Around The World

According to the “Audience” option on this website, I have readership in Poland, Brazil, Russia, Pakistan, Indonesia, Romania, Turkey and Israel.  I have never been to any of these places.  My travels have been limited-various locations in the U.S., Canada, England, France and Italy.  When I was pregnant I went on a cruise to Mexico, where I got off the boat but only walked around the port, and there was a second location but I never got off the boat so I don’t think that it counts (Belize, the hubby says it was Belize...like in the Carmen Sandiego song).  I am completely humbled that people actually read what I write-and people in cultures and countries so vast and different from my own…I don’t even know what to say. Thank you.  I hope that what I write means something to you-you could even hate it (that’s fine with me).  But, I’d love to hear what you think.  Please feel free to comment, especially if I don’t know you.

In Defense of Friendship

Part of being a good mom is having a life outside of your child.  I am completely convinced that the other women in my life, my best girlfriends, other mommy friends, my own mother, are who keep me sane and happy-they make me a better mom and they keep my brain active, and on most days I’m convinced that my brain is melting into some kind of oatmeal like consistency-without the cinnamon sugar goodness.  So when something bad happens to one of my besties, I get angry. More and more I also find myself going into mom mode and getting very protective, and I assume that it will only get worse over time.

I have this friend.  Let’s call her Emily (I don’t know why I chose Emily-I think I’m just upset that Revenge is on hiatus). Emily and I have been friends for a long time, through break ups and make ups and immaturity and now, as adults, through very grown up-type problems.  She was one of the first people to visit me in the hospital when I had Lily, and even though Emily is a girlie girl through and through, she understood my no tutu and no hair fluff proclamation and she brought presents that she knew that I would love.  Emily is kind and thoughtful and dedicated to her job-which, without giving details, is a pretty damn selfless career-Emily is friends with everyone, regardless of race, religion, socio-economic status, fashion sense, etc, etc…(honestly, I don’t know if she even sees those things).  She’s just not a judgmental person and she always sees the best in everyone; even after people repeatedly let her down, she still gives chances and encouragement (sometimes I want to kick people out of her life for her because people can be mean, but Emily cannot).

Here’s the hitch-Emily is gorgeous.  Very very very gorgeous.  So gorgeous that my father who could never remember any of my friends growing up (we used to play this game where he had to name 5 friends-he always failed), he always remembered Emily.  She’s also crazy talented and outgoing and friendly and chatty and loud and consummately energetic.  She’s the kind of girl that other girls like to hate on-and right now another girl is hating on her, pretty bad. And that girl is her boyfriend’s sister.

I’ve had my fair share of problems with boyfriends’ families.  For some reason their parents never like me, even though the parents of my best guy friends would beg their sons to date me and marry me and make little babies with me (and trust me, my kid is capital ‘c’ cute, so they would’ve been pretty happy).  I’m sure I’m to blame for a lot of it-I’m pretty bad at making new friends and I get very awkward in social situations-sitting back and playing observant mute is my go-to move.  There was one holiday dinner with an ex where I spent the entire time talking to his mother’s best friend about a little-known novel about Jewish immigration in turn of the century New York.  I even faked not knowing how to do my hair in order to have a bonding moment with a different ex’s sister.  I’m pretty sure that one ex’s entire family hated me because of the guy I dated in high school-by that logic I would’ve hated me too-my high school boyfriend was a nutjob and I must’ve seemed very dramatic as a result.  But Emily’s situation is worse.

My exes had the common decency (or just common sense) to NOT tell me about their familial issues-I mean, I could tell, and they could tell, but the issue was more of a no fly zone-just leave it alone and don’t talk about it, and if anyone interrupts the peaceful continuum, there will be hell to pay.  Emily’s ‘mean girl’ is nasty-she grumbles about Emily every chance that she gets…to the boyfriend, to the family…and her complaints: “Emily only talks about herself, Emily is conceited, Emily is self-involved.”  To be fair, yes, Emily does talk about herself, but it’s not braggy or showy at all-Emily does a lot of things and she’s involved in many organizations and clubs-the best stories are when Emily tells you about her day, about what happened at work and then what she did afterwards.  She’s not doing this to pat herself on the back or make sure that you know just how great she is…honestly, Emily doesn’t think that she is great.  She’s ridiculously modest.  And when she’s done telling you her story, Emily wants to hear every detail of your day, even the most basic minutiae are interesting to her.  But this mean girl doesn’t care-she seems to be hell bent on driving a wedge between Emily and her boyfriend, and I think it comes from a variety of reasons. 

