Always looking for new collaborators, ideas and adventures

Feel free to drop a line: becky.borlan@gmail.com

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This past Saturday was Mira's birthday. We didn't really do anything too special besides sing happy birthday to her a lot. Between moving and this project I'm working on, there was no room in my brain for planning a party for a one year old. But also this milestone has brought up a lot tough feelings surrounding her birth. Nothing about it was ideal beyond the fact that we both lived (which I'm grateful for) On August 10th, I was admitted to the hospital after an ultrasound showed I had no amniotic fluid (what the baby floats around in). Tests were done, no one could really say what was going on. Towards 11pm, laying in the hospital bed, I was getting drowsy. The monitor on my belly tracking the baby's heartbeat started beeping. The heart rate was dropping. Within 30 seconds, my bed was being wheeled into the OR, Jake was left standing alone in an empty hospital room after quickly kissing me goodbye. There were at least seven or eight people scrambling around me, readying various instruments. I felt strangely calm. The last thing I remember is someone shaving my pubic hair and the gas mask being put on my face. Once I came to and was being wheeled out of the OR, a voice said, "Congratulations, it's a girl". I was surprised. I honestly wasn't sure if the baby was going to be alive. My whole body was shaking and convulsing as the anesthesia wore off. Then they started the fentanyl drip. It managed the pain, but made me think I was dying. I was convinced if I fell asleep my heart would stop. I didn't sleep for more than 10 minutes at a time for the next three days. It wasn't until almost 24 hours after the c-section that I saw the baby for the first time. It was terrifying, she was tangled in wires and had a giant breathing apparatus covering most of her face. She was so, so, tiny. 1lb 13oz. I tried to soften the blow by saying almost 2lbs! Holding her for the first time was one of the great joys in my life, and nothing like I had imagined. I had wanted a natural birth. To hold my baby immediately after being born. If someone had told me this was how birth would happen for me, I wouldn't have believed I could do it. -Continued in comments-
Controlled Chaos
For everyone that asked about the shapes on my stories the other day-they were for a scale model of a suspended sculpture I’m making for an elementary school in DC. Going up in the stairwell of a two-story library. Though maybe I need to make some smaller home versions too?
Today was terrible so I started this painting. Not done yet, so I still might ruin it 💁🏻‍♀️