Communique from Baby World

Man, I have been meaning to write this for sooo long now it is ridiculous! I think the last time I wrote was like, what, Macchu Picchu?

Anyway, as any faithful followers of my blog will be aware, I was due to return to the U.S. on April 30th, which I did, leaving Lima early in the morning and arriving in Las Vegas (via Bogota and Miami) quite late at night. My mom came and got me at the airport bearing gifts of vegan chocolate and hummus and pita, which was so amazing cause I was totally famished after going 24 hours on nothing but the paltry “meals” they served me on the plane. I will say that vegans are totally second-class citizens when it comes to flying- I know people always bitch about airline food being nasty, but compared to what we vegans are given, the “hot meat” meal always looks pretty freaking fancy to me. It’s like the people who plan out our meals must be the most unimaginative losers in the world- I open my little tinfoiled containers, always somehow holding out a secret hope for something decent, while simultaneously bracing myself for what I know is really under there- usually, congealed white rice next to a tragic, wilted 1/3 cup of reheated frozen “mixed vegetables” with a stale white roll and non-vegan margarine, with a fruit cup for dessert. Ugh. Meanwhile, everyone around me is chowing down on their pasta primavera with garlic bread, grilled asparagus & a little cake or whatever, and I just want to be like, “hello! Being vegan doesn’t mean I’m anorexic!” But whatever. Normally I just bring my own food but sometimes it isn’t feasible and I guess it just makes it that much more special when I finally arrive at my destination and am able to eat something that doesn’t make me feel despondent and irritable.

But I digress. So due to the fact that my flight out of Lima left 3 hours late, I almost missed my connection in Miami heading to Las Vegas, and this is how the airline managed to lose my bag for 4 days while I was visiting my parents in southern Utah. Luckily for me, I had sort of expected/ planned for the worst case scenerio so I had the bare essentials in my carry on, and the airline wound up giving me $50 to compensate for the undies and stuff I actually didn’t have so it all worked out- I got some free clothes and my bag came back to me in the end.

I spent 5 lovely days with my parents at their house, which somehow went by so fast it felt like I was leaving almost as soon as I showed up. I hadn’t seen them in nearly a year and I have to say I was feeling really glad to be home. Not as in Utah, but as in the U.S. and with my fam. I was liking South America in its own way, but because I was having to move around so often I never really felt like much more than a tourist, and didn’t really have time to meet many people to connect with for the last couple of months so by the time I got back I was really happy to suddenly be with people who have known me my entire life! And there was soy ice cream, which is always a plus!
My parents are growing a super cute garden in their yard, and it was great to be able to just go out and pick the lettuce that we were using in our salad that night. It makes me really want a garden of my own- just that feeling of accomplishment and connection to the ground and the food we eat seems so essential to really understanding where we fit in in the scheme of it all. That’s the one thing I really struggle with in SF- simply, almost nobody actually has a yard. There are little community garden plots, though, so I’m definitely going to look into doing that when I get back, though I fear it will be too late in the season to really get started on much by the time I get there. Anyway, we’ll see.

Can you tell I’m totally exhausted and just rambling off the top of my head here? I am.

Anyway, after my short visit with the folks it was time to head to Seattle, since Mo’s baby was due on the 10th of May. I flew in on the 6th, arriving in the afternoon, and was met at the airport by my Aunt Cindy and cousin John, who then went and collected my grandparents, who just happened to be flying in at the same time to spend the weekend with my Aunt and her family. I don’t see any of my family very often, so getting to see so many in such a short time span was definitely a happy aberration! We went out to eat at Applebee’s where I somehow managed to find a veggie burger and fries, and then spent the rest of the evening just catching up at their house. The original plan was that I would then spend the next day with them while Mo was at work and then go over to her house when she got done (this was the 7th, mind you, and she was still working as a “dog wrangler”, 3 days before her due date!), but that night Mo called me in tears saying she was having contractions pretty regularly and thought she was going into labor. I was totally hoping that this was NOT the case, since I was kind of stranded in Renton (a suburb about 25 minutes south of Seattle) and really did not want to wake up my relatives to drive me to the hospital in the middle of the night. Eventually Mo did go to the hospital but they told her it wasn’t time yet, shot her full of Morphine and sent her back home, so by the time I got there around 11 the next morning she was barely waking up from the opium haze they had put her in.

She continued to have contractions throughout the next day and so her friend Ruth and I walked her all over the place, recording the timing and periodically checking in with the midwife, who said that no, it still wasn’t time yet. Ruth was amazing, rubbing Mo’s feet and legs, bringing food, and just generally being a totally calming, upbeat influence throughout the whole thing. Finally, around midnight Mo’s contractions had become much stronger and more painful so we all loaded back up into Ruth and Lexa’s (Mo’s housemate) cars and went back to the hospital, where they once again reiterated that even though she was having lots of regular contractions, she wasn’t dilated enough yet so she would have to just go back home and wait. More morphine was given and we turned back around and went home.