Firstly, I don’t think that the mean girl understands that Emily is completely without guile-Emily doesn’t have a single malicious bone in her skinny, toned body.  She isn’t conceited at all, and chances are that you only think that she is because you haven’t gotten to know her.  Which is sad…for you…not for her-trust me when I tell you, your life will be darker without Emily in it.  Secondly, and it’s even more pathetic because it’s true about women in general which makes me want to vomit, but I think the sister is jealous.  Emily is gorgeous and fit and did I mention GORGEOUS.  In high school we used to have the “Emily Test,” when we’d introduce our new boyfriends to Emily and if all they did was stare and start hitting on her, we’d dump them.  She never knew that we did this.  But women get like this-they get super jealous of the pretty girl and then they treat her like crap.  Girl on girl crime…it’s pretty serious.  Thirdly, and I know I’ve been there before (I’m Jewish, and Jewish moms aren’t always too happy to get rid of their precious, princely sons-I swear, being Italian and being Jewish are the same freaking thing), but the mean girl doesn’t seem to want her brother to grow up, get serious with a woman, detach slightly from his family and have his own life.  It’s one thing to not like the person your brother or sister is seeing, but it’s quite another to outwardly and repeatedly bad-mouth that person to your siblings, parents, anyone who will listen, etc...etc...Mean girl has an agenda, and that makes me angry.  Granted, if my sibling was marrying a kid toucher or a sociopath I’d have a lot to say about it, but that’s neither here nor there (my brother-in-law is awesome, by the way).

I’m supposed to stay out of it, but it’s hard.  All I want to do is to defend my friend, who has done nothing wrong-it hurts me that she’s hurt.  I want to have a serious sit down with the mean girl and explain just how judgmental and idiotic she’s being (because, in the long run, she’s only going to damage her relationship with her brother), but I’m supposed to stay out of it.  I sense a similar situation with Lily when she’s a teenager and she gripes to me about a mean girl at school, and of course I’ll know the mother because I’ve already met a lot of the mothers in our town, and Lily will be hurt and crying and then part of me deep down inside will break and my mother rage will kick in.  I’ll be midway through dialing the mother’s number when Lily will tell me to “stay out of it” because I’ll “only make it worse.”  She’ll be right of course-whoever heard of parent involvement actually fixing these kinds of things-but that broken part inside of me won’t heal until Lily heals.  I don’t think I actually healed from adolescence until my mid-20s, so I guess I have a long time to wait until I feel whole again.

Doctor, Doctor, Doctor, Doctor…

Lily had many doctors and many other specialists in the medical field-it actually feels narrow to use the word many-maybe multitudes or plethora or tremendous amount- something really big would be more accurate.  Growing up around hospitals, with my dad, our multitude of medical professionals was normal to me…not normal to the hubby or anyone outside of the medical field, though, so I was always explaining.  There was the head of the neonatology department, the entire neonatology staff, at one point an ENT, an army corps full of nurses, the feeding specialist, once we left, we had our follow-up neonatologist, the physical therapist, eventually a pediatrician, the sleep specialist, and many others who I’m sure I’m forgetting but who crossed our path at some point.  Once we were finally discharged, we had neonatology appointments, pediatric appointments, physical therapy appointments, and sleep specialist appointments.

I think that before I launch into what will, most likely, be termed a tirade, I should state that I really loved all of the neonatologists.  Follow up appointments with Dr. Pane, running into Dr. Manginello and the rest of the staff…it was a joy.  They were always positive and progressive and, honestly, familiar.  They praised Lily and they praised my care of her.  They saw Lily as a resilient little miracle, and seeing my child through their eyes was a delight.  I also love Lily’s pediatrician, Dr. Muntaneu, who is very close to my age and currently pregnant with her first child.  She is always impressed by Lily’s progress-she’s positive and delightful and human.  She treats me like I’m the expert and she never talks down to me, even when my question is a bit on the stupid side.  I am in love with Lily’s physical therapist, Lisa.  To this day, I look forward to Lily’s physical therapy appointments because I know that the half-hour will be filled with encouragement and glee.  But this post isn’t about all the people I love…this post is about my extreme dislike for one of Lily’s doctors, one who will remain nameless because I don’t think it’s right to eviscerate someone on the internet without her having the ability to defend herself.  She was Lily’s sleep specialist-she was also the first person who I ever wanted to have a big dick contest with because I would have slapped her into oblivion.

