The Sally Gardens

He likes to sing along.

Landslides

Two really kind friends and neighbors shared their talents with me yesterday and today. One is a masseuse, one an accupuncturist.

I saw a woman, an old school Park Slope Hippie type, leaving her exercise class where Mahalia takes a dance class. She was cooing and singing to Dezi. I don't know why but I started talking to her about his surgery and his hernia. While I was talking I was thinking about how at the time of his discharge from Columbia I wanted so much to forget about CDH. I never wanted to think about it again. And as I blabbed away to that hippie I was having this whole internal conversation about how much calmer I must be feeling about Desmond's health to be talking so freely about it. I didn't feel like crying or anything. I actually was having feelings of pride, showing him off, looking all strong and normal and healthy.

And then, not 6 hours later, as I laid with those needles in my back, tears dripped out of my eyes. It didn't feel like that kind of hard, gut wrenching crying. It just felt like the release of so much build up, so much trauma and stress leaking out of my eyes.

I thought about little baby Mahalia that died. Her mother told me that her husband hadn't cried at all while they waited for her to pass. When she finally died, the nurses led them to a room to be alone and she said that he vomitted a lot and then cried hard. Some people do it that way, I guess.

I should say thank you to you now if you're reading this post. Thank you for checking in on me and thinking good thoughts for me and Shane and Mahalia and little Dezi. I have such deep feelings of gratitude for all of the kindness that has been displayed to us over the past few months.

Down in DUMBO

With Grandma Pammy in town, we stuffed the family into the bug and drove down to DUMBO to picnic in the sun.

The Princess kicked off her shoes and laid in the grass intermittently enjoying a flourless chocolate walnut cookie from Almondine.






Mr. Desmond spends most of his days snuggled inside his womblike carrier, intermittently snoozing and cooing at me.



He's beginning to enjoy his bath. He is very interested in his big sister.

Scarred

Just after Desmond was born they whisked him to a little ICU on the labor and delivery floor. My Dr. had prepared me (verbally anyhow) for this moment telling me that they would say, "here's your baby!" and show me his face as they whisked him out the door. He would be intubated immediately, x-rayed to confirm diagnosis and the prodding would begin. I thought about that moment a lot leading up to delivery and talked about it a lot with girlfriends.

Tonight, after both children had fallen asleep, I washed the day's milk spillage off my body and returned downstairs to a toy strewn floor. As I cleared the dishes, I happened to glance over to the computer as a photo of Desmond being intubated flashed across the screen.

My wonderful and kind OBGYN, Dr. Simpson, asked for a camera and ran to snap a photo of the boy for Shane and I to see. The mood in the delivery room just moments before delivery was lighthearted, pushing was easy and fast and the other OBGYN in the room kept talking to me about her child's music teacher who I reminded her of. And so that great release when Dezi entered the world was anticlimactic in a way and as they shuffled him out of the room it suddenly became so somber. There were many answers that had been promised us upon delivery regarding the severity of the hernia, etc. I cried and cried. Dr. Simpson returned to the room with a photo of our sweet boy and I cried harder. Here is the first photo I ever saw.



It upset me more.

Why am I writing about this now? I'm not sure. Partly because I still feel unsteady at times and it's important to remember how this journey began and how far we've come. Partly because I was afraid to post that first picture when it was taken. I thought it was scary as hell and that it would scare friends. It seems like such a long time ago now and I'm reminding myself that it's good to face those things that are scary and this is an important part of the story that I never documented.

Earlier tonight I took a photo of Dezi's scars. Shane and I were joking in the hospital one time about how one day in the future Dezi could show off his scars to someone, a college girlfriend, perhaps, and tell her his story. She could comment on how brave he was. I'm so happy to show you that his scars are disappearing. They look like bug bites and they will probably not be visible to any college girlfriend. Take a look:



Bad ass.

Mahalia calls them SURPRISE EYES!

2

Although it's been only 3 years since I had an infant in our home, I'd forgotten the complicated emotions that seem to be attached to caring for one of these creatures--the inexplicable feelings of lonliness, the hefty weight of responsibility and the certainty of inadequacy. Compound that with the stress and exhaustion of the month before and I was reduced to a functionless heap of tears. I spent a couple of days frozen in fear that something could go wrong with his little body and required several pep talks from friends and family.

I seem to have made it through the dark woods to a clearing and have begun enjoying Desmond and Mahalia loving on Desmond. She pulled her step stool in to watch him in his crib and I overheard her talking to him. I believe the exact words were, "Dezi, you're the sweetest little brother in the whole wide world."

As far as I can tell, life with two kids is a shit load of work, WAY more than thinking you're just adding one and one together. The sum of two children is huge. Perhaps this is why my mother always said that because two children was such a huge change from one, adding three four and five seemed easy.

We do not really fit into the Bug and I've begun thinking about trading in my trusty yellow car for something more family friendly. Two weeks ago it seemed totally implausible but we are starting to get a little bit of a rhythm going.