tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58273246006565951002024-02-19T20:39:27.558-05:00babythegreat.comFrom infertility to adoption to an unexpected, bottom of the ninth pregnancy, I've tracked my sometimes painful often times hilarious quest to become a mother. The journey just keeps going, so I decided my blog should too...Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger53125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827324600656595100.post-18772225295951415022016-02-10T14:29:00.000-05:002016-02-11T07:24:05.373-05:00Angels and Ass-headsThis morning Delaney, now 7, came into my bathroom and sat on the floor at my feet while I put on my wrinkle-deterring, brown-spot fighting, antioxidant serum(s).<br />
<br />
"Mommy, a boy in my grade stuck out his middle finger at another boy in line yesterday. He got in big trouble for it. Then he lied about it and said he didn't do it."<br />
<br />
Middle finger. Here we go. Back to that mysterious F-word that we danced around over Christmas break. The one Ralphie says but doesn't say in A Christmas Story. She hammered me about that word for days.<br />
<br />
The laissez-faire, free-styling mom in me considered telling her the word, writing it down for her, telling her what it means and why it's considered, impolite, naughty, and obscene. It's just a word. Take the power out of the word by defining it and you get to be the one to explain it to her, whispered beaded, bed-headed hippie mom angel sitting on my left shoulder, smoking a cigarette and reclining in a beach chair.<br />
<br />
Shut up, she's seven, retorted over-involved, anxious, type A mom angel parked on my right. She'll hear that word soon enough and every day, not to mention use it herself in the future with the same gusto that you do. Possibly (probably) even directed at you. Give yourself some time. Protect her innocence a few more days, months, years if you can. Besides you don't want to be the mom of that kid who uses the word "fuck" on the playground and then explains what it means to all the other kids.
<br />
<br />
Do I?<br />
<br />
I waited to see what was expected of me, because I've been known to over-explain the answer to a question and get myself into deeper water than was ever necessary if I'd just kept it simple. But sure enough, Delaney's next statement was a question. "What does it mean when you point your middle finger at someone?"<br />
<br />
"It's a very rude sign," I explained. "It's like calling someone a very bad name." But of course it's not enough this time. "What name? What are you calling them with your finger?"<br />
<br />
"It's sort of like telling them to go away from you in the meanest way possible and using a very mean name to do it," I told her. "Like telling someone to shut up and get away, but in a really rude way. A really naughty way." I went back to my mirror, with one eye on her watching the wheels turning.<br />
<br />
"Ass? Does it mean ass?" she asked me, clearly thinking that ass was the very worst thing you could think of to call someone. At this point, right shoulder, type-A helicopter-mom angel patted me comfortingly on the back and I knew I desperately wanted Delaney to stay in this place, this moment, just a fraction longer. I wanted to protect this world, this fairy-propelled, sheltered and and uber-sweet world where the word ass is by far the lowest insult you can give someone, an affront generating the severest of punishments and clearly something only rough boys and anxious, high-strung movie characters would dare say out loud.<br />
<br />
"Well, it doesn't quite mean ass," I told her. "It's even worse than ass, but just as rude. Even ruder. And certainly something no one should ever do or say to another person, especially in school." At this point hippie, easy-going mom angel pokes me in the side and says Really? Jesus, just tell her what the word is and what it means and that the finger symbol should never be used, ever. She's not a dummy. She won't want to get in trouble. Now you're just dancing around it. Now she's going to ask and find out from someone else.<br />
<br />
I look down now at Delaney and she looks back at me, deep in thought. And then I see the light go on, like an Edison bulb over her head beaming out at me. A knowing, years-older smile creeps over her mouth and she looks at me like we have a little secret, she and I. "I know what it means, Mama. I know what the finger means." and she looks around furtively for her little sister. I realize that Delaney is probably being kicked by her own little angel that lives on her shoulder and advises her on whether she should protect Alice or tell on her, she's got it coming. Making sure the coast is clear, she stage whispers to me "It means Get Out Of Here, You Ass-head, doesn't it?" And she looks up at me confidently, her expression so sure she has solved that grown-up mystery and can be initiated into the club.<br />
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"That's pretty much what it means," I told her, leaning into the mirror and focusing so she won't see my choking-laugh-into-smile face. I have to say it out loud, to make sure I'll remember it. "Get Out Of Here You Ass-Head. It's certainly not very nice is it?" "It's not," she agreed. "I would never do that."<br />
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I know that sometime, somewhere, someone will flip their finger in Delaney's vicinity and she will proudly proclaim that she knows what that terrible gesture means. And I know that her definition will eventually be challenged and it's possible she will even be made fun of for it. I can only hope that if this happens, that she will loudly and clearly tell that Ass-Head to Get Out Of Here. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827324600656595100.post-40459103911180007352011-01-08T20:27:00.003-05:002011-01-08T21:07:36.707-05:00Gravy.My last post was about being sick. And when I wrote that post I was sick. And it felt like constantly. My nose was a fountain, and if it wasn't running it was stopped up like a clogged sink. I felt achey and "off" but slogged through my workouts and routines with my coughing snotty-nosed daughter in tow, hoping the season would pass soon. <br /><br />Then I realized, right at the beginning of a really intense yoga class, and by intense I mean hard, difficult, hold-the-pose until sweat is running down your chin and your shoulders are shaking class, that I hadn't gotten my period yet. I began counting back days while I ground through my sun salutations and found I couldn't dig into the class the way I like to. Was I late? When was my last period? I couldn't be pregnant. But what if I were? I have fertility issues. Don't I? Was I torquing a little embryo out of position at this very moment with my extended triangle pose? I bailed out on the class. My head was out of the game.<br /><br />I picked up Delaney from the child care center at the Y and zoomed across the street to the Publix where I picked up stir-fry veggies for dinner and a pregnancy test. At home, I plopped Delaney in front of her alphabet puzzle and in a state of anxiety, went to pee on the stick. Didn't even have to wait the requisite two minutes. That plus sign lit up like a Christmas tree and confirmed my little embryo in there hanging on throughout my yoga class. <br /><br />So miraculously, incredibly, unbelievably, I am pregnant again at the ripe old age of 41, to turn 42 later this month. Now that I have been to the doctor and gone through all of the tests and am assured that I am fine and the baby is fine, I feel comfortable writing about it. I'm nicknaming this one Gravy, because that's what it is. Unexpected, unnecessary even, in that I feel/felt so complete with Delaney and Justin. But oh so welcome, oh so sweet, and the perfect ingredient to spice things up, now that I am feeling comfortable, and confident physically, financially, and emotionally. I love a well-timed a curve ball. Well-played, little Gravy.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827324600656595100.post-9777207485552167092010-10-25T08:48:00.004-04:002010-11-07T21:14:56.067-05:00In Sickness and in HealthIt's no secret that children are mobile germ recruiting centers, I was very fortunate (or sheltered?) in the first year of Delaney's life to experience very few illnesses with her. She seemed resilient and superhuman while around me babies were sniffling and hacking, spiking high fevers and emptying out their stomachs on whatever was closest. <br /><br />The second year however, has seen a dramatic shift in the health pattern. More hours spent at the Y day care while mommy works out? The start of preschool? Nature's way of catching up? Who can say. But for a while I began to feel like a dry area under her nose was the exception rather than the rule. They can't blow their nose at this age, no matter how many times I make like a circus clown and blow a pretend trumpet blast out of my own nose into a tissue to demonstrate. Delaney will gamely hold the tissue to her nose and blow out of her mouth in an Ffff sound, like she does for her soup. Often asking "Mommy, hot?" about the tissue I've given her. <br /><br />I have a friend who is her child's own personal Neti pot. She lays her daughter on her back while blowing hard into one nostril, forcing the congestion out of the other. It's impressive, but not my scene, man. It feels a little too National Geographic for me. I usually end up pulling out the bulb syringe sent home with me from the hospital when she was an infant. Or as I have named it, after witnessing it's beauty in action - The Snotsucker. Delaney doesn't really like the Snotsucker, but she doesn't hate it either. Sometimes she'll actually lean into it to help me drag out the green noodles that are clogging her breathing. I like to think we're a team when she's like this, battling the illnesses that seem to hit kids weekly at certain times of the year. The Snotsucker makes her cough and sputter, but she does breathe better after it's used and I believe her little two year-old brain reluctantly admits that the thing works. Plus she's seen her buddy undergo the National Geographic method and that she has lesser of two evils by her own calculations.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827324600656595100.post-18448435073071698262010-08-25T14:45:00.007-04:002010-08-25T21:13:46.242-04:00Mark Twain!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicFwYaVwIYsPTWM4YVxHIr8m-pFKOc58zaa2yqUSszsB25XgITIMXWBWAvDuWSE6i5ND60rob54a9pZ2B8jH9_d3hbYOSKSK0_W7k89nHShyRsY1gkv9c9FSNUEfItTtNXOR4mw9HQVdwD/s1600/IMG_2514.