they are BOTH ASLEEP AT ONCE!
mwa ha ha ha! the apartment is MINE!
what to do? what den of licentiousness shall i plunge into first? i hardly know where to begin. should I--gasp! take a shower? or perchance, eat lunch? or--oh, shiver!--should I unload the dishwasher?
the options, as it were, stretch before me.
but whatever i do, i should do it quick before one of them wakes up.
Monday, May 29, 2006
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Names
Since we had to put off Iyyar's bris for an extra week, he spent the first two weeks of his life without a name. He's still getting mail (like satisfaction surveys from the hospital) addressed to Baby Boy. It was kind of strange not having a name for him, especially since, unlike with Barak, I knew his name before he was born. We called him Mr. Baby, which is what we called Barak, but in my head I couldn't help calling him by the name we'd chosen. The friend who died two weeks ago, who was then very sick, did the picking--I gave her a short list of names I liked and she took it from there. She did, I must say, an excellent job.
I really, really like his name. I'm not going to post it here, but his first name is from Tanach and his middle name is from Chumash; both are biblical figures who I am particularly fond of, if I can put it that way. His middle name especially is of someone who is the subject of my favorite medrash ever; I told it over to the friendly African-American (and obviously very Christian) lady who did the birth certificates, and she just glowed with approval. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if she someday winds up with a small black grandchild with a strangely Jewish name.
I think it's a wonderful name. But I have to admit it--even in the world of Torah Judaism, his name is kind of unusual. It's not Yaakov or Yitzchak or Yosef. No no no. Not even close. It isn't even Azriel or Yochanan or Uri. I googled it and so far as Google is aware, nobody in the world has his name. How many people can say that? I ask you.
Barak's name, if you didn't know, is not actually Barak. It's a pretty run-of-the-mill name, although it's one I have loved for years. The year Barak was born, three other little boys were born at the school MHH was teaching at; they all have Barak's first name. I didn't know that when we named him, but probably wouldn' t have done anything differently if I had. MHH was pulling for some very, er, off-the-beaten-path names (Ovadiah, Chasdai, Yom Tov, and so on), while I liked some more commonly used ones. The discussions were endless, and MHH finally got sick of it and let me do what I wanted. (Wise man.) Which I did, although we didn't actually decide until the last possible minute. After the bris, the very frum friend with whom I'd discussed names took Barak and me back to her house to recuperate for a week. On the way there, her husband called and asked what the name was. She told him, and then burst out laughing. She called back over her shoulder, "He said, 'She won, huh?"
Anyway, so, Iyyar is going to be the only one in his cheder with his name. When I tell people Barak's name, they usually say, "Oh, that's a beautiful name." When I tell them Iyyar's, they pause, ask me to repeat it, and then say, "Is he named after someone?" The very frum friend paused and said, "Well, that's very unusual." It certainly is. But I don't care. I love it.
And I hope he will too.
I really, really like his name. I'm not going to post it here, but his first name is from Tanach and his middle name is from Chumash; both are biblical figures who I am particularly fond of, if I can put it that way. His middle name especially is of someone who is the subject of my favorite medrash ever; I told it over to the friendly African-American (and obviously very Christian) lady who did the birth certificates, and she just glowed with approval. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if she someday winds up with a small black grandchild with a strangely Jewish name.
I think it's a wonderful name. But I have to admit it--even in the world of Torah Judaism, his name is kind of unusual. It's not Yaakov or Yitzchak or Yosef. No no no. Not even close. It isn't even Azriel or Yochanan or Uri. I googled it and so far as Google is aware, nobody in the world has his name. How many people can say that? I ask you.
Barak's name, if you didn't know, is not actually Barak. It's a pretty run-of-the-mill name, although it's one I have loved for years. The year Barak was born, three other little boys were born at the school MHH was teaching at; they all have Barak's first name. I didn't know that when we named him, but probably wouldn' t have done anything differently if I had. MHH was pulling for some very, er, off-the-beaten-path names (Ovadiah, Chasdai, Yom Tov, and so on), while I liked some more commonly used ones. The discussions were endless, and MHH finally got sick of it and let me do what I wanted. (Wise man.) Which I did, although we didn't actually decide until the last possible minute. After the bris, the very frum friend with whom I'd discussed names took Barak and me back to her house to recuperate for a week. On the way there, her husband called and asked what the name was. She told him, and then burst out laughing. She called back over her shoulder, "He said, 'She won, huh?"
Anyway, so, Iyyar is going to be the only one in his cheder with his name. When I tell people Barak's name, they usually say, "Oh, that's a beautiful name." When I tell them Iyyar's, they pause, ask me to repeat it, and then say, "Is he named after someone?" The very frum friend paused and said, "Well, that's very unusual." It certainly is. But I don't care. I love it.
And I hope he will too.
Sleep
So, Iyyar nursed all morning yesterday, and slept all afternoon. Then he nursed all evening.
And--wait for it--slept all night.
Well, close to it, anyway. He went to sleep at around 10, and I intelligently got into bed the second he was out. (I am not always bright enough to do this.) Then he slept till 2:15, nursed, went back to sleep till around 5, had a quick snack, and slept until EIGHT.
Yes, as in 8 AM.
How 'bout that?
I am not foolish enough to think that he will now do this forever. But boy, do I feel better today.
