Seven Months

The enormity of what happened takes my breath away. Literally. Sometimes I cannot breathe, thinking about the daughter that was, the baby so full of life, the shy young girl terrified to speak up in class, the older girl with such a forceful, even destructive, lust for living; and then the frightened girl in a hospital bed, sick beyond relief from drugs and radiation, and later the passive, paralyzed, bald girl who seemed to have made peace with this turn in her life. Those months were good ones, healing for me, and I hope for her, after years of difficulty. But after them came the weeks of rapid decline, the confused girl, childlike, worn out, increasingly unable to understand or, eventually, make herself understood, who dribbled when she drank and didn't know when she had to pee. Now I see my youngest child making the strides forward that every baby makes, and I think of my firstborn, who made those same strides forward sixteen years ago, and then in reverse sixteen years later.

I suppose it's normal, seven months after her death, to still feel the wound so deeply. This kind of thing is unnatural, is not supposed to happen; just the thought of a sixteen year old--any sixteen year old--dying causes us all to shake our heads in sorrow. And this was my child. Yet when she died it was also welcome. We knew it was coming, and her year of struggle, extreme suffering, and then heart-wrenching decline made her death a relief. Though I knew to be prepared for the feelings I'm having, I thought with the optimistic naïvete of the uninitiated that I'd dealt with her death already, that knowing it was coming and living through her illness so intimately had prepared me. That the worst of the blow had already been processed.

But it stays with me, its power to make me burst into tears undiminished. It hits me when I hear certain songs, see certain photographs, watch Tilo reach baby milestones. Sometimes it hits me without any trigger at all. It feels like it felt when, running to jump my grandmother's ditch, I fell flat--hard--and the wind was knocked completely out of me.

I hope the pain will fade as the years pass, but then I'm terrified that that means I won't remember the details anymore.

Time Flies

The Baby
Little Tilo will be two months old tomorrow. Like all babies, he's changing daily. He's an avid nurser and is gaining well; at 6 weeks he weighed 4030 grams, more than a kilo over his birth weight. His little legs have plumped right up. We saw his first smile on my birthday (strategic move, Tilo). All my babies were easy, but he's topped the list by being the first to sleep for 6 hours at a stretch so early in the game. His gas pains seem to be easing, he spits up much less frequently, and he's starting to coo. Can it get any cuter?

I've been remiss on posting photos, so here are a few to catch up. Here, angelic at 9 days old:

Doing the electric boogie at 12 days old:

Not too happy (either of them), 17 days:

He often dreams of winning, though we don't know what (6 weeks old):

First and second bottle practice runs at 7 weeks (note to my crunchier friends: don't freak, it's expressed milk):

Enjoying a bath in the Tummy Tub, 7 weeks:

Surf Safari
We spent the Whit Monday holiday weekend in Zeeland, this time in a ground-floor apartment right smack dab on the waterfront. The view from our living room:

It was heavenly, especially since the weather was fantastic and the days are already gloriously long, sunrise around 6 AM and sunset around 9:20 PM, with illuminated skies for a good half-hour or more beyond.

Some things don't change--remember last year's Zeeland trip? Sophie poses, Ben jumps.

The apartment was fantastic. The kids played by the lake shore whenever we were home, and there were lots of other kids (mostly German; Sophie acquired an arsenal of playmate-finding phrases) and the open grassy area between the individual yards and the lake was often filled with soccer balls (many of which ended up in the lake; thank goodness for long-handled nets). The shore was lined with smooth pebbles, and skipping stones was also a favorite pastime.

Ben was having too much fun to object to his picture being taken, giving us a rare treat.

(That's our apartment, and me, in the background.)

Marco and the kids spent three days surfing at Brouwersdam while Tilo and I camped out in the grass beside the surfing cove. We got smart the second day and took the parasol and a lawn chair from the apartment with us. The weather was phenomenal all weekend, truly marvelous by Dutch standards--by any standards, actually: high 70s to low 80s with a constant breeze.

Ben didn't make as much progress as he'd hoped, but Sophie improved in leaps and bounds. Last year she was too scared to do more than hold the cord between the board and sail; this year--well, have a look:

She was totally psyched.

Seeing the camera trained on her, she went into supermodel mode, naturally.

We also took a gentle 3-hour sail in a Centaur, Tilo in his Maxi Cosi (carseat). Ben was very nervous at first, as was his mother (who, despite her childhood on the water, only managed to retain one thing: one should keep one's head down when the boat comes about). Fearless Sophie had a blast manning the rudder. Ben was in charge of turning Tilo's carseat around to keep him out of the sun. After a while he warmed up and took a turn at the rudder. No photos, alas; we didn't want to risk a waterlogged Pentax.

Remembrance

Meghan's tulips, blooming by the front door.

Home and Happy

Tilo (say "TEA-low") and I came home on Thursday. We're both doing beautifully. He's an absolute angel, hardly ever cries (only when he's hungry or having his diaper changed), nurses like a champ, sleeps through all kinds of noise (which his siblings provide in abundance), and makes all those cute little half-asleep baby faces and noises. His father and I are, naturally, over the moon.

