This far, Lady Kitty Ethel spends a great deal of her time in a most unladylike state of grunting and snuffling.

She’s doing her sole job as Baby. She’s appropriately placing all her efforts into getting practiced at eating, sleeping and moving her body about. Altogether it amounts to an awful lot of grunt work. It, however, belongs.

We’re aiming to be contented to sit by the fire together. She is content. I’m aiming to stay that way even amidst the 20 day doldrums. Spring will come. The virus will equilibrate. Lady Kitty will one day smile and coo. Meanwhile it’s a perfect day to spend together in our nest- putting in our necessary time of feeding/growing grunt work.

After a month-long spell of outsourcing the nightly Mama cuddle to grandparents and Daddy, I felt well enough to cuddle with Lake. I’d been missing him sorely this whole time and missing our special goodnight cuddle. So, last night I was singing to Lake one of our classic bedtime songs: “You are My Sunshine.” (We also have Twinkle Twinkle, Baby Boats, and Lake Bake.

“Hey, I have something to say… Someone is going to take me away. Nana! Nana is going to take me away.”

It’s true, after three weeks of Nana in da house, she’s departing on Saturday and taking Lake back to spend a week with NanaBaba at Camp West. It’s good I got a cuddle in! And those two are pretty incredible- quite a pair. They walk the neighborhood in the evening after dark in their worker-clothes on patrol, to see if trash needs picking up or other tasks, and to check on the local building construction projects. Then Lake declares he wants to walk to Greenlake and touch the water so they do that in spite of the fact it’s dark and raining.

Nana to Lake: You are amazing. Lake to Nana: you are amazing!

From all of us to Nana, you are amazing. Thank you for spending this special time with us. We appreciate all your hard work, support, and unflagging energy. Perfect days… we’re glad you spent them with us!

Agápē: brotherly love. This is the love Lake has for his Baby Sister, Lady Kitty. It is so sweet to witness. He likes to touch her head very gently with his whole palm. It is admittedly very soft… as soft as new velvety reindeer antlers. Then he’ll give her a tender kiss on her head as well. “I love you Baby Sister,” he’ll say quietly.

Etymology of the word according to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary:

Beautiful to behold! A truly perfect day; I’m glad I spent it with you!

PC’s Vivien Petersilie

Lake’s stealing a kiss from his first love… Piper! They have been friends since they were five and seven months old, and remain united by their mothers’ mutual love of German au pairs. The au pairs of each family have all become friends as they rotate through, so they tend to end up sharing a lot of daytime activities. Piper’s family started her at Evan’s pool swim classes at Greenlake, so naturally Lake joined as well. Seeing them enjoying their time together improves the prospect of continuing with the swimming lessons! A perfect day… I’m glad I spent it with you.

After nine months of excited anticipation, Baby Sister is finally here. Lake held her for the first time when she was five days old. He has the proud wonderous look reserved only for the big brother to the Baby Sister. He held her beautifully for a few moments before the gravity of the situation overwhelmed him: “she’s too heavy!”

We keep exclaiming how similar the two look. Lady Kitty is being constantly referred to as “he” or “Lake”… Mr. Cat is proving to be a faithful companion to both.

A perfect pair. A perfect day. I’m glad I spent it with you Lake and Lady Kitty. I’m glad you have each other!

At four days old, Lady Kitty has her first Big Appointment with the World. She has an occasion to get dressed up and out of the cozy nest of home. She has her very first own doctor’s visit. With Lake since we were under the care of the licensed midwives, Carly Meisner LM came to our home to do the first visit. So it was funny going to Harborview with our four day old well baby. Nana drove us over to Harborview Pediatric Clinic. Clarence was there to greet us upon our arrival and meet Lady Kitty for the first time. She immediately cuddled right up into him. She met her PCP, Dr. Abby Grant and we had a perfectly delightful time. All went really smoothly with the visit and there were no significant concerns. She was weighed and measured and clicked and tapped.

She tolerated the medical assistant’s vitals exam and then melted under the doctor’s skilled touch. He weight is at a recorded nadir- she’s lost 10% of her birth weight. Nonetheless, we predict she’s on the upswing since The Milk Has Come In! We will confirm she’s growing appropriately in a few days and have another appointment on Thursday. Busy Lady Kitty needs her own calendar… and secretary… and driver!

A perfect day, a perfect outing, and such a strong team of Lady Kitty handlers. Thank you!

We passed all the discharge check points, and obtained a fairly efficient and uneventful 1200 noon discharge on Saturday. The nurse Caitlin was magnanimous about our older car seat and didn’t try to overly manage the situation. She advised us if we had any concerns we could visit any fire station on the way home for a safety review. We didn’t have any concerns. We were happy to be accompanied out the door in good spirits taking our new addition home. What a miracle! Michael was amazing throughout the entire experience, so loving, present and tirelessly supportive.

I still was in shock, not completely believing all of the events of the past few days. In theory it’s all quite logical, pregnancy culminates in birth and a new baby. However it is another matter to comprehend the magnitude of the transformation I was actually going to be birthing our daughter- so wonderous as to be surreal.

