First Days

We spent almost 48 hours in the hospital after Tallulah's birth. Felicity had previously tested positive for Strep B, so she required an antibiotic IV in the birthing suite. Unfortunately, her quick labor did not allow the necessary four hours the drugs needed to be effective. No emergencies, but the physicians wanted to watch over Lula to ensure no infections were present.

This simply meant we stayed in a full-care, catered hotel room whose location was in a hospital. The ridiculous amounts of snow outside further encouraged us to stay and order in. Despite an uncomfortable "sleeper" couch, (awful and misleading name,) we were cozy and all was well. Our only problem was poop. Or, lack thereof.

The meconium, the tar-like first stool lining a newborns gastric tract, had yet to appear. Twenty-four hours came and went. Then thirty-six. No poo. Normally, I'd be fine with an absence of baby crap, but this was beginning to worry us. By the middle of the third day of our stay, our pediatrician called in a surgeon to scope the poop, as it were. She arrived, calmly applied KY to the end of a Q-tip, and, well, did what surgeons do: poke around.

The term "Hershey's geyser" comes to mind. Yet for all the reactions I've had to other people's children, and their doting over waste products, I was somehow elated. Nor have I yet run in the opposite direction of my child's cries, as I've done with other banshee-babies. I remain a mystery to myself. As Whitman wrote, "I contradict myself. Very well. I contradict myself. I am vast. I contain multitudes."

We left the hospital on the 23rd of December, elated and ready to show the world our perfect, pooping child. Then, we discovered that we knew very little about what our little girl could do. I can just imagine her saying to herself, "What do I have to do to get these people to look in my diaper?" or "Can't you distinguish cries for hunger from the need to burp? Get with it!". Well, I can now.

Our super-doula Anna, came by today. She, like us does not celebrate Christmas, and so we had a nice little meeting discussing the finer points of breast feeding, swaddling, and the safest way to shake your baby. Yes, I said "shake the baby." (I enjoy crafting words into sentences which make some blanch if taken in the wrong context. ) All these calming techniques were miracles to new parents just learning how to cope with behaviors we certainly displayed as infants ourselves.

Armed with this info, Felicity, even in her tired state, feels so much more confident with our girl's feeding schedule. I have a penchant for swaddling. "Back in the swaddle, again..." I sing to my daughter as she becomes a human burrito. "Prepare the Korova Bomb Squad" I call to Felice when Lula exhibits rooting behavior.

The names have begun, in earnest: Lula Cady, Lu-Berry, Chicken (?), Chirping Biscuit (her Indian name, as she chirps when satisfied,) and Tallulah Butterdonkey, as in "Tallulah's great, but her donkey..!" This might require a longer explanation than normal attention or interest demands, as do, I suppose, most family maxims and nicknames.

We are, on this Christmas, full to overflowing with pride, love, and joy. These are gifts I wish upon all our friends and readers of this blog during the holidays. May you all find moments which are filled with all three.

Jubilantly,

Bradley, Felicity, & Tallulah

The Wonderful and the Sublime

I have only been alive for thirty-eight years. My wife, a few less. But in our short lives few things can compare to the endurance, the sheer physical trial, and the elation of a natural childbirth.

Felicity and I discovered she was pregnant almost immediately upon our return from Spain. It seems we conceived under the shadow of the Alhambra. The fecundity of the region spilled over into our lives in more ways than one.

When we arrived back in the States, we landed in Raleigh-Durham to visit with my parents, Stephen & Carol. While strolling in Chapel Hill we both happened to notice, across the street, the signboard of a local shop; Tallulah's. We both did double-takes. Then turning to each other, uttering the same words almost simultaneously, we said that was a fantastic name for a child, should we ever have a baby girl. We did not know then that we were to have a baby girl in December.

Fast forward: birthing classes with the renown doula, Penny Simkin (www.pennysimkin.com)

A woman with decades of natural and assisted birthing experience, having attended hundreds of births, now aids women and their partners in understanding the complexities of this miraculous process. Felicity and I took her class, were more than favorably impressed, and walked away with a wealth of knowledge. Had we not taken that eight week course, I would have been lost in the murky depths of my wife's incredible labor.

We opted to hire a doula, one Anna Rourke (www.breathwise.com) to assist us both in our decision to bring our daughter to term naturally. And again, what a difference that made.

Felice's labor was quick, by any standards. She went into labor at four pm on the Winter Solstice. Just one day past our due date. Though we had been hoping labor might arrive on this auspicious date, we had no idea what nature had in store. Her labor started quickly, with intense contractions lasting almost two minutes at times, only a minute or two apart. Normally a woman's labor progresses evenly, allowing for a bit of momentum to be gathered and the woman to acclimatize . But hers fell like the heavy snowfall that had turned Seattle into a thickly blanketed frozen tableau.

Knowing the forecast called for almost eight inches of snow, we made sure friends with adequate transportation were standing by. Thank god for Gary and Heather, and their 4x4. By five pm, we were at the birthing center triage who informed us Felicity's cervix had dilated to 9.5cm. One begins to push at 10.

Thus began what I can only describe as the most heroic ballet of pain and collaboration I have ever witnessed. Anna met us at the hospital and guided Felice through a two hour progression, masterfully anticipating contractions, fear, anxiety, and pain. By seven o five, our daughter Tallulah Cadence McDevitt had arrived.