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicFwYaVwIYsPTWM4YVxHIr8m-pFKOc58zaa2yqUSszsB25XgITIMXWBWAvDuWSE6i5ND60rob54a9pZ2B8jH9_d3hbYOSKSK0_W7k89nHShyRsY1gkv9c9FSNUEfItTtNXOR4mw9HQVdwD/s320/IMG_2514.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5509516796829360610" /></a><br />Summer is almost over and my little Bean approaches the two year mark. Makes me wanna shout "Mark Twain!" just for the sake of where we live and where she is. We have been to France and Florida and will probably head to Philadelphia before the year is out. A very alliterative travel year. As she grows and develops, I get to watch her personality unfold more and more each day. I still marvel every day that I made a person. I still look at pregnant women with awe and respect -"Oh, you're making one too." The day to day process of just keeping her alive, which is how I looked at her infancy through the first year, is over and now I have to take a harder look and figure out how to make her into a whole being, well-balanced, compassionate, intelligent and of course, fun.<br /><br />Because at her age, with her personality flexing and growing like a tomato vine in June, she is the most fun thing I've ever been around. She laughs at anything and like most children, it's a highly contagious sound. Music, water, champagne - all the metaphors are accurate and you want to hear it again and again. I'm hoping that in addition to a few lessons about danger when she gets too near knives and high places, right now we can just concentrate on having fun, learning how to share and draw with crayons and run fast and wash our hands and get dirty. Everything she touches, views, and experiences is for her a new way to have fun and it's written all over her face as it's happening, as she's experiencing it. There is no hopeful tomorrow, or sorrowed past. It's all right here, right now and let's have the most fun doing it. In fact, let's sing while we're doing it. Loudly.<br /><br />So what I'm saying in an obvious, connect the dots kinda way, is the lesson is mine too. As usual, I am learning more from this child, than I feel like I am teaching her. How to be present, how to have fun doing nothing and everything, and how to forget about the past and not worry about the future. My own little pint-sized Eckhart Tolle with diapers and an attitude extolling the power of now before she can form a complete sentence. <br /><br />It's a self-indulgent post this one - well, aren't they all? But there's a line in the movie The Natural where Robert Redford, says to his old lover, "God, I love baseball." It's after so many rotten things have happened to him and he's almost to old to be a player anymore. But he says it so convincingly, so simply, so beautifully, that you see how all the bad things can fall away and you have just this pure, unpolluted love of the game. That's how I feel about motherhood two years down the line. I don't think about the infertility or the adoption or the wacky pregnancy diagnoses anymore. I just love being a mother. Mark Twain!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827324600656595100.post-22023044596111941692010-04-10T13:14:00.005-04:002010-04-10T13:27:15.616-04:00Salad Bowl<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTDfYE9xi00UV4dSMLuvhCBAkQq89Q_eHLPVu0ZlGw-3v6O1z1iktcIyXDrXVxgyAWPJejJj1qTeRWzmxfde5x_ZuPyP5QEVJLLaWNg47U8o7AnWjx1qbcRDu0HagRK-bmVpNHRywjjUP3/s1600/IMG_1948.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTDfYE9xi00UV4dSMLuvhCBAkQq89Q_eHLPVu0ZlGw-3v6O1z1iktcIyXDrXVxgyAWPJejJj1qTeRWzmxfde5x_ZuPyP5QEVJLLaWNg47U8o7AnWjx1qbcRDu0HagRK-bmVpNHRywjjUP3/s320/IMG_1948.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5458561384923654194" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpltm6pqzcCN3lE86kpeItcpD3vEeKKjx67_bcaNt15GgMO2E_KnNhW01NewnHWpaE5fl9Oz1kwGmp6xXaaSOIizB9_BUzen-y75OwuDFkhti_ZctMazk0WKjDXxMbyw4nmJxEu_7wWxgu/s1600/IMG_1845.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpltm6pqzcCN3lE86kpeItcpD3vEeKKjx67_bcaNt15GgMO2E_KnNhW01NewnHWpaE5fl9Oz1kwGmp6xXaaSOIizB9_BUzen-y75OwuDFkhti_ZctMazk0WKjDXxMbyw4nmJxEu_7wWxgu/s320/IMG_1845.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5458561374051133714" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgv8GJSdC3WQbl8noWCTElb6mVvOf1EjmUY6zrSGJqFMFurlJM7T50akdOkqsOQKJn1xPCnkqIR_2OGsP6rmf9rkPYrltFPezTd39y7kGgqynPqZsW7ZPkuZswpqz-rWVtGNrd39-qIrIu/s1600/IMG_1690.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgv8GJSdC3WQbl8noWCTElb6mVvOf1EjmUY6zrSGJqFMFurlJM7T50akdOkqsOQKJn1xPCnkqIR_2OGsP6rmf9rkPYrltFPezTd39y7kGgqynPqZsW7ZPkuZswpqz-rWVtGNrd39-qIrIu/s320/IMG_1690.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5458560231966805666" /></a><br />No matter how I cut it, it always looks like the classic bowl style. Now I understand why so many kids sported this do. I've wrestled with barrettes, pins, elastics and headbands. They either get pulled out or slide out on their own, only to disappear forever. The funny part is, Delaney has a natural little lift in her hair that really makes it look like more bowl-ish than other children. Like my own straight and stringy, I've decided not to fight it. Here she is giving away the secret anyway.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827324600656595100.post-91560220405176283222010-04-08T15:00:00.003-04:002010-04-08T15:23:35.912-04:00Mother's Little HelperI used to love wine. I loved to shop for it, weigh my options, discuss the different qualities of a particular vineyard or country with my friends, my husband, the wine merchant. In New York, Justin and I hosted fabulous (if I do say so myself) wine tastings where we hid labels and compared grapes and regions and ate wine-loving food to compliment the whole experience. I own large, heavy books about wine and I even have a certificate from the French Culinary Institute where I took a seminar on wine. Well, that's not completely true. I volunteered to empty the spit buckets and pour the wine out for the people who paid to take the class. But in exchange, I got to attend the class, taste the wine and get the same certificate the spit or swallowers did. For free! What price the love of wine?<br /><br />I still like wine a lot, but we have a different relationship now. I need wine now. I'm not saying I have a problem or anything. I just really, REALLY look forward to my glass(es) of wine every night after I put Delaney to bed. And when I say look forward, I mean I am watching the clock, wondering if I can sip on a glass while I watch her take a bath. I could lie and say I use plastic, but I'm not that depraved yet.<br /><br />And now, because she goes to the grocery store with me, there's no perusing the labels, pondering the varietals, talking shop with the suppliers. I've got Little Miss Grabby Hands in the buggy, reaching out at the teetering towers of Tempranillo as we roll past, a fraction away from creating a world class catastrophe in the wine aisle. I've got to grab my stash and run. The upside is I've come home with some lovelies I never would have chosen had I not been on a mad dash to escape disaster. Stuff I just threw on top of the broccoli and oatmeal and hoped for the best. And of course the opposite is true as I've come home with some real stinkers, that I gamely swallow down because I can't just pour it down the drain. That would mean I'd have to brave the wine aisle with her again that much sooner. And brave it I will to restock my supply.<br /><br />What can I say? I don't smoke pot or take valium or practice yoga for that matter. I may not Love it as much as I used to, but with a toddler, I sure do appreciate it more and isn't that the groundwork for all good relationships?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827324600656595100.post-39615102903324834362010-02-12T13:04:00.013-05:002010-02-13T19:47:40.033-05:00Double Down<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxkf6clbnzL0-p5kXLpDayZLwsBbWExMJtTZfpYs2Zd5_M3ysyofmxQ0R3_Orb6ZiiT_Sds6_diu-UrNtRG9fEXK4Rv41-3_7HH3NsDEKUP_StuuisU1mpACNBQWADN8kO2GcdAkY1VhGU/s1600-h/IMG_2033.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxkf6clbnzL0-p5kXLpDayZLwsBbWExMJtTZfpYs2Zd5_M3ysyofmxQ0R3_Orb6ZiiT_Sds6_diu-UrNtRG9fEXK4Rv41-3_7HH3NsDEKUP_StuuisU1mpACNBQWADN8kO2GcdAkY1VhGU/s320/IMG_2033.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5437448040718403538" /></a><br />I am fortunate in many ways, but sometimes the pattern of my life is downright karmically charged. Serendipitous if you will. <br /><br />With Delaney's arrival, Justin and I had to eventually make a choice whether to keep our name in the hat so to speak for our original China adoption ( see 2007 archives) or call it a day and officially pull out (pun intended!) of the process. We received another bill from our adoption agency recently for $1800 dollars which would allow us to stay in the program and I presume enable them to keep paying their staff to send us letters about how it is still taking a long time to adopt from China. This last bill came at a particularly tight time for us and after a lengthy discussion, we decided to let it go. Let it go. I like the phrase because in my mind I picture a balloon on a string. It's so easy just to open your hand and let it go, almost a relief because the balloon is straining so hard against the string and your hand is sore from holding onto it for so long. But once it's gone that's it. You can't reclaim your released balloon and you can't jump back into the adoption process. You have to start again from the top. By sending my agency more money I was buying myself some time before a final decision had to be made, essentially letting the ballon out on longer and longer string, dragging out the decision interminably. <br /><br />To let this process go was very easy to verbalize and then do nothing, especially not sending in the check for $1800 dollars. But inside, I suffered. I have two accordion folders, red for Russia and blue for China. China's began in 2005 and Russia's in 2006. Both are packed full with paperwork, documentation, copies of documentation, receipts, instructions, years and years of work and dreams. It was hard to let go and a year and a half after Delaney's birth and our decision not to adopt, I can't quite bring myself to throw them away. One day. <br /><br />All of which bring me to the topic of serendipity and fortune that I started this entry with. Because my close friend Jennifer completed her adoption thesis after three years of hard labor and was rewarded with a beautiful Korean baby girl flown into my very own Hartsfield-Jackson airport fresh from Seoul via Chicago, via San Francisco. I got to watch the completion of an adoption in a front row seat, close enough to touch. And it was so very cathartic for me to see the baby, so frightened, so confused, and so beautiful, coming down the airport hallway and into the lives of her waiting family. I had pictured this scene for myself many times and in many different ways. I got to wonder about her birth mother with Jennifer and what she must have gone through to reach this decision. And then sympathize with Jen about Scarlett's foster mother who had loved this little one for 11 months and then let her go into a better life. Listen and speculate about the plans and fears and joys that go with parenting an adopted child that was really going to come home. <br /><br />And then poof, the three years are gone and there she is in the airport, in your arms, in your LIFE. I am doing a rotten job of describing it. But it's just extraordinary to come from a place so far away, a place filled with paper and interviews and money of course and waiting and wondering and nerves and frustration. Then it's over and there is a baby. Your baby. And in watching this union from the sidelines, I could let go of my balloon completely. It was exhilerating and cathartic and I felt like the luckiest woman in the world. Twice.