Author: housekeeping

Post Script

I bet you are wondering – how is Wonder Boy?  Well, I got to tell you, end of day, good. But I  quickly admonish, I don’t claim blame for the dumb things he did (does) two things I can’t control over… my long, curly hair and my son… The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree – so I would never take credit for all the glorious things he has accomplished. Some of the following excerpts of his life might enlighten you:

Wonder Boy in the School System:

Over the years, I can safely say I heard a million stories from some good, some bad and some indifferent teachers. He was the class clown, he was in the Superior Range of intelligence, he was the most divergent pupil they ever taught, he was the laziest pupil they ever encountered, he needed remedial help, we should enroll him in university courses at ten years old, to keep him interested in learning.  We took it all with a grain of salt.

I remember one day when Wonder Boy was in maybe Grade One, Hubby and I were called to the school for a serious meeting with his teacher and the principal – I can’t really remember Wonder Boy’s infraction but I do remember the principal explaining to us that, overall, my son had a Superior attitude when dealing with his classmates (we were not sure what it meant, but it some how knew the Public School system  considered it  a detriment) which was apparent to not only the teaching staff but all adults he interacted with.  We were perplexed, since, we foolish, besotted parents that we were, often marveled how well my son interpreted situations, showing dexterity at reading people and reacting accordingly.

What is a mother to do when they are served up such expert opinions by those whose life’s work is to understand children?  Call your sister and commiserate.  She had three children in the school system so had been there, done that.   My sister snorted, “Of course your son acts Superior.  He is just like his parents before him.  Can any of us deny our DNA?”  (She also trained me, early on to take what the school system said with a grain of salt, which served our son well, long term). 

August 6

You are a fine specimen of a little man. That is confirmed when Dr.OB/GYN comes in to my room the next day and sees you have finally been released to General Pop(ulation) and your basinet (really, a see through acrylic rectangle box with no cover and a baby mattress on a trolley, wedged in to my bed so we can do some hands on bonding.  A huge grin engulfs Dr.OB/GYN’s usually somber, always tired and pale face.  As he cups your head in his large hand he says, “You have a grand young man”, and with that pronouncement, he exits, stage left, scurrying to the next mother, the next baby, the next fire to put out.

It is your Cousin, Pretty Little Dutch Girl’s 16^th Birthday today.  Although I call home, I can not get though to wish her a Happy Birthday – she is doing what 16 years do – having fun.  Who needs adults (except to provide food for your belly, and a roof over your head, allowance and shell out for extras like dance classes so that she can later say, you never wanted them anyway).  But me, I‘m not bitter.

August 7

I did not sleep last night, just so revved, we are off to our very own Personal Zoo.  I don’t care that the day is unseasonably chilly, like a fall day, with sulky clouds, threatening rain to come, obliterating the blue sky.  We are going home!

We arrived to a quiet house (apparently Pretty Little Dutch Girl is still out having fun).  Your father drops us off in a hurry, leaving you, me and the suitcases at the front door so he can get back to work. 

I carry you in your car seat, over the door and we step in to a mostly tidy house but it does not look like a floor has been scrubbed or dusting done since the last time I did it. 

I put you down so I can lug in my suitcases, your baskets and flowers and pause to make a plan.  You are looking around at this new territory, not sure what to make of it.  Geez, it is dark, I mutter as I flip on some light. 

I take you out of the carrier to better cuddle you, walking from room to room to introduce you to where you will be living.  Then upstairs I go, crossing the thresh hold of your room, my promise to you realized – next time I entered this room you would be in my arms, ready for your crib, put together by Dad’s loving handles, with bumper pads, baby sheets, blankets and duvets, a brightly colored overhead module, stuffed bears, dragons, doggies, even hand crafted stuffed raggedy Andrew doll… fit for a prince to dream of slaying dragons, climbing mountains, crossing lakes, rivers and oceans as you matured in to a Grand Big Man.

But wait.  You look so small, so lost in that big crib.  No worries, I go to Plan B. I scoop you out and nestle you in a Moses like hooded wicker basket, with canary yellow lining and  fitted sheets, blankets and mattress.  Now you look at home – comfy and snuggly rather than overwhelmed and overshadowed.  One thing about you and me – we always have a Plan B.

Now… the fun part… Reality Check… Up and onwards… Keep calm and Carry on.