Barak didn't sleep like that until--well, I don't know if he ever did. He still wakes up at night a couple times at least (not to nurse, though, obviously). And when he was a newborn, the sun would go down and come up and go down and come up and I would never get to lie down in an actual bed. He absolutely refused to sleep anywhere but in my arms or on my husband's chest, so we just had nursing and/or screaming until dawn, unless I caved and held him while he slept or fell asleep nursing so he got what he wanted that way. No matter how asleep he seemed in my arms, four minutes after I put him down he'd be howling. I remember a few times at 4 am waking MHH up, handing him the baby, and wailing, "You have to take the baby. If I don't sleep I'm going to die."
Eventually I got him (Barak, not MHH) to sleep in his carseat, by way of putting him in there with both arms around him and sneakily removing them once he was out. At which point he would, of course, wake up and cry, and I'd put my arms back. Lather, rinse, repeat. It took about two weeks of this before he was okay with the idea of sleeping without being held, when he was about three months old. I don't know if it was just his nature or aftereffects of his evil NICU stay, but it was sleep deprivation as I have never experienced it.
Iyyar seems like a very different kid. Obviously his preference is being held and nursing forever, but he is okay with hanging out in the carseat/bouncy seat/a blanket on the floor at least part of the time.
For now, anyway.
And--wait for it--slept all night.
Well, close to it, anyway. He went to sleep at around 10, and I intelligently got into bed the second he was out. (I am not always bright enough to do this.) Then he slept till 2:15, nursed, went back to sleep till around 5, had a quick snack, and slept until EIGHT.
Yes, as in 8 AM.
How 'bout that?
I am not foolish enough to think that he will now do this forever. But boy, do I feel better today.
Barak didn't sleep like that until--well, I don't know if he ever did. He still wakes up at night a couple times at least (not to nurse, though, obviously). And when he was a newborn, the sun would go down and come up and go down and come up and I would never get to lie down in an actual bed. He absolutely refused to sleep anywhere but in my arms or on my husband's chest, so we just had nursing and/or screaming until dawn, unless I caved and held him while he slept or fell asleep nursing so he got what he wanted that way. No matter how asleep he seemed in my arms, four minutes after I put him down he'd be howling. I remember a few times at 4 am waking MHH up, handing him the baby, and wailing, "You have to take the baby. If I don't sleep I'm going to die."
Eventually I got him (Barak, not MHH) to sleep in his carseat, by way of putting him in there with both arms around him and sneakily removing them once he was out. At which point he would, of course, wake up and cry, and I'd put my arms back. Lather, rinse, repeat. It took about two weeks of this before he was okay with the idea of sleeping without being held, when he was about three months old. I don't know if it was just his nature or aftereffects of his evil NICU stay, but it was sleep deprivation as I have never experienced it.
Iyyar seems like a very different kid. Obviously his preference is being held and nursing forever, but he is okay with hanging out in the carseat/bouncy seat/a blanket on the floor at least part of the time.
For now, anyway.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
The best-laid plans
First, I thought I would put this morning--the time when Ada has Barak--to good and noble use. I had it all planned out. Nurse baby, nap, shower, write ALL my thank-you notes. I even had the notecards and everything.
Then I got a cold. A really yucky nasty cold, which Barak and MHH have had all weekend and which I thought I had escaped. The kind of cold that makes every bone in your face ache. All right, I thought, we will scale back our ambitions. We will merely nurse the baby, shower, and then nap.
But Iyyar had other plans. Iyyar thought that just "nurse the baby" was enough ambition for one morning. He's been nursing for, um, about four hours. Straight. He just fell asleep, and Barak will be back in half an hour. I just have time to eat lunch.
Sigh.
Then I got a cold. A really yucky nasty cold, which Barak and MHH have had all weekend and which I thought I had escaped. The kind of cold that makes every bone in your face ache. All right, I thought, we will scale back our ambitions. We will merely nurse the baby, shower, and then nap.
But Iyyar had other plans. Iyyar thought that just "nurse the baby" was enough ambition for one morning. He's been nursing for, um, about four hours. Straight. He just fell asleep, and Barak will be back in half an hour. I just have time to eat lunch.
Sigh.
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Miscellany
It poured all day today, so I didn't even leave the house. Probably a good thing, because I'm too tired to think very clearly.
The new stove came yesterday, and either it runs hot or every stove I've ever had ran cold--it carbonized my cookies before the time I usually check on cookies for the first time. I ended up not keeping the box--it had staples in it that looked too hazardous to deal with, and too strong to remove. Oh well. The stove is very nice. It occurred to me that I am probably the only one in town to buy a new stove three weeks after Pesach...
Iyyar is starting to wake up--he's having longer periods of being alert and looking around. Definitely more fun. He slept a little better last night, which meant that I got two decent chunks of sleep--an hour and a half and then two hours. Yes, that's pretty good for a newborn. I never had that much sleep with Barak when he was that age, that's for sure. So I'm functioning, but still pretty bleary. If you couldn't tell.
Yesterday we were sitting in the living room looking out the window, and a car pulled up. Barak looked at it, thinking, and turned to me. "Gimma!" he said. (That means Grandma, as in Grandma E.) He thought a little more. "Gimma car." Because a few days before, Grandma E had gotten into a cab and driven away, and we had stood in that window waving. He remembered.
Oh, and the camel ride was a hit. Barak is still talking about camels. But it's not just any camel--no no. Apparently it is Abba's camel.
I was wondering where all the grass in the yard was going.
The new stove came yesterday, and either it runs hot or every stove I've ever had ran cold--it carbonized my cookies before the time I usually check on cookies for the first time. I ended up not keeping the box--it had staples in it that looked too hazardous to deal with, and too strong to remove. Oh well. The stove is very nice. It occurred to me that I am probably the only one in town to buy a new stove three weeks after Pesach...
