Gratitude

I am not ungrateful. Hudson, there are many wonderful things in my life for which I have much gratitude. Your Dad is all that and a bag of chips. I have not one, but two families who are fabulous blends of loving, crazy, fun, complicated, and supportive. Even if it sometimes drives me bananas and some of my coworkers are - shall we say - challenging, I generally love my job and the wide majority of the people I work with (kids to adults and everyone in between). We live in a wonderful place. You have many incredible doctors and nurses who have cared for you throughout your life, and we are lucky that they will continue to do so. Medical technology has come far enough in human history that you are alive. Friends and family who range from close to previously unknown have been jumping through hoops to help us through this all. Do I direct my gratitude at a benevolent creator? No. I thank people, and I am grateful for actions and choices that help and support us. I'm afraid I sometimes seem like I don't appreciate the incredible things around me just because I don't engage with some popular means of joyful expression, but boy am I getting frustrated with abstract and displaced gratitude.

How could I not be grateful for the new heart you just received? To use some support groupy jargon, you've been given a second chance, new lease on life, fresh start, etc... ad nauseum. However, to what or whom should I be grateful? The family of your heart's previous owner, of course, for their decision to let their loss serve such a vital purpose for another child...my district union (or maybe the administrators?) for ensuring that we have such kick-ass insurance that we can afford your care...your Dad for wanting to live anywhere near the hospital where the right people with the right expertise could list you for a transplant at just the right time for you to get it...those doctors for trusting you, themselves, and one another to make this successful...yup, that's pretty much the bulk of it. I am deeply grateful to those people. I will even go farther and be intensely grateful to whoever established this hospital to function the way it does (it's profoundly family-oriented, and the overall organization of the place just makes sense). I'm even happy to thank the genius who decided to put a place that sells chocolate croissants in the lobby, because seriously. Chocolate croissants.

Friends and family alike have been thanking God a whole lot, and that continues to make me uncomfortable. I get what that means to many (if not most) people - I really do - but the further along we've gotten in your life, the weirder it makes me feel. Let's look at this situation objectively. From a purely biological standpoint, you have no business being here, Hudson. A hundred years ago (hell, ten or fifteen years ago), your chances would have been crap. No human being was meant to survive with only part of an only partly functioning heart. No child should need to grow up covered in scars, regularly being poked and prodded to make sure that his motor is still working. (To be selfish for a moment, no parent should need to live along with a child's life like this, either.) I'm less disturbed by ascribing this all to fate or destiny, but that still implies a divine plan that seems like it could only be rooted in sadism. Any deity that would put a child into the world that is as damaged as you - then require the sacrifice of another child to keep that first one going - is not something I'm willing to thank.

It's been basically impossible to internalize the fact that you are alive right now because part of your body was taken out, essentially thrown away, and replaced with part of some other kid. You've had open-heart surgery before, and I never really bought the fact that a tiny piece of Gore-Tex was put into you then, so how can I understand you having a whole new heart now? Somewhere, some other family is probably having the worst week of their lives. I only say probably because I just don't know what happened: there may be no family left, they may have encountered other substantial tragedies before, or the loss of the child whose life turned into yours might have been a bittersweet relief. We won't get to know for a year - if we ever get to know - the life story of your donor. Like I said, I'm certainly grateful to whoever made the decision to let that heart come to you, but what kind of sicko would I be to be thankful that another child had to die for you to live?

As angry as I have been lately (it's catching me a bit by surprise), I don't want this to be another angry atheist rant, especially because I had a really odd experience a few nights ago that gave me pause. I'm certainly not bouncing towards a different theological slant, but as much as I claim to understand and appreciate what role God, prayer, etc... plays for others, I don't think I'd really seen it in action before.

Since moving in to what I call "the dorm you DID want to live in" (the patient family house just a few blocks from the hospital), your Dad and I have gotten to be buddies with a couple whose son was born with similarly complex heart defects to yours, but he also has Down's Syndrome and has needed to follow a pretty intensive course of treatments and surgeries since he was born. They've been here almost as long as we have - in fact, they started out right next to your first CICU room - but their little guy has never been out of a hospital in his eight months of life. Regardless of a dicey prognosis, both parents have essentially let their lives fall apart in order to pursue the best treatment for him. They've lost their home, lost their jobs, displaced their two year old (healthy) son, and essentially lived in and around hospitals far from home for almost the last year. The dad has gotten especially friendly with us, to a point where we check in with with him about his family whenever we see him, and vice versa. The day after you got your new heart, I ran into him in the kitchen. He had heard the news from your Dad, and was about as excited as anyone else we've told. I said something to the effect of "I guess the stars just aligned..." and his response was about as emphatic as could be. With an enthusiastic fist pump, he said "Luck had nothing to do with it: that's the power of PRAYER!"

Really?

I mean, I'm as thrilled as humanly possible that you got what you needed, but I get what that means. I know what had to happen. (Clearly,) I can ramble on about balance in the universe, the feasibility of divine intervention, and the potential ethics of any deity overseeing proceedings such as these. What I saw in this utterly tragedy-ridden individual was that his life - his tragedy - had to be the fault or doing of something external because there had to be blame or rationale. To most people, these things don't just happen. How could they? Statistically, there is no reason for anything in your life to have gone the way it has (your initial defects, your initial survival, your thriving, getting a heart when you did, and far more), so it's arguably almost as reasonable to be grateful to a benevolent and loving God for everything working out as it is to thank excellent doctors and a healthy dose of freak luck. I'm going to stick with the latter for now, but I think it's fair to say that I've come to understand just how reasonable my position is relative to anyone else's. 

I get it now.

Hudson, I am going toot my own horn for a minute here, but this is intended to be a eons-reaching, universal lauding of mothers everywhere. Moms are goddamned superheroes. I never realized this until my weird new superpowers started to really manifest, but now I know. I also really, truly GET the Mom tendency to overreact or be vaguely (sometimes completely) irrational about things; if you're sometimes right about something drastic, dangerous, terrifying, or awful, it must be tremendously easy to register false positives in safe situations. What powers, you may wonder, does such a commonplace hero possess? Hudson, let this be a brief guide to a few of the superhuman things that you have triggered in me.

1. Danger Detection, or, "Doom Sense." My ability to preemptively identify something unsafe, problematic, or generally dangerous has blossomed into an outrageously accurate sensor. Before your milk protein allergy was "diagnosed" (I only put this in parentheses because damn it, I caught it DAYS in advance of any medical professional), I knew there was more wrong with you than just indigestion. The day we were initially discharged from the hospital, I knew that the slight redness on your chest was more than just "something to watch," and made three different doctors confirm for me that it wasn't a big deal. Morons. Before we were even readmitted (twelve hours later), I knew you were going to be sicker than just having a fever. This power is strongly affected by sleep deprivation and hunger, however, as I tend to go into uber-doom mode when I am overtired or have dangerously low blood sugar (I refer you to yesterday, when you undergoing exploratory surgery - ultimately something minor, in the grand scheme of things - sent me into a torrent of panicked crying and pessimism).

2. Hyper-endurance, or, "Put-up-with-ed-ness." I mentioned to someone months ago that despite hating needles, I am 100% fine with the idea of blood draws or injections that in some way, shape, or form benefitted you. I needed the second round of the glucose tolerance test (which requires four blood draws at one hour intervals after the initial blood draw to establish a baseline), but whatever. I don't even know what to say about the time we've spent in the hospital, or the emotional and physical hell that has been, but I've just straight put up with it. Speaking with (or, I suppose, complaining to) some friends, I discovered that pretty much everyone thinks it's ridiculous to ask mothers "How can you do/put up with/live with/manage (insert challenging thing here)?"...and yet everyone asks. The answer is that I put up with this shit because there is no choice. It's what you do for your kid.

3. Gross thing-tolerance, or "Don't Vomit-itude." I've seen some awful shit happen to you, Hudson: truly terrifying medical crap: the stuff of nightmares: the sorts of things that I imagine any parent would sooner leap off a cliff into a pit of rusty forks, broken mirrors, and flaming acid than to see happen to their child. I've nearly passed out, nearly thrown up, nearly run screaming from rooms...but I haven't. Poo diapers and spit-up? Please. I'll take explosive diarrhea over every square inch of my bedroom over some of the other business that's happened. The complete willingness and ease with which I've processed even truly hideous things is certainly on a different scale from the norm, but I can truly understand now how my parents were able to handle me walking into their room in the middle of the night and vomiting on a pile of clean laundry (and a nice rug...and all over myself).

4. Vicious aggression towards people who don't do the right thing for/harm your kid, or the "I'll punch you in your damn face" reflex. It has been SUCH a force of will not to become furious with the people who have caused you physical pain, even when doing so directly contributed to you receiving the care you need. Sure, your surgeon is an amazing man who has not only done spectacular work on you, but who has been attentive and involved throughout your whole ungodly long recovery process, but knowing that he cut into my little boy has been enough for me to want to break his freaking kneecaps every time I see him. Clearly I haven't, but the impuse has been there. Woe betide the first kid who gives you any shit at school, on a playground, or whatever, and may some higher power have mercy on any adult who makes some kind of mistake with you, no matter how minor. My wrath will make genocide look like a friendly neighborhood BBQ.