The END of the BEGINNING

August 5

Dr. D. comes in with a tape measure to give to me, showing your length at birth (18.5 inches or 47 cm long); the circumference of your head was 13” or 33 cm), weight of course, 4 pounds 14 ounces or 2220 grams.  You have O+ blood from your Dad and Grandma, I assume since Grampsey and I are A+. Great things come in small packages.

Today is the day Dr. D. decides to pontificate about the hazards and hell of post partum depression that he has observed with all his Moms a couple of days after they are thrown out to the mercies of manipulative (probably listening and observing in utero) babies, fathers and other family members  who choose not to see or hear Mom dancing as fast as she can …until such time it reaches a crisis. 

Well, you know me, I think I know it all already so kind of tune him out… but his words come back to haunt me when I am bleary eyed, sleep deprived and you, Wonder Baby are crying again.  Although I am in your room, sleeping on the couch beside you (we mustn’t disturb Daddy, he had that operation just a year ago and has to go out to work each day). I hear you from like a million miles away, like you are buried in a tunnel. 

I crawl around in the dark, trying to find you, or at least find the light switch.  I persevere, flood the room with light, and there you are, face beet red from exerting so much effort in order to wake me up.  I swear, sometimes I thought, if there was a chair under the window sill, maybe I would have just crawled up there, flung open the window and flew like a bird, out to the silence of the unknown.

But then I would pick you up and your cries would turn to dry heaves and shudders and I would feel so ashamed of myself.  “Sorry, Wonder Boy”, I whisper, “I’ll wake up faster next time. Promise.” 

Thanks Dr, D.  You took the time to let me know I was not an aberration. I was just feeling and reacting like a hormone driven, overtired Mom… through out the universe.

August 1… Cont’d

As I am up and about all the time now, others mothers and those still in waiting, come sidling over to find out the exact story because surely I have been the ‘soupe du jour’ the last few days.  I tell them,  “I’m fine, I’m fine”, with a flip of my hand (like Dr. D. to me?). Still they persist, “Why were you in ICU, then a wheel chair? Why is your baby not in the General Nursery?”  “Oh, you know, trouble with waking up from surgery and a small to date baby.” They nod their collective heads sagely, having never heard this condition even existed, then walk down the hall discussing it together.  Does that mean that the Wheel of Fortune hit me so they and their babies are safe, they ponder in their heads.

However, there is good news for us and bad news for another Mom and Baby that pushed you and me out of the lime light.  A mom came in to delivery with a wild fever that they could not control before the baby passed through the birth canal.  The mother was sent to ICU, the baby sent to isolation since no one quite understood what virus was relentlessly attacking their bodies. 

A couple of days later the baby was in the Special Nursery with you so I can only assume that he was no longer contagious (fingers crossed) but I never did meet his mother… did she hemorrhage, develop sepsis… so I’m just saying, you just don’t know… for whom the bell tolls.

August 3

I am sharing  my semi-private room with a lovely East Indian lady who also had a baby boy who is big and strong and in the General Nursery so is brought in the room all day and at night for feedings.  She is a cheerful soul, and all the reprimands she gets from the nurses that she does not get out of bed enough, does not walk enough, does not feed her baby the right way slides off, her like water off a duck’s back.  As they point at me and tell her, this is your second baby,  why can’t she be like me, she says and rightfully so, “Who cares?  Someone keeping score?”  Yup, I have been lucky. 

I have shared my room with so many great mom’s, different cultures, different socio-economic backgrounds, way older than me (and I was almost 31, way younger, like 17 and pregnant with twins. I often wonder, “Where are those kids now and will their paths ever cross with you,  Wonder Boy, one day?”

August 1 Cont’d…

Two weeks after you came home you had to be re-admitted because of your failure to thrive… so we were told.  Truthfully, I was that often told small to date babies internal organs do not always mature in utero. 

When the Pediatrician met up with me at your crib side, he took one look at me and asked if I was on some fad diet – apparently, in his estimation, I did not look like I had given birth a month ago. Fortunately Dr. D. was also there, who explained,  “No, No, Quite Contrary is Jack Sprat who could eat no fat….”

