The Mystery of The Count

Whoever sent us the "monster cereal trilogy" box is my new favorite relative. My top suspects are Julie and Greg, with Frank as a dark horse candidate. (If I had instead received the 70's-vintage freebie 45 shown to the right, I would have known that Shawn, master of musical ephemera, was responsible.)

My plans for this gift:

1) Wait for Greta to be out of the apartment on a Saturday morning (which could occur sometime before the end of the decade).

2) Get out large serving bowl.

3) Fill with Count Chocula.

4) Dump a quart of soy milk (the unsweetened kind, of course) on top.

5) Queue up my Complete Invader Zim collection.

6) Intersperse Zim episodes with Schoolhouse Rock episodes from YouTube.
This particular episode is quite ironical-like on this day, when the Senate has more or less proclaimed George W. Bush our King (would that make him George II, after his father, or George IV, the next in line after the last tyrant to oppress us?).

7) Reflect that it's never too late to have a happy childhood.

Go, Dog. Go!

Jim has been reading this book to Mango most nights. It's a book from my childhood. The illustrations are hilarious. A bunch of crazy hounds in cars, on bikes, on scooters, in bed---and one bossy little bird.

Our first family time together. It's really sweet.

A Meeting of the Minds

We met Valeriana on Monday (that's her holding the baby). She came to our apartment from Rockland County. We sat around the coffee table and drank tea and water and discussed homebirthing.

Our biggest concern was how things work if something goes "wrong." She explained that there are different times that a transfer to hospital care could happen. The first is long before the birth if she decides that there is some reason why I can't safely have a homebirth. The second is if for some reason Jim and I decide it's not what we want to do. The third is at the birth. She said that a good midwife will know if there's something maybe not "right" and will assess the situation. Is it something that can be handled at home or is it something that will need a hospital transfer. Since we live 5 blocks from New York Downtown Hospital (and the midwife has a car), it won't take long to get there if we need to go. Incidentally, most transfers at the birth are due to the woman wanting drugs, not progressing satisfactorily or just for some reason wanting to go to the hospital. It is almost always not a situation that requires an ambulance or a life threatening situation.

We really liked her a lot and felt more and more after meeting her that this is the right decision for us and for Mango. Both Jim and I are more afraid of what might happen if we go to the hospital than what might happen at home. The more you read about homebirths and natural births, the more this makes sense.

So the decision has been made, and we're excited about it and feel wonderful about our decision.

I would definitely recommend Ina May's Guide to Childbirth for anyone who wants to learn more about natural/non-hospital births. It's really quite eye opening. Here's Valeriana's site: www.homebirthmidwifery.com.

The Factory

Last week, we visited our local hospital for a tour of their Maternity Center. We were excited to see it -- the place where Mango would be born! This is Dr. Wong's hospital, and he had told us that the center had been renovated just a few years ago.

When we arrived, we stood around in a hallway near the nurse's station, waiting for our tour guide. The hallway was lined with small patients' rooms [note: the rooms are small, not the patients, wiseacres], each shared by two mothers. NY Downtown is Chinatown's hospital, so all of the names posted by the doors were Chinese (I wonder where the rich white people from Battery Park City go). Oddly, though, we couldn't hear any babies.

After a while, we were told to go down to the end of the hallway and through some doors to the actual Maternity Center -- we'd actually been standing in the maternity ward. Our tour guide met us there and showed us a "birthing suite", which featured a crappy tile floor, an uncomfortable-looking foam fold-out couch for the father, a huge hospital bed, and lots of hulking medical equipment.

"How long do we get to stay in here?" I asked.

"You have to stay in the hospital for 48 hours after the birth," the nurse said. "You can stay in your maternity suite the whole time, unless we need the room ... if that happens, we'll move you to a room in the maternity ward as soon as your wife and the baby are stable."

"And what are the odds of that happening?" I said.

"Well -- it's been very busy lately ..."

"Can I get up and walk around during the labor?" Greta asked. The nurse looked at her like she had three heads. "Get up and walk around? Sure, if you aren't wearing the fetal monitor. We can't get an accurate reading off of the monitor if you're walking around."

"For how much of the time do most people wear the monitor?" said Greta.