5. Painfully accurate knowledge of people's qualification and personal merits, or "Human Quality Control." There have been thankfully few nurses who we have met through your entire stay here who have been anything less than exceptional, but there have been a few, and I have known from the second I met them that they were sub-par. I knew there was something less-than-amazing about that nurse who was taking care of you the night before we were erroneously discharged. Of course, it would have been unspeakably rude and likely poorly received to say the charge nurse "this woman seems kind of...not awesome..." but clearly I should have. The one cardiologist who I worked with throughout the one night you were home is by far my least favorite in the practice, and you know why? I don't. He just pops up on my radar as somehow not excellent. He's made a few kind of mediocre judgment calls, and even apologized for some of them, and I knew - I just KNEW - that there was something iffy about him. This is starting to transfer outward to other categories of people from just medical professionals, too, so I'm kind of excited to see how this heightened sense works in other contexts.

6. A dark, dry, and jaded twist to my sense of humor, or the "This is just how shit is" factor. This could be a unique one for me, given that I was already starting out as a "fuck this glass, of course it's half empty: that's just physics," type of realist, but I've found that my ability to look at any situation with an element of humor in my mind has become a little twisted. I can't think of any specific examples of this because it has become pathological; I don't know when I'm NOT trying to verbally lighten my sense of disenfranchisement. I think most parents pick up a little of this darkness (at least at first) due to sleep deprivation and overwhelm, but I think mine might be seeded a little deeper than that by this point. How is this a super power, you might wonder? For one, it seems to amuse the hell out of most of our doctors and nurses, so count that as a positive relationship builder. It also helps me adjust my perspective on a lot of seriously shitty things from seeing them as cosmically undeserved to instead just being part of some zany (admittedly crappy) reality.

Wow. I sound like a sort of miserable superhero, but if I'm one of countless trillions of the same thing, I suppose my powers needn't be too special or unique. I think I've seen every single mother I know manifest at least half of these, and even today, I think all six of these powers have come into play for me. I've still got the momentum to hover next to you, wrangle doctors, make polite conversation with nurses, keep your Dad as content as I can help him be, keep myself at least passably sane and clean, and manage to write. If other mothers survive this same kind of situation - but perhaps with more curveballs, other kids in tow, less of a support network, financial instability beyond ours, or worse - I am just daunted to be part of such a resplendent sorority.

You SHOULD read this. (Or not...whatevs.)

I am officially swearing off the word "should." I had an interesting conversation with your Aunt Anna last week about this dangerous and crappy word, and she agreed 100% that there is basically no context in which this word ought to be used. It's not kind. It's not safe. It's a shitty, awful word.

My first really negative encounters with the Should-beast were in the earliest stages of pregnancy. People were telling me that I should not tell anyone I was pregnant until a certain amount of time had passed. Okay, fine; that's not entirely unreasonable. Once it was clear that you were here to stay, I rapidly lost track of all the other shoulds. According to a wide range of sources, I SHOULD have...

• ...eaten a really specific diet, excluding a wide range of supposedly dangerous items. The only foods I didn't eat the whole time I was pregnant were deli meat, raw fish (except those two times I caved and ate a few pieces of tuna sushi), and an excess of caffeine (I cut back to one or maybe two cups of coffee a day, which was hardly a change). That's it.
• ...journaled or written down EVERY SINGLE THING I FELT OR EXPERIENCED the entire time I was pregnant. Uh...I kept a blog AND consistently kept up with writing lesson, activities, professional resources, and teaching materials. 'Nuff said.
• ...read a bajillion books, ideally every single book written on the topic of pregnancy or childbirth. Okay, I did kind of overcompensate here by refusing to read ANYTHING after the first few books I read contained too many scare-tactic-ey rants about things that would kill me, you, or both of us, but I don't regret it. Now I'm taking carefully-solicited recommendations and researching books that will actually be helpful and positive.
• ...bonded with every mother I know in a "Red Tent"-esque drum circle of feminine revelry, up to and including requesting and sharing every gory, grisly, and goopy detail of pregnancy with every single one of them. I'm not even responding to this.

There was more. I should have gone easier on myself, I should have eaten more leafy greens, I should have stopped working sooner, I should have gone with your Dad on a "babymoon" (which we would have afforded HOW?), I should have gone to more prenatal education classes...and you know what? I ultimately had a healthy, safe pregnancy, an insanely easy birth, and am suffering in no way from any of the choices I made. I SHOULD have ignored all the shoulds. 

Now that I have a baby in a tricky medical situation - however much it is resolving - the shoulds have escalated to a level that I can barely comprehend. Hudson: any time something in your life gets complicated and unpleasant, be discerning about who you listen to. Hell, be discerning about who you even let talk to you. Some of the people who have offered help and advice have been delightful; they've been warm, supportive, sensitive, and extremely kind not to push their opinions or ideas. Some people have even been so kind as to tell me that they are happy to wait until I ask for their opinions or ideas to hear to open their mouths. Other people suggest that I should make certain choices, but politely nod their heads or hum a little to themselves discontentedly if I don't follow their suggestion. The worst people just flat-out tell me I should act a certain way, then do their damndest to convince me to do so if I don't immediately agree. Here's a fun example.

Last week, your doctors recommended adding formula to the breast milk you were already eating as a way to get you more calories. You weren't putting on weight, and were having what I will delicately call unpleasant poos; my gut reaction was that you were lactose intolerant. I told everyone who would listen about how uncomfortable you were, how gross your poops were, and how suspicious I was of milk-based formula...and I was more or less brushed off. One nurse even had the gall to tell me "that's normal baby behavior." Yeah...you're not a normal baby. Our frustrations increased, and we kept having days added to your hospital stay as you failed to gain weight. Doctors kept promising "you'll be home tomorrow!" when there was no chance of our cardiologists letting you go without a consistent trend of weight gain. Then you ended up back in the PICU after a hideous allergic reaction...to milk...like I suspected...and now we're set back another few days reteaching you how to eat and dealing with nurses who aren't willing to give you all the time you need to finish eating as much as you need to. Your Dad and I are furious.

Of course, nothing was helped by the handful of people who have proceeded to tell me that I should have been a "stronger advocate for your needs" and should have been more aggressive about my allergy theory and then forced your doctors to let you eat something rather than take 24 hours off eating. You know what? No matter how loudly I spoke up, no one would have made any changes to your diet until they had concrete proof that what we were trying actually wasn't working. As much as it was agonizing, I know that your food-free day was a necessary evil. Would these should-sayers have expected me to opt out of your surgery because it was going to cause you pain? Should I have declined the IV they put you on to keep you hydrated? What about the blood draws that helped confirm that no, there is nothing systemically wrong with you except for an allergy?

Being told that I should have done something different - implying that the choices I made were patently wrong - is unbearably insulting, especially since I was ultimately complying with a medical plan that is not only placing your needs above everything else, but which we really couldn't have affected anyhow. The only thing I should have done in this situation - and others, which I have been told I should have handled differently - is ask good questions to be sure that our doctors were being clear and open with us. (FYI: your Dad and I both did that, so we've done our should-ly duty.)

I've hit my boiling point. The word "should" is officially banned. Anyone who wants to tell us something that they would like to see us do is welcome to make a suggestion, but the next person who tells me something that I should do is going to be politely greeted with the following:

"The only thing I SHOULD do is take the best possible care of my son. You SHOULD expect nothing else."

We're back up on the pediatric floor today (in the largest room we've had yet, with a kind of cool view of the old hospital building - which means that we've now had a view out of every side of the hospital), you're eating like a champ, and everyone is expecting us to be home soon. Oh, I'm going to use it one last time: we SHOULD be.

Enough already.

I just squirted apple juice all over myself trying to open a little foil-covered cup of the stuff, and all I could do was sigh and brush it off. At this point...whatever.

Yesterday morning, while trying to sleep through the cats scratching at the bedroom door (despite the fact that I had already fed them an hour earlier), I was woken by a phone call from the nurse who took care of you last night. We've only gotten one other phone call from the hospital the whole time you've been here, which is pretty awesome, but this was just the shit cherry on the crap sundae. Nothing disastrous: just poopy. Actually, that's a really accurate metaphor, since the call was about the fact that you have not been digesting well - at all: it was ugly - and that as a precaution, you were going to be moved back down the PICU for testing and closer observation. I arrived at the hospital not five minutes before they moved you; they'd already done us the courtesy of emptying the fridge and organizing all the other stuff in the room, so I didn't even get a chance to talk to any doctors or anything before you were whisked back downstairs. My coffee hadn't started working yet. I was pissed.