By the time you were six months old those things had straightened themselves out and you were my Budda Baby.  And that was why you and I parted ways with the Pediatrician.  We were there for one of your needles (before crusaders confused parents who in turn denied their babies ‘the right to get inoculated’).  The pediatrician walked through the door and said, “Your baby is fat.”

Now that statement can be said in many ways but to a Mom’s sensitive ears it sounded both critical and patronizing. I looked at him (come to think of it, as gaunt as he was… almost anorexic, how could he have questioned me about my weight), then at my baby (well truth be told, you were working on a third chin) and decided that I would take you, my Budda Wonder Boy to Dr. D.  from now on, who had all kinds of human failings, including a paunch pot belly, a second chin, and long, curly hair growing out of his ears.

Side note for any who care:  I have had a plethora of intelligent, kind, wise specialists both pre and post Wonder Boy’s arrival and if they went fast, with their coat tails flapping in the wind, isn’t that how I go through life?

August 3

I got going up and down the hall to the nursery every couple hours down to a science (since you were small, I had to feed you more often), zigzagging through the slow moving traffic. (Why can’t the slowpokes move to the right so all of the Roadrunners can get on with getting on?). 

Now that I am up and about and know all the Nursery Nurse, I am being told things about you – like “the best baby in the nursery”, “very special, so alert, will not even let anyone else pick him up – he demands we call you as soon as he wakes up”, “mark my words, this baby is a mover and shaker, he is going set the world on fire”.  Of course we loved this praise but you can’t tell other people, even your family,  because it would sound too braggadocios so like Jesus’ mother Mary, I got to ponder  these words and keep them close to my heart.

July 30 Cont’d…

6:30pm

Once we entered the nursery we needed Special Nursery Policies and Procedures/ Outerwear Training 101.  First you scrubbed your hands till they hurt (were we going to perform surgery, ya think?). Then you donned a one size fits all Johnny Jacket, a shower cap affair and mask so all your face was covered, except your eyes and a fancy pair of slip on booties to slide over your slippers or shoes, again, one size fits all. 

Seems I was ready to launch…, I felt like an astronaut and moved just as clumsily… as if I was in a time capsule, circling the earth at break neck speed.  Ok, good I’m ready for you – they sit me down and bring you out – you are sucking on your 2 middle fingers of your right hand – OMG – we used to see you do that on the ultrasound. The Johnny Jacket is on backwards – duh, I can’t breast feed you… never mind, you have lost 10oz. in the last couple of days (pretty standard for babies to lose weight after they are born) so Dr. D. has ordered formula, along with you being breast fed.

Sometime during the night my IV was pulled – the following morning and thereafter, I got to the nursery on my own steam. Wheel chairs are for those who need them.  Don’t worry, I won’t file a law suit if I collapse halfway down the hall.

August 1

Dr. D. is lollygaggling, sitting on the end of my bed regaling me with stories of babies born to mothers in Ireland wherein the mother took a half hour break (to eat a lunch and pass the afterbirth?) then went right back to picking potatoes.  All those Moms in Waiting and New Moms were so jealous that I had what seemed like a friendship with my doctor but it was mainly because of living in the trenches with him last summer when your Dad was so sick.  Still it comes with a price.  He flips me the bird as often as he would to those he is close to in life. 

I interrupted his tale to ask, “Uh, Dr. D., I having been wondering – should we get Wonder Boy circumcised?”  He jumps off my bed in a miff, I suspect since he hadn’t finished his potato picking story and archly reply,  “All along I thought you were Scottish”, slaps his hand on his forehead and continued – “but of course, you are related through King David who even today lives in Queen Elizabeth !!’s bloodlines”.  Those Catholic Irish, always got to shoot a salvo at our Royal Family. “No, no, I just read something, it is more hygienic, causes less problems later in life, you know”, I trailed off.  He walked out the door, flipping me that bird, “Give your head a shake. Your not Jewish, Quite Contrary.  It is an archaic procedure.  I am not putting Wonder Baby through that”, as he stomped down the hall.  Dam, maybe I should have had a Jewish doctor…………oh, but I do – your pediatrician.  Now that specialist sails through like a gale in a blizzard… all business… no camaraderie… today or any day. 

