I forget so much. Here are some things I know I will forget if I don't write them down:

I liked being in the hospital. I liked my delivery nurse. She was a drill instructor. When I pushed my hardest, she made me push harder. In my head, I heard the voice of my personal trainer, barking that clipped "C'mon!"

The Bug came out at about 9:20 a.m. That night was the first time he peed on me. I was so perplexed by it all that I called the nurse. She showed me where the changes of clothes and padding were. I secretly hoped she'd change his clothes for me, but she didn't. She just told me, kindly, that I wouldn't break him, and left. So I told him, the first of many times, that we would have to figure it out together, and after a struggle, he was clean and dry and dressed.

I never had to change a meconium diaper. Back then, I dreaded the poop. After you have a kid, bodily fluids are par for the course. You're vomited or peed or pooed on at least once a day. You pick out boogers and go through spit rags like Kleenex. It's how I imagine a BDSM relationship must be after ten or twenty years: the kinks are loving but ho-hum. Anyway, I had so much help from Mister Aran's family that all the meconium was taken care of. I've more than made up for that since then, but I am thankful to this day.

The epidural wore off slowly. Mid-afternoon, I still didn't need to pee. A nurse came in and rushed me to the bathroom, even though I explained that I really didn't have to go. Once on the toilet, though, I peed longer than Austin Powers. I was astonished. I thought it would never end. I nearly overflowed the toilet. I didn't know I had that much capacity.

I sent The Bug to the nursery both nights. The first night, I struggled and struggled, and he wept and wept. I had never been so tired and achey, so I finally gave up and called to have him taken away. Then, it was so quiet. I could hear the nurses on the phone outside, and the wheels of carts, and the cries of babies far down the hall. I heard The Bug's, too. It took all my will to stay in bed, and not run down and grab him. I adjusted the bed fourteen times, placed pillows here and there, turned over and over, tried laying on my stomach for the first time in months. Nothing worked. I might have slept an hour. Finally, finally, they brought him back to me, wrapped tight and hungry. I sat in the chair and nursed him while the sun came up, this vast relief washing over me with the light. I felt like I'd sent a limb to the nursery for the night. Until the day before, he'd been a part of my body, after all. I told him all about the sun, and how it works with the earth, and I showed him the hills and trees out the window, though it was all very fuzzy to him, then. Mister Aran came in at around 6:00 a.m., and held The Bug in the chair, and they were so gorgeous together that I snapped a few thousand pictures. Then I fell asleep.

The second night, I sent him before the struggle began. I changed him, wrapped him the best I could, fed and rocked him, and when he fell asleep, I called the nursery. When they came to get him, I felt like a very good girl, but nobody congratulated me. I spent the night, as I had the night before, visualizing the RN's out on their smoke breaks, talking about what an awful mother I was, sending away her newborn. I got a little more sleep that night, but not much.

They brought him back to me at 5:00 a.m. He'd slept for five hours. He forgot how, after that, because he didn't do it again until about a month ago. He'd picked a bad night to do that, because it was the night my milk came in. My breasts were straining against my skin, trying to escape. My nipples were pulled so tight that they were flat, and The Bug couldn't get a latch. It hurt so bad that I cried. I took numerous hot showers and put hot packs on. It didn't go away until a couple nights after I went home. I put cabbage leaves in my shirt for short periods of time, and they shrank.

His nose took a day or so to take its true shape. It had been smashed on his way out. His lips were off-kilter, too, and there was a Star Trekkian V-shaped dent in his skull. He had gorilla hair all over his back and shoulders.

He nursed right away, while I was still all banged up in the delivery room. He has always been very good at eating. It only took him a few tries to figure out the spoon, too, though when he tries to hold it, the food goes onto his forehead.