You bet your life We signed up for a medical research group. Actually, we signed up Hannes. It's some vaccination project and according to our sources (Jessica's Grandpa), it's definitely worth doing. That's tomorrow.
It'll be a busy day for Hannes as he also has his medical where he gets measured and weighed. Jessica and I have made a bet about his weight and length, each time he has gone there, and I think I'm a little ahead now. Or, maybe it's a tie. ;)
But what do you think? How much will Hannes weigh tomorrow? How tall is the Guy? Here's some background data:
22 Nov: 3500g/50 cm; 9 Dec: 4030/52,5; 2 Jan: 5285/55; 17 Jan: 5630/57
Brave new world I have been chasing that smile for a couple of months now, so it feels really good to see Hannes smile every day now. Several times every day. And since he smiles, no, laughs with his entire body and teethless mouth when I make funny faces, the guy obviously has my sense of humor. Witty guy. Anyway, he is definitely turning into a real person with real feelings and emotions. So we can start playing a little.
We were wrestling today (meaning that I was lying on my back on our bed, holding Hannes on my stomach and rolling slightly from side to side. Not sure if Hannes realized he had me in such a dire situation...) when all of a sudden we heard a dog barking outside our window. Hannes's eyes got a little bigger, if possible, as he listened to the sound from outside. I looked him in the eye and said, "yes, Hannes, that's a dog. A dooooog."
And I realized he had never heard that sound before. Let alone seen a dog.
Come again? It seems to me that we have a pret-ty, um, goal-oriented son. Some people might call him stubborn, but since I am his father (pending the court order), I like to give everything a slightly more positive spin. This much is for sure, though: Hannes definitely knows what he wants, and when he wants it.
The only problem is that Jessica and I have no idea what he's talking about.
Hannes's language is like Chinese now. (Or, how people who can speak Chinese have explained the language to me). Basically, same expression can mean several things, and the big changes in the meanings depend on the subtle changes in the tone of how he says it. What means "I AM HUNGRY" now, sounds almost exactly like the "HEL-LOOH, ANYBODY THERE, I AM LYING ON MY BACK IN A BED AND IT'S BORING HEEEEEREEEE!" How frustrating it must be for him that we don't understand it right away. And he doesn't hide his frustration. On the contrary, he lays it out, and strangely enough, it sounds almost exactly like the "I AM HUNGRY" yell, too. You can tell that we have a vicious perpetual circle here.
Another thing that he has been doing lately, is change his daily rhythm. For almost a week, he slept from 11 to 7. Heaven. Good boy. Finally. He woke up at 4 am this morning, and what I thought sounded like a "HEL-LOOH, ANYBODY THERE, I AM LYING ON MY BACK IN A BED AND IT'S BORING HEEEEEREEEE!", so I just told him to go back to bed, was, in fact, a "I AM HUNGRY!" so I had to wake Jessica up. (We have a bottle ready for tonight).
It'll be nice to learn his language. I understand that this is a pretty common problem in the baby world. I mean, the only other explanation for this phenomenon would be that babies are evil.
PS. A visit to a real pro therapist today reminded me of the fact that a lot of times you realize stuff only when somebody else says it back to you. You have been battling with your problem, with no success, and then you repeat it all to a friend who says, "It seems to me as if you're..."
And you stop, and realize it's true. You had the answer all along, but were too busy solving your problem to see it.
So, it seems to me you're an intelligent and beautiful person and that you can accomplish anything, if you put your mind to it. *) Now say it out loud.
Home, sweet home I have been working from home the past week and a half. Basically, that means that I have read my email at our kitchen table and made a few phone calls during the day. And then occasionally, run into the office for a meeting with a client. And I can honestly say that my output is as good as usual. Or, at least I'd like to think so.
There is so much noise in the office; unnecessary meetings, meetings about meetings and post-meeting briefings.
So, it's a real win-win-win situation. I win, Jessica wins and Hannes wins. These days all three of us wake up slowly and stare at each other and smile. Jessica wakes up always first, because I sleep like a, um, baby and can't hear anything. It can take an hour for Hannes to wake up. He lies there and moans and groands, stretches all his limbs, and moans and groans. And farts and burps. And if everything goes really well, he'll wake up, open his eyes and see two huge faces about 15 cm from his face.
And then it's time for me to go to the office. And make breakfast for the family. Win-win.
