I knew this pregnancy would be different. I knew we couldn’t expect a normal trajectory like our other two. And yet, even knowing to expect the unexpected, there is little one can do to actually prepare for it.
Somehow the initial panic at 16 weeks of hearing this babe would need to be monitored weekly from then on out for signs of anemia wore off. The gut wrenching fear that accompanied me in the minutes before each ultrasound and the doctor coming in lessened a bit over time. My apprehension around the likelihood of needing an intrauterine transfusion before making it full term melted away as each week passed. 17 weeks… 18 weeks… 19 weeks… 24 weeks… 25 weeks… 26 weeks… 29 weeks… 30 weeks… It seemed like the end was actually in sight. Could we only be 10 weeks from full-term? I let myself hope that we might have miraculously avoided any antibodies crossing over to this little man. And then come Tuesday. 31 weeks 2 days. On Tuesday we hit the threshold. 1.5. Above average. Anemic. And then it was no longer hypothetical. It no longer seemed so far away. It was not a possibility or something to monitor for. It was a reality. And reality always hits harder than a risk. Up to labor and delivery I went for my first steroid shot to develop baby’s lungs. Back I went yesterday for round two and fetal monitoring. A return trip today to verify levels were correct. The confirmation that we’re now at 1.55 to 1.7. Anemic. Four hours later there is a plan. There are 3 pages of notes in my “Baby #3” medical notebook. There are 5 more pages of notes. There is a 8 am transfusion scheduled for Saturday, March 13. (Which my scattered brain reminds me was the final normal day of school last year.) There are risks. There is the certainty of a preterm c-section in the near future. A definitive extended stay in the NICU. I’m left feeling overwhelmed and like I should have been preparing for this. But how? We knew to expect the unexpected. And yet… how does one actually prepare for it, not knowing when it exactly when it will come? I saw this coming, but somehow still didn't expect it.
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I buckle my son into his carseat and walk around to the driver's seat. Putting the car in reverse I glance up. There on the porch I see:
One daycare giver extraordinaire Three threenagers Two toddlers One baby in a carrier All waving as if on a pier, giving their best to a ship about to set sail. Sending cheers of “Bye! Goodbye, Adam!” I look in my rearview mirror. There in my backseat: One threenager Waving to his heart's content. Responding with “Bye everyone! I’ll see you the next time!” I’m reminded yet again of how lucky we are to have found this crew. Start a Meet, greet, and catch up
Hook, share a target, dive in Share a Jam, or a Doc, or a Slide Weave in listening and speaking Reading and writing Facilitate, engage, push to soar Observe, give feedback, note the time Call to close, say goodbye, share a wave Catch the last student’s wish: “Happy Woman’s Day, Miss” Smile as you close out the call I’m 31 weeks pregnant and pulled a muscle in my back Thursday night. Badly. As in, stuck halfway bent over, can't get up kind of pulled muscle. I was home alone with the boys and was instantly filled with horror as I realized I was frozen at 45 degrees upright. But this isn’t really a story about that night. Nor is it a story about how I spent Friday hobbling to and from the freezer at work to alternate ice with heat as I logged into Google Meet to teach my students.