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827324600656595100.post-36048180733613965572010-01-22T13:11:00.008-05:002010-01-22T20:31:20.608-05:00Shake your Groove Thang<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzYd5GTGHtgoNBsLlsY6ROElBIUTHbT8int-H5uVotlKO-7_7_Hu1giJWULjQqjgDnxGvrvu2KmL9qLbsEjPXWKGLVLruhnUBisklifjV-sH9pLuPoXesFRCqlpd8BsPyyr0WJbkLqC8J_/s1600-h/IMG_1981.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzYd5GTGHtgoNBsLlsY6ROElBIUTHbT8int-H5uVotlKO-7_7_Hu1giJWULjQqjgDnxGvrvu2KmL9qLbsEjPXWKGLVLruhnUBisklifjV-sH9pLuPoXesFRCqlpd8BsPyyr0WJbkLqC8J_/s320/IMG_1981.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5429667642535312674" /></a><br />I took Delaney to a Kindermusik Class today, our first. The class is marketed to kids ages 0 (really) through 3. It looked like most of the kids were around her age when we got there, which was a good thing. I didn't want to have the only walker in a class full of nursers. But in an effort to encourage more people to register, they are allowing people to sign up for blocks of 4 week classes instead of the standard 10 weeks. What I didn't know was that the 4 week blocks are inside the current 10 week classes. So everyone in our class was a seasoned 10 week-er and had been meeting and singing for weeks before Delaney and I, the sole newbies, arrived. Not only that, but I didn't get the download they sent via email with the songs and words and activities on it to get us up to speed. I should have called about it, but it's been busy around here.<br /><br />So we went in green as a string bean and Delaney was a little clingy at first. I'm not much of an introvert (surprise!) and I love to sing even if it's just stringing words to what I'm thinking a la Buddy the Elf ("I'm heeere with my Dad and he wants me to sing him a sooong...."). As I'm trying to extract myself from Delaney's grip and beat on the drum I had been given, I noticed that Laurie the Teacher isn't having much luck getting the parents to sing along with her or after her or whatever she was asking them to do. Parents were singing in those hushy church voices so that their voice was never heard individually above anyone else's. At one point Laurie the Teacher even sang to the parents "It's alright for parents to sing la la la - lala. It shows the children that singing is fun la la la la " (Laurie sings everything a normal person would say. It's like talking to an opera star.) I always try to surreptitiously size up the parents when I go to these types of things, trying to suss out who potential mom friends might be. It doesn't look good for me in Kindermusik. Lots of turtlenecks, a grandma, a couple, and some moms way too young to remember the original Electric Company. I know, it's so superficial. Go ahead and judge me. <br /><br />I decide I may be on my own in this class and I've already paid my $64 for these four weeks. Despite my lack of song and melody knowledge, I am going to sing my head off in this class because I want Delaney to know that singing IS fun. But more than that, I don't want her to be a wallflower. So I begin to belt it out like Barbra Streisand, songs I don't know about tigers and cats and dancing and jungles. Me and Laurie the Teacher are neck and neck for volume, though she's got me beat with melody. I have no idea where I'm going there. I do sound like Buddy the Elf. Laurie the Teacher looks at me with a quizzical, but encouraging smile. But Delaney loves it. As she sees me getting groovy, she begins to loosen up and takes the tambourine from the quiet kid next to her. I make her give it back, but inside I'm pleased. No breathy singing or hiding behind the big kids for us. I'm raising an extrovert.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827324600656595100.post-22373073310766449902010-01-12T14:41:00.004-05:002010-01-13T20:42:24.619-05:00Everywhere SignsA good and wise friend clued me into teaching Delaney sign language to make it easier for us to communicate. I had seen several mothers at the YMCA uses sign language with their children and was always amazed at the ease which with both sides got their point across. Mother, signing -"Logan, come out of the pool right now." Child, also signing - "No. No. No. ". I also knew it required a lot of patience and consistency to make any headway. I am not the most consistent of people but I do love a challenge and I wanted to be able to better communicate with Delaney, as opposed to her whining and pointing and me lamely trying to supply the right answer. I must confess, I also envisioned us discussing the weather and and perhaps the subtle nuances of Big Red Barn in sign language while other mothers looked on in wonder at my gifted prodigy.<br /><br />So I bought the book and the video, because you can never get all of your information in just one form of media. I watched the specialist, Dr. Joseph Garcia, who I admit turned me off a bit at first because he's a dead ringer for Heraldo Rivera, take me through 30 minutes of why signing was the greatest thing you could ever do for your child and then 5 minutes of showing me actual signs. Lots of hippie-looking moms signed voraciously throughout the video with their young, sometimes very young children and they all happily passed the salt and looked at the airplane with an ease of communication that hooked me right in. <br /><br />I began signing the simple words first like they advise you to. At this point Deleny is about 11 months old. I made the signs for "milk" and "more" first and waited and watched for any sort of flickering hand movement to tell me she is getting it. When she made her first sign, which was "more", I was on the phone with my father and nearly deafened him. "She signed! She signed for more! Did you see that?" Which of course he didn't because we were speaking on the phone. I poured the entire box of cheerios on her tray, signing more, more, more, while I was doing so. She may have thought I was crazy, but she did look quite pleased with herself. Of course that could have been because of the the amount of cheerios I had suddenly dumped on her.<br /><br />After that we learned a few more signs - milk, eat, ouch. It got a bit tricky here because a lot of these signs are similar. Take more and ouch for example. Very similar signs, so if you have no context you might think she is in agony, rather than simply wanting another cookie. I chose to think she was being poetic and was telling me she was hurting for more. <br /><br />At 15 months she has turned a signing corner and a new problem is arising. She rapidly picks up signs now after being shown the sign only a few times. The problem is I don't know enough signs. The "help" sign for instance. Help was incredibly hard for us. We forgo the American Sign Language standard for this word and use a Dr. Joseph Garcia substitute which he says is easier for young hands to produce. You tap your hands to your chest a few times and that's it. So simple. It took an unbelievably long time for Delaney to get it, but I kept at it, thinking if I could just get her to ask for help our problems would be solved. And one day she does it! Tap Tap Tap on her chest when her toy box is closed. I rush over tap my own chest, yell Help! Help! And open the box. We are communicating! <br /><br />Fast forward two weeks later and the child is running around my house beating her chest like King Kong at every obstacle in her path. Is it the sippy cup? Does she want the book? Is her diaper wet? I don't know! Help! Help! Help! In the grocery store, the YMCA, the library, there she is beating her chest with me shoving objects at her, trying to solve the mystery. I don't know the signs for "wait" or "patience" or "slow down". But is it better than whining and pointing? Definitely.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827324600656595100.post-29007491241809310532010-01-07T20:39:00.008-05:002010-01-07T21:44:35.263-05:00Sleeping in BootsWhen Delaney has a missed or even abbreviated nap, it's usually a precursor to a rough afternoon/evening. She had an extremely short nap today due to a bad car-to-crib transition. I stupidly tried to get her boots off before putting her down. In extricating her foot with one hand while I held her with the other arm, I pulled the sock off too and her bare pigs touched my icy cold vinyl ski jacket which caused her to twitch and moan and ultimately wake up and look at me. I spent a good half an hour trying to get her to sleep again but when she picks her head up and smiles at me with an open mouth, I know the sleep boat has sailed. <br /><br />So we're in for it now and by 4 o'clock I cave in to all sorts of verboten activities to keep her from following me around the house, arms outstretched in full blown whine mode. Sometimes I run from her when she's like this. I know it sounds cruel, but the thing is, when I pick her up when she's in this state of mind, she arches her back and pushes against me so that I almost drop her. I either have to hold her tightly so as not to let go of her or put her down, both of which piss her off royally. It's maddening. She wants comfort but won't be comforted. So we do back to back Baby Einsteins and empty the magical computer drawer (a total nightmare to clean up) and eat too many cookies and drink milk in my lap. But eventually it's all too much and I know I'm just putting off the inevitable.