The father, the son and the holy social services office All right! It's almost official now! I am almost Hannes's father now, and if you don't believe me, you can ask the Helsinki Social Services Office at Unioninkatu 18, 2nd floor. They have three documents with my signature on them to prove it.
First, Jessica had to testify that she hadn't had sex with anybody else between January 26 and March 15, 2002. She signed it on the dotted line. Then I had to sign the same document, waiving my rights to dispute my paternity.
Then we signed the document that gave us joint custody of Hannes.
And last, we signed a piece of paper that I don't even remember what it was for. Basically it was the same thing, I think.
Even though it was a highly bureaucratic event and not a bit ceremonial, beautiful or romantic, it was an important visit. What it means now, is that we can officially change Hannes's last name, get him the Finnish citizenship, and makes me his custodian as well.
While sitting there, we realized that even if we have talked about Hannes as, well, Hannes Pakarinen, his real name in the official papers has been something else. And then we started laughing, thinking that what if we simply forgot to inform the authorities. We could see Hannes at the age of 40, standing by a water cooler somewhere and telling his colleagues how, "my name is really just "Baby", "Baby Arhammar", but my Dad forgot to send in the papers ... so you can call me Hannes. Everybody else does." And how he would look the same as now, with his huge cheeks and pants pulled up to his armpits. And a little clip-on tie around his chubby neck. We laughed so we almost had tears in our eyes.
Gotta remember to send in the papers when they arrive from the court next week. Remind me of it.
Always look on the bright side of life It's been a busy few days. The good thing about Jessica and her family is that they are doers. Even when Jessica is depressed, she manages to pull herself out of the bed and makes herself do things and in this case, find help. (More info on PPD here).
We met with two therapists yesterday, and Jessica got to talk to somebody who we think can help her get throught this thing. We sat there, around that ultra-Finnish round Alvar Aalto-esque table (made out of birch), and the two middle-aged ladies listened. And then they listened. Even when Jessica didn't say anything, they listened to the silence. We all did. I thought the silence was awkward at first, but then it became comforting, in a way. It was as if they gave Jessica all the space in the world to throw her dark thoughts in, and she only managed to fill it a tiny bit. She will get through this and at the other end, you will be meeting a happy Jessica who probably knows herself better than before. A little stonger Jessica with insight to being a woman. And a Jessica that I can make laugh simply by dancing a little bit funny.
Hannes is doing well (he's a chubby little guy), and there are very few things that would make me happier than to pick Hannes up and take him to our bed, and see him wake up with a smile on his face. Right now, I can think of only one thing that would make me feel even happier. See Jessi wake up with a smile on her face.
The Mommy Returns Well, things aren't always what they seem. Like, the perfect little boy that I have been telling you about is almost too perfect. Which makes him imperfect. And that's the way we love him. But for instance, it is 00.25 now, and he's not asleep. I think he wants to be the last person to fall asleep in Finland tonight. Jessica is hopefully sleeping now, and I will turn in shortly but Jessi's mother ... she'll be walking a few miles around the 60 square meter apartment of ours.
Oh yeah, Jessica's mother's here. She arrived yesterday as entertaining troops. Jessica's been feeling a little down lately, a little sad, slightly moody, somewhat irritated, a tad .. depressed. There, I said it. Depressed.
The D-word has been something we haven't really talked about at home and even though Jessica was moody right after Hannes was born, we just shook it off. I think I was a little scared of it. I think we were a bit scared of it. Not anymore. We're in the midst of it now, but we're going to get on the homebound train as soon as there are available seats. The trip isn't long, but it may be bumpy.
Anyway, Jessica's mother is here to entertain Jessi, to give her support, and to give Jessica and I a chance to do something that does not involve poop, diapers and that you don't have to do with one hand only.
Basically, things are just slow here now, we take each day at a time, and focus on our little family. Isn't that how the entire universe is said to be moving? First Big Bang, then expansion, then inward again into one giant black hole only to explode again into a great big thing.
Scream 4 Ok, so he's not just quiet all the time. Sometimes Hannes screams. Sometimes he stops the second Jessica or I pick him up, but other times... well, he just screams his tiny, little lungs out. He screams like it's the end of the world as he knows it. He screams and screams and screams to the point where I literally just want to lift him up and shake him a little bit.
And I hold him in front of my eyes and I know I can't shake him. First, I know he's not doing it on purpose. Also, I know I can't reason with him. I know there isn't a deal I could offer him that would make him happy. Can't bribe him, can't threaten him. Even though I know everything about his short life, there isn't a dirty fact that I could use to extort him. And let's face it, the little man's already sleeping (and waking up) with a bunch of elefants, and Moomins and monkeys. One horse head wouldn't shake him.
