Mr. Fix-it

My bare-chested Atch was wading through the coiling mess of innards that used to be my electric breast pump. His sweaty grin floated up from the haze of his soldering gun. “Its a fix-it day,” he remarked.

Indeed it was.

As an attestation of our ill-prepared journey into the life of second child-dom, we unearthed the basinette, the breast pump, the baby monitor, ad nauseum ... just days before Eli arrived, only to discover that four years of storage was enough to attract some electrical “ghosts in the machines”. As a consequence, Atch spent a large chunk of his 7-day paternity leave hunched over repairing one item or another, and in general being missed by the post-partum members of his family.

Woog alternated between neediness and puffed-up possessiveness. “I have a new baby brother,” I'd hear him proudly tell the neighbors, just before coming inside and crowding in with Eli during a refill at the Mommy pump.

Thankfully, Atch was there in between repairs to distract and regale, while I floated in and out of disorientation, trying to adjust to the new member of our family.

What a waste of Atchbund time, I thought rather ungratefully. I wanted to be cuddled and waited upon. I wanted an affirmation of his undying love in the face of my newly wrung-out body. I wanted someone to pick up the mess slowly accumulating around Eli and me in our once spic-and-span bedroom. I wanted Atch to stay still for one second so I could take his picture carrying the baby. Hell, I was as needy as Woog.

I dreaded the day he went back to work, to leave me forlorn and feeling abandoned, dreading the thought of being left with two children both under the age of five.

Still, I was thankful for all the mealtimes I was able to eat downstairs with the family, the newly repaired baby monitor beside me humming with Eli's steady breathing. Still, I was glad for the luminous glow of the lamp light during night-time feedings. Still, I sighed in relief as the freshly assembled breast pump gave me respite from full to bursting milk ducts.

Grudgingly acknowledged, Mr. Fix-it saves the day.

July 2006

Little Yella Critter

We had to leave Eli at the hospital. Jaundice they called it. AB-O Incompatiblity they concluded, and their Photolight Theraphy the only cure.

Whatever happened to good old plain sunlight? It worked in my day. When I was a kid they didn't have any of that high-tech mish-mash that was supposed to be good for you, for whatever high-tech ailment you were supposed to have. In my day, mothers held babies up to the first morning light and loaded the kids with a good dose of Scott's Emulsion. The doctor kept away for damn sure.

I am venting my spleen here. And sorely missing my son. It doesn't help that the Newborn Screening results...yes, they have that now...found Eli positive for G6PD Deficiency. We didn't have that in my day either. Now, they tell me Eli can't have any soy or soy products, all sorts of legumes, certain medications, red wine(!), ad nauseum... or he'll end up with hemolytic anemia. (Oh, please... he hasn't even started on breastmilk yet and I'm supposed to be worrying about his impending solid food intake?)

And among other things, if he, by some fortuitious event, partook of any of the above-mentioned prohibited victuals, Eli would be the unlucky recipient of headaches, nausea, palpitation, seizures. I read the photocopy-generated symptom sheet and nearly had a seizure myself.

I read up as much as I could over the internet, and found G6PD deficiency is an inherited enzyme malfunction affecting nearly 400 million people worldwide (egads! We are not alone.)

Carrying the hefty moniker glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, it is one of the many enymes that help the body process carbohydrates, turning them into energy. It also protects red blood cells during the onset of infections (does this mean my son will grow to be a listless little boy with no immune system whatsoever?). Without sufficient G6PD to protect red blood cells, they become damaged or destroyed, and hemolytic anemia occurs when the bone marrow cannot compensate for this destruction by manufacturing more red blood cells.

Certain triggers of such as fava beans, napthalene balls, and some malarial medications ending in 'quine' can cause paleness (hard to tell if I have a dark-skinned kid), extreme tiredness, rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, jaundice, enlarged spleen and tea-colored urine. On the plus side, once these triggers are removed, the symptoms disappear within a few weeks as new red blood cells are formed.

Can't I have a kid without complicated health issues? Like Atch and myself, Woog has asthma. And now here comes Eli wth a deficiency of his glucose-6-whatchamacallus.

*Sigh* The hospital nursery called and told me he'd been crying his head off. Perhaps I could try to breastfeed him? So we visited Eli during his confinement. I met my son at the Breastfeeding Room and I held him close to me, examining in minute detail the cradle cap on his eyebrows, his pimple-like milia, his potato nose...everything that wasn't bundled up in swaddle cloth. Mr. Hideous himself.

He didn't look yellow to me. Why were they making sure I got so damn worried? My son is normal. Heaps of kids didn't get newborn-screened (this inhuman pricking of tender baby skin and the cruel drawing of baby blood from a screaming red-faced infant), or been diagnosed with G6PD Deficiency. They lived. At least they did in my day.