July 30… Cont’d

As I looked closely I saw how very dry your skin was.  It appeared like you had got a sunburn, or had been in the bath too long. Layers of dead skin peeled, you had wrinkles on wrinkles, yet the spark of who and what you were, overshadowed your woes.  The dry skin would be explained by our Angel Delivery Nurse who took the time to come up and see us, a few days after you were born.  She explained to me she had never seen a baby survive who had so little amniotic fluid to live in – “a teaspoon, I tell you, a teaspoon”.  She also told me my placenta was very sparse, and it had been sent out for analysis to see if there could have been any contributing factors – so odd – why would my doctors not tell me this?

I was oblivious to what happened in the Delivery Room so was astonished to hear the who, what, when, where and whys.  Like Nurse Florence Nightingale from ICU, she cautioned me to not have another baby in case it was hereditary and was not so lucky to have a live birth the next time around.

6:30pm

I insisted to your Dad we must go to the nursery and feed you, but I am still on IV so I need a pole, which in turn means we need a nurse, to point us in the right seek and find direction.  Bad news is I am not allowed to walk, good news is they have a wheelchair with a pole that Dad can push me up to the nursery in. 

Trust me, I felt foolish, like a Drama Queen seeking sympathy – after all, so many times I saw Moms who had their babies two hours before, hobble down the long hall to the nursery with out any help.  I have been there, done that, having spent so long in the hospital before Wonder Boy was born and never saw a mother in a wheel chair.  What was that all about? I saw the other Moms look at me, in confusion but I imagined there could be snide comments behind my back  – “You saw her, she didn’t even look pregnant, no wonder a person who doesn’t even eat is in a wheel chair after the baby is born.  And where is her baby, anyway, Oh, in that Special Nursery.  It figures.”

In any case, I held my head high, put up and shut up and down the hall we went to the Special Nursery where there were babies with different problems although none of them were life threatening.  Any baby that needed intensive care was ambulanced to our big down town hospitals where they had the machinery and apparatus to save them, if at all possible. 

July 30

4:00pm

I will never forget our first meeting.  You were wide awake, your eyes focused and drinking in everything possible and  tightly swaddled in a yellow receiving blanket. I can still feel how I was shaking (the cool, the calm, the never let her drawers get in a twist…aaaahhh but I had never encountered holding my first born before, had I?)  You had a lot to teach me, over the coming years, some slid down like a cool drink for a parched throat, other knowledge I am ashamed to say, I choked and spit out, but I learned.

I loosened the blanket to get a closer look.  Your fine hair was Dutch blond, shaved on the top of your head but long in the back and on both sides, your all knowing big pansy blue eyes were fringed with long black eye lashes and perfectly arched blond eyebrows, a nose even our Pretty Little Dutch Girl was proud of. (She lived in fear our baby would have my patrician nose – one day when I was crowing about how cute you looked on the ultrasound, she asked if I had seen the shape of your nose – she  herself had a nose cosmetic surgeons struggle to create on their patients and wanted nothing less for you, Wonder Boy). 

Your rosebud mouth, with textbook shaped lips, pursed dramatically on occasion, making me believe you understood every nuance played out. You had tiny hands with unmistakably long, musician fingers and long legs and tiny feet shaped just like your Dad’s.  You latched on to my breast with ease, as though you had been practicing this routine from eternity.  Your tiny fingers massaged my lower arm as you gazed in to my eyes, like a wise little old man, as if to say, “Well, finally, we meet”. 

Now it is only normal that every Mom thinks their baby is beautiful, but I also thought you were special. My Sister The Queen’s son excitedly exclaimed that Wonder Baby looked just like ET, which I knew was the biggest compliment he could give me – then again, my brother–in-law looked at all the babies in the General Nursery, then went to the Special Nursery and looked closely at you, Wonder Boy. He did not rave that you were the most beautiful, no, he said “The good news is, because of the C Section, his head is well shaped.  Those other babies, most of them look like someone took a sledge hammer to their head” – a compliment of sorts, that you and I had no control over, but hey, we’ll run with it.

July 30

6:00am

Someone is standing by my bed side I believe I should know, hair already covered with a Surgery Cap.  Oh, yeah, the Anesthesiologist from yesterday…surely he does not want to get another go at me. 

No, but in his proper, clipped British accent he tells me he had a  blood test run and I have something like 4 per whatever when I should have 1,000’s per whatever, in order to wake up after anesthetic.  He warns me that it is most likely hereditary and all family members should be checked – most of them were and have it to some degree although it was not quite as pronounced as my situation.  Odd thing was both my parents had countless surgeries and no ill effects – could it have been the combo of their blood lines that triggered the reaction in their children?