<br /><br />At 5 o'clock she is the monster again, crying, whining and signing to me for things she thinks she wants but then changes her mind and flings them away. There's this dilemma at 5:00 which was really there at 4:00 too, but I got past it for an hour by giving her cookies and videos. If I put her to bed now, and I know she is acting this way because she is uber-tired, I risk upsetting the whole sleep schedule and she'll be up at 5:00 am tomorrow morning, tired for a nap at 9:00 am and ready for bed again at 5:00 pm. At some point you have to push through it and I'd rather do it now than have the pattern get more established. I know it sounds neurotic, but the sleep schedule is pretty golden in this house give or take an hour. I can put her to bed at 7:00 or even 6:00 but 4 or 5 is going to play games with all of us.<br /><br />So at 5:00 she is whining and signing that she's hungry (this after the multiple peace-seeking cookies) so I make her a nice grilled cheese and cut up some apples and strawberries and put her in the highchair. She puts maybe a strawberry in her mouth, and then clears the tray with both hands so everything goes flying onto the floor. And I swear she looks at me and raises her eyebrows in a taunting "Did you see that?" look. I pull her out of the chair, and plunk her on the floor, cleaning up the mess while she gamely eats a few of the fallen items. <br /><br />But soon she starts crying again and I hold her while she signs for a banana. We can make a dinner out of a banana I tell her and cut one up, get a fork because she like to eat them off the fork and stab a piece of banana with it. She flings the fork so the banana goes whizzing past my face and hits the oven, sliding down forlornly. I look at that banana while I feel like that banana. You would think I would learn by now, but no, she makes the eat sign again and I get out some yogurt, leave the crime scene that is the kitchen and sit her in my lap in the living room. And for a few bites she is happily eating yogurt and smiling. Is she toying with me now? Is she thinking "What a dope. What a patsy." Because when my guard is down she flips her hand down on the container and yogurt and spoon splatter over her, over me, over the couch and the rug. My face when this happened must have scared her because I didn't utter a word but she looked at me and howled. I wanted to howl too. I left her there howling while I got a cloth in the kitchen to clean up the mess, and also to take a deep breath. She follows me howling, snotty, covered in yogurt and completely, utterly miserable. I really want to run from her. But I pick her up and and she lays her little yogurt covered head on my shoulder and I slowly decompress. She's just a tired baby. Not a prescient, manipulative beast trying to foil my every move. It's over. I surrender. It's 5:30 now and I've got to get this girl in bed. If we're up at an ungodly hour, then we're up. <br /><br />I run a quick bath for her and she comes to life again, playing in the bubbles, laughing at my antics. I can have her in bed by 5:45 with little trouble if I can keep this up. An enormous gas bubble escapes her and she giggles at herself. I giggle too because after all, farts are funny. Don't tell Justin. A few minutes later as I'm soaping her hair, like a gator hiding in the swamp I see a flash of brown go by under the bubbles. None of her bath toys are brown. I stand her up in the tub and of course, there is poop everywhere. I have to drain the tub, spray it down, spray her down, re-wash her hair because I'd unknowingly washed it with poop water all the while racing against the clock and the cold air that is in our house due to this uncanny cold spell we've been having. I lost the good mood she had acquired somewhere in that second bath. It ended with her crying, struggling to grab at the poop toys I had placed out of her reach until I could clean them, while I scrambled for the towel to try to keep her warm. My little, tired, poop girl. I stuffed her in some warm jammies, and she collapsed on my shoulder by 6:15. I did make it to the 6:00 hour after all, but I would have sacrificed the hour for a poop free bath. In the future, I will leave the boots on.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827324600656595100.post-22511370383101159162009-08-07T14:42:00.004-04:002009-08-07T15:11:43.829-04:00Recovered Bean<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLLvO2aswhTsMn5x7bAzC5axXvhluJDm050WVuzT8kHgrRLpljy_O-fOUuckL-OlXXu0DTGnR13YWNtbHcouZkZNFt52xvgLzRV95bsf_XwXlhDBHMaKDNqWNcLPPY4XWqbdfzsmfpcMUX/s1600-h/IMG_1682.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLLvO2aswhTsMn5x7bAzC5axXvhluJDm050WVuzT8kHgrRLpljy_O-fOUuckL-OlXXu0DTGnR13YWNtbHcouZkZNFt52xvgLzRV95bsf_XwXlhDBHMaKDNqWNcLPPY4XWqbdfzsmfpcMUX/s320/IMG_1682.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5367301391516683538" /></a><br />I thought I'd give an update on Delaney's status as a lot of people have been asking after her recently. The picture attached really says it all about her mental state. Completely unaffected and the whole thing is forgotten. Physically, she has a little raised scar under her eye and a little indented scar above same eye, for polarity. The puncture wound on her left cheek is indented and now everyone thinks it's a dimple. Not too bad for a dog bite. I suppose some of these will leave behind remnants but I am slathering them with Vitamin E so maybe it will be hardly noticeable by the time she's a teenager and these things start to matter. I am trying to limit the things she can hate me for from the get-go, but obviously, I'm not off to a great start. <br /><br />And as far as I go, I still catch a potted plant's tendrils wave in the breeze or a shadow move with the shifting light and for a split second I think "Gordon". It's a fragment of a forget. I know he's gone, but his presence was so strong and so constant, that it's a real adjustment to sweep the crumbs off the floor and not wait for him to come hoover them up. Justin and I both have noted that while we miss him, Delaney's growing personality has begun to fill in the gaps right down to the fact that she palm-slaps her way over to us if we have a plate of food. She has even begun to look up expectantly. Maybe we'll work on the crumbs soon...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827324600656595100.post-61762417710178008402009-07-07T20:17:00.007-04:002009-07-09T14:31:35.518-04:00Shellshocked<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-qwAMxxetqgMieMKFIk2vJs7dktoBPI57eVBL3fs-XK_Ea3spBDI7l3wzFnJNi-Kbbnc2DqJT5UjnK1qS8iXXQ0Jva8JRlNdPuhGoUhtkxuXpDsW-4o5pNGiCNFO0IqgDYaxCAlrMgUOy/s1600-h/0702091929.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-qwAMxxetqgMieMKFIk2vJs7dktoBPI57eVBL3fs-XK_Ea3spBDI7l3wzFnJNi-Kbbnc2DqJT5UjnK1qS8iXXQ0Jva8JRlNdPuhGoUhtkxuXpDsW-4o5pNGiCNFO0IqgDYaxCAlrMgUOy/s320/0702091929.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5356529275428429634" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgekNzwsuR3FYwiro1soK0Pnd2h9PAZoolTpaCkSLUDIMiQAq-oY4I73ixKbFMtRDu-5BWrszgmpge8CkuuPoP5NodVNXV8QFMYkBvVZTF0FwuzACbkDG96LVw1pjP4Z-xNknujarNTdJpg/s1600-h/IMG_0918.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgekNzwsuR3FYwiro1soK0Pnd2h9PAZoolTpaCkSLUDIMiQAq-oY4I73ixKbFMtRDu-5BWrszgmpge8CkuuPoP5NodVNXV8QFMYkBvVZTF0FwuzACbkDG96LVw1pjP4Z-xNknujarNTdJpg/s320/IMG_0918.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5356529275890721458" /></a><br />I don't want to only write when there is trouble, but I am reliving the nightmare that was last weekend over and over in my head and hoping that writing about it will exorcise it from my memory. I will start out by saying that Delaney is fine. <div><br /></div><div>On Thursday evening Gordon attacked Delaney. I have to say attacked because there is really no other word for it. I was sitting in the living room in a chair with my daughter on the ground at my feet. My dad was sitting across the room with Gordon next to him and we were chitty-chatting, having a good time, enjoying his visit which was just beginning. No food, no toys, no climbing or pulling on tails. Out of nowhere (or so I thought at the time) Gordon lunges across the room, low to the ground with a snarl in his throat and goes at Delaney. It was so fast and so unexpected and the whole memory seems stuck in slow motion as I leapt to my feet to get him off of her. I pulled him off and saw her on the ground screaming. At first I thought (hoped) that he had just knocked her down. But when I picked her up, blood was dripping down her face and clothes. Her right eye had taken most of the bite and it was hard to see how bad it was. Dad had thrown the dog in the backyard and somehow we made it into the car, Dad holding Delaney while strangely she slept soundly on his chest the whole way.</div><div><br /></div><div>I felt myself tightening up into a ball on the drive. Her bloody little face was facing me while she slept and I began to alternately cry and hyperventilate on the drive to the ER. Justin had called moments after the attack had happened to tell us he was on his way home. I must have shouted something into the phone like "Gordon attack, ER, Delaney, blood!" before I got out the door. He was there waiting for us at the ER and dad got out with Delaney while I went to park the car. I heard Justin ask "Is it bad?" and then say "Oh my god." when he saw her face. Driving through the stupid, insignificant parking lot, trying to find a wretched, empty parking space I screamed and screamed at the top of my lungs. </div><div><br /></div><div>Inside we are seen fairly quickly for an ER and Delaney's wounds are assessed by a wonderful NP who tells us that there is a lot of blood, which is good because the wounds flush out the dog germs that way. She has a puncture wound on her left cheek where a tooth went straight through to the inside. The thought of this wound in particular makes me sick as I think of me checking Gordon's teeth periodically for tarter and cavities. The rest of the bite is over her eye, the brow and cheekbone taking most of the hit and saving her little coffee bean peeper from harm. The wounds are bloody but not deep. They are irrigated with saline, a process which makes her scream and shake while I die at her feet. I sing and sing to her the favorite songs. Itsy Bitsy Spider, Patty-cake, nonsense songs that only she and I know. Then another round of screaming while they put sticky tape dressings over each cut. After 5 hours with the ER crew, we are finally sent home with antibiotics, pain medication, ice packs, and an exhausted, battered, baby girl. She sleeps soundly through the night and we all go in many times to look at her, check her breathing, feel her skin.