Day 2 - Little arm up by her head. I now know why the hospital-given top given to babies has arms that are at least 3 inches longer than their arms - so that they don't scratch themselves.

This little girl with the Asian features is incredible. Just to give you an idea - today she learned how to cry very loudly; she gave us a tiny little smile for the first time; she learned how to nurse with Michelle lying on her side; she had her ears tested (one of which passed, the other of which failed - apparently 25% of babies fail a hearing test, most often due to accumulated fluids in their ears); she had blood drawn for the third time (they're given a pin prick in the heel of their feet and their blood is usually blotted onto a piece of paper rather than collected in a vial, given the tiny quantities they want to extract).

On the personal side: Michelle spends hours staring at her little girl. We slept 4 hours last night - in a row - and were excited at the precedent Lian was setting, until we found out that in fact the baby is feeding off of intestinal reserves for the first 24 hours!

I slept this afternoon for an hour and a half - Michelle just lay next to her baby. Today, she put on her clothes for the first time, and looks as if she were now 4 months pregnant again. Her uterus has contracted, but apparently takes an equivalent 9 months to return to its initial size. We've learned that little Lian has a great suck, but as with most babies, falls asleep quickly and often while nursing. She'll latch on, draw two or three times, and then fall promptly asleep. What will wake her is a tickle on her back or on the soles of her feet or a squeeze of the breast to pump some colostrum (clear liquid exuded for the first 2-5 days before mom acquires her alluring bovine characteristics) down into her and stimulate her.

In another half hour, we'll be treated to a sparkling cider and filet mignon and cornish game hen meal by candlelight in our hospital room. A celebratory meal offered by the birthing center - truly magnificent in its service. I was talking to my father today who reminded me that when my mother gave birth in NYC in 1969: dad was not allowed to stay with her in the hospital; mom was not allowed to sleep in the same room as me; and there were no meals provided to dad. In our birthing center in SF today, there are posters in every room touting the benefit of rooming-in with your child (trying to cut costs on wet nurse staffing?!).

And as I think about the picture above of my little daughter, I pause at my keyboard, imagining her delicous undescribable smell as I hold in my hands (not my arms, since she still fits into my two hands!), her little cry as her lips shake with her little guttural cry, and the sucking sound of her mouth as she pulls the life-giving colostrum out of Michelle's tender breasts.

So let me leave you with a quote from Yeats that I found, and which captures the learning Michelle and I have just begun and that we will continue to stoke day-by-day:
"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." Lian is the spark that has lit that fire for us, and she is at the same time the tinder and cordwood that will keep it burning beneath us and for us. In return, we will continue to feed it and to nourish it so that we may all roar our way through this beautiful life together.