While I certainly don't begrudge extreme caution, I fucking hate the PICU. Sure, the doctors are insanely good (both as medical professionals and as communicators), and the nurses are quite literally the best in the hospital, but it just sucks here. I've complained about the rooms (or rather, the glass boxes that are completely exposed to an insanely busy work station in the center of the unit), and the relative tragedy of the hall we have to walk down is just draining. I feel like a laboratory specimen of a parent, and because of the anal-retentive monitoring that is standard down here, instead of just three little adhesive dots for a heart monitor and your oxygen monitoring glowing red foot sensor, you've got five huge sensor leads with crappily-clustered cords, huge patches on your head and back checking your oxygen saturation in your brain and kidneys, the sensor on your foot, an IV in your arm (which is a standard requisite in the ICU, regardless of what shape you're in or what's being done to you - it's not even hooked up to anything now), and bandages from the several different blood draws they've needed to do. Put simply, you look really sick and damaged despite being in better shape than you were in two days ago when you were hooked up to nearly nothing.

We should be moving back to the pediatric floor today. Up there, we have a real room (with a real door and real windows!), a private bathroom, fridge access, unlimited drinks that we can get for ourselves, and places to sit. How sad is it that even sitting seems like a luxury? Better than all of that, we get more or less full access to YOU there, whereas here, picking you up is like detangling an old VCR from an entertainment center. Yesterday was a special kind of hell because you are such a snuggly little beast. When you're upset, whatever it is you're upset about, picking you up and either moving around or just smooshing you calms you right down. Because you had been having such a tough time digesting, your doctors opted to give you twenty-four hours off eating to give your system time to recover. This meant that you were completely miserable, hungry, and inconsolable...and picking you up wasn't really an option.

Without question or doubt, the day of your surgery was pretty much the worst day of my life, but yesterday was about as bad as things get when they aren't life-threatening. You were so unhappy, and there was absolutely nothing I could do to make it better. Hearing you crying - stopping only to whimper in between when you were catching your breath - and seeing you squirming and reaching for something to eat...it physically hurt me. Your doctors had rationally and credibly explained why they were doing what they were doing, but I still wanted to punch someone in the face for putting you through a day like that. It's over now. You're passed out just a few feet from me, tummy full, and while I'm sure you're all manner of pissed off that you're covered with sticky, uncomfortable junk, at least you're legitimately healthy enough to justify being pissed off. Hudson, we should be really close to the finish line. Once you can show your doctors that you can put on some weight, we should be good to go. No more poking, prodding, sticky crap, or people butting in every half hour to check something.

Privacy, or some attempt at it.

So, Batman, this post is only kind of, sort of, for you. I ranted a few weeks ago about my worries regarding maintaining a degree of privacy that your Dad and I are comfortable with during my labor, your birth, and your care immediately afterwards. To put things gently, those fears have only grown as the big day approaches. Everyone - and I mean everyone from our parents to some lady who started talking to me out of the blue at a coffee shop - wants all the gritty details about everything from how the induction process will go to how I'll handle post-partum bleeding. I'm running out of nice ways to tell people that I don't want to discuss it, but I'm trying my damndest not to get bitchy when my patience runs out. It's getting really hard.

I feel like it goes without saying at this point that I am pretty pissed off that the whole process of having you has gone from being something natural and controlled exclusively by your and my body's needs to an utterly medicalized experience that is only vaguely, tangentially, and abstractly within my control. There have been rants aplenty about that, so I won't say more. What I really can't handle, and this is a somewhat new revelation, is needing to share every excruciating detail of this process. Even the parts that are completely natural and normal are so fettered with medical interference that I just don't want to talk about them to any audience beyond your Dad and a few choice friends who I am just naturally comfortable discussing unpleasant bodily stuff with. I don't give two shits if our modern culture has evolved to a point where any details related to childbirth are just expected to be broadcast to the world: that's not me.

Your poor Dad has, as he puts it, "learned more about coworkers vaginas in the past six months than any guy ever needs to hear." Some people LOVE disclosing this stuff, regardless of gender lines or standards. I know how many stitches one of my coworkers needed after giving birth (twelve: eight internal, four external), how long a friend of a friend had to wait between asking for her epidural and finally getting it (an hour and fifteen minutes, and she just barely got it in time before she dilated too far for it to be considered safe), the horrors of post-partum bleeding experienced by a coworker's daughter (she needed three blood transfusions and they kept her on an IV for hydration for four days), and just how dreadful another coworker's wife's second C-section was (I won't even dignify that information by typing it out). Why do I know these things? Seriously!!!!!

All that being said, I'm choosing to take some posts underground from here on out. Not just considering the medical nitty-grittys, there are some things that I know will happen, or that I will want to talk about, or that I will for some reason determine that you (my son, who will inevitably find plenty of this stuff either gross or just way too informative anyhow) should be the sole audience for. For non-Batman readers, let this be my polite way of saying "I don't want to talk about everything," rather than exploding outward in a tirade about the need for me to retain control and boundaries during a time that our culture inexplicably deems to be boundary-free. I do really appreciate the openness that others have offered to me, and don't necessarily plan to withhold all personal information about this process, especially not from everyone, but I'm a damn private person for all my public writing, and that's how things will need to go from here. My vagina is not a public access television show.

Why I will never put a ribbon on my car

I feel like it's ironic that I start off this blog entry somewhat upset over someone else's blog. I really don't know why (I should REALLY have learned my lesson about the internet by now, shouldn't I?), but after your Dad and I got home from yet another tour of yet another wing of the hospital where you'll be born, I stupidly started poking around online for pictures of kids after they've had the same surgery you'll have. I found a picture on the personal blog of some dude in his mid-forties who was born with the same condition as yours, and while it's sure nice to hear that he's doing well, this poor man's entire existence seems to have been reduced to the fact that he has a congenital heart defect. Seriously? The last thing I needed to read after this afternoon was some kumbaya-singing inspirational rambling about "overcoming adversity" and "taking every day as a blessing." For no good or fair reason, this guy was born with something wrong with him, and he has clearly spent way too much time focusing on that fact; is that really enough to make a person?

This afternoon, we got to see the NICU again (which really is a beautiful facility) but also the PICU (perinatal ICU) which was...well, crappy. All things considered, it's a collection of glass shoeboxes with harsh fluorescent lights, an open door to the massive monitoring station in the center of the room, and to make matters that much worse (or weirder, or something) it's apparently used as overflow for the cardiac ICU. There were only two children in a ward of twelve or so tiny "rooms," only one kid small enough to be in a crib, and about eight or so adults, most of them in extremely rough shape. There are no chairs, no visiting space, and no privacy. They don't allow sleep-ins when there is any equipment in the room, so your Dad or I won't be able to stay with you for a few nights after your first surgery (which, as far as I'm concerned, is a load of horseshit, but not negotiable due to physical space restrictions), but as soon as you're off a respirator, they can wedge a cot in there. How charming. A cot. This is where you'll spend an estimated week after surgery before being moved to a regular room in the children's wing, and I'll be honest; even after seeing a photo of what your incision will look like, how puffy and unwell you'll look immediately after the operation, and how completely covered with tubes you'll be, I'm also more unhappy with where you'll be and the fact that being there seems so forbidding. This is where the best nurses for you (and arguably some of the best nurses at the hospital, which has an exceptional reputation for cardiac care) are stationed, so it's definitely where we want you to be, but what a shitty place to spend the first week or so of your life.

What has me upset is the fact that we've already been marked as a "heart family." For now, this is a vital adaptation, to be sure, because it labels us as we need to be labeled in order to access the care, people, and resources we need, but long-term, can't we just be ourselves? How can this blog-dude so gladly adopt THIS as the focus in his life? He goes to conventions and regional meetings and such for other adults with congenital heart defects, participates in tons of medical studies, and generally seems happy to devote all of his time to just BEING a person with a heart defect. Growing up with a father with a very specific medical condition that has been a pretty majorly occupying focus for the family, I do get it: people need support and validation when a medical problem is a huge part of life. It's healthy to look to others who share your challenges for support and inspiration (if that's what floats your boat), but to turn oneself into a poster child for a cause feels...erm...how do I say this nicely...creepy?

I don't want to be one of those families that ends up pigeonholed into only having relationships with other families whose lives have been impacted by heart problems. I refuse to limit my friendships with other parents - to say nothing of your friendships with other kids - to people who have "faced adversity" like we have. I know it's probably not going to win me any friends if I speak ill of people who lovingly and openly support medical causes, but I just can't let myself, your Dad, or you turn into one of those people. This will obviously be a major part of our lives; hell, it's majorly impacting the start of yours and our experience having you in ways that I honestly can't help but be furious about on some levels, but that is all the more reason I refuse to let it shape my identity or yours. There will be no ribbon magnets on the car, no cheering at some walkathon, no fundraisers, and sure as hell no inspirational t-shirts. We'll celebrate you for the accomplishments you choose, and the achievements our family creates for ourselves. Batman, you're always going to be more than a heart condition.