</div><div><br /></div><div>We stay up all night, my dad and Justin and me. We discuss the process of the whole attack over and over. We drink bottles of wine and try to make sense of it. I see it and describe it again and again, looking for a clue. How could this dog, my dog, who has sat with the child for hours and hours in the past do this? And then the hard questions start, but inside I know the answers are not all that difficult. He is out back as we discuss all this and when I look at him I see that he has no idea he has done anything wrong. I hate him and love him for his stupidity all at once and my tears flow again. We discuss our options again the next day with each other, with my dad, with the vet. Delaney wakes up in a great mood, but looks like she went ten rounds with the champ. I hold her while I look out the window at Gordon and think about what could have happened. He could have killed her. He could have snapped her neck, bitten her jugular, punctured her skull. This girl it took me so long to get. From a dog it took me so long to train. My whole body shakes when these thoughts pass through. Like I can shake them off of me like cobwebs. But I can't. And they sit there. Just waiting to come out and stab me again.</div><div><br /></div><div>I can't have him here anymore and I can't give him away for fear he would bite someone else's child. There are no-kill shelters, but I can't imagine my bouncing, springing dog locked up in a kennel 23 hours a day. We decide to have him put down, like I knew we would in the end and I am aghast at the fresh wave of sorrow this decision brings. I see him out there wagging his tail and waiting for someone to come play fetch and I know that he is just a dog and that I have humanized him. Delaney points to him and laughs like she always did and I hope she will never remember this dreadful thing. </div><div><br /></div><div>As I write this, I see myself trying to make excuses for my feelings and I guess I am a victim too. I am eternally grateful my girl is alive and shining. But my heart is broken in so many ways, in so many pieces because I feel like I failed my daughter and I failed my dog. With research, we find that dog problems can increase with infants who are learning to crawl. Mobility seems to be a turning point for a once peaceful coexistence in some dogs. And again, I realize I love a dog. A creature whose natural instincts are still a mystery to me even though I've invited him into my home, fed him, washed, him, loved him. There were warning signs, I just didn't know what they were when he was exhibiting them. </div><div><br /></div><div>So I scrunched his head one more time and gave him a last high five. This dog that bit my daughter. I only want to remember the sweet Gordon and not the snarling dog who felt compelled to attack her for sitting there. The Gordon who peeled out of the house when you opened a beer, self-trained to know that this usually meant "I'm going outside". The Gordon who would fetch and fetch and fetch until your arm was sore from throwing. And the Gordon who sat patiently until you put his food bowl down, just like I 'd trained him. Justin took him to the vet on Friday and had his own Gethsemane with him that I'll never know about. And he slept his way out of our lives. I am shellshocked yet and conflicted with guilt, emotions, sorrow. He is gone. And I'll be damned if I don't miss him. But it's time to start healing.</div><div><br /></div><div> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827324600656595100.post-16976078489546821522009-01-08T17:22:00.004-05:002009-01-08T17:40:46.748-05:00Snooze ButtonI have a lot of time on my hands to observe Delaney's behavior and at this age, while extraordinarily cute, she doesn't seem all that complicated physiologically. You put in the food, it comes out fairly regularly. You make a funny face and she gives you a wonderful little smile But for the life of me I can't figure out why, if she's tired, I have to teach her how to sleep. <div><br /></div><div>Sleep. It's what babies are famous for. There's the old phrase "sleeping like a baby". Did the author of that little nugget have to wrestle with themselves about when to put the baby down for a nap? Do you nurse the baby to sleep or put them down drowsy so they can fall asleep on their own? Do you go pick them up when they wake in the night or wait and let them get themselves back to sleep? And if the author went the cry-it-out method, did they pace the floor chewing their fingernails, resting one hand on the doorknob, tears streaming down there own cheeks, wondering if they are ruining their child forever by letting her cry. Or perhaps they tried the pick the baby up when it cries method, where you are up all night because she is only napping for 45 minutes at a time and in 4 hour waves at night and you are practically dead on your feet, but don't want to break the bond of trust you are supposed to be establishing with the baby when she cries.</div><div><br /></div><div>I look forward to teaching her to read, swim, and eat olives. I know she'll need help with a two wheeled bicycle and walking on her feet. I had no idea sleep was going to be the first lesson we'd conquer together, nor that it would be so absolutely confounding to elucidate. "You kind of put your head down. When you are frantically rubbing your eyes and beginning to yawn is always a good time. You close your eyes usually and perhaps shift your position a little and then you sort of go to sleep."</div><div><br /></div><div>Either she's a poor study or I'm a crap teacher. I'm betting on the latter.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827324600656595100.post-64585787375908424442008-12-22T16:59:00.004-05:002008-12-22T17:37:16.799-05:00What child is this...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhZuQFMqmm80Gv4HpGNJ1S3UEuPzpe-RIJzX-CrHkXLBvMA9ZKCForNhiT3-U5qKY5yKW-oY5YmosNtVPmn7miAM3CrAUVuwF3Hy04oC-VD5LZKy3mXdW8xkRK5fBGQLbjWO4DqaVlSuvh/s1600-h/Santaandewe.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhZuQFMqmm80Gv4HpGNJ1S3UEuPzpe-RIJzX-CrHkXLBvMA9ZKCForNhiT3-U5qKY5yKW-oY5YmosNtVPmn7miAM3CrAUVuwF3Hy04oC-VD5LZKy3mXdW8xkRK5fBGQLbjWO4DqaVlSuvh/s320/Santaandewe.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5282738334835178306" /></a>Look at us. We are a family. Oh what a difference a baby makes.<div><br /></div><div>The last three months went unwritten about because I was recovering from birth, mastitis, and sleep deprivation. But I am learning a rhythm to this role now and Delaney and I are operating pretty well as a team. </div><div><br /></div><div>Yes, now my B the G goes by Delaney Louise Coffey. Choosing the name was a trial and I eventually had to stop telling people the various candidates when they would inevitably ask. It never failed to amaze me how openly critical some could be when they heard my list of names. I've been privy to some pretty bad baby monikers in my time, but I would never tell someone I didn't like the name they had chosen. Or that I went to school with a <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">insert name</span> and she was a real asshole. People were too honest with me when they asked about her name and I was surprised how many of them didn't get that I wasn't asking their opinion, only answering their question.</div><div><br /></div><div>So in the end I began giving vague answers about there being a list of possible names and then changing the subject. Delaney was a name my mother had mentioned to me and one of the very few Justin and I agreed on. His tastes run much more traditional than mine and while I don't usually like the last name as first name method, there is something feminine and delicate about the name that I find very pretty and unusual. Which is the word my mother-in-law used when I told her Delaney's name for the first time. "Well that's...unusual." I could tell it threw her for a loop, but you can't please everybody with the name game. And it really suits Delaney. </div><div><br /></div><div>Speaking of feminine and delicate, she is weighing in at a hefty 13 lbs now at three months old and Justin and I roll our eyes when we think back to the IUGR diagnosis and how worried we were about her tininess. Her thighs have glorious, thick rolls in them and her cheeks are chipmunk-y with big rose blooms on them. Even her elbows and knuckles have fat dimples and I think back to one of my adoption posts where I had to draw a picture of the baby I was going to adopt. I've got to find that drawing and post it because honest-to-god Delaney looks just like the little papoose I drew. Granted it was a pretty generic drawing, which was the point of the exercise and she doesn't have a feather coming out of her head. But she has the same dark eyes and serene expression. And she certainly is the chubba wubba baby I was wishing for last fall. </div><div><br /></div><div>It's a wonder how certain things come to pass. And why other times we're left guessing. </div><div><br /></div><div>So while my Adventures in Babymaking are at an end, I've decided to keep writing when I can about my journey into motherhood. I've already missed some whopper stories with my absence but I'll try to pick it up now that I'm back into the groove. Remind me to tell you about the mastitis cum breast abscess. A real kicker for a new, already neurotic mom.<br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827324600656595100.post-21076856919977270862008-09-30T06:05:00.003-04:002008-09-30T06:33:51.133-04:00At Last<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq7uB2NPWQiOnWtPL0sMKI0ookBO2PTX2PiE7IL5yzVR9Ez3ol-Om9ol4axoEeee3sdqrwtMUHSA_lD5RVfhceMr18W0K6bAOhh1OkdvGESR8xMben-6Y-YiIoy4ak7bXlLEmSEmRVRfQb/s1600-h/IMG_0549.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq7uB2NPWQiOnWtPL0sMKI0ookBO2PTX2PiE7IL5yzVR9Ez3ol-Om9ol4axoEeee3sdqrwtMUHSA_lD5RVfhceMr18W0K6bAOhh1OkdvGESR8xMben-6Y-YiIoy4ak7bXlLEmSEmRVRfQb/s320/IMG_0549.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5251760346235434914" /></a><br />This is the first chance I've had to update the blog, so you may have guessed that B the G has arrived by now. And she has. <div><br /></div><div>Weighing in at a healthy 6.8 lbs., she was put into my arms on Sunday, September 21, 2008, looking a bit stunned, but peaceful. For all of the drama and trauma of my pregnancy, labor and delivery was remarkably straightforward. Practically textbook.