"Most of the time," said the nurse.

Next we took a look at the nursery, where we saw a couple of babies in incubators, and a whole bunch of babies in the regular nursery. This solved the mystery of the quiet maternity ward hallway: apparently, few if any of those women had their babies with them.

The whole tour took less than twenty minutes. We left very dispirited -- or perhaps "horrified" is nearer the truth. We had hoped that the maternity center would be as nice as the one at St Luke's-Roosevelt, where Rowan was born. Instead, we saw a cold, hospital-like environment with strong suggestions of a pro-intervention, anti-natural-childbirth approach. (And no spiffy family-sized jacuzzis like at St Luke's.)

As you may be aware, the management of childbirth has been a political issue for a long time, at least for feminist/leftist/hippie-ish types. The most prominent current spokesperson for the hippie perspective is Ina May Gaskin, one of the founders of the Tennessee commune "The Farm". I'm currently reading her book Ina May's Guide To Childbirth. In brief, Ina May's position is that birth is overly medicalized -- that the relentless focus on intervening in labor with modern medical techniques to avoid problems is a "cure worse than the disease." The common approach to childbirth, she argues, is great for the very small percentage of women who do encounter serious problems during labor, but for the vast majority, it tends to lead to unnecessary procedures, such as inducing and c-sections.

The statistics from The Farm's midwifery program (and by the way, I love the fact that "midwifery" is pronounced as if it had two f's -- very Chaucerian) rather strongly support her argument. Their caesarian rate is only 1.4 percent! Every hospital in Manhattan has a c-section rate of over 20% (except, remarkably, New York Downtown, which is only 14% ... one of the reasons why we had expected to get a much better impression of their maternity center than we did).

Gaskin also believes that birth can be a joyous (though painful and arduous) and spiritual experience, and that this will usually occur naturally if a birth is managed by experienced midwives in an atmosphere of love and respect. As a lapsed Catholic boy, I am intrigued by the idea that birth can be a sacrament. Even us secular types need sacraments, I believe.

So ... we could try other hospitals, and we may wind up doing that, but this tour experience has pushed us more towards the Ina May philosophy, which holds that babies and mothers are both better off if birth takes place at home, attended by a midwife.

Of course, my primary concern is the safety of my wife and son ... a birth lasts only a day (one hopes), while a child is a whole lifetime. Also, pretty much every mother I've ever known, including my dear mother, has had "medicalized" deliveries, and the result has been healthy mothers and children. If we have to, I'm sure we can suck it up and deal with the New York Downtown Hospital Maternity Center experience. But if there's a better, less traumatic and more meaningful, way to bring Mango into the world, I want to explore it. And so ... tomorrow evening, we are meeting with a midwife who specializes in homebirth. She's been an R.N. for over thirty years, and a midwife for more than a decade. We will provide a full report! (I think it's Greta's turn.)

The Quickening

Last week, Greta began to feel Mango move. "It felt like a little" -- she poked her finger into the air -- "*poke*", she said. Soon I was able to put my hand on her ever-burgeoning stomach and feel the "*poke*" for myself.

Lately, though, she says he's been kicking her cervix, and she wants the little dickens to fricking cut it out already. Mango, if you're reading this (via fetus psychic powers), please stop, dude. Come on -- I'll give you Count Chocula when you come out if you do. (Don't tell your mother.)

This wonderful moment in mid-gestation is know as "quickening" ... a delightful, Victorian-sounding term (not be be confused with wettening). Like hundreds of millions of fathers before me, I suddenly feel more connected to our little one ... like he has a personality now. A cervix-kicking personality.

I also feel the cold, clammy sweat of panic on my upper lip ... in just four short months, the child will be a lot louder and rather less portable.

On Notice!

For you Stephen Colbert fans ... Julie cooked this up for us, at the On Notice Board Generator.

Names! Bring 'em on!

OK - it's time to stop calling this kid Mango.
Jim likes Benjamin, but I'm not completely sold. I liked Gabriel, but Jim doesn't like it at all. So, Benjamin's a possibility, Gabe is not. Simon was a possibility, but seems too diminuitive at this point. The kid's probably already going to be short as it is. Sorry, Trees, Fergus ain't gonna happen. I still kind of like Felix though. Tell Tris!