Iyyar is starting to wake up--he's having longer periods of being alert and looking around. Definitely more fun. He slept a little better last night, which meant that I got two decent chunks of sleep--an hour and a half and then two hours. Yes, that's pretty good for a newborn. I never had that much sleep with Barak when he was that age, that's for sure. So I'm functioning, but still pretty bleary. If you couldn't tell.
Yesterday we were sitting in the living room looking out the window, and a car pulled up. Barak looked at it, thinking, and turned to me. "Gimma!" he said. (That means Grandma, as in Grandma E.) He thought a little more. "Gimma car." Because a few days before, Grandma E had gotten into a cab and driven away, and we had stood in that window waving. He remembered.
Oh, and the camel ride was a hit. Barak is still talking about camels. But it's not just any camel--no no. Apparently it is Abba's camel.
I was wondering where all the grass in the yard was going.
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
I will never get this right.
I think I have mentioned before that I am one of your less insular orthodox Jews. I've never gone to a Jewish school or worked in a Jewish place of employment; I also have a number of interests not common in ther yeshivishe veldt, like, er, blogging, and knitting and weaving and that kind of thing. As a result, I have a lot of non-Jewish friends.
When Barak was born, I sent out a mass email to our friends letting people know we'd had a kid. I tried hard to have it convey all pertinent information while still being comprehensible to everyone. I failed miserably. Among other things, I signed it Uberimma, MHH and Tinok ben MHH (with our real names, obviously). At least five emails came back saying, "Welcome Tinok!" and a few months later, I read in my alumni newsletter that I'd given birth to a baby boy named Tinok. (Tinok, by the way, means baby. Tinok ben Yosef means Yosef's baby boy--it's the equivalent of saying Baby Boy Smith).
This time, I was determined not to repeat my mistake. I read and reread my mazal tov email, which mentioned both the English day and the Hebrew date (gimel Iyyar) that I'd had the baby.
And got three emails back welcoming baby Iyyar.
Sigh.
Well, his bris was yesterday, and he has a real name now, but I think for purposes of this blog he might as well be baby Iyyar. Iyyar ben MHH, then, went to the pediatrician this morning, who pronounced him "doing great"--he is back up to his birth weight, at the 15th percentile for weight (which is really good considering he's not even due yet), and happily recovered from the jaundice.
Now we just need to work on that sleep thing.
Today's excitement: lag ba'omer. Barak's babysitter took him and his buddy to the party at MHH's school, where he got to go on a--wait for it--camel ride. Really. They had a camel. I can't wait to hear about it after he's done napping. And this afternoon, we should be getting our new stove, and I'm thinking about what to do with the box it's going to come in. Playhouse, anyone?
When Barak was born, I sent out a mass email to our friends letting people know we'd had a kid. I tried hard to have it convey all pertinent information while still being comprehensible to everyone. I failed miserably. Among other things, I signed it Uberimma, MHH and Tinok ben MHH (with our real names, obviously). At least five emails came back saying, "Welcome Tinok!" and a few months later, I read in my alumni newsletter that I'd given birth to a baby boy named Tinok. (Tinok, by the way, means baby. Tinok ben Yosef means Yosef's baby boy--it's the equivalent of saying Baby Boy Smith).
This time, I was determined not to repeat my mistake. I read and reread my mazal tov email, which mentioned both the English day and the Hebrew date (gimel Iyyar) that I'd had the baby.
And got three emails back welcoming baby Iyyar.
Sigh.
Well, his bris was yesterday, and he has a real name now, but I think for purposes of this blog he might as well be baby Iyyar. Iyyar ben MHH, then, went to the pediatrician this morning, who pronounced him "doing great"--he is back up to his birth weight, at the 15th percentile for weight (which is really good considering he's not even due yet), and happily recovered from the jaundice.
Now we just need to work on that sleep thing.
Today's excitement: lag ba'omer. Barak's babysitter took him and his buddy to the party at MHH's school, where he got to go on a--wait for it--camel ride. Really. They had a camel. I can't wait to hear about it after he's done napping. And this afternoon, we should be getting our new stove, and I'm thinking about what to do with the box it's going to come in. Playhouse, anyone?
Sunday, May 14, 2006
Things I Am Better Off Not Knowing
What google searches brought people here.
Yuck. I mean, really, yuck.
Well, let's try to post something that will not turn up any gross google hits.
I bought a new stove today. Yes, today. Yes, the day before my son's bris. Yes, I had forty thousand other things to do, and no, I did not get more than two hours of sleep last night. And yet, I prioritized the purchase of a new major appliance. Why, exactly, did I do this, as well you might ask?
Um.
Let's say that Friday was a really rough day. It had been a sort of emotional couple of weeks, to put it mildly, and then there was a lot going on to get ready for the bris tomorrow, and I had gotten no sleep the night before, and the baby and Barak and the stupid CAT for pete's sake were all screaming all night, and then my friend's husband called about my friend, and I was trying to be in denial about that because I just couldn't deal, and my nieces and nephews had just come (WHICH WAS GOOD, SARA, WE LOVE YOU AND YOUR HUSBAND AND ALL YOUR KIDS, AND THIS IS IN NO WAY MEANT TO IMPLY THAT WE DIDN'T WANT YOU TO COME, BECAUSE IT DOESN'T, IT ONLY MEANS THAT THERE WERE MORE KIDS AND ERGO MORE NOISE IN THE HOUSE THAN USUAL, AND THAT'S IT, REALLY), and, um, I guess I was kind of stressed. And a little hormonal. And stuff.