</div><div><br /></div><div>Justin and I attended a local street fair on Saturday, with Elvis impersonators and men in drag on stilts, funnel cake and local art, both good and bad for sale,. I was absolutely exhausted when I got home, but figured it may have moved things along a bit. Sure enough that night around 7:00 pm I went into labor. At first mild and manageable, by midnight, contractions were 3-4 minutes apart and had me on my knees. </div><div><br /></div><div>By the time we got to the hospital I was doing the panting and moaning act that you see in TV. Sure now that I wanted that epidural, we were triaged in, I was told I was 4-5 centimeters dilated and to wait for anesthesia. Sweet, sweet relief when that spinal hit and I could suddenly look around and feel the reality of knowing I was about to deliver a baby. The drugs did slow down my dilation a bit, so I labored awhile until they decided to give me some pitocin to speed up my dilation. Up down, up down. </div><div><br /></div><div>Around 10:30 a nurse checked me, told me she could see the head and asked me if I was ready to celebrate a birthday. The rush of it when she said that...the imminence of my whole journey was right there in front of me. I pushed for about 25 minutes under the nurse's rather drill sergeant like command. The touchy-feely stuff goes out the window when they are trying to get that baby out. But I was glad she was pushy. Take-charge demeanor in a crisis is very comforting to me. Especially when I have no idea what I'm doing.</div><div><br /></div><div>11:09 and she was out, pushed into the world by brute strength, willpower, and her own determination. Justin cut the cord and went over to look at her. I was shaking with the effort and emotion, tears just pouring down my face as I stretched to get a look at her in the cleanup tank. And then she was in my arms, outside of me, looking at us. She has a head full of black hair and looks like a little Natalie Portman in the V for Vendetta phase. She is tiny and pink and perfect. </div><div><br /></div><div> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827324600656595100.post-89543179974825640812008-09-19T16:50:00.009-04:002008-09-19T21:03:55.008-04:00Passing the baton...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw5-CFOjG8nmHYfzgx3qoEgE7dZMFjUCf3Wrkh96cz3xWsIKlYtd6mjjzcOIXX908fqgtFphpK7PwGoXj-nvCYF7BjYG3qD4br6o_PfIn67cXru3e2CPqfP3_4zbaPbvr6-UKcokGPKa8i/s1600-h/Family+Pics2_2.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw5-CFOjG8nmHYfzgx3qoEgE7dZMFjUCf3Wrkh96cz3xWsIKlYtd6mjjzcOIXX908fqgtFphpK7PwGoXj-nvCYF7BjYG3qD4br6o_PfIn67cXru3e2CPqfP3_4zbaPbvr6-UKcokGPKa8i/s320/Family+Pics2_2.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5247883800054429314" /></a><br />My grandma died yesterday. I had hoped she would live to see her great-grandaughter, even if she might not have been too sure about who she was and where she fit into the family tree. But she was 99 and tired. I am selfishly sad because I will miss her terribly. And also blessedly happy because she was ready to die as she and I discussed so many times. Yesterday was also my father's birthday who was her only child and who looked after her like Florence Nightingale in his home until her death. Death was always just out of her reach and I like to think that at the end she did have some control and timing over her departure after all, choosing to be alone with my dad on his birthday. <div><div><br /></div><div>She always used to wonder out loud why she was living so long and for awhile I had wonderful, easy answers for her. "You have to teach me to crochet. You have to attend my wedding. you need to meet your great-grandchildren." Then, as she got older the answers got harder. Her eyesight and hearing got worse, her mobility decreased, her memory shortened, and I came up with lamer and lamer answers like "you have to finish this crossword puzzle" or "you need to have dinner with me." Until finally for the last year or so, she would ask me the question again, and I was forced to say "I don't know, Grandma." Because I really didn't.</div><div><br /></div><div>99 is a lot of years. I put myself to sleep last night making a chronological list of all of the things she had witnessed in her lifetime. There's the usual old person list: several wars, the advent of cars, the Depression, man on the moon, computers and the internet. But I also thought of trivial things - tissues in a box, polyester, credit cards, ball point pens, tampons. So many things that changed and then changed again while she grew up, grew out, grew old. </div><div><br /></div><div>It is easiest for me when remembering people, to use my sense of smell. My Grandma never wore fragrance at all but the smell of Pond's cold cream makes me feel like she's standing next to me. She also used to make this divine beef soup whenever we would visit her in Pennsylvania. One of those quintessential grandmother soups that take all day to do right and that nobody has the time to make anymore. She would stir that soup all say, skimming fat off the top, adding vegetables and herbs. When we arrived at her house, the smell was intoxicating. She kept the noodles separate in a blue bowl, boiled and ready to spoon in to the broth. I always wondered why they were separate. Did they get overcooked if she added them later? Did someone along the line prefer no noodles and it became habit to serve them separately? I'll never know because I never asked.</div><div><br /></div><div>Brown butter, too. What is it with eastern Europeans and brown butter? My grandparents put it on everything. It's such a unique, evocative smell for me, but it's richness was an acquired taste. Not until I was older did I learn to love the flavor of it drizzled over the handmade potato pierogi my grandma made. One of us always left her house with a case of the runs and we were all usually 5 lbs. heavier. But man, they were good.</div><div><br /></div><div>So, I'll look for her dark eyes in the face of my daughter. Ochi chyornye, like my grandfather used to sing. And hope that maybe Grandma brushed past her on her way out and my daughter's way in. Rubbing off a gift or two, like in the fairy tale. Her easy, contagious laugh, her fierce desire to constantly be learning despite her 6th grade education, or her love of music and singing. The circle of it humbles me as I think of her in labor with my dad 66 years ago yesterday, pacing and worrying about his birth. And here I am, my due date has come and almost gone, but I am just as heavy with my child all these years later, just as anticipatory, just as scared. </div><div><br /></div><div>I am forced to be patient for the little life inside me to find her way out in her own time, as my Grandma was forced to be patient in laying down her own burden of such a long life, long after she was tired of carrying it. I am so glad she is gone, I only wish I could have been there to tell her she was dying while it was happening. It sounds macabre and heartless, but I know her well enough, that she would have been so happy to hear the news. Relieved and happy. But maybe she already knew.</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827324600656595100.post-14599100177955107952008-09-15T16:27:00.006-04:002008-09-15T16:44:38.910-04:00Low RiderOk, almost a full 10 months pregnant. Friday is D-day at 40 weeks and she really can't get much lower without falling out. <div><br /></div><div>I have an overwhelming urge to clean the blades on the ceiling fans, not to mention the fridge, the dog, the car and the washing machine. Yes, I cleaned the washing machine. The dog was harder. </div><div><br /></div><div>I took the car to the local fire department and got a lovely fireman to help me install the car seat properly today. He had just completed a four day seminar on car seat safety and installation, so I feel pretty confident that it's in there correctly. Can you imagine a four day seminar on child seat safety? I should bring him some doughnuts or something. What do firemen eat?</div><div><br /></div><div>B the G is still grooving around on a regular basis in there, although it feels different now because she is lower and her movements lately seem less...punchy for lack of a better word. Maybe she's gearing up too, steering towards the mental focus and balance of T'ai Chi rather than the physical Taekwondo she'd been practicing in the past. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'm feeling good. Calm and strangely confident now. Justin is still battling his back pain and my mother fell and broke her foot in two places, so her visit is out. Hopefully my sister will still make it at some point, but I can do this. I am excited and watchful and present at the moment. It's very dream-like. I don't think it will be too much longer.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827324600656595100.post-49210526051811655052008-09-08T11:16:00.001-04:002008-09-08T11:18:18.211-04:00Ode To A PantyOh blessed, life-changing, granny panties <br />Why didn't I buy you 10 lbs ago?<br />Goodbye vanity and red squinch lines<br />Hello sexless, stretchy comfort waistband.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827324600656595100.post-16890328088910999592008-09-02T15:02:00.008-04:002008-10-01T10:46:05.236-04:00PerspectiveSince Justin's back is still not right and he is on painkillers, I had to drive him to get his hair cut this weekend. He was starting to look a little simian, especially in the back, but I was still rather grumbly about having to chauffeur because the chairs there aren't very comfortable and my bladder now seems to be the size of a pea.<div><br /></div><div>Justin's barber's name is Eli and he has an old school barber shop in midtown Atlanta, complete with striped pole and red leather barber chair. He looks a lot like Mr. Magoo and speaks with a heavy Greek accent. There was no on else in the shop that day so I was grateful we'd get in and get out. </div><div><br /></div><div>I sat opposite the red leather chair and the three of us exchanged pleasantries about the holiday weekend, time spent with family, etc. He told us he has family in Tampa and spoke enthusiastically about spending time in Tarpon Springs, a Greek community near Tampa. I asked if his children spoke Greek and he said "Little bit. Not like me. I speak seven languages." People who are multi-lingual may as well possess a super power as far as I'm concerned and I'm always intrigued about how they learned, when in life, what were the languages. Seven languages! "How did you come to know seven languages?" And he said "I was a prisoner for two years in the death camps in Europe."