardening leisure. For this day two weeks ago we made the long journey to the maternity hospital (half an hour in pain seemed like forever yet we weren't even close to getting started!), for an event that we were completely ready for in principle yet absolutely and completely not ready for in so many real ways. Neither of us knew what to expect, and I am glad for it. I've often wondered why nature wipes the accessible memory of our birth from our minds - why we don't remember that precious time cocooned in the warm bath of our mother's womb - when we are loved and anticipated and completely encased in the most advanced of all biological intensive care units. I realise now that the memory is with the mother and the father - and the loved ones about them. It is theirs to share and theirs to tell if and when they so please it. Because whatever the pain experienced, the moment that baby emerges, is one of the most amazing moments of any person's life. And while I can't speak for the man, it ranks up there in terms of life changing and eye opening experiences - it is the birth of life itself. 

Born ready ;)  

We went with a natural birth - and while the pain was greater than any preparation by yogic breathing could overcome - the pain is but a memory now to be recalled with laughter and good humour as we realise it was the necessary signalling of our beautiful baby's birth cry. It marked her voyage from where her life began, into the outside world to take her very own first delicious breath of air, and begin her very own life's journey beyond the walls of my (by the end of 41 weeks) outgrown growth chamber for her. 

That nine months of her growing inside of me now seems like such a short time when you realise the wonder of the tiny fingers and toes, eyelashes, perfect skin and bright eyes that she came equipped with to make us love her totally and unreservedly. For since that moment, I am at her beck and call. Where once it was two and a dog, it is now two and a dog and a tiny person that needs us to care and protect her for some years to come. Notice I don't quantify that time, knowing so well that parenting is a job for life. And how bad really? We knew that when we started, and now instead of just knowing it, we understand it. 

Poor Holly of course is traumatised, but she is starting to come round ;) She has been missing her twice daily walks in the woods, but that will come again - but only when we feel ready to take her and her new best friend out into the great big world beyond the half door of the Holly Cottage. So for now, it is sleep when we can, eat at the best and next opportunity that arises, and enjoy gazing at the wonder of what we have created through sleep deprived and still disbelieving eyes. 

And so, welcome Baby Alannah Marie to Holly Cottage - and welcome all the trials and tribulations and adventures to come. And thanks to all for the good wishes and warm welcomes - let the fun and games begin ;)