Dr. Pane, Lily’s neonatologist, gave us "permission" to have Lily sleep on her belly because of her awful acid reflux...her exact wording went something like "there is a higher risk of her dying from aspirating while on her back than the risk of dying from SIDS," which wasn't reassuring either, but at least Lily could sleep comfortably. Plus, she was on a monitor that freaked out if she stopped breathing! The pediatrician agreed with Dr. Pane (with warnings to be extra cautious and to still encourage “back to sleep”), the physical therapist wasn’t happy about it either, but the sleep study doctor who controlled the apnea monitor nearly had a heart attack when I explained this to her and she went on a half-hour-diatribe about why what I was doing was wrong. AND she tried to teach me about child rearing and SIDS.  This was the first time I met the sleep study doctor-she hadn’t been with us at the hospital the past 3 months. She had a written record, Lily’s chart, to refer to, but she knew nothing about me or my child or our circumstances. I wanted to be like, “Fuck you lady, I've been through hell,” but I held my tongue and nodded.  Maybe she should’ve come to my house and listen to my tiny baby scream and vomit while lying on her back.

Visits with the sleep doctor were sporadic…she would waltz in at the end of the appointment to tell me what a bad job I was doing, or how many “episodes” Lily had according to the equipment.  And it didn’t seem to matter how often I told her that the machines were going off falsely, or that we weren’t using them as frequently…no, the machines were right and I was wrong. The sleep doctor’s nurse was really nice, though.  I liked her a lot.

After weeks of weaning without incident, Lily was officially off of oxygen on November 12-I remember the specific date because it was the day after my birthday and we said it was the best present ever.  Plus, who the hell forgets when their 11-week NICU bound child goes off of oxygen! Our last neonatologist appointment was November 26-it was our goodbye visit and it was bittersweet.  We loved Dr. Pane and all the doctors in the NICU, but we were so happy to see how far Lily had progressed-we had made it over a huge hurdle. We had an appointment with the sleep doctor on December 7 to do a download and to schedule the sleep study...according to the sleep doctor, Lily would need to be hooked up a ph probe and about a million wires to be monitored for a 5-6 hour period in order to get rid of all her equipment.  The doctor didn’t schedule the study-instead, she scheduled a follow up appointment and said that her office would call our insurance company to get permission for the sleep study.  I was confused, but I didn’t question it.

We finally received permission from our insurance company 2 weeks later, and they said a copy of the approval was sent to the sleep doctor’s office-I should wait to hear from them shortly about scheduling a date. A week went by and I didn't hear from them, so I called their office and left a message with the nurse (who I love) that we got permission. When I spoke with her, I asked if the sleep study was mandatory, and she said “No, you don't HAVE to do it,” and that we could return the equipment AMA (against medical advice), but she'd have the sleep doctor get back to me. What followed was three days of back and forth because the FUCKING IDIOTS at the doctor’s office-although I think it was just the doctor because the nurse was unbelievably sympathetic and even sorry whenever she called-wanted Lily to do the study, which was now 8-10 hours-not the previously mentioned 5-6 hours, or to be monitored for 14 days without oxygen at home...When I explained we hadn't used the monitor since our December 7 visit and that Lily hadn't been on oxygen since November 12 (so the download at the December 7 visit would've covered the 14 days) I was told that I was incorrect. That according to their records, the oxygen didn't stop until November 26. We had a little back and forth, I used some strong words and strong language, and a few phone calls later, they apologized for the confusion.  In all this back and forth, I never once spoke with the doctor.  She never got on the phone, never called me, never asked how my baby was doing…she just sat in her office making her nurse do all the dirty work, letting her nurse deal with my rage.

At the time, I was infuriated-how dare you toy with me and my child, making me feel incompetent and idiotic when it was your poor record keeping and inability to get to know your patients which really caused the confusion.  How is it possible that your office never contacted me when they got the approval?  The machines were in my house for nearly a month longer than they needed to be, creating more bills that we didn’t want to deal with.  Where did you go to medical school?  Why didn’t the alien overlords implant a sensitivity chip when they placed you on Earth?  Could you even pick me out of a line-up?  I know you couldn’t place my child, because you’ve never looked at her-not when she was rolling around your exam table, or sitting on my lap having a bottle.  This was the first time in my life I ever considered doing anything AMA (against medical advice), and it’s because my gut kept telling me that something was not right.  This doctor was not right.