(Do I really want to blog about this?)
(Well, why not, maybe it'll be cathartic or something.)
So, well, it was just exactly licht, meaning time to light for Shabbos, and I had just set up the candles, and Barak was screaming for milk, and I went to get it out of the fridge, and it was really full, and stuff kept falling out, and I couldn't get it to fit back in, and I got so frustrated, and then I started crying, and, um, I kind of threw a pot of rice across the kitchen.
Hard.
And it hit the oven door.
The glass oven door.
Do you know how many tiny little pieces of glass an oven door can shatter into?
Neither do I. But it was a lot.
So that's why I bought a new oven today. I kind of wanted one anyway, to be honest; the late lamented oven did not regulate very well. But this is not quite the way I planned to acquire one.
At least it is self-cleaning.
Yuck. I mean, really, yuck.
Well, let's try to post something that will not turn up any gross google hits.
I bought a new stove today. Yes, today. Yes, the day before my son's bris. Yes, I had forty thousand other things to do, and no, I did not get more than two hours of sleep last night. And yet, I prioritized the purchase of a new major appliance. Why, exactly, did I do this, as well you might ask?
Um.
Let's say that Friday was a really rough day. It had been a sort of emotional couple of weeks, to put it mildly, and then there was a lot going on to get ready for the bris tomorrow, and I had gotten no sleep the night before, and the baby and Barak and the stupid CAT for pete's sake were all screaming all night, and then my friend's husband called about my friend, and I was trying to be in denial about that because I just couldn't deal, and my nieces and nephews had just come (WHICH WAS GOOD, SARA, WE LOVE YOU AND YOUR HUSBAND AND ALL YOUR KIDS, AND THIS IS IN NO WAY MEANT TO IMPLY THAT WE DIDN'T WANT YOU TO COME, BECAUSE IT DOESN'T, IT ONLY MEANS THAT THERE WERE MORE KIDS AND ERGO MORE NOISE IN THE HOUSE THAN USUAL, AND THAT'S IT, REALLY), and, um, I guess I was kind of stressed. And a little hormonal. And stuff.
(Do I really want to blog about this?)
(Well, why not, maybe it'll be cathartic or something.)
So, well, it was just exactly licht, meaning time to light for Shabbos, and I had just set up the candles, and Barak was screaming for milk, and I went to get it out of the fridge, and it was really full, and stuff kept falling out, and I couldn't get it to fit back in, and I got so frustrated, and then I started crying, and, um, I kind of threw a pot of rice across the kitchen.
Hard.
And it hit the oven door.
The glass oven door.
Do you know how many tiny little pieces of glass an oven door can shatter into?
Neither do I. But it was a lot.
So that's why I bought a new oven today. I kind of wanted one anyway, to be honest; the late lamented oven did not regulate very well. But this is not quite the way I planned to acquire one.
At least it is self-cleaning.
Saturday, May 13, 2006
Baruch dayan emes
The friend I've been asking you all to daven for died early Friday. Her husband called me before Shabbos to tell me. Not that he really had to say anything--once I heard his voice I knew why he'd called.
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Lonely
Grandma E left last night.
: (
Barak stood at the window waving as her cab pulled away, and has since been poking his head in her bedroom every so often asking, "Gamma?" No, she went home, sweetheart. He looks perplexed. "Gamma home?" Uh, excuse me, WE'RE home, and she obviously isn't here! What gives? It's a hard one to explain.
I can't even imagine what a wreck I would be right now if she hadn't come. I'd just be a puddle on the floor. As it is, I think we're doing okay, although I'm not sure how anybody manages a newborn and a 2yo at the same time. Tomorrow my SIL and company are coming, for the bris which will IY"H be on Monday. Monday afternoon, I'm on my own with the two of them again, and it's already making me a little nervous. Okay, hundreds of millions of women have managed two kids at once and lived to tell the tale. I'm sure I can do this. But what do you do when they are both screaming at once?
: (
Barak stood at the window waving as her cab pulled away, and has since been poking his head in her bedroom every so often asking, "Gamma?" No, she went home, sweetheart. He looks perplexed. "Gamma home?" Uh, excuse me, WE'RE home, and she obviously isn't here! What gives? It's a hard one to explain.
I can't even imagine what a wreck I would be right now if she hadn't come. I'd just be a puddle on the floor. As it is, I think we're doing okay, although I'm not sure how anybody manages a newborn and a 2yo at the same time. Tomorrow my SIL and company are coming, for the bris which will IY"H be on Monday. Monday afternoon, I'm on my own with the two of them again, and it's already making me a little nervous. Okay, hundreds of millions of women have managed two kids at once and lived to tell the tale. I'm sure I can do this. But what do you do when they are both screaming at once?
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
The Week in Review, Part III
Just to warn you--this is not going to be a happy post.
The baby is, B"H, fine. Barak is fine. MHH is fine. I am fine. But the friend I've been asking you fo daven for, off and on, for the last year, is not fine.
She has ovarian cancer. Has? Had? I don't even know. She went into remission about a year and a half ago, and just over a year ago had a recurrence. If this happens with ovarian cancer the second round of treatment is usually considered palliative. Her husband did not take this approach and they did everything. But the chemo failed, the first clinical trial failed, the experimental treatment seemed to be working but then ripped her intestines apart. Right before we left for Israel, her husband called me and she was in the hospital. She nearly died then, but after a few surgeries went home a little over a month later. Before the second surgery, I talked to her on the phone about vidui, tahara, funerals and shiva. She is Jewish but not observant; her family didn't know how to have the conversation, or couldn't do it, and her sister asked me to talk to her. So I did.
