Coming Home From Boston

We're on the way home from a quick trip up to Boston, flying somewhere over the eastern US. The flight is pretty empty, so Steph, Maya and I have 3 seats together, allowing Maya to sit in her car seat for the flight. The girls are both passed out...

We came up on Thursday to visit my grandparents, Maya's great-grandparents, as well as my aunt Robin and uncle Ronnie. Due to their advancing age, my grandparents aren't able to travel any longer. This was an important trip for us to make, however, it was not about a vacation or doing something for our own enjoyment. The timing couldn't have been worse with my recent crazy travel schedule and lack of time alone with both Steph and Maya. Instead, this trip was about being selfless, giving of ourselves to provide some happiness to others. We made the trip solely for Grandma & Grandpa so they could meet Maya, spend time with her, hold her and get to "know" her at this very cute stage of her life. I know we brightened their days by introducing them to their fourth great-grandchild, making the difficulty of the trip worthwhile.

Maya, for the most part, was an angel. She has been extremely well behaved on the flights to and from Boston and in the airport at either end. She's been a pleasure to travel with, but it amazes me how much crap one little girl needs! Instead of traveling with a single suitcase and my backpack, we've got 2 suit cases, my backpack, a diaper bag, pack and play (portable crib), stroller and car seat. Holy crap, that's a LOT of stuff to travel with. Our days of traveling light are over for a while, I guess.

We're all looking forward to getting home, getting back on a normal schedule and... What's normal anymore? While Maya is going back to her schedule with Steph, I won't be on any kind of normal schedule as I am traveling to Newark tomorrow and then down to Baltimore Monday through Thursday for work. Perhaps in July I might get to spend some quality time at home with Steph and Maya...

Coming home...

5/30 8 PM EDT

Its now 9 AM (5/31) local time in Korea. I got here this morning at 6 AM on the red-eye from Singapore. I hardly slept. I'm exhausted and just trying to stay awake at the moment. I'm sitting at Incheon Airport waiting to find out if I managed to get a standby seat on the 10 AM flight to Atlanta. If not, I'll be here — Korea, not the airport I hope — until 6 PM tonight. I'm hoping like crazy that I'm not here all day, it will make an already long trip that much longer. I should know in 20 minutes whether or not luck is working in my favor today. If not, I can't complain. I accepted the 12 hour layover here originally because it was the least expensive business class fare I could get ($6000 round trip), fitting within my budget for this engagement. Now I'm thinking about what a fool I was. Ooops. Lesson learned. I should have spent the night in Singapore instead.

(A cute, but strange, Japanese girl just sat next to me to practice her English. We exchange pleasantries and she asks me where I am from, so I tell her the US. Then she tells me she is some kind of student, something unintelligible, followed by "peace student". I flashed her a peace sign and asked her if that's what she means and she says yes. She then shows me something god oriented and starts explaining... I shooed her away. She didn't get the concept of atheism, but I didn't try that hard to explain. Perhaps now that I am alone again the deaf gentleman will come back and pester me for money for the third time...)

In the airport there is paid WiFi. But you have to have a Windows machine since the online purchasing requires an ActiveX control that won't run without Internet Explorer. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to run with Internet Explorer all that well either! I did find an open AP and I have been using it off and on to check email and call Steph to let her know of my progress. Obviously, its how I managed to write this, as well. For a world class airport, one ranked best in the world along with Singapore's Changi, this is pretty pathetic. Come to think of it, I had the same issue last night at Changi, but I wasn't sitting there for innumerable hours, bored to tears. *sigh*

Off to check and see if I got on the flight...

5/30 9 PM EDT

W00t! I got on the flight. Its Korean Air, which has less comfy business class seats the the Delta flight I took to Shanghai, but it gets me home at 10 AM today (i.e. I leave here at 10 AM 5/31 local time, arrive in ATL at around 10 AM 5/31 local time) instead of 7 PM on Saturday. 14 hours of flying, no puking. At least one can hope. ;-)

5/31 6:21 AM

En route to Atlanta right now, we're just coming off of the Pacific ocean near the British Columbia/Washington border. Almost home.

