onvural.net – melih – family man

Micky and I are pregnant a second time.

I know, it’s shocking. We were shocked too. And so has everyone been who has heard so far. But it’s going to be amazing!

Today we went to the pre-natal folks to get our last ultrasound. To say we were nervous is a massive understatement. After Amelia’s oemphalocele, there hasn’t been an ultrasound machine that hasn’t made us nervous. As fate would have it, we were in the same room with the same ultrasound tech who found the problem with Amelia. Too many coincidences to really get comfortable.

Amelia was with us, and we were giving her a play-by-play of what her new sibling was showing off. We started with the spine, and worked through to the heart, various organs, 10 toes, 10 fingers, and then we shut our eyes so we wouldn’t see the sex.

We wanted to know everything was okay first.

Dr. Goldberg, with whom we’ve been through a lot, came in, and told us that everything looked great. We then excitedly, the three of us, got a peek at the little guys boy parts. And we smiled. And now we’re going to be four.

And it’s going to be amazing 🙂

I came home today, and took Amelia to the ocean. We watched the sun set over the Pacific as the low tide took the ocean away from us and towards the horizon.

There’s a break about 40 yards out where the waves climb up as if there’s a ramp that blindly throws them in the air only to leave them with a long fall on the other side that wasn’t expected.

When you sit on the beach and look through those waves at the setting sun, there’s a calming effect. It’s a moment I wanted to last forever, but as quickly as the sun sets the moment disappears with it.

Every time I look at Amelia I realize just how ethereal everything actually is. Her entire life can be summarized as a series of moments built on top of each other but simultaneously forgotten as soon as the next one arrives. There is no need for memory. Only for experience.

I’ll remember every single one of these moments, and she’ll remember not a single one. Our first kiss. Our first sunset over the Pacific. The moment the doctor told us it was a girl. The first time she held my finger.

And when she does begin to remember, it will come from her own eyes, and her own world view. That’s a beautiful thing, but something that is solely hers. I don’t know how to share those moments with her. Maybe time will teach me, or maybe I’ll always be an outsider, but regardless of the outcome the fact still remains.

Through this series of moments, I am just a flicker. But the sun set was beautiful.

We had a great weekend.

I think because we avoided the Super Bowl. You see, I’ve really lost my interest in watching sports since being out here. If you get me in front of a TV, then I still love it, but I can’t plan around it anymore. There’s just too much to do in life.

What did we do instead?

Brunch with a dear friend. One of my best friends from Raleigh, John Gottshall, is in town through Tuesday. We took him to the top of Twin Peaks, which I’d never done before, and it was quite awesome. One thing that wasn’t was the $4.50 hot dog, but that’s San Francisco for you.

And all of that was just Saturday!

Today we trekked into Sonoma and Napa hitting three wineries, two tours and a great two hour lunch along the way. Micky and I are members of the Hess winery, and I love it. The art is cool. The wine is easy to drink. Really great place to take folks.

When we got home Miss Amelia went straight to bed. She’s now rolling onto her stomach to sleep that way using Boomer as a pillow. Her little butt is sticking straight up in the air like a teepee. It’s quite cute really.

John and I watched the last two drives of the game, and then we all had burgers, fries, and fantastic conversation.

What more could a weekend be?

Watching Amelia Rose grow up is a fascinating exercise in humility. We are truly brought into this world in as useless a form as is possible. And yet, we immediately challenge the world around us to explain itself. First through sight, and then through some combination of touch and taste.

The phase we’ve just entered with Amelia Rose is mobility. Explore the world through a sense of mobility which enables independence and a sense of adventure. And so enters the age old adage that one should learn to crawl before they attempt to walk.

It turns out that that adage is misleading.

You see, it’s entirely possible to walk before you crawl. Amelia Rose is doing her darndest to do just that. Given enough help, she’ll definitely get there. So why all of the emphasis on learning to crawl first?

The danger isn’t that she learns to walk. It’s that she never learns to catch herself when she falls.

So my job is to catch her when she needs a net, but to let her fall when there’s a lesson to be learned. And somewhere in between she might learn to crawl, but I know she’ll find her way onto her feet and into the next adventure.

Oh baby, the places we’ll go!

I tried to give Micky a bit of a break this past Saturday, and so Amelia Rose and I went to the local library for story time.

We were the youngest ones there by about 6 – 7 months, but it was still lots of fun. We did a few songs, including the “Itsy-bitsy spider”, and then got to hear about Spot’s first day at school. At that point all the 7+ month olds decided to just play, and so they brought out the toys, and they had at it. Amelia Rose and I ran upstairs, and kept going with story time. We read seven more books, and somewhere between four and five, she actually fell asleep. So it goes 🙂

After the seventh book, Micky showed up, and we headed to the De Young museum. There’s a Picasso exhibit, and it’s quite an amazing collection of work. They won’t allow strollers in the exhibit hall, and so I had to carry Amelia around. It made me the center of attention as everyone came up to look at her. She loved the attention for about one and half rooms, and then fell asleep. The Picasso exhibit was amazing for the fact that each room seemed to show a different decade of Picasso’s life, which if you know Picasso loosely translates to the various periods of artistic style through which he moved. The exhibit really emphasized to me that Picasso spent a lot of time understanding a piece before creating it, and that Picasso spent a lot of time re-imaging the same theme over and over again.

It was a really amazing experience, and one I think folks should definitely get to if they can. I would not however suggest carrying around an 11 pound baby for an hour while there 🙂

Amelia Rose was just amazing, and it was fun to have daddy/daughter time together. The first of many to come.

The children of the NICU are amazing. They fight for a world filled with anguish, horror and despair. They fight because life in its most basic form simply wants a chance. The lifecycle of a NICU baby is defined by loss. One either loses tubes, wires and IVs or loses the fight. And yet the moment of victory is very simply defined by relief. Leaving is almost never the end of the journey, and so in the absence of champagne and cheers, the staff, parents and baby simply let out a sigh of relief.

The heroes of the NICU are the nurses who become yhe support network that the family desperately needs to survive. They cry with us; they laugh with us. The nurses are vehicles of the machine above them, but in their brilliance they become the kind hand of hope connecting you to that sigh of relief as you walk your baby out the doors.

For us there were two very special doctors who saved the day. They fought for us. They believed in us and Amelia, and they got her home to us faster than we could have imagined.

And our fellow NICU parents were the late night, early morning warriors who fought this battle alongside us. Not a club we wanted to join, but one whose shield we now proudly bear.

We’re going home now. Thank you to the wonderful staff of CPMC, and to all of the heroes who helped us bring our daughter home.