We [heart] Dr. Wong!!

We had our monthly appointment today. Talked to Dr. Wong about the ultrasound experience.

He said the follow up scan is just to see the divider between the brain halves. Jim and I have decided that since everything else is normal, we're going to pass on anymore testing. It's just too stressful and we don't learn anything new or helpful. The doctor said he supports us in whatever we decide to do. WE LOVE HIM!!!!

We asked him when we should start talking about the "birth plan" and he said "It's simple. You guys can do whatever you want to do."

He said we should stay home as long as I can stand it because I will be able to do what I want---eat, lie in bed, take a bath, etc. He said if I come in and I'm not around 5 cm, he'll send me home (after checking the baby's hearbeat). He said he can't be sure over the phone if I'm dilated enough, but he will try to figure it out by my answers to specific questions.

Also he said I'll be able to walk around at the hospital and eat something small. And of course that he won't do a c-section unless it's totally necessary, but it all depends how wide my hips are, etc. I always did want wider hips. Now I know why!!

He said labor, especially with the first baby can last 1-3 days!!! EEK!!! But most of that isn't the hard labor. He also said I'll probably have to push for about an hour since it's my first and that he would not give me any pain meds unless I asked for them, which is exactly how I'd like it.

I'm scared but also really excited and happy that I have a doctor who thinks along the same lines Jim and I do.

A big difference from last week! As far as the Downs results, he said because the baby is in such good physical shape (and because these tests can often be wrong), he thinks the baby will probably be fine. I do too.

Ah - we saw the "nub" today too! IT'S A BOY!!!!!!

Have another donut, you fat f**k.

Today we ordered breakfast from our favorite bagel place in our neighborhood, and Greta kindly ordered me a chocolate-chip muffin as well -- I have a shameful weakness for them.

So shameful, in fact, that after going to the gym this afternoon and working on my couch-to-5k plan, I stood at the kitchen counter and quietly, determinedly ate the whole damn thing in about one minute ... it probably had twice as many calories as I had burned during my workout.

Later, as I sat on the couch writing an earlier entry, Greta patted my belly. "Are you about four months pregnant?" she said.

-- edited on 9/5 to censor the naughty-naughty word in the title ... some people's employers/schools/whatever might block this page based on stuff like that.

The word "vagina" in the first post is staying, though.

No more freakin' tests, part II

When our beloved Dr. Wong finally got the results of our Level 2 ultrasound faxed to him from the Evil Ultrasound Technician, we found out that she was not being entirely forthcoming when she said, "Everything normal!". In fact, Mango showed one finding that wasn't normal: he has an "intracardiac echogenic focus", which is a "soft marker" for Down's Syndrome. As a result, the risk that he has Down's is now considered to be twice as high ... though twice as high as what, I'm not entirely sure. Based on Greta's age, the risk is supposedly around 1 in 125; based on a "quad screen" blood test that she took a few weeks back, it was pegged at 1 in 40.

An amniocentesis would give us a definitive answer, but carries its own risk: about a 1 in 200 incidence of miscarriage.

So this past week has been another thrilling ride on the parenthood roller-coaster, as we've struggled to understand mathematical probability (should have paid more attention in high school) and medical science. We had several conversations like this:

"So, should we do the amnio?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"No."

The one comforting thing is that, on our favorite parenting bulletin boards, many people were talking about having gone through the exact same thing, and all of them had had normal, healthy babies. In fact, many non-first-time parents said that they declined most screening tests after the first time around, because the stress they caused was enormous, the risks they revealed were small, and the choices they led to were limited.

Here's an email exchange between Greta and her grandmother, written a couple of days ago as we tried to decide whether or not to do the amnio. I think this helps illuminate what a lot of parents (especially first-time parents) go through nowadays when dealing with prenatal screening tests.

From: Greta
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2006 15:12:40 -0400
To: Toni
Subject: News from Doctor


So the doctor called me this morning. He got the results of the amnio. Good news is that anatomically everything is generally normal. He said the reason they want to look at the brain again is that the baby might not have been in the right position or they just couldn't see what they needed to see. Nothing to do with the blood test or Downs, etc.

