Blaise got mail!

Today Blaise received her first piece of mail, which was even stamped with the words "Official Business" to make it even more impressive. While we haven't opened it yet, it's almost certainly her Social Security card. In the grand scheme of things, this is really just one of those small-but-important formalities that marks Blaise's entry into the world of bureaucracy, but I can't tell you how excited I am that the card arrived.

When Blaise was born, there was a lot of uncertainty about what might happen next and we were both pretty scared. For whatever reason, one thing I fixated on in that first day or two was all the paperwork that had her name on it. Neither one of us got to spend much time with her before she had to go to the OR and the speed with which everything happened left us in a recovery room by ourselves almost as soon as we'd been admitted. It was about the strangest feeling ever...we'd gone through a whirlwind of doctors and nurses, Erin had had surgery, we'd both met our daughter, and somehow we ended up just sitting in this room like nothing had happened. It really got to me, and so I memorized her medical record number, made about a dozen photocopies of the birth statement we got from Brigham & Women's hospital, and when they handed us the Social Security form I filled it out at light speed. A Social Security card means you're here and you're in the system. I wanted Blaise to have a record on file with someone who wasn't a doctor and who'd list her with her own name instead of "Baby Girl."

Anyhow, today we had another good day of resting and relaxing and tomorrow we'll show her her first letter and open it together. I'm not as desperate for an official marker of her existence as I was then, but I'm still excited to see the letter. In a similar vein (and since the inauguration was today), Erin's also been planning to file for our official letter from President Obama, congratulating Blaise on her arrival. Turns out all you need to do is write to the White House Greeting Office with the details of your child's birth, and they'll send along what's supposed to be a very nice letter to your baby from the President. Pretty cool, and we're both excited that she'll get her letter from Barack Obama. A friend of ours joked today that Blaise may have been born early out of sheer excitement for the inauguration ceremony (which she unfortunately had to miss, being in the NICU and all), so hopefully she'll think it's a neat thing to have when she's older.