Dr. Fuckhead's Tedious Carnival of Madness: Thanksgiving Edition

I arrived for our weekly ultrasound today about ten minutes early (responsible patient that I am), and was immediately informed that they are running about half an hour behind. Given the minimal availability of seats in the waiting room, this sounded like an unreasonable estimate. We had plenty of the normal crowd: there was the cigarette smoke-reeking couple who were young enough to make me feel awful about the world, the massive family who were all loudly discussing their social plans, and the mother of a small child who was completely ignoring her current offspring in lieu of her cell phone. As usual, there were a few standouts. Given that this was two days before Thanksgiving, and every medical office in the area was closing down for a few days, I expected a full house.

I first sat opposite a woman who couldn't have been more pregnant than me, but who was complaining so consistently about the pain from her baby's kicking that I wanted to smack her mother who, sitting next to her and also reeking of cigarette smoke, just kept chowing down on the oversized bag of peanut M&M's in her lap. The daughter would cite some specific pain, then the mother would grunt at her and tell her to suck it up. I rapidly realized that the cigarette smell was actually coming off at least six other people in the same corner, so I felt like I had a completely legitimate excuse to move to another corner where their conversation would be less in my line of hearing.

I hate to stereotype, and I hate to judge based on appearances, but there are times when such things are entirely accurate. An entire third of the room was populated with men in baggy jeans and oversized hoodies advertising either death metal bands or tractor equipment, and women wearing men's sweatshirts and ill-fitting sweatpants. None of them looked particularly clean, most had fairly poor quality tattoos, and they were all wearing oversized, unlaced sneakers. Call me classist, segregationist, or whatever: these people were gross, and they all smelled so strongly of cigarettes and body odor that I didn't know what to do but hide behind the couple wearing North Face fleeces and expensive shoes and the thirty-something women in head-to-toe L.L. Bean.

This, sadly, was not escape enough. The cigarette smell had pervaded the entire room, to a point where even burying my face in magazines to try to make myself nauseous because of perfume rather than the stink of other people was futile. Moving also positioned me to see two additional horrors. Now, I am not perfect. Sometimes I judge people based on criteria that have nothing to do with who they actually are, and sometimes I respond to people based on assumptions that I have not confirmed, but I would argue that I am far more accepting, open-minded, and genuinely prone to equity than most people....but I just couldn't get over the family I saw on the other side of the room.

This was a mother and father with their young son, all dressed in Christmas card-perfect argyle, cashmere, and khaki. The mother was definitely more pregnant than me, but whereas I am starting to look a little frumpled and tired, she looked eerily composed. The father didn't have a hair or thread out of place, and might very well have shaved twenty minutes before walking in to the waiting room. Their child sat - and this was probably a two-year-old - almost perfectly still, like his parents, and just quietly surveyed the room. It was creepy. This family was sitting along the same wall as the loudest cluster of cigarette-reekers, and with every loud comment the latter made about either things they wanted to drink or people they wanted to "hook up with to do some shit later," the formers' eyebrows ascended another millimeter. By the time Christmas card mother's name was called, I don't think I could actually see any of of their eyebrows anymore, and even the little guy seemed to have a look of judgmental disgust on his face. I'm sorry, I leave my horror at the people I'm forced to share this confined space on the internet where I name no names: I would never sit five feet away from someone and make a face openly displaying my complete disapproval of them.

The other standout was really just a shock. A girl who I knew as a student at the high school where I first worked was sitting in the far opposite corner from me, aggressively pretending she hadn't seen me. She was with a guy wearing their high school's name splashed all over his sweatshirt and hat and parents who were clearly none too chuffed to be there. I never had her in my classes, but she was friends with many of my students, and I remember her as a very sweet girl with a great sense of humor. She was active in a lot of school activities, well-liked, and now here she sat looking ashamed and...something else...maybe disappointed, maybe angry. I felt horrible. I did my best to pretend I didn't see her either, however much I wanted to go over and tell her that it would be okay (however little grounds I had for saying so), because she was so clearly trying not to be seen. When her name was called, she lit up red and practically ran for the door.

The waiting room emptied out, leaving me with only one of the cigarette-fest couples (who had arrived mere seconds before me) and a couple who wandered in after 4:30. Waiting forty minutes here is pretty much status quo, but as we approached 5:00, I was left wondering if I'd even have an appointment. It was at this point that I made my regular check in with the front desk just to remind them that I was there, and I was informed that my appointment had not been at 4:00, but instead 4:30, and that they were still running at least half an hour late. The automated message call thingy had said 4:00. My schedule had said 4:00. When I checked in - comfortably before 4:00 - the receptionist had not even hinted that my appointment was not at 4:00. The handful of staff still remaining as the clock passed 5:00 were at least apologetic when I brought to their attention the fact that I had been waiting for an hour - again - but I was left feeling the loss of the at least forty-five minutes of my life I could never get back. Way to stay classy, Dr. Fuckhead's office. I was finally called in at about 5:20, over an hour and a half after I arrived.

That's when the real fun started. Clearly, I need to have a conversation with the next ultrasound tech I work with about what exactly they are looking for when they look at you, because I did not leave for another forty minutes. They needed to see you practice breathing - which basically means moving your diaphragm and some other internal muscles the same way you will when you actually breathe air - and you were being stubborn. By this point in the evening, every other patient was gone, so all the ultrasound techs decided to get in on the fun task of getting your muscles to spasm. We danced, we jumped, I adjusted and readjusted my position, I chugged ice water, and eventually one tech decided to zap you with some high-frequency sound wave thingy. You were moving around plenty (which was admittedly lots of fun to watch in real time), but it took close to forty minutes for you to breathe the specific way they wanted you to. The ultrasound techs kept mentioning "earning points" for different things, like growth and movement...so what gets points? What do I need to do to make sure we score as high as we need to?

When did this become some crappy sort of game?

Dante missed this one.

One could argue that we had quite a scare this week, Batman. Last Friday, we had a routine ultrasound (at which point I realized that I have literally no idea how many ultrasounds I've even had at this point) that revealed a pericardial effusion – fluid around your heart. Your Dad and I did our damndest not to panic despite the doctor (one of Dr. Fuckhead's colleagues, since his office knows now not to put him and I in the same room) telling us that we would likely need a cardiology appointment right at the beginning of the next week. I think we did any okay job, considering that I only really started to melt down Sunday night, and your Dad kept himself together about as well as he always does (which is admirably).

Now, I've railed against the internet as a source of medical information before, and doubtlessly will again, but this particular medical condition might have been the single worst thing I ever could have attempted to get information about on the internet. One website reported that 44% of babies have some kind of visible effusion at some point during pregnancy, most of which are benign. Another website basically condemned any child with an effusion to death: period. Yet another website claimed that an effusion could only be attributable to one of several specific conditions, none of which you have. I'm pretty sure I stood as much a chance of getting reliable information about this one medical anomaly as I did making a pony appear if I closed my eyes and wished for one.

I got a call Monday morning telling me that I have been scheduled for a noon appointment on Tuesday to get your heart looked at. I'm also told that this is the single available appointment for the week, and that the cardiologist wants to see me immediately. That was comforting. I spend Monday in a haze, stuck in a recursive loop of imagining hideous fates for both you and myself that just escalated in intensity and horror as the day wore on. Much like the weekend in between finding out that there was something wrong with your heart and finding out what the something wrong was, I was uselessly panicked and terrified. Every time you kicked was a stab to the heart; I couldn't settle myself in to the possibility of something going truly wrong, but I couldn't go on as if everything was hunky-dory. 

This morning – Tuesday – comes, and I make the hour drive to work, just to work three hours before rushing the hour back for this emergency appointment. While sitting in the waiting room (for about half an hour, by the way), I start to wonder if doctors just schedule appointments so that their nurses know whose charts to pull...or so that their investment in magazines and crappy chairs is worthwhile. There is clearly no effort to actually have the appointment on time, nor is there any consideration for the patient's schedule. I was nearly shitting myself with terror while watching the asshole black fish in the waiting room tank terrorize his tankmates when I was finally called in, and within about ten minutes, your cardiologist determines that he can't find anything wrong. This effusion, which really isn't as bad as it looked last week, is just sort of a thing that showed up. There is no specific cause, despite the potential causes (none of which were present) being kind of scary, and as long as it doesn't really change, there's not even any cause for additional concern.

For the first time in four days, I breathe. This cycle of panic and calm, tsunami and stillness is definitely wearing me out. We don't seem to be able to go more than a few weeks without some crisis presenting itself, but so far, even the biggest crises are capable of being resolved somehow, and some end up being entirely benign. Of course, even the smallest crises have required what feels like an outrageous amount of effort and energy on our end to muddle through. Today is, of course, no exception. I don't want to sound upset with your cardiologist because he is not only a super nice guy, but is someone I genuinely trust as a medical professional. Even though this morning has assuaged my panic and stopped me from feeling like a walking time bomb, I am absolutely furious that he immediately sent me down to Dr. Fuckhead's office for...something?