Five hours later, the morphine was completely useless as Mo woke up and was absolutely sure that this time, she really was in labor. So once again we made the 30-minute trip to the hospital, and this time they actually admitted her, even though she was only dilated to 3cm. I think they realized that we were sick of driving back and forth and so probably weren’t gonna leave anyways so they just gave us the room rather than call the cops to get us out.

Anyway, the nursing staff was amazing, and since Mo was on a maternity ward in a nice, super-modern hospital (Swedish Ballard) we had a whole “birthing suite”, which means that she got to stay in one room all the way from the time we arrived to the time she left with her new baby, and the baby sleeps in the room with the family (yes, there is even a bed/couch thing for the helper to sleep on!) rather than being wheeled off to a nursery like in the old days. There was also a Jacuzzi, which totally helped Mo to relax and took the edge off some of the pain that the contractions were bringing.
Her original plan was to do it all natural, without drugs or anything, but in the end the pain was so intense that her body wasn’t able to relax enough to dilate, so sometime around 1:30 in the afternoon on Thursday the 8th she had an epidural, which is a type of anesthesia that blocks your spinal pain receptors (or something along those lines), which allowed her to sleep for the first time in over 46 hours. The midwives let her sleep about 3 hours, until she was dilated all the way to 10 cm and it was time to wake her up to start pushing. The epidural had allowed her body to relax enough to finally dilate, and 30 minutes after they had her start pushing, out came Finn Patrick, a scrunched up, squirming, perfect baby. Ruth and I held Mo’s legs as she pushed, and we all got to see the whole process up close and it was seriously one of the most amazing things I have ever experienced! I even got to cut the cord once he was out, and took lots of gory afterbirth pictures just cause it was so crazy to me that all that stuff was inside there.

Anyway, little Finn was born at 5:32pm on the 8th of May, and was actually really calm and quiet his first few days out in the open. Since then he has become a lot more feisty, particularly when it comes to being a bit stubborn about not wanting to learn the whole breastfeeding thing. But he’s getting there, little by little, mainly due to Mo’s dedication to not just giving up and using bottles or formula for him. She has been really persistent, despite the challenges, in trying to make sure he is doing things as naturally as possible, since it is well known how much healthier it is for babies to drink breastmilk and bond with their moms by breastfeeding.
But anyway, even when he’s being cranky he’s adorable- within the first few days he had already amassed a number of nicknames, among them “glowworm” (particularly when swaddled in his light green snuggly nightgown with a little cap on his head), “wrinkle face” (when he gets frustrated/ is about to cry), "the Warden/Emperor/General" (when he is holding us all hostage, which is usually) and, of course, “The Finnster”, just cause we’re kind of jocks I guess. Ha ha.

Yeah, so anyway, I’ve basically just been here, kicking it in Baby World, trying to encourage Mo to sleep whenever possible and make sure she eats something other than cereal to stay alive. We actually managed to make it out of the house to get some groceries today, which has been on the list for a week and a half, and yesterday we went to Ruth’s for an impromptu barbeque, though as soon as Finn fell asleep Mo did too. Still, as exhausted as Mo is, she is holding up relatively well and has even managed to do a little hula hooping a few times since we got home from the hospital. Now the idea is to try to get everything as organized as possible so that when I leave there’s some infrastructure in place and she doesn’t lose her mind trying to do it all by herself.

Brad the Dad is being extremely frustrating, hovering around the margins and basically making a nuisance of himself, demanding to see “his child” whenever he feels like it while simultaneously refusing to fill out his half of the child support paperwork, claiming that he wants DNA testing “just to make sure”. He’s a totally manipulative little prick and by all accounts it would be easier for everyone if he was out of the picture completely, but the reality is he is Finn’s father and therefore has to be taken into account for at least the next 18 years. I’m hoping he’ll grow up enough in the next few years to be able to understand that Mo’s world doesn’t revolve around him anymore and that he needs to get his act together if he wants to set any kind of an example for his child. I’m not holding my breath but I guess there’s always hope.
Anyway, so that’s been my world as of late. Even though I barely leave the house and I’m not the one who had a baby, I still find myself exhausted by 1am and sleeping like a brick at nights, when I’m not up helping Mo deal with the screaming infant. I’m so glad I came though, cause it has been an amazing experience- I just don’t know how I’m going to leave them behind when it’s time to go back to SF next month.

I hope all of you are doing great- now that I’m back home, you call me if you want to just chat- it’s been so awesome to finally catch up with a lot of my friends on the phone after so much time! I am really excited to get back to the Bay and get going on some of the many, many projects I have in mind. The goal is still to go to school in the fall and try to avoid a full time job to whatever extent is possible! I might try to do a whole bunch of work right when I get back before school starts so I have a bit more leeway, but we’ll see.

Okay, that’s it. I’m super tired and it is my bedtime!

Love to all,

Pike.

p.s. If you want to see pictures of the baby,etc, go to my picasa page (http://picasaweb.google.com/veganpike) and click on the ones that mention Finn. Enjoy!