The C-Section
The c-section was far better than I'd feared, better even than my best case. I knew exactly what to expect, and even so there were a few good surprises. I'd expected to have to remind everyone Dr. Dietz had said the catheter could be inserted after the spinal, but they all knew. I'd been told the OR is cold, so I expected to be shivering there on the table in my hospital gown, but the staff had heated blankets ready for me and so I was warm throughout. No one talked about shopping or movies or anything other than the operation. One of the staff was present purely to take photos for us from the business side of the curtain, so we've got great shots of Tilo being born.

Tilo cried (best sound in the world) right away. Good lungs! His Apgars were 9, 10, and 10. 2910 grams (6 lbs 6 oz) and 50 cm long (19.5 inches) *. Marco was by him, touching him, as they checked him over, and he got to make the final, symbolic cord cut (the doctor made the "real" cut in the sterile field). Then Marco brought Tilo to me, and I got to touch him and kiss him for several minutes before they had to leave.

The sewing up took an eternity. I started feeling the afterpains (contractions of the uterus) during that time, but didn't feel anything else, thank goodness. Finally they wheeled me into the recovery room, where my temperature and blood pressure were a little low. Staff put an industrial-looking hair dryer under the top layer of blankets to warm me up, and asked if I wanted my husband sent down. Fifteen minutes later he and Tilo came walking in. Another pleasant surprise, as I hadn't expected to be able to see them until I left recovery.

In the meantime upstairs, Tilo had been weighed and Marco had held him against his bare chest, both of them wrapped in heated blankets. Marco opted not to dress Tilo yet, so I could hold him skin to skin when I got to see him again.

Once my temperature and blood pressure were back to normal and I started tingling in my toes, they wheeled me from recovery back up to the maternity ward. Around noon Oma, Opa, and Tilo's big brother and sister got to see him for the first time.

Tilo was grunty and showed no interest in nursing, which had me a little worried. I was reassured that c-section babies often do this (no pressure from contractions and squeezing through the birth canal to press the last amniotic fluid out of their lungs) and that both would resolve within 24 hours. And indeed, by late Monday evening he was breathing without grunting; by Tuesday morning he was rooting for the nipple.

At one hour old he was finger-fed 10 mL of formula because his blood glucose level was too low (another factor that can contribute to grunty babies). That did the trick and though he had to have four more heel pricks to test his glucose level, it stayed high enough and all were content to let him discover the joys of nursing in his own time.

I had no side effects from the c-section: no spinal headache, no nausea, and the incision is healing nicely. Seen purely as a method of giving birth, it was easy--I didn't have to do any work at all and had no pain. Of course, it's not just a method of giving birth; it's also a major operation, and the recovery is much slower and much harder than with my vaginal births. Eight days later I still move slowly; turning over in bed, sitting up, standing and walking all take time and effort, and if I move too quickly I pay for it in searing pain.

It's hard to be so dependent on others. I can do extremely little myself. Fortunately, each day brings a new little milestone: yesterday, for example, I managed to put on my own socks for the first time in a contorted pose not unlike the late-pregnancy sock-putting-on pose. Today I gave Tilo his bath for the first time, and walked down the stairs alternating feet instead of always leading with one foot. Woo hoo!

Mixed Emotions
Throughout the pregnancy people said so often, "You must have such mixed feelings, life and death so close together." I've felt that more strongly since Tilo's birth than at any point before. Sixteen years ago the nursing baby at whom I stared in rapture was my eldest child. All the feelings I have for Tilo, I had for her then. And she's gone.

The hardest thing is my lack of confidence. Before her illness and death, I always assumed things would work out well. They always had. Bad things happened, and of course I knew they could happen to me, but they never did. Now I can't shake a fear that some new catastrophe is lurking around the corner. I fervently hope this doom-and-gloom feeling will pass.

Bliss
I hate to end this post on a blue note, because most of the day is quite sunny. So let me share a feeling I had just before my eldest came back to live with us last April. We knew we were in for a heavy time full of chemotherapy with little chance of success. We knew the physical and mental workload caring for a half-paralyzed, wheelchair-bound cancer patient would take a toll. And yet I had a moment of clarity, one of three or four I've had in my life, when I knew that her coming back would usher in a period of great happiness for us. I didn't know what that meant and I definitely didn't see how that could possibly be so at the time, but now I do.

Sometimes I imagine her standing next to his cradle by the living room window, her blonde hair shining in the filtered sun, one angel smiling at another.


* The first nurse measured him at 46 cm; two days later another nurse measured 50 cm. We had a suspicion, as he barely fit into the preemie size his 47-cm brother wore for weeks.

Tilo in Pictures

Earthside

This is Grayson's husband. I am happy to report that everything went even better than expected this morning. Tilo Morris Jacobs was born at 9.38am, weighing 2910 grams. Tilo did not have to go to the NICU. He's a little grunty and hasn't yet shown any interest in eating, but the doctors say it will resolve itself in the course of the day. More news will follow later.

Counting Down . . .

Friday's checkup was business as usual, cervix 3.5 cm. Nice to enter the last weekend on that note. And now it's Sunday afternoon, and in 17 hours we'll be at the hospital. In less than 20 hours we'll have a baby!

Excitement at meeting our new son is slowly gaining ground on my dread of the operation, for which I'm thankful.

I'll be in the hospital for several days, no Internet connection, but Marco will post a blog entry for me as soon as we're up to it.

Thanks to everyone who's been reading along and living vicariously with us! I'll take all your good thoughts and wishes to the hospital with me.