I spent close to an hour and a half alternately convincing this office that yes, I am supposed to have some kind of appointment and sitting and waiting with zero idea of when I might be seen. I was in waiting room purgatory, my companions including a horde of chatty women (one of whom I guess must have been pregnant) who were loudly debating the merits of going to Macaroni Grill as opposed to Burger King after an ultrasound, a mother who looked to be substantially younger than me who left her sixteen month old in my care for about ten minutes – without asking or even saying a word to acknowledge why she was leaving or where she was going, and the massively overweight, six month pregnant woman who vigorously complained about her doctor trying to get her to change her eating habits while tossing back a bag of cookies, an entire tin of honey roasted peanuts, and three – count them, three – extra-large Powerades. Oh, and there was a bible-thumping family of four girls under the age of ten with an almost scarily detached mother who all kept loudly commenting on the potential sinfulness of the other people in the waiting room...and a guy who tried to smuggle a lit cigarette in, poorly...and, of course, at least four or five other women who looked as weirded out by all of this as I was.

Yeah. I was finally called in for yet another routine ultrasound, and you were your normal stubborn self (not letting the technician get the images she wanted by picking an impossible position and kicking at her non-stop) and got out quickly enough after that, but I know my fate. I scheduled every ultrasound we'll need from now until you pop out; our fates are sealed.

Given that I will now have weekly appointments here to have you looked at, I'm pretty certain that I need to add a feature called “Dr. Fuckhead's Tedious Carnival of Madness.” This waiting room is filled with such an amazing kaleidoscope of insanity, weirdness, and...yeah, basically just madness. I'm pretty sure I'll feel better about the inevitably torturous waiting if I can write about the craziness I am forced to witness, so brace yourself!

The more you know...

It's pretty amazing how quickly one can come to terms with something hideous. I mean, what the hell recourse do we have? You have a congenital heart defect called tricuspid atresia, which means that one of the valves in your heart literally never formed, leaving almost half of your heart underformed and ultimately non-functional outside the Batcave. You're going to need surgery almost right away after you're born, which is pretty damn terrifying, but also really sucks because your Dad and I will hardly be able to see you for the first who-the-hell-knows-how-many days of your life.

All my dreams - nay, expectations - of a natural and nurtured, comfortable and casual birth have basically been tossed out the window. Here's where I really want to shit on all my previous judgments about the crappiness of medically-driven births and hope that all my theories about separation at birth being the root of all human evils were just hippie pipe dreams. All we can do is love the hell out of you from a distance when that's where we are, and give you every bit of our affection when we're allowed to be close. Breastfeeding might be a bitch, but it sounds like getting you to eat at all in the beginning might be tough, so I promise not to take it personally.

With an actual diagnosis to work with and at least a someone concrete prognosis (which is good!), we're kind of in limbo. I guess we're pretty crazy lucky to have found out about this before you were born so we know who to have on hand, what to expect, what kind of support system to have in place...all that important stuff. At the same time, now we've also got four and a half months of just bracing ourselves and waiting for impact. No, wait a second: we've got four and a half months to learn just how we need to kick ass and take names so you get exactly what you need, and we stay sane and happy in the process. I'm working on a five step plan to achieve maximum awesomeness, so here's my draft:

Step #1: Get Feet on Ground
I've had half a dozen people tell me how incredibly I'm handling this. Okay, sure, I might not have a reputation for being the most emotionally stoic human being on the planet, but this is the first time my child has been in the mix. I think your Dad is kind of in the same place: this is possibly the shittiest situation either of us has ever been in, but our reaction so far has been to just bunker down and deal with it. This might suck, but it will only NOT suck once the situation is resolved. Period. In any case, we get you out of it, so basically any crappiness that happens along the way is just some crap to wade through and leave behind. 

Step #2: Muster the Troops
Okay, I've ranted against Facebook before, and will do so again, but it's been pretty cool seeing people jump to offer their support and good wishes after we finally posted some news about you. I think my favorite comment so far was from a grad school friend: "I have heard it said many times that babies choose their parents based on things they need and things they need to learn in this life. I am sure that Batman has chosen you and Ryan cause he knows that you guys will give him what he needs. You two are the only ones that will be absolutely perfect for him." Fuckin' a right! Even if a lot of the people who've jumped forward with kind words will only continue to offer those, that's a huge help. We know we have a shitton of awesome people who will help us in a LOT of ways, and you are one lucky little Batman to come into a world filled with so many people who will almost definitely punch a medical professional for you, should a medical professional need punching.

Step #3: Eschew martyrdom and don't buy in to the "causes"
Apparently having a "special needs baby" opens this massive, greasy, foul can of worms containing colored ribbons, organizations "working towards the cure" that everyone thinks we should join or support, and inspirational jargon that basically reduces an entire life (yours) to a problem that we will bravely overcome. I absolutely understand the comfort that people get from plastering their cars and lives with inspirational slogans, bumper stickers, participation in charity walks and events, and generally surrounding oneself with acknowledgment that others are also suffering in the same way: I really do. I, on the other hand, would sooner chop off my own leg than spend the rest of my life campaigning for and covering my life with congenital heart defect awareness. This is some shit we need to get through, and while it won't ever really go away, I absolutely intend for our lives to be governed by who we are and what we do as a family, not some medical condition we are unlucky enough to need to deal with.

Step #4: Learn what's worth learning
I'm convinced that medical information on the internet is the modern-day equivalent of the pamphlets churches would pass out in olden times cautioning citizens away from the evils of, oh, say, reading anything but the bible, or consorting with gypsies, or...I dunno...keeping cats as pets. According to the internet, I have had countless brushes with death because I do such insanely dangerous things as eat french fries and own cats. I could have already contracted cytomegalovirus, passed it on to you, and soon poof! We're both dead! Everyone who I've shared your situation with has started to suggest online resources, and frankly, I just don't want to go there. The second I start trying to research medical stuff out on my own, I'll end up convinced that your feet are going to fall off as a complication of one of your surgeries. If I have questions, I'll ask doctors. If I still have questions, I'll ask other doctors. Period.

Step #5: Grow a pair
Something I imagine that every pregnant woman can agree on is that some people assume it is their place to flat-out tell you what to do, how to do it, and why doing anything else is wrong/stupid/deadly. I've ranted about this before, and will surely do so more in the future. When you add a significant medical condition to the mix, it just gets worse. Now, even the most previously considerate individuals are starting to demand that I talk with doctors in just such a fashion, make contact with these specialists they know, submit to (or fight back against) this particular medical plan...and we haven't even know about your condition for a full week! That's just the medical stuff: the same onslaught of commentary has started over all the lifestyle alterations we're supposed to make. My recourse? Take the polite smiling and nodding that I was doing before, and kick it up about a thousand notches. I'm a few days away from cultivating happy music to play in my head to drown out the imposing commentary. When it comes to conversations that your father and I actually need to have (with doctors, employers, specialists, etc...), I'm going to take advantage of the fact that you have a pair of gonads already to act like I've got a pair of my own. If we need something done, we will fight like hell to get it. If we disagree with something, someone had damn well better be prepared to explain it - thoroughly, and to our satisfaction. If something makes us uncomfortable, so help me I will gut someone to get it resolved.

Batman, it is SO on.

It has begun.

I knew it was just a matter of time (and a matter of being in a work environment filled with women who have gone through the whole baby-having process at some point in their pasts), but the baby-related, sometimes judgmental, and typically advice-laden comments have started spewing, geyser-like, from the face-holes of some of my beloved coworkers. This is a morosely beautiful and incredibly specific occurrence that I know plagues anyone going through some kind of specific life event (buying a house, getting married, buying a new vehicle, planning a major trip, dealing with illness, etc... ad nauseum), but the baby flavor of this phenomenon is exactly as annoying and amusing as I thought it would be.

Of course, a few women are being just lovely: some listen good-naturedly to my hormone-induced woes, offering sympathetic and encouraging words that are genuine and well-intentioned. Others share their personal stories with absolutely no implication of "this is how ANYONE with half a brain must do this thing;" they are simply sharing their experience with another woman going through a shared life experience. It's some serious red tent business, but I dig it, even if it is informing me of details I never needed to know about coworkers' bodily fluids and/or orifices.

On the other hand, there is one woman. Let's call her "Nellie," as in "don't be such a Nosy Nellie," or "that Nosy Nellie is making me want to sock her in her stupid nosy face if she doesn't stop nosing her nose into my damn business." Nellie has no children, but she seems convinced that her knowledge of pre-natal care far exceeds that of anyone who has had children, even less anyone who is preparing to do so. When I walked into school one day last week holding the last two inches of a Dunkin' Donuts pumpkin flavored iced coffee (so help me, I wait like a child for Christmas for the release of pumpkin flavored anything come this time of year), I didn't get a "good morning," or even a "hi," but instead she gave me a concerned look and eyed my cup suspiciously. "Not giving up coffee, I see?" she muttered, using a tone much like one would use when accepting the fact that a teenager is, in fact, going to get their whatever pierced. I smiled, and told her I was cutting back a bit. Her sigh of resignation was almost staggering.

