One year ago today

We were sitting in Magee Women's hospital, very excited, very humbled, and very tired. We checked in at roughly 7 p.m. the previous night and Val did an amazing job through a trying labor that lasted until 9:34 a.m. Of course we were excited to finally have Henry here, but it was quite intimidating to hold your first child not really knowing what to do with him. He was very sleepy that first day and mostly slept after he ate and was swaddled. I think we'll elaborate more on that day later, but we marked today by opening a couple presents and thinking about how far we've come in one year. He's a pretty amazing little boy and I'm sure we'll be astounded at how far we've come by this time next year. Happy Birthday, Henry Leo.

Birthday boy!

Due date

One year ago today was Henry's due date. Astute readers will also recognize November 10th as the birthday of the Marine Corps, which made Adam hope the little guy would show up right on time. But alas, that was not the case. We reported to my forty-week appointment with the midwives only to learn that Henry was showing no indication of wanting to be born. So, we went home and then out to dinner. Then we came home to a very sick dog, who got progressively sicker as the week went on and landed herself in surgery on Friday night - just as I started having contractions. Her timing is impeccable.

Adam has been nudging me to get some semblance of a "birth story" down in writing before we both forget some of the finer details. Henry's first birthday seems as good an occasion as any to get it started, so we'll work on it this week.

Until then, we'll be enjoying our last week with an "almost one-year-old" baby boy...

Pittsburgh

We were out to dinner last night with my boss and a prospective new hire, so we were doing a little convincing of why he should relocate from the Southwest to Pittsburgh. As we talked about why we chose Pittsburgh and what has made us happy to stay here, I didn't view it as a sell job at all. Hopefully our sincerity was obvious, because we have lived in Pittsburgh for four years now and we have no intentions of leaving anytime soon.

Four years and a month ago, we had just returned from the Peace Corps and wanted/needed a place to settle down and stop being transient for awhile. We didn't have jobs, we weren't accepted into grad school and we had never darkened the door of Pittsburgh, but we made an appointment with a realtor and drove West. Much like others who haven't been here, we had visions of a run-down Steel town with not much going for it. We read statistics about how it has such a large aging population and wondered if it might not be a place for young-ish people like us. After two days of looking at houses, we put an offer down on a house (and got a loan thanks to all those high risk no-income loans that haven't worked out well universally) and moved the wagon here a few weeks later.

I could go on and on about why we like the city, but many of my reasons have to do with our points of reference, which may not resonate with others. For example, it's not as crowded or as hot in the summer as D.C. It's not as hot or full of garbage in the streets as Mauritania. It's not as cold and grey as Rochester, even though Pittsburghers want to claim it is. It's got more character and common folk than San Diego. Plus it's got three professional sports teams. Well, two and a half anyway, with that half being a great place to watch other teams play baseball.

Lest this post have nothing to do with Sir Henry, one thing that we think is pretty cool is that Henry will be FROM here as long as we stay here. After having lived so many places in so many years, we don't really feel like we're from anywhere anymore. But we'd like to think he'll grow up with an appreciation of all this city has to offer and claim to be a "yinzer" with pride. He did go to a Steelers and Penguins game in utero, so I think he pretty much bleeds black and gold...