And here we are… cozy at home together with our family, singing “Happy Birthday” to Lady Kitty. An unbelievably perfect day! I’m glad I spent it with you.

Right before noon on 20 February after a full 27 hours labor and getting fully dilated and fully effaced and pushing hard several hours, we transferred to the OR for emergency Cesarean surgery baby extraction. Weighing in at just over 8.5 pounds, Baby Sister is a full pound and a quarter bigger than her brother at birth, and perhaps due to being sunny side up, she just wouldn’t descend in a timely manner- then her heart rate was up in the 180s and mine was in the 150s (which was concerning for infection) and it finally became the best option (and the only option recommended by Dr. Dawn Frankwick, the fresh attending who took over for Dr. Ali Lewis at 8am). So in an unexpected twist of fate Lady Kitty Ethel VanLaanen was born by Ceasarian on 2/20/2020 at 11:24am. We were both put on infection watch, which we both pulled out of in typical Thom(p)son-woman strength.

Lady Kitty has a sweet disposition, and the nurses here at UWMC Northwest (we had some great ones: Bryce, Stephanie, Becky, Janine, Amy, Caitlin, and Nikkea) all find her to be very cuddly. She’s figured out breastfeeding (which she prefers to do at night), and sleeping (which she prefers to do during the day). She’s extremely loved and as a bonus she even has red hair!

A perfect day! I’m so glad to meet you sweetheart. Looking forward to sharing the world with you and introducing you to all our friends and family!

There was reluctance on my part to agree to the induction of labor which is standard of care between 39-40 weeks for a woman of my age (over 40 years old). I was wanting to trust the process and believe in the mantra your baby knows when; your body knows how. I enjoyed a prenatal yoga teacher training last fall, and we read and discussed a lot of Ina May Gaskin, the nation’s preeminent midwife and childbirth educator. She’s a strong advocate for empowering women to experience low to no medically intervened childbirth, achieving impressive statistics of safe and effective child birth. I wanted that experience for myself. Could I do it?

In my mind I was struggling to balance risk management for baby safety and not wanting to succumbing to fear-based medicalized childbirth. As was Dr. Ali Lewis. She has her training and professional standard of care obligations, but at the same time was not worried about me or Baby Sister. Then a moment arrived I did not think would have arrived: I was 41 weeks and 2 days and she was entering her last shift on-call at the hospital before going on vacation to Hawaii.

Finally as we’re on the cusp of making the choice to induce, and if so when, or to wait, this joke came to mind. It has always had extra significance to me due to where I grew up. I heard it as a child and it is fitting for the property of my childhood home, nestled in the Quinault River Valley and rainforest between two creeks prone to swell their banks during seasonal flooding:

There was a flood and a man holed up in his house as the waters rose around it. A rowboat came by, offering help. Oh no, thank you. I’m quite alright, the good lord will provide. The rain kept on and the flooding waters rose higher. A fire boat came by and declared evacuation of the area. Climb aboard, the rescue persons commanded. Oh no, thank you. I’m quite alright, the good lord will provide. The rain kept on and the flooding waters rose higher. The man climbed out the third story window and out onto his roof. Finally a helicopter flew over, flying low and dropping a ladder. Over the loudspeaker the pilot compelled the man to climb on and be flown to safely. Floodwaters were continuing to rise and the area would surely be swallowed. Oh no, thank you. I’m quite alright, the good lord will provide, answered the devout man.

Indeed the water rose higher and the devout man drowned. He appeared at the gates of Heaven and asked God in dismay: How come you didn’t save me? God answered, I sent a rowboat, then a fireboat, and even a helicopter.

Now we are at UWMC NW campus for induction. Our amazing doctor Ali Lewis, MD is here on her 24 hour shift, and our doula Meg is on the premises splitting her time between us, another patient, and sleep. Ali put in a Cooks catheter at 9am. That went well. It will stay in for 3-6 hours to dilate my cervix. It was still at 0.5 cm 60% effaced midline. Then plan for pit drip (+/- epidural: we will see how it goes. I have nitrous oxide for when needed), then breaking the waters… goal baby born in the window of after midnight and before 8am 🙂, in order to have the awesome birthday 2/20/20 and Dr Lewis before she goes off shift!

Thank you for the kind support !!

Golden Gardens Park is a little treasure of sandy beach in North Seattle. NanaBaba are golden grandparents. We came out for the last rays of sunshine on one of the first really brilliantly sunny days of the year. But… still bitingly cold, especially with the wind. Well, it is February! Didn’t bother Lake a bit; he had a hilarious time in spite of the cold. He was making dinner in the sand (salt, pepper and tofu), sand angels and planning for camping outside overnight. And laughing out loud the whole time!

When Nana asked him if he saw anything notable at Greenlake earlier in the day (he walked all the way around with Vivi), he replied, “of course… the lake…” Too funny! I’m glad everyone is having such a great jovial time, enjoying each other’s company during these special golden days. It’s such a gift having all the support and family around for these last days of pregnancy. Thank you for the perfect Golden evening. I’m glad I spent it with you!