As the day wore on, more tiny comments emerged. Thankfully, this is not someone I have terribly frequent interaction with, so outside of a day of training, I am unlikely to give her so much opportunity to share her advice. If I were, I would likely explode from restraining the snarky comments I would want to spew back at her. After eating three roughly two inch square chunks of brownie, she asked me if my doctors had talked to me at all about eating chocolate. I informed her that my MIDWIVES (not doctors) saw great benefit in eating any food that both made me happy and that I could keep down without getting nauseous. Besides, while some medical experts believe chocolate to be worth limiting, other extol chocolate's many benefits. Take that, Nelly. She wasn't convinced.

The next comment was a real laugh riot. I was in my classroom, clambering about on chairs while hanging posters, and she told me that it can be extremely dangerous for pregnant woman to climb anything because (wait for it...) BABIES SOMETIMES JUMP UNEXPECTEDLY TO THE OTHER SIDE OF YOUR BELLY, throwing a woman off-balance and probably leading to both their deaths. It was everything I could do not to pretend to fall down onto her, just to see if she would try to catch me, but - misinformed about the cause though she may be - this was the first legit warning she has given me, so I smiled politely and told her I was being very careful.

I could go on...so rather than continue ranting about this one tedious woman's attempts to be helpful, I introduce a new mini-post feature that I will call "Nellie has a strong opinion about..." There, I will share stupid, uninvited, inappropriate, tedious, and otherwise meddlesome comments hurled in my direction by typically well-wishing individuals.

In the meantime, I made a sling for you! It was a suprisingly quick and fun project, and one that I very well might try again to give to one of your future friends (as soon as I meet her or his parents). You're bopping around more and more, especially when I eat a lot of fruit or drink a ton of cold liquid in one go. Guess what I've been eating and drinking lately?

The land of the free, and the home of the...babysat?

Some unfortunate information was uncovered, and I had a long, ranty, self-deprecating, angry post worked up, but instead of pissing and moaning about how utterly stupid I feel for not reading between the lines more carefully when it came to maternity leave coverage, let me share something fun about the world. America thinks it's hot shit. Ask your average American citizen why we're so super awesome, and they will likely list a range of only vaguely-informed reasons for our glory, including how massively successful we are as individuals, how our glorious economic prowess lets us sit court as a major world power, how our ass-kicking military kicks EVERYONE'S ass, and probably something about our Renaissance-like music and culture. Also, anyone can be in politics, no matter who they...er...yeah. (Sorry I had to wave my political flag in your face for a minute there; I'm disgruntled.)

One of the funny things about living in America as a citizen of this supposedly glorious nation is that while many of my problems are decidedly first world problems, many are also legitimately problems. Don't get me wrong: I love and cherish the freedoms I am afforded, not least of which being my rights to present myself (sort of) however I want, say (sort of) whatever I please, associate with those whom I choose (assuming I choose people who are considered "safe"), and go wherever I want to, as long as I want to go somewhere I'm allowed to go. Waaaaaaaaiiiit a minute...

Okay, my right to run around naked on a military tarmac screaming insults about the GOP while dancing with a bunch of non-white friends notwithstanding, I am really pissed off about America's policies regarding maternity coverage. Only a scant handful of countries (including Botswana, Lesotho, and Papua New Guinea) have maternity coverage worse than or comparable to that legally allocated in the USA. In fact, nearly the entire world has better coverage for maternity leave than America, including countries that my less-than-geopolitically-informed brain didn't even realize were still in existence. Tunisia, where mothers only get 30 days off at two-thirds of their pay, offers almost exactly the same coverage I will be getting when I have you, Batman. I will need to take some time off without pay - possibly up to a month - in order to both recover from giving birth to you and to, hm, gee, I dunno, bond with my newborn child before needing to plop you into daycare with people I hardly know.

This sucks. Your father might not even get more than a week to get to know you before returning to work, as he (not the one pushing you out into the world through part of his body) is not entitled to any paid time off beyond the five "Family Sick Leave" days that every employee in his school district gets annually. I don't even have that: I have three personal days, fifteen sick days, and probably ten rollover sick days from last year, and beyond that, I'm on my own. Both of our districts allow for up to twelve months of time off following the birth of a child during which our jobs are considered "safe," but neither of our schools are obligated to pay us for ANY of that time off. I understand that this is pretty standard in most schools, and potentially more generous than many other employers in other industries, but still...WTF? The Federal laws addressing maternity leave - and any sick leave - are pretty damn weak if you ask me.

Now I'm all worked up. I've got visions swimming around in my head of how much BETTER so many of my students might be - as learners, as friends, as people in general - if they had been given time to bond with and be supported by their families immediately following their births instead of parents needing to rush frantically back to work after a matter of days of leave. I know of parents who have gone back to work after - no joke - fives days of leave; one father didn't even miss work the day his son was born, and returned to work the next day because there was no one to cover his shift. What the hell kind of place do we live where this is okay? I know I'm better situated than many, in that I get ANY paid time off, and we (technically) make enough money to be able to afford childcare and feed ourselves at the same time, but there are definitely going to be months when we eat a lot of rice and beans...and maybe don't use a lot of electric devices.

Let's end on a high note, shall we, Batman? Your father and I stopped in to Border's this afternoon, both to scavenge cheap books and to check in on some of my former coworkers (oh, wait, that's kind of depressing, too), and we ran into one particular friend who supposedly possesses the super power of being able to feel the gender of a baby just by placing his hands on a pregnant woman's stomach. He's pretty sure you're a boy, which confirms my gut feeling. Boy, howdy are we going to feel silly if you're a girl.

A brief rant about literature (if one can call it that).

Okay, so while engrossed in my baby name research of earlier this morning, I made a discovery that until about thirty seconds ago did not resonate with the full impact of it craptastitude. The #1 boy's name since 1999 (and before that, it was still in the top ten farther back than I had the patience to check) has been Jacob. Now, don't get me wrong: this is a lovely name, and in fact the name of one of my favorite people in the world. It has some powerful and significant Biblical significance, some really fascinating international variations, and has culturally gained both strength and credibility. I would fault no one for naming their son Jacob...unless it was after JACOB FRIGGIN' BLACK THE GODDAMNED EMOTIONALLY MANIPULATIVE WEREWOLF. Does anyone really want their child to assume the charming characteristics of random uncontrollable rage, five-year-old-style sulking and whining, and the intellectual prowess of a tampon? Might as well just name him Ned...after Ned.

Surely, naming your kid a completely normal name that you associate with a crappy character from a crappy series of crappy books is better than, say, naming your kid a not-completely-normal name that has some really negative connotations due to the misbehavior of the namesake. In either case, if the kid ends up with a name she or he can live with, super duper. Just...don't tell them your inspiration if it turns out to be something embarrassing later on. (This goes out to you, next person who wants to name their daughter Sarah after a certain political...gem...just name her after me instead, okay?)

Why you will not be named Bahtmanne, Batte-Man, B'atmayn, or...erm...Batman.

In the last three or four years, I have cultivated a deep and abiding passion for NPR. This love has blossomed from a private lust indulged only while alone in my car to full-blown spouting of stories, facts, discoveries, and quirky tidbits with the disclaimer "I heard/read/saw the most interesting thing on NPR the other day..." Yes, this brackets me into a particular intellectual class, and yes, it probably only serves to enhance the image that many might perceive of me being a total snob, but oh well. I have every intention of NPR-listening being a common household activity for us, especially some of the really fun weekend shows, so you have a lifetime of excellently prepared cocktail conversation ahead of you, too!

Sadly, NPR is not the be all and end all of news sources. There are times when I am on their website and (ooh, a shiny thing...) get too distracted by blogs I hadn't noticed, articles about rituals in some tiny country I'd never heard of, recipes for food I didn't realize one could actually make from scratch...yeah, I'm doing it again. When I just want to know what the heck is up with some major event somewhere in the world, I often consult additional news sources. Since pretty much all of them are hideously biased in some direction or another, I often have to surf around to find a few perspectives. A source that, to my surprise, is at least, to my taste, acceptably slanted to a perspective I am comfortable nit-picking, has been CNN. Now, I don't want to convey the impression that CNN stays either objective or exclusively focused on major breaking news: they are equally guilty of peppering distracting and utterly irrelevant (but fun) news stories among the serious and relevant.


One such CNN gem was this story on a recently released book entitled What yo nayme is?: What not to name your child. I am compelled to run out and purchase this book immediately, if for no other reason than to hear more about the possible social and emotional impacts of names. Growing up, I had quite a few friends with truly beautiful, unique names that were unusual, sourced from either family or their non-American nationalities, and almost every single one of them went by an Americanized moniker. I know that one friend in particular (whose name I never quite knew how to pronounce) still goes by her nickname in the workplace. While her name came from her Vietnamese roots (and is therefore entirely understandable), I have encountered students whose parents gave them equally or more challenging names for funsies. No joke: I had a student a few years ago who went by "Mike," but whose given name had four consecutive vowels somewhere in the middle of it, and which contained several accented letters. Why? His mother thought it looked cool on paper. The story I watched on CNN (not NPR, but you get the idea) hinted at the possibility - even the probability - that this delightful, bright, capable young man might be seriously hindered in his future endeavors by his mother's choice to give him a deliberately wacky name.

