Returning Home

We've been away for three weeks.

We went to Ohio, land of flat, wide open spaces, fried foods and dirty church festivals. We enjoyed the company of sassy cousins and wise aunts and uncles and Nana and Tata. I have been told that it is common for babies to make developmental leaps while away from home. This has certainly been the case with Desmond who, for the most part went to Ohio as a sweet and alert lump and came back to Brooklyn still sweet and alert but with hands that can grab objects of desire and place such objects into his mouth.

On our ride back both children were fantastic in the car, sleeping much of the first leg to Pittsburgh where we saw our 95-year old Great Grandma Sophia looking tan and happy in her new digs. The good behavior continued for the second leg of the long car ride and we were all happy to see the NY City skyline as we rounded the bend in Jersey.

It's always a mixed bag returning home; we are all excited to be in familiar surroundings but it always makes me edgy--i try to leave the home in a respectable state but the old messes remain. There is the unfinished CD re-organization project, the boxes of books that need to go, the bags of clothes to be donated, etc.

Upon entering the door, we were greeted by a foul odor and while Shane unloaded the car I did some investigating. I opened the fridge and seriously almost vomited when I smelled its contents. No sooner had I smelled the rot than I thought of the gallons of breast milk that lay behind the freezer door. It too had gone bad.

Shane and I wrapped dish towels around our faces and emptied out the fridge's contents and bleached its inside out. While I was sad to lose all that breast milk, it was strangely liberating letting it all go. While D was in the hospital, the pumping felt like all I could really do for him and although I moaned and groaned about it in the process, the process itself helped keep me grounded in a way. And throwing out that milk was having one less reminder of our hospital journey.

At Dezi's four month appointment, he received four immunizations. He had a bit of a cough and I anxiously asked his Dr. if I needed to be weary of him developing a cold. His pediatrician is a wonderful woman with a lovely and memorable speaking voice. She smiled and said, "From now on we're going to think of Desmond as a normal baby with reflux." An unremarkable statement that meant the world to me. He did get a cold with a bad cough (luckily for me, we were in the home of my super supportive and comforting Dr. daddy, aka Tata) and he recovered easily. And with that, I was able to let go of more fears.

He is growing quickly. He is meeting his milestones on time and is active and curious. The tissue should be growing around his patch as his body grows. Before his birth, I happened upon the blog of a little girl named Ava Helmick. She was also born with a diaphragmatic hernia that was repaired with a patch. She remained a healthy child until just before two when her patch de-hissed and has been in and out of the hospital ever since. Although, comparing Ava to Desmond is like comparing apples to oranges I can no longer read her blog because it sends me reeling. Perhaps if you have a moment, you can read it and send good thoughts to this little child who is struggling to survive.

In previous weeks I have said more than once to friends, "I feel like I have post-traumatic stress disorder." I don't so much feel like that now, actually. What I'm feeling now ismore like those feelings I had at the end of yesterday's long journey. However, instead of returning home, I'm having a return to self. Most things personal--relationship, work, music--all these things had been on the back burner since October 27, the day of diagnosis. And now that this journey of illness and hospital and pregnancy is nearing it's end I'm looking at the little messes that I left undone and it is most certainly making me edgy. If I could scoop out those buried problems and emotions with a melon baller and start fresh, I'd be psyched.

In the end, I suppose this is what it is to be an adult--figuring it all out, coming to terms with things and just dealing on a day to day basis. As a friend so aptly said today, "Most of my friends that are happy are actually single, child-less and behaving like children themselves." If only.