She's my age--just about six months older than me. She wanted children so much. When she was diagnosed, the idea that she could never have a baby hurt more, and scared her more, than the idea of cancer. Last summer, I asked her if we could do a shinui shem for her--change her name in the hopes that it might help her evade the Angel of Death. That Shabbos, I lost a pregnancy, a few hours before we changed her name. Somehow, irrationally, I thought that maybe Hashem had let us trade--that he had taken that baby so she could have one of her own. I thought, irrationally, that maybe she would get better.
She isn't getting better. Her sister called me on motzai Shabbos, and put her on the phone, and she told me that she's dying. I don't know how imminently, but she said it was the end of the road. She said she was okay with it--she was so tired, and she was glad not to be "in fight mode" anymore, as she put it. We said goodbye. How do you do that? How do you think of everything you might ever want to tell someone, ever, and not forget anything, because you won't have another chance? And how do you do it when you are sitting in the hospital with your brand new baby boy, who will B"H be okay after all, while talking to someone who won't ever have a baby of her own?
I don't know.
I've been updating her blog for her for the last few months. It's pretty widely read. I'd post the link, but she has a trackback feature and I don't want to be sending people to my blog from hers. I don't know if she's still alive; she said someone would call me, and no one has yet, and I don't know what to say if I called. She's there with her husband and her parents and her sister. It's their time.
What is hardest about this--what kicks me in the gut the most--is the way our lives suddenly seemed to switch paths. She had a loving family, met her husband early, had every expectation that her life would give her what she wanted. She never thought anything bad would happen. I was the opposite, and I never thought anything good would happen. Now I have everything I've ever wanted, and she is, very possibly, dead by now.
What do you do with that?
I don't know. I can cuddle my boys, and be grateful for what I have. I did everything I could think of to help her, and I will try to be there for her family if they want me. But I will never understand this.
The baby is, B"H, fine. Barak is fine. MHH is fine. I am fine. But the friend I've been asking you fo daven for, off and on, for the last year, is not fine.
She has ovarian cancer. Has? Had? I don't even know. She went into remission about a year and a half ago, and just over a year ago had a recurrence. If this happens with ovarian cancer the second round of treatment is usually considered palliative. Her husband did not take this approach and they did everything. But the chemo failed, the first clinical trial failed, the experimental treatment seemed to be working but then ripped her intestines apart. Right before we left for Israel, her husband called me and she was in the hospital. She nearly died then, but after a few surgeries went home a little over a month later. Before the second surgery, I talked to her on the phone about vidui, tahara, funerals and shiva. She is Jewish but not observant; her family didn't know how to have the conversation, or couldn't do it, and her sister asked me to talk to her. So I did.
She's my age--just about six months older than me. She wanted children so much. When she was diagnosed, the idea that she could never have a baby hurt more, and scared her more, than the idea of cancer. Last summer, I asked her if we could do a shinui shem for her--change her name in the hopes that it might help her evade the Angel of Death. That Shabbos, I lost a pregnancy, a few hours before we changed her name. Somehow, irrationally, I thought that maybe Hashem had let us trade--that he had taken that baby so she could have one of her own. I thought, irrationally, that maybe she would get better.
She isn't getting better. Her sister called me on motzai Shabbos, and put her on the phone, and she told me that she's dying. I don't know how imminently, but she said it was the end of the road. She said she was okay with it--she was so tired, and she was glad not to be "in fight mode" anymore, as she put it. We said goodbye. How do you do that? How do you think of everything you might ever want to tell someone, ever, and not forget anything, because you won't have another chance? And how do you do it when you are sitting in the hospital with your brand new baby boy, who will B"H be okay after all, while talking to someone who won't ever have a baby of her own?
I don't know.
I've been updating her blog for her for the last few months. It's pretty widely read. I'd post the link, but she has a trackback feature and I don't want to be sending people to my blog from hers. I don't know if she's still alive; she said someone would call me, and no one has yet, and I don't know what to say if I called. She's there with her husband and her parents and her sister. It's their time.
What is hardest about this--what kicks me in the gut the most--is the way our lives suddenly seemed to switch paths. She had a loving family, met her husband early, had every expectation that her life would give her what she wanted. She never thought anything bad would happen. I was the opposite, and I never thought anything good would happen. Now I have everything I've ever wanted, and she is, very possibly, dead by now.
What do you do with that?
I don't know. I can cuddle my boys, and be grateful for what I have. I did everything I could think of to help her, and I will try to be there for her family if they want me. But I will never understand this.
Monday, May 08, 2006
The Week in Review, Part II: Where the Baby Spent His First Shabbos
So, where were we...
We got up to the maternity floor and the nurse came in and asked me to rate my pain on a scale of one to ten. I thought about this, took an incredulous mental inventory, and said, "Um, actually I don't hurt anywhere." (This has since changed, but it was nice while it lasted.) Very different from last time.
MHH and I looked at the clock and thought, hey, it's only 6 am, and I'm set, and Barak is home with the sitter, and I just want to sleep, so why should MHH stick around? No reason to waste a personal day. So MHH, who is now being referred to as "Iron Man" at his school, went in to work and taught a full load.
And I took a nap, and nursed the baby, and Barak came with his sitter that afternoon and ate my granola bars and played with the controls on the hospital bed and the television, and ate my cookie and drank my juice from lunch, and looked at the baby (who was ten hours old) and demanded, "Hold it! Baby!" He didn't get to hold the baby, but he got to sit on my lap with the baby, and we got some cute pictures.