So what is there to do?
We walk a lot. We walk both around the apartment, holding Hannes in our arms, and around the block, with Hannes in his limo. We pack the family in our car and drive away, which is fine with me, 'cause I like to drive. We change the diapers. We take showers. We get desperate.
And when Hannes falls asleep, we rush to do all the things we wanted to do today.
I know what I did last night Or, better yet, I know what I am going to do tonight. I am going to sit in front of the TV, watch a movie I have seen before and try to make Hannes happy. As Jessica's Mom says, "Today wasn't a good day to be Hannes." We have no idea why, but he has been restless and screamy all day.
Although, he has fallen asleep in my (or Jessica's) arms a couple of times throughout the day. He usually just lies there, and then every once in a while, opens his eyes just for half a second, as if to check that he's still there and not in his bed.
1 AH Happy New Year! 2003 .. doesn't the Millennium seem so distant? Y2K? Get outahere.
This is 1 AH, Anno Hannes.
I didn't make any New Year's resolutions this year (although I should, I'm on a three-year keeping-streak), but what I will do now is keep a promise I made to A. on New Year's Eve. She asked me to write something about the delivery.
Now, I have deliberately not written anything about it because it has just felt like such a personal experience of .. Jessica's that if anybody should tell stories about it, it should be her, not me. Then again, I can tell my side of the story and well, I did promise you . So, A. here we go:
Jessica had been pretty sick and tired with the whole belly for a couple of weeks, so she couldn't have been happier when the water broke on the 21 November at 5 a.m. She woke me up at 6. I can still see her standing in the shower, jumping up and down a bit, going, "it's so exciting, I can't believe it's happening now" and then, "Now what do we do?"
I suggested we eat breakfast, so we did. Tea, toast and read the newspaper. At quarter to seven, we put on our clothes and started walking towards the hospital. We live about 4 blocks from there, so it took us maybe 15 minutes to get there. It was snowing, and I wore rubber boots. I don't know why.
At 7.20, Jessica was lying on a hospital bed, with a machine attached to her belly, as they registered Hannes's (that we still called "Hilda" at the time) heartbeat, and Jessica's contractions. The heartbeat was around 80-100 and the contractions between 1- 21 .. units. We didn't know what the units were, so we jokingly called them "jävlar". As in, "oh, here's a big one, 21 jävlar!" (Note 1: "jävlar is Swedish for "damn." Note 2: Little did I know that 21 jävlar was not a big one by any means. Note 3: One of the few things that Jessica told me NOT to do was stare at the machine and tell HER when she would be having contractions. "I know, trust me").
About an hour later, Jessica took a shower and changed into the disgusting (but surely very comfortable) hospital clothes. And we were taken to the "Department" as the nurses called it. Jessi took a nap and I ran home, to call my office that I wouldn't be coming in for another six weeks and to get a deck of cards and Yatzy that we had forgot there.
Then we played Yatzy and basically just hung out, counting contractions and killing time. (I actually beat the family record in Yatzy, believe it or not).
By four p.m., the pain was getting worse. We were basically told that we wouldn't be taken to the actual delivery room until the contractions were 5 minutes apart. I would have faked it, but they brought one of those machines in again. This time it only recorded 12 jävlar which we took as a major setback. I just wanted them to take us to the delivery room so we could get ready, so that Jessica could start taking showers and crawling and I could give her massages and so on. No matter what the machne says, I could hear the jävlar getting a lot worse. And Jessica doesn't normally swear.
At six, I went looking for a nurse that would just tell us what the program was gonna be. And better yet, give Jessica something for the pain. And A, trust me, I am aaall for natural birth or active birth or whatever you wanna call it, but my major concern at that point was Jessica. As long as the baby was not gonna get hurt by the drug, I wanted them to give it to Jessi. (I think that she would have been able to hang on a little longer (had she wanted) if she had got the chance to do something else besides lie on a bed). She got a shot of something at 6.15 p.m. Exactly an hour later, we were taken to the delivery room.
The pain just wouldn't go away.