This got me thinking. Now, despite many people's concerns (and even suggestions) that we will actually name you Batman, I can assure you that this is not the case. Even though some of the names your father and I love are a little out there, not one of them will get you beaten up on the playground: I promise. Furthermore, they can all be easily pronounced by anyone capable of reading and understanding the basic phonetic rules of the English language. Perhaps even more importantly, none of them are creative re-spellings of names that have a commonly accepted spelling. (Consider Ashley, Ashlee, Ashleigh, Ashlie, Ashlea, Asheley, Ashli, or Ashly...not to diminish Aiden, Ayden, Aden, Adan, Aaden, Aayden, Aidenn, or Ayedan.)

Having grown up with an insanely common name (#5 nationally in my birth year), I likewise have a pretty strong aversion to overly popular names. As much as I like my name now, it was not easy being one of three or four Sarahs in a class, especially when I was young enough to believe myself to be the actual center of the universe. Why the hell was someone else answering when the teacher was talking to ME? What kind of audacious psychopath would try to take MY name? As a teacher who has seen the flicker of sorrow in the eyes of Alexis, Alexis, Alexis, and Alexis as I try to distinguish them by their last initial or a nickname they never really wanted (sorry, Lex: I do think your nickname kicks ass, though, and I hope you grow to love it), I would personally not give an overly common name to my child unless there were a truly extraordinary nickname possible.

To be completely honest, your father and I were talking about possible baby names something like a year before we even got engaged. We figured that having some consensus on what we would name our future progeny was a good gauge of how well-suited we were as a couple, and thankfully we agree on a small handful of names that we both really love...ergo, we are an awesome couple, right? In any case, your name has probably already been decided, if not definitively, but we will not be telling anyone our choice for a very specific reason until you are actually out and kicking. 

Why? What kind of reactions do you think A'Quonesia Franklin's parents got when they told, say, a random coworker their baby name choice. Likewise, what about Michael Jonathan Smith's? These are both pretty stellar names, and (only knowing the latter personally, I can only assume for the former) good fits for the people they title. Still, SOMEONE must have had some gripe with those name choices at some point prior to those children's births. Some family member, coworker, friend, associate, or someone must have said "Are you kidding me?" or given that polite, slightly high-pitched coo of "oooOOOooh...that's a nice name..." before rapidly changing the subject. There's just no point in giving people something ELSE to judge about when pregnancy and birth are already some of the most judged, criticized, and widely accepted as topics about which anyone and everyone can impose personal opinions.

Batman, there will always be times in your life when it's worth opening the floodgates for everyone you know to share their opinions about something that really matters to you. For example, when you want to buy your first car, ask everyone and their mother (also your mother) for their suggestions and ideas for both what to buy and how to do it successfully. Same goes for picking a college, choosing a place to live, or any major financial investment: the more input, the better. You never need to take peoples' advice in situations like these, but it really helps to hear a range of perspectives. On the other hand, when it comes to picking a significant other, making major decisions about your relationship with that significant other, and basically every decision surrounding children, my advice (sorry for the hypocrisy) is to just listen to yourself and the other person directly involved. It's really awesome to hear other perspectives, with the mutual understanding between you and the advice-giver that you are mostly listening to hear some different ideas, and that you will pick and choose that which you want to adopt. Speaking from experience, being told "this is how you are SUPPOSED to do X,Y, or Z" is...well, crappy.


I promise we will not name you Chylamidia or Cuervo, nor will we name you Schtievhann or M'aerriey, and we will definitely not name you the exact same thing as every other kid in the hospital at the time of your birth. I can also promise you that your name will be entirely of your parents' choosing: we'll listen to family and friends' ideas, and we might even directly consult a few of them just to get balanced perspectives, but - Batman or otherwise - your name will be OUR gift to you.

Please, grab me!

As you might recall, Batman, a radiology technician recently referred to you as a "snuggler." This was actually a kind of comforting thing to hear, as one of my "wake me up in the middle of the night to panic about it even though there's not only nothing I can do about it but really no cause for panic in the first place" moments over the last few months has been worrying about whether you'll be the kind of kid who likes physical contact, or if you'll start to refuse touching sometime around age three. I know that's not especially likely, but this is not an especially rational fear.

While I have a difficult time accepting physical contact from people I'm not super close to (woe betide that "uncle" who tries to put his arm around my shoulder affectionately while telling an rambling story about "back in the day" in which I play some humorous role), and an even harder time dealing with touching from people I don't really know at all (seriously, lady at the makeup counter at Macy's, do you really need to keep "warmly" touching my arm to "build my confidence"?), I do truly relish hugs, snuggles, hand-holding, leaning, and other forms of contact from most people I love and trust. There are exceptions on all counts, of course, but those are primarily based on dubious personal hygiene and grooming, or emotional baggage.

That is all under normal circumstances, of course. Since you came onto the scene, I've been pretty massively uncomfortable for a lot of the time, so snuggle-times have not really been my cup of tea. It's actually been bumming me out, since I love snuggling so much, but I know I'll make up for it once you're on the outside. In the meantime, I'm trying to find small moments when touching is a good thing and not something that just makes me feel like vomiting (again). Holding hands with your father basically every chance I get is great, and hugs hello and goodbye are excellent little single-serving bursts of contact, but I know that as soon as I really start to show (beyond my current "is just pregnant, or just kind of pudgy?" shape) there will be another whole can of worms to deal with.

Here's a shocker: basically every woman I've ever known has been truly repulsed by having people touch her belly unbidden. In fact, the internet overflows with irate future moms who just want everyone to keep their hands to themselves. I know there are exceptions to this rule, and maybe I'll even be one of them once I start to feel better, but for now...who the hell would just walk up to someone and touch a part of their body that is clearly sensitive and private? Does anyone wander up to a dude with obvious moobs, give them a squeeze, and say "my, these are coming along nicely! What do you weigh now?" Is is considered polite or normal ANYWHERE to rub the head of a cancer patient undergoing chemo and say "boy, that's smooth! How far along is it?" How about giving a nice tweak to someone's scar after obvious surgery and noting "what nice stitch work you got! That's nicer than mine was..." before launching into a personal medical horror story?

Yesterday, however, was the first instance of someone just going for the belly. I feel like I'm in a slightly safer zone as a teacher because (for a variety of reasons, not least of which being that I know they are developmentally less capable of some social decision making, whatever the experts might say) I'm inclined to let children get away with a hell of a lot more than adults. A seven-year-old in my summer pottery class slapped a clay-encrusted hand on my belly after loudly screaming "I WANNA FEEL THE BABY KICK!" Finding this charming rather than imposing, I calmly stepped back and informed her that it was too soon to feel anything yet, and she happily went back to her project.

This didn't bother me: not a bit. I know, however, that the first time any adult beyond my immediate circle of family and friends - or who hasn't asked before just getting in there - goes for the navel, I will lose my bananas. I might not even be especially good with some family getting in there until a) there is a guarantee of movement, and not the chance of someone sitting there with a hand pressed to my abdomen for who knows how long waiting to feel something, and b) I'm physically big enough that I can reassure myself that they're feeling you, Batman, not just rumblings while I digest my third jar of pickles. I really hope everyone waits for permission before touching, since I'm pretty sure that homicide is still not justified if the shopkeeper was just trying to relive the glory of her daughter-in-law's last pregnancy.

On the other hand, there is a very good chance that I will be positively thrilled to let anyone who wants to get their hands all up upons as soon as I start to feel better. My midwives are practically ready to start a frequent visitor program for me with all the super fun business I've had going on in the last nine weeks (holy crap, that's a crazy long time), so once my punchcard is full, maybe I'll be happy to let that dude at the Sears auto center give you a rub.

LIES! ALL LIES!!!

In this magical age of technologically-enhanced knowledge saturation, it's rare for me to ever feel like I don't - or can't - know something. If I forget the name of that guy playing the diner owner on "Bones" who just, maybe, possibly, might have been a beloved side character on "The X-Files" that one time back in 1998, I can easily look him up and smugly reassure myself of my television knowledge. "My" knowledge, really, is whatever I feel I can access in some way. Sure, there are times when I'm not anywhere near a computer, or my phone has no reception, so I do often need to rely on my brainmeats to get me through, but thankfully they too have been powerfully enriched by the crazy access to information we all have available.

Anyone who has ever mentioned the word "baby" (as in "love you too, baby!") or "pregnant" (as in "I was pregnant with remorse") in an email, on Facebook, on a blog comment, or basically anywhere else on the internet has very likely been accosted by ads for sites relating to babies and pregnancy. No joke: try sending an email to someone - anyone, really - in which you mention anything even tangentially related to the birth process and its results. Perhaps you might write the following:

Dear Mama,
I am thrilled that you labored for so long to make me the delightful cookies. It's like you birth these amazing little gifts from god out of nothing but flour and butter! I hope to see you on my birthday, when all our family can experience the miracle of your baking. Don't forget to bring Auntie Pitocin's pain relief pills!
Love,
Your baby


Try it. I dare you. Even if you don't, the internet will still do everything in its power to fill your brain with baby information both accurate and nonsensical. Anyone with a predilection for information-gathering is likely to encounter this type of material pretty much regardless of whether you are seeking it, so someone actually trying to use the internet to learn real information about pregnancy has few to no challenges ahead.