The baby nursed happily and napped and nursed, and I missed my husband, and I missed Barak, and I thought, I want to go home. So the next day, I did. But before I left the nurse came in and checked the baby's bilirubin level. She frowned. "This thing isn't working," she said. She got another forehead zapper, and checked it again. It was at 9, which is a little high. So she wrote me an order to come get the baby's blood bilirubin checked in the lab the next day.
Now, remember that we do not have a car. Every time I go somewhere I can't walk, I have to install a car seat either into a cab or into a friend's car. So every trip to the doctor or the lab requires one or two carseat installations--and I am makpid about carseats. When I install a carseat, I try to do it right, and this involves a lot of gymnastics and heavy-duty yanking on seatbelts. No matter how quick your labor was, it's not a smart thing to be doing the day after you have a baby.
But you have to do what you have to do, and so I took the baby to the doctor's to get his blood tested. And his level was 16. That was Tuesday. Wednesday, I went in and it was 21. The doctor called and said, I'm sending over a phototherapy blanket, and I want a lactation consultant to go visit to make sure he's eating. And tomorrow I want you to come and get his blood tested in the morning and the afternoon. The blanket arrived, the lactation consultant arrived and told me things I already knew. And we had his blood tested again. In the morning it had gone down slightly; in the evening it had gone back up. So on Friday, we went again to get his heel stuck for the umpteenth time. Both his heels are so sore and swollen that it was really hard to get blood, and besides that we had the Phlebotomist Who Needs to Find A New Career Path. Every other time we'd been there, I was told (by the other phlebotomist, who may keep her career) that she needed half a tube of blood for the test. This one said, at a third of a tube, oh, that's enough. I didn't think it was, and she assured me it was fine, and I said, okay, and we went home.
Well.
At around one, I called the doctor's office for the results of the test, and talked to a nurse, who said that the doctor would have called if there had been a problem. Okay, I said.
Two hours before shabbos, the phone rang, and it was the doctor, telling me that there hadn't been enough blood to do the test, and I had to go to the hospital IMMEDIATELY to get the baby's blood tested. He kept using words like "crucial" and "critical" and "right now." It was two hours before Shabbos, and I sort of lost it. The baby was sweet and beautiful, but I'd taken to calling him Barracuda Boy, and those of you who have nursed an enthusiastic newborn will understand the kind of pain that can cause. I'd installed seven car seats in the last week. Everything ached, and I was tired, and I had to find a ride to the hospital. I sort of lost it.
(This is taking an awfully long time to write...)
Right, well, so, we got to the hospital, and they tested the baby's blood, and his bilirubin was so high they didn't believe it and tested it again, and it was right, and they admitted him. And the doctor came in and started talking about things like IVs and blood transfusions and the NICU and brain damage (which B"H he does not have, and none of which he needed, B"H a million times.) And there I was erev Shabbos, frantic about the baby, in a shirt soaked in breastmilk (this is what happens when you have a five-day-old baby), with no food, no extra clothes, no nothing.
But we had Grandma E.
My husband says I have three categories of friends: Jews, Asians, and people at least forty years older than I am. He's pretty much right. Grandma E is in the last category, a friend from my spinning guild who came to stay with us when Barak was born. I can't get too effusive about how great and amazing she is, because she's sitting behind me reading a book and will get embarassed if I do, but she's a tzedaikus. She had come to the hospital with us when the baby needed to get his blood drawn (being a retired RN who used to work at the very hospital where I'd had the baby and where we ended up spending Shabbos), and when it was clear he was going to be admitted she went back home with the friend who gave us a ride and packed up a change of clothes for me, and knitting for after Shabbos, and food. (She isn't Jewish, so she could do this even though it was past licht.) And then she came back and spent Shabbos with us in the hospital without even a change of clothes for herself, and turned what would have been a total nightmare into a scary but otherwise sort of pleasant Shabbos of sitting around chatting and watching the baby and debating whether or not he looked a little less yellow.The pediatric ward was almost empty, so they put us in a triple, and it could have been an awful lot worse.
So we spent Shabbos in the hospital, and the baby got to bask under the bililights in his very own baby tanning bed. I thought it would be awful and he'd scream and cry and I wouldn't be able to comfort him, but actually it was okay. He fussed a little and then thought, hmm, this isn't so bad after all--nice and warm actually. And after a few minutes, he stretched out and went right to sleep.
And his bilirubin went down, and down, and the baby started fussing, which was a good sign, and wanting to nurse more and more, which was an even better sign. Grandma E went home, and I talked to MHH on the phone, and he was coming to see the baby. And things were okay. And I felt so much better. And there I was sitting in a rocking chair, nursing the baby, feeling so grateful for everything I had.
And then my cellphone rang.
Sunday, May 07, 2006
The Week In Review
It's been quite a week in the Uberimma household. Too much for one post, so I'll do this in parts.
Part I: Precipitous
I had really gotten it in my head that I would have the baby last Sunday. It was Barak's second birthday, and for some reason I just thought I would have the baby then. I'd been having contractions off and on since Wednesday, coming and going, never very strong. They went on all day Saturday, then stopped, then started again Sunday morning. And then they stopped. We went for a walk, got bagels for breakfast, went to the park, went home. No contractions. I put Barak to bed, considered making chocolate cookies, decided not to, wasted some time on the computer, and went to bed.
Around midnight, I woke up feeling funny, and thought I was hungry. Went to the kitchen, pondered my options, ate a spoonful of ice cream and went back to bed.