It’s a story about socks. Friday I looked in my drawer. Socks. I puffed my cheeks out, holding my breath, and then letting it slowly release. The last time I asked Fausto to put socks on for me was in the last days of my first pregnancy. It went so comically wrong, that I never asked again, opting instead to awkwardly balance in precarious positions to pull my own socks on. I shook my head. Nope. I grabbed a pair of thin, no see ‘em liner socks. They were the easiest to not mess up. Slowly, I crept down the stairs, holding the wall as if it could absorb some of the pain. I entered the flurry of activity in the kitchen and gingerly sat on a chair. “Me puede ayudar con estas medias?” I asked my husband. I passed a single sock over and he lost it. “What are these? These are not socks!” he launched into a fit of deep belly laughter and then set about the task at hand. Saturday I looked in my drawer. Socks. Yesterday’s sock debauckle fresh in my mind, I decided to forgo them for the day. And then Nathan walked in. “Oh good! Papi didn’t help you yet. Can I put on your socks?” Yes, incredibly sweet. Also incredibly humorous that the highlight of my 5-year-olds day was getting to put my socks on. I smiled, grabbing a repeat pair of yesterday's no see ‘em liner socks. “Isn’t it silly that I used to put your socks on and now you’re doing mine?” Sunday I looked in my sock drawer. Socks. Knowing we’d be outside with the boys a bit, I went straight to a pair of stretchy crew socks, come what may. I made my way, quite a bit less gingerly, down the stairs and sat down on a step, handing over the chosen pair to my husband. He deftly pulled them apart, wiggled his fingers down to the toes of one and slid it effortlessly onto my foot. Perfectly. “What?!?” I gaped. “It’s perfect on the first try! How did that even happen?” Becoming a parent changes you, sure. But it also provides you with odd skills that are honed over the years as you repeat mundane tasks day in and day out. It turns out my husband’s secret parenting skill is putting socks on another human’s foot. Today, I’ll gladly take that win. Is there any spot more lovely than cozied up under a blanket, squished between your kids, buried under a pile of books? Twenty years from now, when I ask myself:
Did I do enough? Love enough? Give enough time? Do they know? Twenty years from now, these cozied, squished, book buried memories will be the ones I call upon. A non-comprehensive list of things Adam has convinced people of in the past few months:
“We’re having a baby girl.” (We’re not.) “Our hotel had a giant toilet.” (It was normal sized. It just didn’t have a toddler seat attached.) “We went camping yesterday.” (We haven’t camped since September.) “I’m potty trained.” (He most definitely isn’t.) “We’re getting a pet cat.” (Said cat is not in the cards.) “My belly’s too full.” (He was being asked to eat a meal not on his preferred list.) “This melon tastes bad.” (It actually did…) “Our baby’s name is going to be Michael.” (If our track record proves anything, it’s that this baby will be nameless until minutes before birth.) “Our baby’s name is going to be Noah.” (See above.) His list may be longer, but somehow it doesn’t compare to Nathan telling his teacher: “My Papi calls my Mom ‘Mamacita’.” (I emphatically correct that he does not, not, not!) My eyes flutter open. I don’t need to check the time to know it’s 3 am. I tap my phone’s screen anyhow. 3:11 am.
What is it with this hour? I think to myself, not for the first time. For every single pregnancy I’ve had (we’re on #3 now), 3 am is when the bell tolls for my bladder, which cues the restless sleep. I awkwardly shift-scoot-roll from my right side to my back to my left side, push myself up on an elbow, and sit at the edge of the bed. I dance step my way to the bathroom, avoiding well-known squeaky boards. I pause on my return route and think, I’m already up, I may as well. I fix the blankets that always fall to the floor off the open, non-wall hugging side of Nathan’s bed. Sitting at the foot of his bed, I gaze at Adam, our whirlwind of a second born. Slowly, I lift up his legs and slide the blankets out from under him and then pull them up to his chin, making sure to tuck in every one of his stuffed friends as well (heaven forbid they catch a chill at night). I kiss his baby cheeks that will soon disappear and watch as he shoves a thumb in his mouth and twirls his hair in his other fist. Back in my room, I check the time. 3:16 am. And so begin the wee hours of 3-6. I lay back down, shift-scoot-rolling into position, knowing full well that sleep is futile. The bathroom will call yet again. Adam will wake up, his sleep ridden voice calling, “Mom-meeeeee!” He’ll tell me his blanket fell off or that he can’t find a specific friend. I imagine his favorite excuse for not sleeping - but it’s so hard to sleep - and chuckle to myself. Indeed it is, I think, shutting my eyes to the moonlight sneaking through the blinds. I had a lovely Slice planned for this morning, and then I woke up late.