Earlier in the flight I watched the season finale of Desperate Housewives, an episode of Everest: Beyond The Limit, ate a bowl of bibimbap and passed out (chemically enhanced by Ambien, but no alcohol and no puking). 5 hours of relaxing sleep later, we just had "breakfast", some kind of beef soup, noodles, rice and Korean pickles. They make pretty decent food on Korean Air, I'd fly them again. Now I am watching The Bucket List and staring at the monitor watching the plane creep ever so slowly across North America. I'll be seeing my Maya Papaya in a few hours! I think she's been a bit of a pain in the butt to Steph lately, their drive to and from Florida was apparently less than stellar. Maybe she just needs some daddy time. I certainly need some of that myself.

The past few weeks have been really hard. Everyone told me that I would stop traveling after Maya arrived. I didn't, and I don't wish I had. But when it rains, it pours, and the travel has been crazy lately. Since Maya's birth I have done trips to NJ, TX, central GA, and Singapore. In the next few weeks I will be in Boston, NYC, Baltimore and Chicago. And that's just before the end of June! So I clearly have not stopped traveling, but the trips are different now. I'm traveling too much, and feeling guilty that I am missing Maya as she "grows up". I know that she has a long way to grow, but she changes every time I see her. When I call or come home after I a trip I find out that she is making new noises, smiling more, etc. Will I miss her first time crawling? First word? On the other hand, I work from home when I am not on the road. So I get to spend more time with Maya during those weeks than most of the dads I know who don't travel, but spend their lives at work.

I don't want to miss these one time events in Maya's life, but this is my job. I love the job, and the opportunities it provides and my wife and daughter. Can one be put above the other? My job allows us the very nice and comfortable life that we live, both in material things like houses, and experiences like traveling around the world (vacation, not work), putting money away for Maya to attend the school of her choice someday and (hopefully) early retirement for Steph and I. We have no needs that go unfulfilled and want for nothing. (Well, I'd love a convertible, but I hardly drive any miles these days, so its a total waste of money.)

Are the tradeoffs worthwhile? Will I some day look back and wish I had made a different choice? I just don't know. I do know I am greatly looking forward to giving her a big kiss when I see her soon. I'm not quite looking forward to cleaning a poopy diaper, but I have to take the good with the bad and relieve Steph of her duties (doodies?) with Maya.

1:10 PM 5/31

I am finally in the house with Steph, Maya and the dogs. It is good to be home!

Catching Up

Lot's of little things to catch up on here...

On 5/2 Maya turned a month old. On 5/3 we had a baby naming at our house, both celebrating her birth, her identity and our 5 year anniversary! Happy anniversary, Schmu!

On 5/5 we celebrated Cinco de Mayo. Not. It was, however, Java's 12th birthday which we celebrated — a day late, mind you — with our twice annual "dogs eating ice cream at Bruster's" day. Ice cream was enjoyed by all, except Maya who got her's second hand.

We had Moms on Call come out this week to help us with some of the baby care basics that nobody ever teaches you. Most importantly, however, is that they teach you how to help your baby sleep longer in the night so we can get more sleep. They promise you'll be able to get your baby to sleep from 9:30 PM until 2:30 AM (or later), have a feeding and then sleep until 6:30 (or later) using their techniques. I thought it might be BS, but indeed, it works! Maya is being a total angel and letting mom get some much needed sleep.