</div><div><br /></div><div>Eli speaks Greek, Polish, Russian, Italian, French, English and German. And then while he is snipping serenely around my husband's head, he started telling me the story of how he came to be in those death camps at 16 years old. He was taken prisoner when Germany invaded Greece in 1941. I always wondered how the Nazi's knew who was Jewish and who wasn't when they sent people to camps and asked Eli about it now. He said when the Nazis arrived in a town they would build scaffolding and hang people from ten random families and tell the crowd that if they lied about their status they would be next on the scaffold. I guess that was a pretty effective method. He also said there was no mention of concentration camps or gas chambers. Prisoners didn't know where they were going only that they were being taken away. He said if people knew the journey by cattle car led to death by gas chamber, there probably would have been a lot more people running for it, or at least resisting. For the time being, he wore the gold star they gave him and crowded onto the train with his two brothers.</div><div><br /></div><div>He went on to tell me from that point forward, he was moved around between 8 different concentration camps. He lost his older brother to sickness at one of them and was separated from his younger brother early on. They worked digging ditches and unloading bags of cement from trains. He said the Nazis starved them right from the get go and food became a preoccupation. He learned to count the people in line to the barrels of soup and time it so that he got a ladleful from the bottom, where the potatoes were. Although sometimes he did get it wrong and they switched out the barrels while he was still in line, giving him the thin, watery broth from the top. He also learned which dumpster was used for the officers mess and stole food from it repeatedly, carefully waiting for the searchlight to pass before doing his thieving. He said he got caught only once and received 25 lashes on his bottom. I felt hunger just listening to his stories, how you are so starved you will do just about anything for food.</div><div><br /></div><div>Sometimes the soldiers would come to the prisoners for certain skills they had a need for. Who is a mason? Who knows electricity? They came once and asked for a barber and Eli volunteered his services. They took him to a small office where the Kommandant was waiting. The man was completely bald and wanted his head and face shaved. Eli picked up the straight razor to begin work and as soon as he did an officer cocked a gun and kept it trained on him during the entire process. He did nick the Kommandant during the process and had nothing but some hair and soap to stop the blood. When Eli finished, the Kommandant looked in a little mirror, wrote something on a bit of paper and handed it to Eli. Sure he was carrying his death sentence for the nick, Eli opened it and found a coupon for some bread and cheese at the mess hall. He thought he had found his gravy train, but that officer was transferred later in the week.</div><div><br /></div><div>Five times, Eli said he stood in line to enter the gas chambers and five times something happened that stopped the process, a miracle, he called it, and he lived to see another day. All this time I am sitting across from the chair, leaning forward into his story and asking questions, shaking my head, dumbstruck at the magnitude of it. I know it is also millions of other's story who have survived the Holocaust, but I've never talked to a survivor before, and he was so open about sharing this personal, terrifying experience. </div><div><br /></div><div>Liberated with his younger brother who he was reunited with at another camp, he described the American planes flying overhead, while he was being loaded into another cattle car, this one open at the top so the planes could see the people piled inside. "Les Americains! Les Americains sont ici, maintenant!" he yelled, imitating the joy, the relief, the exuberance they felt knowing the end of the war was imminent. I was almost in tears myself at this point and Justin's hair was finished.</div><div><br /></div><div>Eli lost a twin sister, and five other siblings to the camps. His hometown of 200,000 was wiped out with only 200 survivors left at the end of the war. He showed us pictures of his late wife, his son and daughter, his grandchildren. His face is so happy and proud and I think he feels like the luckiest man in the world. "Bring the baby back" he said pointing to my belly and he pulled out a blue plastic rocking horse. "For customers and kids" he winks at me. He thanked us again and again for the company and tried to give us the haircut on the house. I was ready to stuff the money in his pants if he didn't take it.</div><div><br /></div><div>My worries and problems feel ridiculous when we leave his shop. Our biggest concern is whether we should buy a wagon or a sedan. I can't stop thinking about Eli all day, or the next. Where does one get that kind of triumphant attitude after all of that horror? How does it destroy some and not others? He said some prisoners would just throw themselves at the electric fence, unable to take the wretchedness their lives had become. Their bodies would be left to remain there for a few days, hands gripping the wires even after death. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>I hope I am made of the same stuff as Eli and more than that, I hope B the G is too. She has already proved herself a little fighter and we still have a big journey ahead of us. I feel so much wiser after listening to Eli's story and I can't really put my finger on what it is I've learned. I feel calmer and more determined to enjoy every minute I have, though I know that feeling will fade or be forgotten. In the end, I only know that I witnessed a little slice of strength and the real power of the human spirit, visiting with him that day. I will add it to the other little nuggets of wisdom and stories and experiences I have collected and tell it all to B the G one day. </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827324600656595100.post-45959558987023780472008-08-30T10:10:00.002-04:002008-08-30T10:42:44.176-04:0037 WeeksJustin's back is still out and he is scheduled to go in for an MRI next Saturday. His Doc has put him on Vicodin now which puts him in a much better mood, but means he shouldn't be operating heavy machinery, i.e. a car with a laboring pregnant woman in it. <div><br /></div><div>I hate to be so "it's all about me" right now. I know he's in a lot of pain with a possible diagnosis of a herniated disc. But I am in a bit of a panic about a) physically getting to the hospital when labor starts, b) having to listen to Justin moan about his back and when it's time to take his pill while I am contracting, c) going through labor and delivery with no moral/emotional support from my drug-induced husband and d) homeward bound with a crippled husband and fragile newborn to contend with while my bottom is still healing and I'm on no sleep. Ok, I very much am all about me right now. I make no apologies.</div><div><br /></div><div>My sister is on call to jump in the car at the first contraction and my neighbor offered to drive us to the hospital should we need her. But I might be on my own for a bit with the whole waiting game of cervical dilation. I think I can do it though. I've plowed through so much on my way to this moment. I just have to channel my inner Wonder Wheel and keep up a steady dialogue with B the G. Since the dry run at the hospital with my tumble down the steps, I feel pretty confident that I'll have a great team there helping me out. </div><div><br /></div><div>I just got a pedicure and will get one once a week from here on out so I can at least look at my toes with pleasure. The rest of me is pretty much hilarious at this point. My belly looks prosthetic to me. Like I should just be able to unhook it in the back and remove, it is so round and taut. Some say these bellies are gorgeous and while that is not the word I would use, I do find mine vastly entertaining to look at. Foreign and funny at the same time. My belly button has timidly popped outward, giving up the fight of remaining inward under all that pressure. And blue veins lace all across the surface, always there before, but in stark relief now because of my fair skin and stretched abdomen. Like I said, I'm fascinated. It's like a freak show kind of vanity. </div><div><br /></div><div> </div><div><br /></div><div> </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827324600656595100.post-46407093941170682332008-08-28T09:20:00.005-04:002008-10-01T10:48:22.784-04:00Tight FitI know this is bizarre, but I can't help wondering if, when I poop, it gives the baby more room to stretch around in there. I envision her stretching her arms out next to my intestines and thinking "Whew, now I can move!"Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827324600656595100.post-43173286407239837182008-08-25T13:04:00.005-04:002008-08-25T13:54:04.418-04:00Ripe<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF_2N1_I5_p2M6pVf1nZOeyb5gBQOwl5d-qrLTOpxNK6DRBfOHRk5S7xGP6ub350W86tukPGZh2zXVWIs7iJzfNJGrf_9Qu01j-36E3kgC9Hmx4YYYite8t8D6WJZaWFEArARb4CQp7o9N/s1600-h/IMG_0480.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF_2N1_I5_p2M6pVf1nZOeyb5gBQOwl5d-qrLTOpxNK6DRBfOHRk5S7xGP6ub350W86tukPGZh2zXVWIs7iJzfNJGrf_9Qu01j-36E3kgC9Hmx4YYYite8t8D6WJZaWFEArARb4CQp7o9N/s200/IMG_0480.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5238515084970684562" /></a><br /><div>Don't let the smile fool ya. I am really, really uncomfortable, pretty much all the time. My back aches and the only thing that fits anymore are my earrings. I wish there were a little zipper in there that B the G could undo and come on out. I don't think she's dropped down yet, because I still have heartburn and it's hard to catch my breath sometimes.<br /></div><div><div><br /></div><div>BUT. Other than that, my foot is on the mend, thankfully. Justin is still battling his back pain and I need him to hurry up and get past it so he can move into the manager's position when we go to bat. Right now, there's a lot of moaning and whining going on and it's not coming from me. I know I sound unsympathetic. I think I am. There's only room for one moaner and whiner in this town and it's the one carrying the extra 25 lbs. </div><div><br /></div><div>As of Friday I'll be considered full term which is quite a victory for me and B the G. We can go pretty much anytime from here on out and while I'm ready, I don't think she is quite yet. I'm practicing my patience and my yoga breathing. She is busy poking me in the ribs with her feet. But at least they are the right way up...<div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827324600656595100.post-19210340156910538722008-08-16T09:26:00.012-04:002008-08-21T11:12:52.401-04:00The Usual SuspectsOn Friday I woke up to find Justin in the guest bed groaning in pain with his back out. Neither of us are sure what exactly caused the pain, but it's probably related to his recently re-starting a morning workout coupled with assembling the enormous dresser/changing table for the nursery. The workout involves lifting weights repetitively and the changing tables involves millions of little screws and pegs, a Makita drill, instructions that look like cryptic writing from ancient Mesopotamia, beer, and apparently the ability to swear like a sailor. It's like a mathematic formula for pain.