I had a lovely Slice planned for lunchtime, and then I remembered a collab session that was scheduled on the fly two days ago. I had a lovely Slice planned for after school, and then my 2:30 meeting went 30 minutes long. I had a lovely Slice planned for right before dinner, and then I realized I never took the chicken out of the freezer last night. I had a lovely Slice planned for after the boys went to bed, and then my potty-training toddler pooped on his bedroom floor. I had a lovely Slice planned all day, and then Wednesday happened. Perhaps tomorrow that lovely Slice will make it to be published. We sit at the dinner table, Adam, Nathan, and I. The conversation drifts through topics through which our 3 and 5 year olds tend to revolve: the babysitter and when she’s coming back, dinosaurs, a favorite book, dinosaurs, when Papi is coming home, dinosaurs…
“Look! It’s moving!” Adam says, pointing to the new(ish) clock on the wall. I nod in his direction, raising my eyebrows, to let him know I heard him through Nathan’s oration on the intricacies of albertosaurus existing in the same time and place as the tyrannosaurus rex. “It’s moving. The red one. It’s moooo-ving!” Adam persists. “You’re right, Bud, it is,” I interrupt Nathan’s lecture, which suddenly stops. “Why does that one move so fast?” Nathan inquires. “It measures the seconds.” The pause that follows begs to be filled. “It’s the second hand. Not all clocks have them.” Nathan mulls this over. Adam surveys the options on his plate, electing to go with another frozen green bean (the current, if not uncommon, favorite). “Mmhmm,” he mumbles through his frozen chewing. “And it’s moving.” “You’re right. You can see the second hand moving.” “The third hand,” Nathan adds. I glance at Nathan, thinking he misheard me. “No, Honey, that’s the second hand.” “You mean the third hand,” he insists. “One, two, three.” I try to keep up with the current logic my kindergartener is using. Third hand… I draw a blank. I choose to let it go, because… who really cares? “The third hand is moving way faster than the rest. I wonder why all clocks don’t have a third hand?” Nathan ponders. And the teacher in me can’t let it go. “Honey, it’s not a third hand. It’s the second hand.” He stares at me as if I’ve lost my mind. His chin just out; his eyes darken; he could not be more sure of himself. “One, two, three. It’s the third hand, Mommy.” “And it’s moving!” Adam chimes in again. And me? I smile, because finally I get it. “You’re right,” I concede. “The clock has three hands. So I suppose you could say this is the third hand.” He nods triumphantly. I continue. “But it’s also called the second hand.” His eyes cloud over again. “This hand measures the seconds. As in, one second, two seconds, three seconds, fours seconds.” I snap as I count. “You already know the other hands measure the minutes and the hours in the day. So they’re called the minute hand and the hour hand. This one is called the second hand, because it measures how many seconds are passing by. It’s the third hand on the clock, but in English we call it the second hand.” “Well then,” Nathan responds, “I wonder why all clocks don’t have a second hand. Anyways, they know that T-rexes ganged up on Albertosauruses because they have found teeth marks…” Nathan’s speech resumes. Adam continues carefully inspecting the options on his plate, chiming his two cents in where appropriate. Once again, I am left in awe of how language is acquired, how connections are made, and how my first-born continues to chase down the ‘whys’ of the world. That first day.
You know the one. It’s the one where 40 degrees feels like the new 80. The one where you close your eyes and breathe in deeply. The one where you throw the list of to-dos away in favor of being outdoors. It’s here. You’ve survived. And there is nothing more glorious. Will it last? Of course not. This is Chicago, and we know better than to believe in Fool’s Spring. And yet… And yet. And yet, we also know better than to waste that first day where 40 is the new 80. Congrats to all of you for surviving another winter in Chicago. I’ll be seeing you outdoors. |
AuthorHeidi. Archives
March 2022
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