Living in Atlanta, we not only have the book to refer to, we also had one of the authors come to teach us her methods along with 6 months follow up support via email. The hands on time was fabulous, we both learned a lot and felt our time and money was very, very well spent. However, I did have one minor issue:

When we were speaking about nighttime rituals, Jennifer asked us about our faith. I politely told her we don't subscribe to one. I figured that would be the end of it. However, she pressed on, wanting to know in what faith were we brought up. We responded that we were brought up Jewish. She then went on to tell us how we should talk to Maya as we get her ready for bed, telling her how someday she'll go to temple, recite prayers, etc. I can appreciate that her nighttime rituals include reading bible stories to her kids (Steph tells me this is mention in their book). However, I am an atheist, I don't believe in god, the bible or any other religious texts. Why can't we talk about the dogs, our family, things that are important to us?

As I am always reminded when consulting, there are three topics never to be broached with clients: religion, politics and money. Again, this is a minor quibble (less than 2 minutes out of 2.5 hours we spent together) and I'd hire her again in an instant, perhaps after explaining to her that my beliefs are as strong and important to me as hers are to her. Reading their website now, I see that they are both quite religious. Perhaps if I had known this before our meeting I would have been more direct with her regarding how we desire to raise Maya with respect to religion when the question was raised.

I ran 4.5 miles yesterday in about 45 minutes. My longest solid run yet, albeit pretty slow. I was using my heart rate monitor, trying to maintain a relatively steady heart rate in the 75 - 85% range. I'm going for a run again tomorrow, today was on off day, and I'll try to break 5 miles. Working toward the magical 6.2 for the Peachtree in less than 2 months time.

Finally, today Maya went on her first hike to Kennesaw Mountain. She didn't do much hiking, just a lot of sleeping as Steph, Lucy and I did all the hard work. I'm looking forward to her being older and able to sit up on her own. By that point I should have a baby backpack to put her in for longer adventures...

Home With Maya - 2 Weeks In

We've been home with Maya for a 2 weeks now. She's sleeping very well, allowing both of us some much needed rest, though not as much as we had before she came along. All in all, she's been a great baby. We've taken her on a few brief outings (Ikea, Muss & Turner's, Costco, Atlantic Station, REI and, of course, Babies R' Us). I even managed to get Steph to relax enough to take her out for dinner twice.

I started right back with Operation Boot Camp on Monday after we came home from the hospital. I have missed a few days due to being really tired, the crazy pollen count and, now, to a head cold. I've also gone back to work, but it has been an odd transition. Steph is still not allowed to drive, so I have to take her and Maya out any time there is something we need to do (get a birth certificate, etc.). So the work week was tough. But Maya, Steph and the dogs have been pretty cooperative with me, allowing me to work at home with minimal disruptions so far. Plus, its always nice to see Maya during the day when I take a break!

This week is the big test: A 2 day trip to NJ for work. Steph will be able to drive again, so she and Maya will have freedom to go do whatever it is that ladies do. I'm a bit more concerned about how well I'm going to handle the transition...

A Baby Story...

People have been asking what happened during Maya's birth that made it "not as planned", so here's the whole sordid tale. Most of it was great, just the last few hours or so where things went south quickly...

Around 6 AM Steph woke up with regular contractions. I woke up shortly after and we discussed her contractions before I left the house for a life insurance physical. By the time I returned, the contractions were coming regularly, every 10 - 12 minutes or so. This is usually referred to as "early labor".

I called work and let them know I was taking the day off to be with Steph in case this was "it". We then headed down to Memorial Park for a walk along Peachtree Creek with the dogs. Slow, steady contractions continued as we walked. The dogs definitely knew something was going on, you could just tell by the way they were acting, but of course they had no idea what was yet to come.

We then made a run up to Muss & Turner's to see my cousin Todd (aka "Muss"), his wife and one of their children over lunch. Throwing caution to the wind I had the M&T version of a sloppy joe and some fries. Good stuff indeed, especially since I haven't eaten that kind of food in more than a month! (Yes, Greg, Molly, et. al, I ate unhealthy, fattening food and I enjoyed it!) We had a leisurely lunch before heading down to the OB for an previously scheduled appointment. At this point we are indeed in early labor, and Steph was 1.5 cm dilated. The doctor advised us we're probably be parents in 24 hours or less...

