My amazing wife

When I read the entries in the blog that Luciana writes I am always humbled by her spiritual strength and her beautiful prose. Ila miglior fabbra

cleft palate

I could hear beneath the curtains in the triage room. She was 33 weeks pregnant, checking her baby after a bad fall in the icy walkways of New England. We both waiting for the nurses with their well practiced amiability and their expertize. This is her first baby and the grandmother sits at a glider nearby, listening and consoling the woman: the baby has cleft palate and something wrong in both feet. The fall was not the most important issue, considering that this child was already marked as atypical, marked and - horrible fate - not beautiful. Protected by the fragile privacy of the curtain, the young mother allowed herself to vent her sadness and frustration, looking for explanations as if that would minimize the pain. In and out, the nurses participated in the conversation. Does it run in the family, yours or his? No, dear, it has nothing to do with anything you have done...We are going to check on his heart rate, don't worry...
The mother questions God - whose sins would bring down to life a suffering inocent - and give it to me as my first son? I closed my eyes and thought about it for a while, consoled by the fact that I was no longer looking for a God measurable by the human rules of justice and love. I had given up on miracles, and felt good about it. Until I heard the high-pitched voice of a nurse, telling mom,
- Oh I am so happy you came on my shift! I was a cleft palate child and I love when they come my way!
What followed was a sequence of reassurance, compassion and hope that dismantled my theory about the distant God. Someone had sent that nurse, bending the inertia of randomness. I turned my big belly to the other side and let my soul rest over the plastic pillow.

Yesterday

Was a hard day. I hit the emotional wall. Never clear why it happens when it happens. It happens. I was mad all day. Then finally about about 9 pm I managed to give up and wasn't mad anymore. Maybe the fried fish and potatoes helped.

Never underestimate the power of fried fish, HBO, and the prospect of sleep in the near future.

Give us this day our daily news, January 27th

In the news today: what humans are capable of doing with their lives:

• A woman in California gave birth to eight babies. Eight!?!?!?!?! We salute you!!!
  
• Microsoft, Caterpillar, Home Depot, Sprint Nextel and many other companies announced that they are laying off workers. Total jobs lost in this recession so far: 2.55 million. We have nothing to fear but fear itself, unless we were planning to retire in the next ten years, in which case: bummer.
  
• Illinois Governor Rod blagoyevich went on The View and talked to Diane Sawyer on national TV yesterday while back in Springfield the state legislature convened to impeach him for trying to sell his power to appoint the Senator to replace Obama. A complicated man with a simple plan... or a simple man with a complicated man.
  
• Neil Gaiman won the John Newbury Medal for his book, "The Graveyard Book." The courage to create.
  
• Dina Vierny died at the age of 89. She was the muse who inspired Aristede Maillol to create many great scupltures in the 1930s and 1940s. A nice Jewish girl from Moldava who wanted to study physics and chemistry, she was also a nudist and had a physical and spiritual beauty that attracted the attention of artists her entire life. During WWII she joined the Resistance and led refugees over the Pyrenees into Spain. She was arrested twice, spent six months in prison in Paris in the hands of the Gestapo, and survived the war. She became a well-known art collector and established the Malliol museum in Paris. Hat's off!!! The courage to live!!
  

Baby B

Today we learned that baby B is significantly smaller than the other two. Baby A is 2 pounds 6 ounces, Baby C is 2 pounds 3 ounces, Baby B is one pound 10 ounces. She is tiny. This lag in growth could be attributed to many different factors and it isn't possible at this time to determine the actual reasons. However her vitality appears to be strong. She is breathing actively, moving a lot. So she is "tiny and tough." The hope is that she continues to grow. They are going to do a biweekly growth study. The medical team is monitoring the three very closely. If their health appears to be deteriorating, the team will decide to deliver them. We hope to avoid that and keep them inside for two or three weeks more.

The hospital room is an architecture that arranges experiences

What kind of experience is being arranged on this structure?

The Waiting Place...

...for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or waiting around for a Yes or a No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a sting of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.

--- From "The Places You'll Go," by Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss)

In that intermediary neither-here-nor-there waiting-for-time-to-pass place, where people's activity consists of "monitoring," "checking," "keeping an eye on" and people are afflicted with sensations of boredom, anxiety, uselessness, fear, annoyance, and confusion. Questions can only be answered over time, situations can only be resolved over time. And while we are waiting, and wishing for waiting to be over, the babies are breathing, drinking, kicking, blinking, touching with fingers and toes, reacting to sounds and pressure, turning in the womb and (recently) putting their heads down toward the exit. They have been waiting too - developing from a single cell!!!!! to these complex creatures -- humans about to begin being with us!!!! In the excitement of it all, that gets hung like a coat on a hook on the wall of this bare utilitarian room, I find myself saying, "Take your time, there's no rush, we can wait two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, get yourself ready, we will be here when you need us." And I find myself feeling, "I can't wait!!!"

But I can. Luciana can. We all can. So we do!

Contemporary images of pregnancy

Interestingly, when I was searching the web for an image to illustrate the previous post (on confinement) I came across a number of links to "pregnancy" and "confinement" that ran along the theme of "pregnancy is no longer associated with confinement." See the picture of the active young lady celebrating her pregnancy here.
And I quote:

Pregnancy is not the confinement that the relics of the Victorian era will have women believe. It is a cause for celebration, not hibernation!

Exercise has become a vital part of many women's lives. However, theoretic concerns have been raised about the safety of some forms of exercise during pregnancy. For pregnant women exercise has added benefits. It has been accepted for some time that the general health of a mother during pregnancy is of profound importance to the development of her baby. Unless problems restrict activity, it is advised to maintain your pre-pregnancy exercise levels. There have been no studies in humans that have shown problems in developing embryos caused by moderate exercise.

I'm not sure what this writer means when s/he refers to "the relics of the Victorian era" who would "have women believe." But s/he certainly is in tune with the contemporary ethos of pregnancy, which is that you need to keep going to the gym, working out, running, swimming, yogi-nating etc. as long as you can. This was the year that the English marathon champ ran a race three days after giving birth... It is pretty hard for any of us to imagine ourselves taking time out from our professions and obsessions. People ask me how much time I'm going to take off when the babies arrive, and a large blank space appears in my mind, which is my experience of the incapacity to compute.