Around one, I woke up, and thought, "Ow." Then I went back to sleep.
At 1:05, I woke up, thought "Ow," looked at my watch, and went back to sleep.
At 1:10, I woke up, thought "Ow," looked at my watch, and went back to sleep.
And then I thought, "Hey, I can time these." And then I went back to sleep.
At 2:30, I woke up and thought, "Wet. Very wet." And I did not go back to sleep. I got up, dripping all over the floor, and went to get a pad. Then I got another one. Then I went to wake up MHH.
Or at least I tried. But he didn't wake up, and I thought I'd just go call the midwife first. I went back to the guest room, where the computer is, and had her paged, then wrote an email to the friend who was going to come when the baby came and another to the friend I was on the phone with for a good chunk of early labor with Barak. The midwife called me, and I told her that my water had broken, I knew I was four centimeters dilated, I was fully effaced, the contractions were five minutes apart but not strong. I said I thought it was time to go to the hospital and she agreed. I called the babysitter, called the cab, and went to wake up MHH. This time I was not as polite about it, and turned on the bedroom light.
I told him that my water had broken and I was going to the hospital. "Wait till the babysitter gets here, then call a cab and meet me at the hospital." He thought this was a little odd. Last time, I'd been in labor for days. Why didn't I just wait for the babysitter and we could go together?
No, I said, I'm going now. And I'm leaving my labor bag, because I don't want to freak out the cab driver. So could you bring it, please? He said fine, and then started getting together a pile of books and CDs. Remember, last time I was in labor for four days. He wanted to be ready.
The cab came and I got in, after following it as it rolled down the street, the driver not seeing that he'd already passed the right house. I told him where I wanted to go and how I wanted him to get there. And off we went.
It's a twelve-dollar cab ride to the hospital. The midwife's office is right next door, and I'd been there by cab enough times to know this. I felt fine. The contractions weren't bad. I watched the meter go up.
And then I had a contraction that wasn't a joke. I tried to breathe deeply (but not loudly enough that the cab driver would hear me.) And then I had another contraction. And we were only three dollars into the ride. Four dollars. Four thirty-five. And that's when I started davening, please, do not let me have this baby in the cab. I need to get to the hospital.
By eight dollars, I felt desperately like I had to go to the bathroom, and thought of all the stories of women who'd gone to the bathroom and had their babies. Ten dollars. Eleven. Twelve. We pulled up to the hospital entrance, and I think the driver figured out what was going on when I handed him a twenty and got out of the cab without asking for change. I walked into labor and delivery, told the receptionist my name and that my husband was coming. She got me a room, and the midwife appeared--only she wasn't my midwife. It was the only one in the practice I'd never seen. "Where's Fran?" I asked. "Fran's not on call." "Yes, but she told me that she'd come anyway." The midwife looked at me, and was obviously not thrilled. "You didn't say that on the phone." She had me get on the bed, took a look, and said, "You're seven centimeters. I'll call Fran. But I don't know where she is."
I apologized, and saw that she was annoyed. She went off to call Fran. The nurse came, checked my blood pressure, and left. I took my knitting out of the bag. I put it down. And my Gd, it hurt. I leaned against the wall, went into the bathroom, tried to sit down, couldn't, walked back into the room, tried to breathe, didn't think I could do that either. Nobody else was in the room. Then the nurse, who I remember was Jamaican, came back, and called out into the hall, "Get the midwife."
I think it must have hurt worse than it did with Barak, because I never screamed when I ws in labor with Barak, and I was certainly screaming then. The nurse came back, and the midwife had me get on the bed, which I didn't think I could do, and she had a look and said, "Well, there's no time for Fran to get here, because you're ready to push." Which I did. It's true that it is a relief to push when you get there, because it eases the pain, but it was still blinding. At some point, I heard someone ask, "Is she alone?" I said, my husband's coming, but don't let him in!
And I had the baby. And I heard him crying, and I asked if it was a boy or a girl, and the midwife said she hadn't looked, and then she showed me, and it was a boy. She let me hold him, and said, careful, he's still attached.
MHH, meanwhile, had waited for the babysitter and taken a cab. When he got to the hospital, he went to the labor and delivery desk and told them who he was there for. They asked him to wait for a few minutes, and then told him he could go in. "Congratulations," one of them said. "Why?" he asked. "Go in and see."
There I was with the baby, and I heard him come in and say, in a tone of total incredulity, "You had the baby already?!" Indeed I had. And he nursed right away, and stayed awake and alert and nursing for almost two hours.
When it was time to go up to the maternity floor, someone came with a wheelchair and the piece of paper giving the bare bones of the labor that you take upstairs. I looked at it, and then I looked at the back. There were a bunch of boxes to check for what had happened during the labor: epidural, spinal block, forceps, etc. There was a box for "prolonged labor (>20 hours)." And there was a box for "precipitous labor (<4 hours)."
Welcome home, Mr. Precipitous.
And he is fine, and B"H is beautiful.
Part I: Precipitous
I had really gotten it in my head that I would have the baby last Sunday. It was Barak's second birthday, and for some reason I just thought I would have the baby then. I'd been having contractions off and on since Wednesday, coming and going, never very strong. They went on all day Saturday, then stopped, then started again Sunday morning. And then they stopped. We went for a walk, got bagels for breakfast, went to the park, went home. No contractions. I put Barak to bed, considered making chocolate cookies, decided not to, wasted some time on the computer, and went to bed.
Around midnight, I woke up feeling funny, and thought I was hungry. Went to the kitchen, pondered my options, ate a spoonful of ice cream and went back to bed.