Anyway Dr. Proper British natters on… he still can’t believe he was not told about us until the countdown (a back handed, accepted apology) and how he is taking it to the highest level so all his colleagues have been made aware of their responsibilities – looks like my Dr.OB/GYN and Dr. D. dodged a bullet when I returned from Never, Neverland.

Funny that – not a Canadian doctor in the bunch – Dr. D. – born in Ireland; Dr. OB/GYN in Italy (the most humble Italian I ever met) and Dr. Proper British, in England.  Is it just me or have you noticed as well that Canadian kids don’t seem to grow up to be doctors……

12:Noon

My doctors decided I meet the criteria of having once more reached the land of the living and tell me I will be moved from ICU to the floor where you are, Wonder Baby, so I can see you, feel, you, touch you.  Since my blood pressure is creeping upwards to a respectable level, I am offered pain killers but I say, “Why would I want them now?  I lived through the worst of the pain already without their help.”  This is duly noted on my file and  gets me a special status, wherein nurses on the floor I am being moved to, tell the other mothers they should be more like me. I am an example to be followed, don’t you know. This message surely didn’t increase my popularity with other mothers.

3:00pm

I am taken down, up whatever to the floor you are on.  The nurses get me all prepped so that when you are brought to me I will be ready for motherhood.  You were not in the regular nursery but in the Special Care (where else would one of our family land) since you weighed 2,200 grams (4 pounds, 14ounces approximately at birth).  Your head was routinely shaved on the top in case they would need to run IV’s but they did not have to, in the end.

July 29 Cont’d…

5:35pm

I am slid into a bed in an ICU cubicle. I can see the sun is still shining brightly outside. I am now in the hands of efficient nurses who tell me the reason I am in some much pain is that they cannot give me painkillers because of my precarious condition.  However they will do the utmost to bring me comfort by positioning me. They rearrange the cubicle so they had complete access.  Just call them, they said. We will come running if the pain gets too unbearable. They shoo off your Dad, telling him he can come back in 2 to 3 hours which is perfect for him because he can go to Grandma’s birthday dinner. Then he could bring her back to the hospital to see you and me.

8:00pm

A couple of hours later, I open my eyes because I sensed I am not alone.  Your Dad was on one side of the bed, your Grandma on the other, both gripping the side bars that were up to prevent me from rolling out of bed or maybe just taking off…. I smile weakly as Grandma pronounced, “Quite Contrary, I do not want to hear of you having another baby.  We are lucky you lived through this one.  I could not bear going through this again.” 

My critical mind fleetingly wondered if this speech is partly to hide the guilt she may have felt for telling me she had no time to talk to me yesterday. After all, she was making donuts.  I would never broach the subject with her since it somehow shamed me as I maybe childishly thought she would never have said that to some of my other sisters – could I be the one lacking, not her?

Then again, what do I really know about motherhood and how challenging it can be – maybe it was because my hormones were in a flux but like an epiphany  suddenly my Virgo tendency to judge at that moment was replaced with compassion- aaahhh….what is that saying, “Judge not, that ye may not be judged?” – got to remember that one.  

I turned the conversation to my Wonder Baby and both Dad and Grandma  bubble as they told me you how beautiful , healthy you are. Great, no worries. Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow!

July 30

12:Midnight

A real Florence Nightingale Nurse is assigned to me – the type who cared enough to read the particulars. The first thing she said to me was the same message my Mother had given me, “Do not have any more children. I looked at your chart, saw what you went through today. Also you had Placenta Previa and a Small to Date Baby. You are lucky both of you made it though.  You are a Mother now.  You have a responsibility to this baby born today.  Do not put him at risk to be motherless.”

Nurse Florence Nightingale gave me the confidence to tell her about my experience with Nurse Post Op Ratched, pounding on my incision to wake me up.  She could not believe that anyone who knew I could not have painkillers would jump start me in order to hasten the process.  Back she went to my charts and confirmed the method of revival had even been recorded in writing, now part of my permanent record. “It takes all kinds”, she commiserated, “It takes all kinds. Just take my advice and you won’t have to meet up with the likes of her again.”