The stumbling block comes when you have a specific question and need a specific, accurate answer. It seems like virtually everyone who writes anything about pregnancy in particular, and babies in general, is convinced that the answer to every question one could possibly ask is "that is going to kill your baby." Nail polish? Totally going to kill your baby. Fish? Birth defects ahoy! Staring too long at a lamp? Probably one of the leading causes of birth defects. Alcohol in ANY quantity? That's going to kill your baby, you, and probably your entire extended family. Some things, like doing lines of coke or trying to teach yourself tattooing on your pregnant belly, are worth avoiding, but most things actually won't cause real damage. I'm surely not making friends by taking this position, but oh, internet...why do you be so paranoid?

I only really learned to appreciate the glory and wonder of instant knowledge gratification while in college. Part of this (and here I date myself a little) is due to the fact that the internet was not a fully-utilized or understood academic resource while I was in high school; as soon as I arrived at college, everyone else seemed suddenly aware of, well, everything. I quickly dove onto the world wide web and began to explore. The first time I noticed that some of the information housed therein was a little sketchy was when I tried to research the icky side effects I was having due to a new prescription. According to the internet, I probably had a fatal infection. I was advised to seek immediate medical assistance, set my affairs in order, and calmly await my maker. Obviously, I survived, and just changed my medication to alleviate the seemingly incapacitating symptoms.

This experience, which somewhat soured my first semester of college, gave me a very cautious sensibility for internet-sourced information. I've been doing my homework on babies, pregnancy, etc... and you know what? For information about anything even tangentially medical, the internet sucks. I'm keeping an eye on mega-sites like The Bump for such humorous thread as "When do I tell people I'm pregnant?" (er...maybe you should save a decision like that for NOT a massive public forum partially populated with people who worry about getting pregnant from having sex - while pregnant - and instead consult your partner and brain). I'm taking it back into the world of books: at least I can know, for sure, before I even open the cover, that an author is either aligned with my philosophy of non-terror, or alternately trying to convince me to give my child a fear of needles before they even finish growing toes. Batman, check your sources, know your authors, and don't trust anything that even vaguely resembles a message board.

I should probably get that bag of recycling from 2009 out of my trunk.

Sometimes I get lazy.

This actually happens quite a lot, but it's rarely too terribly visible to the outside world. If I get lazy about, say, shaving my armpits, it's no biggie. Only one person is ever really close enough to them to even notice, and he doesn't seem to care. Every now and then I'll realize that I'm getting a bit shaggy about the pits at an inconvenient time, like while putting my hair up at the gym or while chaperoning a dance in a sleeveless dress, but I can easily mitigate that by just keeping my damn arms down.

Often, I get lazy about correcting student work or planning lessons in advance, but the only person who really suffers for that is me, since I need to do everything eventually anyhow. My seventh graders usually couldn't care less what grade they got on one paragraph one time, which shows me that I have them very well trained to focus on learning rather than grades. (This is a strategy that is both pedagogically sound and a glorious accommodation for my frequent lapse in professionalism.) Regardless, I have the roughly twice a month day from hell in which I have to edit and grade sixty-one papers, plan for the next day, and inevitably juggle a pile of other professional minutiae while magically working in dinner, sleep, and bathroom trips. Funsies.

I know that with another human being literally depending on me for his or her very existence to successfully continue (that'd be you, Batman), I will need to mend - or at least modify - my slothful ways. Don't get me wrong: shit gets done. I cook food, bills get paid, errands get run, cat boxes get scooped (often enough), exercise gets done, and I sometimes even have time to do my toenails and gussy up my hair before I leave the house. Still, I know I need to streamline a bit.

I used to hate, hate, hate to clean my room. Even now, our bedroom is...questionable...most of the time, but when I was living with my parents, it was a horrific pit. Indiana Jones would literally crap his chinos with fear at the prospect of spelunking in the landslides of junk that occupied my room. Watching the show "Hoarders" now, I wonder how my parents didn't force me to seek psychiatric help. I didn't NEED all that stuff, and I honestly didn't even want it there. There were times when I was so repulsed by my living space that I read myself to sleep under the blankets with a flashlight just so I didn't need to see it while dozing off.

Really...I was just lazy. I couldn't be bothered to clean, no matter how often my parents threatened to ground me or revoke sleepover privileges, so eventually they got so fed up that they hired someone to do it for me. Before you start thinking "hmm, I'll bet she just went out back to the stables and rode her gold-plated pony all afternoon while eating teriyaki peacock skewers," let me remind you that my parents were solidly lower middle class for most of my childhood. HIRING someone to do something only happened if none of us could do it, like installing new carpeting or cleaning the chimney. This was an utterly unprecedented occurrence, and what did I do with my beautifully organized new space? Turn it back into a shithole within six months. Yup.

The moral of this story (aside from "don't bother to hire someone to clean your kid's room, just lock them in there until it's done") is that until you decide to make a positive change for yourself, anything anyone does to "fix" or "improve" the problem is just a temporary fix. Once I decided (in college) to be responsible for my living space, it got infinitely better. Now I deep clean at least three or four times a year, with roughly bi-weekly regular-strength cleanings, and it NEVER gets so cluttered that it is really embarrassing. Why? Because I want to. I actually kind of like cleaning now, and I will ride you like the pony I never got if your room ever gets half as messy as mine was.

Don't make me get my beat stick.

I reeeeally hate the fact that teaching in a public school means that I have to impose disciplinary consequences for kids who are basically just acting their age. I'm pretty fluffy-bunny when it comes to discipline at all, regardless of whether it's for kids or adults. I firmly believe that preventing bad behavior is both more effective and just generally better than imposing punishment after something happens.

This, however, is kind of a best-case scenario. You don't always have the opportunity to teach someone the good behavior you want them to practice, like when some asshat cuts you in line at the grocery store. Had I known this person in her earlier, more formative years, or even twenty minutes ago when she wasn't in the process of nearly crushing my toes while frantically racing to pay for her three shallots, Moxie, hard taco shells, nail polish remover, and light bulbs, I might have been able to share with her the notion that "cutting people in line is rude, and one ought not do it if one wishes to be looked upon fondly by surrounding strangers in public environs." Alas, my only recourse in a situation like this is to either make angry faces at her and hope that someone sympathizes, or turn into a ranting bitch and make the situation worse by trying to verbally shame the offender, inevitably just making her annoyed and in no way shape or form resolving the situation.

Working with seventh graders is EXACTLY like that, except that you do have some chance of modeling or setting expectations for good behavior. Kid wallops another kid in the face with a notebook ("because he was annoOOoying me!")? Okay, clearly I was relying on kindergarten teachers to set some ground rules about that one, but I am stuck playing disciplinarian now. You with the notebook? Go to the office and get yourself punished by someone with greater authority than I have. You with the oozing scratch on your eyelid? Go to the nurse, but when you come back, we're having a serious conversation about how to treat classmates.

At the best of times, I can spend little tidbits of transitional times modeling and explaining the kind of behavior I want to see. When we get back from a vacation, long weekend, snow day, etc... I usually start class by telling the kids how well I KNOW they can behave and focus on being awesome students. I use the word awesome a lot, possibly too much, but it's a hell of a lot better than one of my coworkers telling them to "act their age." Uhm, I'm sorry, thirteen and fourteen year olds ARE acting their age when they spend an entire class flirting with the guy they like by kicking him under the table, stealing his pencil, and whispering jokes that cause him to laugh and get yelled at by the teacher.

Maybe my disciplinary strength really lies in having reasonable expectations. When I read a passage with a character named "Gaylord Smitts," there are going to be giggles. Rather than screaming for them to be respectful, mature, or whatever, I say "yes, yes, that's a name that someone with a not-yet fully developed sense of social conscience would find humorous, so get it out of your system and let's get back to our reading." A few snickers make it out, and then they get embarrassed and we can move on. Lesson learned, situation squashed, and no harm done. Heck, our one student with parents who are gay looked smug, so I figure I did okay.

I guess where I'm going with this, Batman, is that if you do something just plain stupid, like allow cutsies in line at an ice cream stand on a really hot day on a boardwalk with jillions of screaming kids already waiting behind you, you deserve some kind of consequence. If you KNOW you're doing something wrong, or doing wrong by someone, nut up and accept some discipline. On the other hand, knowing not to in the first place saves everyone a lot of angst, so I will do my best to help you know right from wrong, acceptable from unacceptable, and face-punch worthy from not-face-punch worthy. Note: I'm firmly against any sort of physical consequences for poor behavior, save those accidentally caused by the misbehaving individual (i.e. stack of jostled stuff falling on head), but I can't be accountable for that guy you cut in the ice cream line whose kids have been screaming in his face for the last six hours.