And Eli will live. The best life we can possibly give him. Just as thirty-eight years ago, my parents-in-law refused to give up on Atch when he was a Coke bottle-sized seven-month preemie, just as we refused to let Woog's asthma get in the way of his extremely active lifestyle...Eli will thrive. I'll make sure of it.

July 2006

Newsflash: New Specimen Unearthed!

9:00AM Atch and I trek all over downtown doing errands. Three hours of walking and my left bakya breaks in half.

11:00AM Head home to change shoes. Damned inconvenience. Spend rest of morning traipsing the mall.

4:30PM Internally probed by OB-Gyn yet again. Forty weeks today, no sign of contractions. Head back downtown. Maybe catch a movie.

5:00PM Was that a contraction? Nah. Probably just gas.

5:30PM Convinced Atch to buy me a pair of Happy Feet sandals (have pity on this poor pregnant woman who just broke a bakya). Am at boutique when...

5:45PM Whoa! These ARE contractions. Sales girl looks on worriedly as I make selection, hunched over. Breathing. People start to stare.

6:00PM Forget it, Atch, this is embarassing. Buy them for me next time. Let's eat, am hungry.

6:30PM Atch & I get some hot steaming batchoy to go. Contractions every 15 minutes. Breath. Breath.

7:30PM Eating batchoy at home with Atch and Woog. Hunched over soup. Contractions. Breath Breath. Whoosh. Whoosh. Woog asks: “Is the soup really hot, Mom?”

8:15PM Decide to go to hospital. In bathroom, drop soap at every contraction. Was that my water breaking? Nah. You're in the shower you paranoid fool.

8:45PM Arrive at hospital. Beg OB-Gyn for epidural. OB-Gyne laughs. Doesn't help she's my sister-in-law.

9:00PM Oh, the paaaaain....! (Go with the pain. Breathe. Don't fight it.) Who...who said that? Is somebody there? ........ ?! That you, Papa God?

9:17PM Delivery room. Pitifully whine to student nurse if I could hold his hand. Human touch and all that. He nods yes and I mash his hand to a pulp.

9:18PM Pushing. Pushing. Pushing. Puuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuush!!!

9:23PM Baby squirts out. Four heaves. World record. Oh... hi! HI! My precious! My pokey bear! *Sniffle* Its me, its Mom! (pause) Some nose you've got on you!

Auntie Nat after pulling out her new nephew

9:40PM 7.8 pounds. APGAR score 9:9. Dark as twilight. Hear Atch outside snapping pictures. “Look at your nose!” Atch exclaims, laughing.

10:00PM On gurney on the way to room. Pain? What is pain? I want to see my baby again.

Pressure tank survivor and his amazing nose

Marbles

Woog had been wanting to own a bag of marbles for such a long long time now. But being the parent that I am, I had horrible visions of him accidentally swallowing one. Or of offering to share them with his one-year-old cousin, Ia, and her swallowing a couple of them, as well.

Then with my imagination on overdrive and I would picture the whole household speeding posthaste to the hospital, where amid the ruckus of pumping out the children's tummies, my husband, my sister-in-law and her husband would be glaring at me, the guilty perpetrator of it all.

Still, in my heart of hearts, I couldn't resist this simple need of a little boy to acquire such treasure. After all, didn't I have a bag of my own marbles at his age? And I don't ever recall swallowing one either (even if I did, I'm still here, aren't I? Healthy gastrointestinal track and all).

His quest for marbles wasn't an insistent one. He would talk about them, wish he had some. Sigh a bit. Then perhaps, if it occurred to him, to wonder out loud most politely if we would buy him just one. Or maybe even a couple. And being the parent with the over-active imagination, I would hedge and say something like, “maybe...if you're behaved, and maybe...if we had the money. (like, sheesh, how much would a bag of marbles cost?)”

So yesterday, as I was aimlessly wandering the aisles of a china-goods shop (walking, walking, walking to get the baby down to birthing position), wouldn't I just happen upon the most deliciously colored translucent glass marbles in plastic fishnet bags? Fifteen pesos a bag, barely half of what I usually spend for a mid-morning snack.

And wouldn't you just know? I bought them.

This morning, I came in from the bathroom to find Atch hugging a yawning Woog. It being a Saturday, we allowed him to wake at his own leisure. We were about to leave for work when I suddenly remembered.

“Hey Woogie, guess what I got you.” And some interest sparked in his sleep-chinky eyes.

I pulled out a plastic bag from my purse and the clinkety-clink of glass balls sent him off his bed, all thoughts of lying-in forgotten.

“Mommy! Marbles! Thank you!” His voice was squeaky.

Atch and I took in his excitement and we exchanged a glance moist with full-hearted wonder. How simple it is to make our child happy, we should do it more often, Atch's glance seemed to tell me. I blinked back my affirmation.

We left Woog with hugs, kisses, and warnings about putting them in his mouth. Last we looked, he was sprawled on the bed in his pajamas, flicking one colorful glass sphere against another.

And hey, if he does swallow one, he can always poop them out, can't he?

07/01/06