<div><br /></div><div>We called the doctor and made an appointment for Justin to come in at 11:00 am that morning. In the meantime I went about my daily business, in quite a cheery mood because my sister was arriving the following day, because B the G had been given the all clear with the IUGR and because now Justin was the one who had to keep still and I could legally do a little more around the house without hearing it from him.</div><div> </div><div>I shared my good news about B the G with Mimi who calls about every morning for an update and we discussed the trials of her pregnancies and mine and she begged me now that this latest crisis had passed, to just sit still and not move for the next five weeks. Ha. Ha. Ha. </div><div><br /></div><div>A morning chore I've done since we got Gordon is to open the gate connecting our yard to our neighbor's which allows their dogs and Gordon to frolic together at will. He loves it, they all get exercise and it doubles the size of their play area. This involves a little duck under a chain link fence and then lifting a doggie door cut into the fence. I've been very careful about holding onto the fence, stepping slowly, and minding the dogs since my belly has gotten so big in recent weeks and lately I had been asking Justin to do it, but of course he was incapacitated in the bedroom. I was thinking these exact thoughts as I went through the motions on Friday. Watching my feet, placing my hands carefully on the fence, opening the gate. It went like clockwork and I was practically whistling like Tom Sawyer on my way back to the house. </div><div><br /></div><div>Then. Coming down the terraced steps in the backyard, the ones that have no rail because they're TERRACED, I slipped off the edge of the steps, flailed my arms wildly and went down like a bag of dirt. Most of my weight went on my right foot which bent inwards and my butt. I sat their stunned for a minute while the dogs circled around me wondering what this act was all about. Then my foot began to ache, then fear for B the G set in, then I started to cry like a toddler lost in a mall. Big, scared tears, panting, breathing, the works. I let everything out on those steps. All of the fear I was experiencing at that moment, plus the angst of the last three weeks, the pain in my foot, the frustration of my situation. The dogs began to bark and howl around me, sensing the emotion and I thought maybe Justin will hear and come help me. He didn't.</div><div><br /></div><div>I called Gordon over and leaned on him while I hoisted myself up. Hobbling into the house I yelled to Justin that I had fallen and then sat on the couch and cried some more. He comes out of the bedroom walking like Frankenstein and tries to make sense of what happened through my blubbering. He's worried about the fact that I'm crying so hard that I might start hyperventilating and tells me to try and stop. So I did. Once I turned off the waterworks I was able to make a plan to get to the hospital to check on the Bean and my foot at the same time Justin went to his appointment. </div><div><br /></div><div>I had to drive because Justin couldn't raise his arms high enough. I felt B the G kick a few times on our way there and I felt fairly certain that she was fine which helped me stay focused. I hobbled over to the ER and Justin went upstairs to his doctor's office and we promised to meet up later, as though for a lunch date.</div><div><br /></div><div>The ER, which by the way is on the far end of the hospital, told me I needed to go to the Maternity Center to check on the baby and then come back for my foot, which by now is really beginning to throb. I make it to the Maternity Center and god bless them, they kicked in and took over. Checked me into a room, put me in a hospital gown, hooked me up to fetal monitors and I got to hear that lovely, reassuring heartbeat. They went over me with a fine-toothed comb. Questioning everything, drawing blood, urine sample, blood pressure, temperature, a cervical exam that felt like they were trying to reach my throat from the inside. </div><div><br /></div><div>Somewhere in there Justin found me after a trip to the pharmacy for muscle relaxers and sat uncomfortably in the chair next to me. He popped some and began to sink lower and lower in the chair, informing me that he would be unable to drive home. After about three hours and seeing nurses, interns, residents and the attending, and hearing from each one of these people how important it is to hold onto the handrail when I am on stairs (they're TERRACED!), they and I were finally satisfied that my Bean was just fine and they sent us on our way. </div><div><br /></div><div>I really felt like I should get my foot looked at, much as I wanted to get home, get Justin home and get something to eat. So I went back down to the ER and Justin told me he couldn't sit in a chair anymore and was going to take a cab home. I knew it would be a wait so I told him to go and settled in for more waiting. </div><div><br /></div><div>The ER at Emory is light years away from the cozy, warm maternity center and I began to feel yucky sitting there. Everyone there looks miserable, staff, admins, patients, everyone. When I got called back I talked to a triage nurse who told me I would have to have an x-ray to see if the foot was broken. I don't know what I really expected here. I mean it seems like a normal procedure for my problem, but being 35 weeks pregnant, despite reassurances that I would be covered in lead and only the foot would be x-rayed, I began to have doubts about proceeding. I really didn't think it was broken, as I could still bend it and there was no swelling. I really just wanted somebody to reassure me of this without an x-ray, wrap it, and pat me on my head. </div><div><br /></div><div>Waiting for the radiology tech, I sat next to an old woman wrapped in a sheet who smelled like urine and a younger woman who looked like 10 miles of bad road, and hacked constantly into her hands. I began to feel germs creeping onto me like army ants and when the radiology tech came out and called the next patient in, he had the same vacant, disconsolate look on his face as the old woman in the sheet. I had enough. </div><div><br /></div><div>I told the administrative assistant at the front that I was leaving, I didn't want my x-ray I just wanted to go home. She asked me to wait for the nurse which I did for about two coughs worth of time from Hackensack sitting beside me. Then I told them again that I was leaving and she made me sign a form that stated that if I died as a result of leaving early, the hospital was not responsible. They underlined and emphasized the word "death" and I signed happily and limped out of that place like Keyser Soze leaving the precinct on his way to freedom. </div><div><br /></div><div>Justin was there in the waiting room when I came out, having forgotten that he didn't have house keys and fitting right in with the wretched face theme that was de rigueur for the complete ER experience. Sadly, my limp didn't fade like Soze's when I left the hospital. It hurts and continues to hurt if I walk too much on it. So I'm back to being immobile for awhile. Only now I have company! Groggy, grumpy JC. But at least we have each other. </div><div><br /></div><div> </div><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827324600656595100.post-56357959642231915412008-08-12T16:42:00.008-04:002008-08-12T17:16:17.390-04:00Chubba Wubba<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitoN0MHFDVFGbNaziw4euUUoU3BEdtGeeirzux-V2EIoqG-pcFhn4ws1j_g3xLlavHp9wHUDITmzrJJeG64qPh0u9iuCMy60zB5RZnnYp4HyC-BUEHvQdFTCRE8jZfHMwHZ2j0E-0eN86t/s1600-h/sc0028496c.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitoN0MHFDVFGbNaziw4euUUoU3BEdtGeeirzux-V2EIoqG-pcFhn4ws1j_g3xLlavHp9wHUDITmzrJJeG64qPh0u9iuCMy60zB5RZnnYp4HyC-BUEHvQdFTCRE8jZfHMwHZ2j0E-0eN86t/s320/sc0028496c.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5233742590321111794" /></a><br /><br />Success! After three weeks of gluey protein shakes, abbreviated bed rest and gallons of water, B the G weighed in at 5.7 lbs today and hit the 35th percentile on the growth chart. Her Dopplers are all where they should be and there is a healthy amount of amniotic fluid for her to float around in there. <div><br /></div><div>I am so relieved, so grateful, so proud. The doctor is thrilled with our progress and told me that we could continue coming in twice a week for evaluating or come back in three weeks when it's closer to go time. Justin said "Three weeks" faster than I could get it out and the the doctor said she had already written that in the chart because she knew what his response would be. They've gotten to know him pretty well in recent weeks. We are both tired of the trips, the angst, and the stress of the visits. Just let her bake a little more and we'll be satisfied with continuing the above regimen and monitoring kick counts.</div><div><br /></div><div>She moved around in my belly all during the ultrasound, doing her own little victory dance. Justin credits the water and the Krispy Kreme doughnuts he bought for me. I think it was the rest and the protein. But I also wonder if she would have grown anyway, that she just hit a lull. It's hard to know. </div><div><br /></div><div>Regardless, I am thankful for the results and for the team of techs and physicians I got to know so well over the past three weeks. It's a weird, loaded environment for all involved in peri-natal. There's that gold-tinged advice to stay relaxed and stress-free for the baby coming in from all corners, but in the back of everyone's mind we all know I wouldn't be there if there weren't something unusual going on. It's all unspoken and everyone is trying to protect me from worry and tension but also give me all the information I need. It was a difficult balance for me and I did break a couple of times on my own. To let it go and wait for her to make the next move is the easiest decision I've made in awhile.</div><div><br /></div><div> </div><div><br /></div><div> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5827324600656595100.post-28821584828251342262008-08-11T13:17:00.003-04:002008-08-11T13:20:04.752-04:00BananafanafofanaIf I hear one more person suggest that we name the baby Sumatra, Venti or Folger's, I am going to shoot that person in the face with a bazooka.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2