Apparently, much less than 24 hours, as we would soon find out.

We called our doula to let her know our progress and headed home to labor. Things started progressing quickly. Contractions became stronger and closer together over the next few hours. We were in contact with our doula a few times as we waited for the magical "contractions spaced 5 minutes apart consistently for 1 hour" which signifies the change into active labor and the time at which we're supposed to call the doctor's answering service and head to the hospital.

About 20 minutes into timing contractions which were about 5 minutes apart, Steph was having real pain. My wife is tough, she has put up with a lot of painful things in her life, but she was really struggling. I was at a loss for what to do to help her. Feeling pretty helpless I called our doula. She gave me some advice to have Steph labor in the tub which we did, but the pain continued to grow and the timing of Steph's contractions grew shorter, coming every 3 - 4 minutes. I felt completely helpless, there was nothing I could do to relieve her pain. Both of us were in tears at this point. The dogs felt equally out of control. Java was barking and Lucy had a very worried look on her face and tail between the legs. Oy!

I called the doula again for advice. She questioned our technique for measuring the timing of contractions and questioned the amount of pain that Steph was dealing with. Neither of us felt as if she was being helpful or truly engaged with us at this point. When we both stated our intention to go to the hospital, she gave us a choice: she could meet us at Piedmont Hospital (~45 miles from her home) or we could call after Steph was "checked" by the doctor. The question was clearly loaded, she did not feel as if we were as far along in labor as we were. The question was put in such a manner so as to make us choose the latter option, which we did. She's the expert, after all. We were made to feel as if we were most certainly being overly concerned and would probably be told to go home once we arrive at the ER. We were both made to feel completely stupid.

We headed to the hospital as quickly as I could get Steph dressed and in the car. All together that took 45 minutes, 30 minutes longer than it should have. Steph, being herself, was apparently hanging up towels we had used and depositing plates in the sink on the way out the door. Always straightening something up, I swear. The car ride was horrible, thankfully its only 4 miles! Steph was writhing in pain next to me with each contraction. I was trying to keep it together, driving through the tears and trying to ensure we actually made it to the hospital without any accidents. We dropped the car with the valet at the ER and Steph was wheeled up to the maternity ward, checked in and in a hospital bed within 5 minutes. The staff at the hospital was great and efficient!

Steph was close to 6 cm dilated and having contractions about every 3 minutes, we were definitely in active labor! And we've been receiving very bad advice from our doula. I called the doula and told her to get her ass down to the hospital IMMEDIATELY. She replied it would take her 60 - 90 minutes! When I told Steph, the hospital staff laughed and said we'd be parents long before the doula ever arrived. What a comforting thought...

Labor continues, doula or not, so Steph and I had to be a two man team. I was working with Steph to keep her breathing steadily through an oxygen mask while the staff gave her an IV and hooked her up to various monitors. The doctor on call, whom we had seen earlier in the day, came in and was clearly not pleased with the situation, our lack of doula and my retelling of her advice. Not pleased, at all. (The next day, we had a 30 - 40 minute open ended discussion with him about our choice to use a doula as well as things his practice can do to serve pregnant women more effectively. It was very nice of him to spend that time with us.) Quickly we progressed to Steph being fully dilated and ready to give birth. On the instruction of the maternity ward staff and doctor we started really pushing, trying to have a natural birth as we had both intended. Steph had always intended to try birthing Maya without drugs, I think she was beginning to reconsider that decision. However, we were way too late for that. After 30 minutes or so of actively trying to give birth, Maya was struggling, her heart rate was decelerating and she was clearly in distress. (We'd find out later that the placenta had abrupted, i.e. prematurely pulled away from the uterine wall, causing distress for the baby. Had we waited at home any longer, the outcome might have been quite different.)