No crying, no frantic search, or panic. Lula was placed on her mother's breast, took her new lung's first breaths, and opened her steel blue eyes to her parent's gaze. Simply magical how the new child knows more about what to do and where to go than we, limpid, afraid adults do after so much experience.

I looked into the eyes of my daughter though glazes of tears, my wife's body involuntarily shaking with surges of adrenaline, and fell deeply in love. No other cloudy emotions to wonder about, or concerns to muddy our presence. Just pure awakeness. Pure being and there-ness. I have no other words to describe it.

Vignettes and Images of Spain

Rear View Mirror: Reminiscences on Andalusia

-An early morning in Seville. As my darling wife slips back to sleep, I stroll down the stairs into the street. The sky is an intense electric blue. I take a new direction through unfamiliar alleys towards the gardens promised on the map. I detour towards a cafe near the garden's entrance. Inside are four well dressed middle aged Spaniards, each with toastadas and cafe con leche. The waiter is tall, elegant, and efficient in movements as in speech. He comes to me. "Digame" he says. "Talk to me." I order my tostada, my coffee. He nods and is off to work. As he makes the order, the other waiter walks by with a large bowl full of freshly washed cockles, still in shells. When my waiter brings the toast, he presents it like a bull fighting torreador, his free hand gesturing in a subtle wave of pride. It is delicious.

-We dine on paella, sip tinto de verano, watch the people walk by. It is a reverse sort of sight seeing, waiting for the sights to arrive rather than seeking them on foot. It is how I prefer to see a city. To wander until you find the right spot for the city to wander past. Here, in the shade of newly leafed trees we lingered at our table. Our adolescent server, between his duties, flirted with friends hovering on the polite outskirts of the courtyard. The day grew hotter. It is Spring, after all.


-Salobrena: A city by the sea. Less than an hour's drive from Granada, the Mediterranean coast holds this hilltop town in it's green plain palm. The castle at its peak is the golden apple we enter the maze of streets to find. This Moorish outpost served as a garrison to the Alhambra; a sort of pre-lookout in the early days of Iberian Homeland Security. The Moors, it seems, had some enemies. If the town's buildings and roads had been in place when the castle's original occupants were alive, no one could have ever found their way up to the walls for siege. We made a few erroneous turns before we were able to visit what we dubed "the Alahambrita". The view, a 360 degree panorama of the Spanish foothills and Mediterranean coast, enjoyed our mostly silent regards.

...more to come...

In Which Team Pants Circumnavigates An Itinerary

Ole, Seville!

We are back to the United States. Currently we lounge in respective comforts at Soggy Acres, the name of my parent's property in North Carolina. We chose to break up our international travel with stops in Durham allowing us to adjust to time changes and process our journey. I believe we chose wisely. Plus, they have a hot tub.

Our last post found us in Granada, pleasantly enjoying the provincial hospitality of our expatriate friends' villa. From there we took the high speed train across the Andalusian plains towards Seville. Upon arrival we made haste to our pension, located in the heart of the old city. After checking in with an adorable and ancient senor who had the high voice of an old woman, we made our way to more foods and thence to the cathedral.

I must find a way to encapsulate the sights and sounds of our travels in a more efficient way than this, for to simply write full sentences and paragraphs skips over so many impressions we gathered. I believe the next post will be just that; a cavalcade of vignettes and impressions, peppered by photographs.

The cathedral surprised us, glimpsing over rooftops as we winded through the bottleneck streets at night. Its height watched us walk the cobblestones between the close walls. When we at last flowed out into the main plaza before it's grandeur we were welcomed by the sounds of a virtuosic classical guitarist. The instrument played off the ancient walls and the monuments. In a mist of natural reverberation and ghosts we strolled away and back again, unable to leave the aural enchantment. We bought his CD. http://www.torkematik.com

I think I could live here, but it would require some frequent visits to the Mediterranean coast, and most certainly to Morocco. Ever since reading Paul Bowles and falling in love with his prose in high school I have wished to travel to North Africa. It is the Moorish influences that attract me most to this part of Europe. I have little in common with Spanish machismo or the fiery passions germane to its natives. I prefer open spaces. I prefer contemplative vistas or complex and graceful architecture. I prefer more fresh vegetables. But to feel the power of this land's antiquity and the relaxing breath of el viento viejo, I yearn to stay.

The morning light is magical. Low, intense, gold and deep saffrons are splashed on everything making the surfaces glow and glimmer. Shadows are long and black. The air is cool, even damp. Breezes are mustered and bother along the streets like sleepless revelers. We take it in and breathe it out. I wish the whole day were morning.


But the days are long and morning only their start. We have learned to ride the ebb of the day's heat during the siesta and plan our days around it's surcease. Upon rising for the second time of the day we feel renewed and as though we have a second morning to explore. A fantastic pace that refreshes and slows our sense of time's passage.

Time is an illusion, siesta doubly so, to paraphrase Douglas Adams. We must press on. We depart Seville early early on a Monday morning. We return to Amsterdam.

In Which Team Pants Visits the Alhambra

The Alhambra...

Sure, you say...you saw the biggest tourist trap in the city. Sure. We've all been. We know.

But, well...ok. then just look at some photos...how 'bout it?






I'm pleased. Took over 200 photos. These are a few of the good ones.


con amore,

Bradley