Around one, I woke up, and thought, "Ow." Then I went back to sleep.
At 1:05, I woke up, thought "Ow," looked at my watch, and went back to sleep.
At 1:10, I woke up, thought "Ow," looked at my watch, and went back to sleep.
And then I thought, "Hey, I can time these." And then I went back to sleep.
At 2:30, I woke up and thought, "Wet. Very wet." And I did not go back to sleep. I got up, dripping all over the floor, and went to get a pad. Then I got another one. Then I went to wake up MHH.
Or at least I tried. But he didn't wake up, and I thought I'd just go call the midwife first. I went back to the guest room, where the computer is, and had her paged, then wrote an email to the friend who was going to come when the baby came and another to the friend I was on the phone with for a good chunk of early labor with Barak. The midwife called me, and I told her that my water had broken, I knew I was four centimeters dilated, I was fully effaced, the contractions were five minutes apart but not strong. I said I thought it was time to go to the hospital and she agreed. I called the babysitter, called the cab, and went to wake up MHH. This time I was not as polite about it, and turned on the bedroom light.
I told him that my water had broken and I was going to the hospital. "Wait till the babysitter gets here, then call a cab and meet me at the hospital." He thought this was a little odd. Last time, I'd been in labor for days. Why didn't I just wait for the babysitter and we could go together?
No, I said, I'm going now. And I'm leaving my labor bag, because I don't want to freak out the cab driver. So could you bring it, please? He said fine, and then started getting together a pile of books and CDs. Remember, last time I was in labor for four days. He wanted to be ready.
The cab came and I got in, after following it as it rolled down the street, the driver not seeing that he'd already passed the right house. I told him where I wanted to go and how I wanted him to get there. And off we went.
It's a twelve-dollar cab ride to the hospital. The midwife's office is right next door, and I'd been there by cab enough times to know this. I felt fine. The contractions weren't bad. I watched the meter go up.
And then I had a contraction that wasn't a joke. I tried to breathe deeply (but not loudly enough that the cab driver would hear me.) And then I had another contraction. And we were only three dollars into the ride. Four dollars. Four thirty-five. And that's when I started davening, please, do not let me have this baby in the cab. I need to get to the hospital.
By eight dollars, I felt desperately like I had to go to the bathroom, and thought of all the stories of women who'd gone to the bathroom and had their babies. Ten dollars. Eleven. Twelve. We pulled up to the hospital entrance, and I think the driver figured out what was going on when I handed him a twenty and got out of the cab without asking for change. I walked into labor and delivery, told the receptionist my name and that my husband was coming. She got me a room, and the midwife appeared--only she wasn't my midwife. It was the only one in the practice I'd never seen. "Where's Fran?" I asked. "Fran's not on call." "Yes, but she told me that she'd come anyway." The midwife looked at me, and was obviously not thrilled. "You didn't say that on the phone." She had me get on the bed, took a look, and said, "You're seven centimeters. I'll call Fran. But I don't know where she is."
I apologized, and saw that she was annoyed. She went off to call Fran. The nurse came, checked my blood pressure, and left. I took my knitting out of the bag. I put it down. And my Gd, it hurt. I leaned against the wall, went into the bathroom, tried to sit down, couldn't, walked back into the room, tried to breathe, didn't think I could do that either. Nobody else was in the room. Then the nurse, who I remember was Jamaican, came back, and called out into the hall, "Get the midwife."
I think it must have hurt worse than it did with Barak, because I never screamed when I ws in labor with Barak, and I was certainly screaming then. The nurse came back, and the midwife had me get on the bed, which I didn't think I could do, and she had a look and said, "Well, there's no time for Fran to get here, because you're ready to push." Which I did. It's true that it is a relief to push when you get there, because it eases the pain, but it was still blinding. At some point, I heard someone ask, "Is she alone?" I said, my husband's coming, but don't let him in!
And I had the baby. And I heard him crying, and I asked if it was a boy or a girl, and the midwife said she hadn't looked, and then she showed me, and it was a boy. She let me hold him, and said, careful, he's still attached.
MHH, meanwhile, had waited for the babysitter and taken a cab. When he got to the hospital, he went to the labor and delivery desk and told them who he was there for. They asked him to wait for a few minutes, and then told him he could go in. "Congratulations," one of them said. "Why?" he asked. "Go in and see."
There I was with the baby, and I heard him come in and say, in a tone of total incredulity, "You had the baby already?!" Indeed I had. And he nursed right away, and stayed awake and alert and nursing for almost two hours.
When it was time to go up to the maternity floor, someone came with a wheelchair and the piece of paper giving the bare bones of the labor that you take upstairs. I looked at it, and then I looked at the back. There were a bunch of boxes to check for what had happened during the labor: epidural, spinal block, forceps, etc. There was a box for "prolonged labor (>20 hours)." And there was a box for "precipitous labor (<4 hours)."
Welcome home, Mr. Precipitous.
And he is fine, and B"H is beautiful.
Friday, May 05, 2006
He's here
Barak has just acquired a little brother, with whom he now shares a bar mitzva parsha (and with whom he narrowly avoided sharing a birthday).
7 lb, 8.5 oz, 19.5 inches. Oh, and the labor? Ninety minutes flat. And yes, I made it to the hospital in time.
Details to follow, once things have settled down a little.
7 lb, 8.5 oz, 19.5 inches. Oh, and the labor? Ninety minutes flat. And yes, I made it to the hospital in time.
Details to follow, once things have settled down a little.
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