The bad (or kind of bad) news is that the ultrasound picked up an echogenic foci or focus in the left ventricle of the heart --- a calcium deposit in the heart muscle. It's not a health hazard, but it is something that is sometimes associated with Downs. The way the doctor put it is that if I had a 1 in 10,000 risk of Downs, this wouldn't be something they would worry about, but since I have the 1 in 40 after the blood test, it's now 1 in 20. Still 95% chance the baby doesn't have Downs, but the odds just keep getting smaller!

So...he said I might want to reconsider amnio. He wasn't pushing me, but said he has to tell me it's an option as part of his job. I asked him how he felt about the safety, and he said it has a risk but that if it were him, he'd do it, just because he sees these things all the time and he trusts it. He said it really depends upon what kind of personality a person has and how strongly they feel about the amnio or finding out information.

Jim and I are considering amnio now...I feel very torn. We will keep the baby no matter what...but I just feel like I've been worn down and just need to know now. I don't want to risk the baby's life, but it's a small risk...blah blah. I also feel like there might be no benefit to the baby in my having the test other than I won’t be stressed out for the next 4 months and putting that on the baby.

I'm open to suggestions though...still not 100% decided.

The one cool thing is he said that if the tech said she thinks it's a boy, it is. He also said he would check at my subsequent appts to see the "two nuts and penis," as he put it. Hee hee.

Sorry it’s not better news.

Love,

Greta



-----Original Message-----
From: Toni
Sent: Thu 8/31/2006 6:48 AM
To: Greta
Subject: Re: News from Doctor

Hi, dears. Some thoughts came to me as I read this latest e-mail. They are not advice, not even suggestion. Just some thoughts that you might consider as you both ponder the next move.

Any baby being born now will know the task ahead in this world. Of course, they will not recall it as such, but each will have the resources needed for the life signed up for.

Given that, he will have chosen you as parents for the qualities you have developed and for the environment in which he can grow into his own place. Or, just from love. He could have chosen you just from love. What a marvelous thought!

You count, too. It will not help for you to "tough it out" by not knowing the info the amnio could show if that not knowing will be really taken on as a difficult job.

Is this a matter of mind or is it a matter for the heart to answer to? Trust your own answer to that. There is no right answer. There's only what's so.

I would think to talk to him every day, play music you like as a lullaby, pat-pat-pat your belly as you feel him turn and tell him you hug him. all in the course of your daily life, not as a job, not as a correction of any kind, just let him know he's welcome just as he is.

I believe there are multiple choices "out there" in the vibes around us. How I look at what my choices are determines to some extent the resultant experience or manifestation. It might affect the choice the baby will make while still in your womb.

------ Forwarded Message
From: Greta
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2006 08:05:24 -0400
To: Toni
Subject: RE: News from Doctor

Jim and I talked about this a lot last night and I think the stress I was feeling was the idea I might have to put the baby in harms way simply to find out something that we can plan for anyway, just not know for sure right away.

We read a lot online about other people's experiences with this specific thing and most of them had healthy babies who didn't have downs. 1 in 20 isn't SO bad!

Jim was quite upset last night with "the medical establishment," and he feels pretty strongly about no more tests at all. We have been frightened and upset with the results every single time and there has never been anything definitive. So, even though the amnio would be definitive, we've realized we don't NEED to know.

I would never forgive myself if I did something that could hurt the baby. I just can't do it.

So, we wait and we accept that there's a chance the baby will be different and love him anyway.

We both feel pretty good about this decision. I WOULD love to know for sure that he's "normal," but I just can't take the risk and I also feel like it's wrong somehow to disturb his safe, cozy home.

Thanks for all of your advice and thoughts.

Love,

Grets

Oh sweet jesus.

If you want to maintain your belief that childbirth is a beautiful, magical event, do not click on this link.

I would never have watched this voluntarily, but Greta compelled me using mind-control techniques that she has perfected over the past seven years.

Watching it made me want to run down John Street in my boxers, yelling, "Save me Jesus! Save me Allah! Save me with your witchcraft, Tom Cruise!", like Will Ferrell in his new movie.