I was pleasantly surprised by the delivery room. It was pretty cozy actually. They had a TV there, a CD player, nice armchairs, a shower, curtains in the fake mirror window they had put up. I put on some Bo Kaspers Orkester and Jessica got another shot. Petidin, if I am not mistaken. I have learned so much from Jessica in three years, and one of the things I admire in her is the way she gets prepared for everything. She had studied everything about the different drugs, she had made lists of things, she knew the pros and cos, and I still get a little teary-eyed, when I think of her getting that shot of petidin. "Wait, wait, there is something about the drug, I should remember, there's something, can't you ask her what the disadvantages are, Risto." (At this point, our Swedish-speaking midwife hadn't entered the picture yet). And she was really worried. For me, like I said, "make the pain go away" was my motto. If I couldn't do it, maybe Mr. Petidin could. Of course, I did ask the nurse, and she said what they always say: "Naw, there aren't really any disadvantages."
Except for one.
It didn't work. Or, maybe it did, but I don't even want to imagine what the "jävlar" would have looked or sounded like without the drug. Bo Kaspers became Sinatra and our Swedish-speaking midwife, Benita, arrived. She took charge the second she walked in. Hannes and Jessica may have been the starts of the show, but it was Benita that was sitting in the director's chair. (That would make me a producer, I think). And she was good, very Finnish (meaning, no-nonsense small talk, but nice) and very professional. She gave Jessica the Epidural at 9.15 pm.
At 9.40 Jessica was trying to beat the Yatzy record, now held by me. We have a photo of her, making a toast to Epidural. Her short speech went, "Epidural to people."
And so it went. Yatzy, talking, Sinatra, Kajsa-Stina, Bo Kaspers taking turns, and just waiting. We had waited for nine months so we could wait a few more hours. As long as the epidural lasted. Jessi was opening nice and clean, so really, all we had to do was wait. The contractions hit a new high at midnight: 111 jävlar which I duly shouted out so that Jessica would be aware of it. Jessica was laughing through them.
Apparently, there is something special with this epidural thing, which launches a vicious circle to use more drugs. And as they added the other drug, to keep the contractions going, "Hilda's" heartbeat started to vary a lot. Everything from 50 to 200. Benita decided to get the heartbeat from "her" head instead. "More accurate," she said. About half an hour later, five more people entered the room, pushing a new machine in front of them. "We need to learn how to use this machine," said the shortest of them, the one wearing a paper hat. Oddly enough, she also had the hat on the photo on her ID card. Is that how they recognize her there? Anyway, this hassle took about hald an hour, and it was bizarre. There were 5-6 people between Jessica and me. I was sitting on another bed, drinking coffee and sending SMS messages to our families, secretly, of course, since you're not supposed to have your mobile phone on in the hospital.
And then, poof, the lady with the paper had and her gang were gone again. It was time to push.
Technical information: Jessica was in a semi-sitting position.
I was somewhere by her right ear, squeezed between the bed and the awesome wonder machine. But hey, it wasn't about me. And then we pushed. I finally got a chance to give Jessica a little massage (arm...) and I did what I could. Which was not a lot. All I could do is sound like a damn poor hockey coach, "you're doing great, push, push, push, yeah, yeah, that's right, one more, one more, looking good, looking good, oh baby..." I was so focused on trying to see what was going at "Hilda's end" that I completely failed to catch Jessica's vomit. She hit the new machine. I bet the Paper Hat Lady was pissed off.
Almost exactly an hour later as I went, "one more, baby, one more push, baby, she's almost outathere, I KNOW YOU CAN DO IT", I actually meant it. Of course, I still couldn't see anything, but I could tell by the look on Benita's face that it was close. And when the other midwife, the one that looked like a Bulgarian short putter guy, only with no moustache, jumped on Jessica's belly ("I'll just help her a little bit"), I knew it had to be close.
And then .. then I saw our baby gliding out like a seal, a little blue but in one piece. And I heard the most wonderful sound I have ever heard. "Her" first cry. Jessica and I were crying and laughing, partly for the same reasons, partly not (my guess since I had no pain). I was still standing between the bed and the machine so I couldn't see if we had a son or a daughter. I only saw half the baby, but I started yelling, "Jessi! Jessi! It's a boy! It's gotta be a boy, that ain't a girl's face!"
Then they put Hannes on Jessica's belly and he just lied there, looking at Jessi with his big round eyes. It was time for our first family hug.
So, A., that was my delivery story. Probably a very guyish story, but that's how I saw it. But you know, the part of getting the baby out of the mother's body is not the whole story. It's not only about whether or not to use drugs and how much you bleed. It takes weeks for the Mom to recover to a point where she feels human again. And that story is seldom told.