A Constant State of Fear

There are many things that new parents worry about-the list is really too long to type out fully-but there’s another list, a list that only applies to the parents of preemies.  On top of the machinery and the medicines and the feeding issues and the apnea and the growth charts and the milestones, there’s another fear: a pervasive and unyielding fear that your child is going to catch a cold, or contract the flu, or, worst of all, get RSV.  And because of this fear, and the doctors’ most strident warnings, you never leave your home, never expose your child to the germs, because these seemingly innocent bugs can actually be fatal.  You see, the constant state of fear is made even more real because, well, it isn’t unfounded-you should be afraid, very afraid, because fatal means fatal.

Colds are usually pretty low on the list for new parents-all kids get colds, generally when they stop breast feeding (immunities and what not), but for a preemie, especially a preemie in her first few months outside of the NICU, a serious enough cold could be difficult and could require an additional hospital stay.  We were given strident doomsday warnings about Lily getting sick, because getting a common cold could turn into RSV, and RSV in her preemie lungs could be fatal.  Everything could be fatal.  The man in the grocery store picking up the soup can next to my soup can could have a mild cough, which could be the beginning of pneumonia, which could kill my child.  So you don’t go outside-you limit your contact with the rest of the world in order to stave off any life-threatening carrier germs.  No one is allowed in your home, either (except for the occasional relative, mostly childless couples because children are the real carriers).  You sit alone in your house, day after day, watching daytime television and eating everything in sight while you watch your baby sleep away the day in germ-free oblivion and part of you starts to disappear-you look forward to your husband coming home at night because it’s probably the only other human contact that you’re likely to have-friends promise to come over but their kids are sick, or they have a sore throat, or the timing is bad-and, honestly, you’re not upset with them because you understand.  That’s life-things happen and you can’t be angry about them.  It’s like post-partum depression, except you’re not sad and you’re not confused.  You’re just lonely and bored and so consumed with fear for your infant that you manage the fear anyway that you can-for me, self medication through food, reading tons of books, watching television, and psychotically obsessing about your child’s wellbeing.  But the boredom and isolation are pretty bad.  Why shower, if you’re not going anywhere or seeing anyone?  Why not eat an entire bag of Hershey’s Kisses?

Infants cannot receive the flu shot until 6 months, and ours was scheduled for early February-there was a serum shortage so we had to wait almost 7 months.  Fear of contracting the flu was the reason that I didn’t go back to work in February.  All of Lily’s doctors agreed, “This child cannot be in daycare during cold and flu season.”  You know who dies from the flu?  Old people and babies, so October through February I sat on the couch, most of the time alone, neither happy nor sad about it-I guess numb and disengaged, but still really present for my child, creating a rhythm for the both of us, learning what she liked and when. 

I’m not sure what RSV stands for, but I like to call it Really Scary Virus.  When adults get RSV it’s like a normal cold, but for babies, and really for preemies, it can be deadly-everything can be deadly. Everything should scare the shit out of you until you beg for mercy for another adult to handle your life for just a little while.  You were a person once: you got your nails done and your hair done and you went to work and you saw adults every day and you talked about more than bowel movements and feeding schedules and you went out for meals and you had girls’ nights and you showered daily and put on makeup and did your hair and you walked around the best city in the whole world on a daily basis…and now you have to wait for your mother to come over and watch the baby so you can have 10 minutes to yourself! Never mind your nails or your hair or any of the rest of it…the monotonous routine and life you’ve created for yourself have turned you into someone else, someone barely recognizable because the fear has taken over.  You are the fear, the all-consuming and Where the Wild Things Are style fear the covers you like a cloud and rains thunderbolts over who you once were. 

And the thing is…you don’t entirely mind.  Becoming this other person isn’t the worst thing in the world.  You like being mom.  You like not being a carrier.  You don’t like your roots, but you don’t mind missing the hours in the hairdresser’s chair.  And you LOVE having an excuse to not see people.  Then you look in the mirror and you have a weird meta-moment when the fear starts to peel away and you see yourself for who you really are.  You tell the fear, “Time to take a backseat.”  Bit by bit you reclaim, you take the baby places because, really, she’s had her flu shot and she is allowed to be out in the world. The baby LOVES it and is fascinated by all the sounds and sights and car rides…meeting new people turns out to be delightful and she’s incredibly social.  She gets a cold-and it’s not bad.  Three days of uncomfortable and then, she’s fine.  Like it didn’t happen.  And guess what?  The fear is gone…as are your roots.