The nurses quickly gave Steph drugs to stop her contractions, unplugged all of the wires from various monitors and in no time Steph was whisked into an emergency C-section. While we had both intended for me to be there with her during the surgery if possible, due to the emergent nature and the need for immediate sedation, I was not allowed to be with her. She was rolled into the OR for sedation and surgery.

I was left in a room. Alone. Crying.

I had no idea what was going to happen to my wife or my baby. And there was nobody who could tell me.

15 minutes passed, it seemed like an eternity.

During this time I managed to compose myself enough to send an emergency text message to my cousin asking for help. I finally got myself together enough to call him as well. Todd hopped in his car and headed my way. This was the longest 15 minutes in my life sitting alone, without anyone there to support me in my time of need. Nurses came in and out of the room where I was alternating between sitting alone crying and pacing a hole in the floor.

Connie, one of the nurses, came out to get me. We had a baby! I was so stressed out I almost forgot to ask her if we had a boy or girl! Connie helped me get dressed up to go into the OR and lead me in. Seeing Steph laid out on the table, cut open with people still working on her made my heart sink. That was a very scary sight, the image is one I don't think I will ever get out of my head. It was only then that I learned that she was OK and would be out of surgery soon.

Then I saw Maya! She was being tended to, cleaned up and having her APGAR scores checked, etc. I stood there in shocked silence, camera in hand, gazing at my newborn daughter. I continued crying. I could barely get myself together enough to take a picture. I didn't say anything until someone asked me what her name was. Somehow I managed to get out "Maya Simone" before falling back into my dumbfounded silence.

Maya was ready to be moved to the transitional nursery so she should could finish being cleaned up, weighed, measured and have her footprints taken. (Side note: I have an extra set of her footprints which I will put to good use soon... more on that some other time.) She was put into a bassinet and I got to wheel her out of the OR and down the hall with two nurses in tow.

As soon as we exited the OR I looked up to see our doula. We exchanged few words, but my message was clear: "Go home, your services are not needed." Steph had already been through most of a vaginal birth and a C-section without the support of the person we hired for support! What else could she do? How much more bad advice did I really need?

While waiting on Steph to come out of surgery I made some important calls to let family know what was going on. Shortly afterward, Steph came out of the OR and into a recovery room. I got to give her the good news about Maya! I showed her the pictures I had taken kissed her and told her she'd get to meet Maya soon. My cousin, Todd, showed up shortly thereafter. Finally I had some support! I was so relieved to have a shoulder to cry on. He stayed with us for a few hours to help with Maya - Todd is a master swaddler! - and be there for both Steph and I.

In the end, everything turned out OK, even if not exactly as we had planned. Mom and baby are healthy and happy. While the experience was not as planned or expected, there were some things that the doula could not have changed, specially the abrupted placenta. However, the doula failed to deliver services that were promised. We decided to request that all fees be returned to us. This was a conversation neither of us was looking forward to.

After consulting the doula's contract this morning to understand our rights, I spoke to her. I was unimpressed by her unwillingness to negotiate with me on a refund of her fees for her negligent behavior and lack of support during labor. After an unsatisfactory and argumentative response from the doula, I called the owner of the doula service directly in order to express my dismay.

The owner and head doula was much nicer and more accommodating. She listened to my concerns, gave me a chance to share my recollection of the events on Wednesday night and recognized that our doula did not provide acceptable service. She also indicated that she had already discussed our birth with the doula and given her a "talking to" about the way in which she presented our choices with respect to coming to the hospital. With the help of a labor timeline guided by my cell phone records and photographs, we have been able to document exactly what happened during Steph's labor, when we contacted the doula, etc. Based on our discussion and the details provided the owner of the service has agreed to refund all fees associated with Maya's birth.

We are quite appreciative of the owner's willingness to work with us and her recognition that we did not receive the quality of service that she expects from her doulas. In deference to her and the services her company offers, I have chosen not to name either the doula or the doula service.

I don't know how differently the evening might have gone had we received the expected service, but I am still very happy with the outcome: a beautiful little girl who has already stolen my heart.