Here you come!

Well, Zöe, my sweet one. You are almost here. Tomorrow I take your mother to GW hospital. I'm going to miss feeling you move and wiggle inside her body. I'll miss seeing her roundness, and how beautiful she looks with you. But she's ready, and you're ready, and it's time. And of course, I won't miss any of that, because I'll be busy being in love with you.There probably are very few times when we know beforehand that we are going to fall in love. While I'm very excited, looking forward to seeing you, and knowing who you are, in some ways you are still theoretical. That singing you hear now and then? That's me. A few times I felt you move when I sang to you. In a couple of days, I'll sing to you in person, without your mother's body between us, and you'll know me, I hope. Years from now, maybe, you'll read what I write here. Strange, isn't it, that at this moment, I have never seen your face. You are coming from I know not where, to live with us, and to share our love, and to challenge us, make us grow, and surprise, delight, and scare the hell out of us. We asked God to send you, and you came faster than we'd imagined was possible. The day after tomorrow, you are going to change my life forever. You have no idea what you're in for, baby. I'm sure it will be upsetting, but it will be OK. Soon you'll be in your mommy and daddy's arms.I want you to know how much your mother cares for you. She was diagnosed with gestational diabetes a couple of months ago. She's been sticking her finger and measuring glucose four times a day, and giving herself injections twice a day. She's been very strict about what she eats, and has avoided all sweet things entirely. The obstetrician told her a couple of days ago that she had done a great job, and that few mothers with gestational diabetes care for themselves so well that their babies have normal size. You're right on the money, honey. Thanks to your Mom. She did great, because she already loves you. She talks and sings to you--maybe I'm a little envious that she's been so close to you for eight and a half months already! But I'll be the one in the middle of the night, when you cry, coming to feed you, hold you, sing to you, and make you feel safe. Your Mom and I are on your side, always, always.I talked to my Mom last night. She asked how I was. I told her that I've been more excited about vacations, and more worried about tests, than I am about becoming a dad in a couple of days. I told her that my denial was still intact, and so I wasn't particularly worried. Today at work, the day started pretty normally--I drove to work, listened to the radio, drank my coffee, programmed a while. About midday, the butterflies started. By mid-afternoon I was having trouble thinking. Ready or not--here you come. All afternoon I was buzzing. Dinner calmed me down some--now I'm just tired.Baby--do us a favor. Be easy on your Mom and yourself when you come, OK?I can hardly wait to meet you.LoveDad

Up late again

All this week, I've been up late--really late--either working, or with insomnia, or both. I seem to be averaging about one entry per month on this online journal. I intended to journal to Zoe, but of course, I haven't. But here's a chance, tapping away in my living room at a quarter to three in the morning.We had a bit of a scare this past Monday. Your Mom said she couldn't feel you moving much, even after she ate, which is when you are most active. She has been on insulin for a couple of weeks now, and I've been reading about gestational diabetes and wondering what effects it might have on you. I keep seeing stillbirth mentioned, though apparently, it's rare. When Carolina called me in the office, I had just arrived. I woke up at 2AM and couldn't get back to sleep. I got up and worked most of the night, finally getting a couple of hours starting around 10:30. I got to work at 2, and at 2:30 your Mom called, concerned. I told her to call the doctor, and by 3 I was on the Metro.The doctor had said that if C had been younger and not diabetic, he'd have just told her to close her door, take the phone off the hook, and do a kick count for 15 minutes or so. But you don't screw around with diabetes. So he said to go to the hospital, NOW. C said she had a meeting, and he said, cancel it, and go to the hospital.We got to GW Med Center in DC around 4:30, I guess. A resident hooked C up to a fetal heart monitor. I grabbed a bite to eat in the cafeteria. (How the hell can they not notice that the food in their cafeteria is even more unhealthy than what most Americans eat?) When I arrived in the exam room, the resident asked me to leave for 10 minutes. I did so and came right back. Turns out those ten minutes were to ask C if I ever abused her. I guess it's part of the protocol now. Good thing, too--I hope there are successful interventions sometimes.The residents said your heartbeat was perfectly normal. Your Mom did say on the way to the hospital that the doctor predicted you'd start hopping around as soon as we got there. You did get more active, actually. So we went home, relieved. Now C says both the doctor and I overreact. She was embarrassed that we'd gone "for no reason". But as I still think we did the right thing. I think your Mom thinks so, too, but it's hard to tell with her, sometimes.Tuesday was much happier. We went for an ultrasound to see about your size. Babies often get too big when the mother has gd--sometimes 11-12 lbs. The sonographer, Slava (well, Borislava, but she goes by Slava), was Russian. When I commented on her excellent English, she told me that she had been an English professor in Russia. Now she's working on a PhD in public health or something. Anyway, she was a fascinating person. She showed us that you were a girl, which is now abundantly, anatomically clear. I joked that maybe we should get a print of *that* image to show to your boyfriends later on. She measured you all over. Your Mom has some extra amniotic fluid, and some fibriods, but your numbers, my dear, are right on the money! I'm very happy about that. While the doctor says they'll take you out two weeks early (Jul 25 or before), I want you to have as much time as possible. C says the two weeks early bit is based on statistics. I haven't read about that myself. I'm just trusting the doctor.My favorite thing about the ultrasound, other than that you are healthy, is that we can already tell that you have your mother's chin.In just over a month, you'll be here with us. It still doesn't seem real. While I was waiting for them on Monday to finish with your Mom, I wandered the hall a bit near the neonatal unit. There was a tiny baby on a table in there, with a heat lamp over her. It looked like she was on a heat table in a restaurant. (Now there's a gruesome image.) She was sleeping soundly. The umbilical stump was about 3" long, and looked like a piece of latex. (I even thought it was latex, at first.) Earlier, I'd seen a black family, probably new aunts and uncles, videoing and talking about the baby. She was born at 3:13PM, so I was seeing a little life that was less than three hours old. She'd been breathing for less than three hours, and yet was already doing it reliably. Amazing. Amazing. Later, I watched her for about 5 minutes. So peaceful, sleeping there all by herself. I have no idea why she wasn't with her parents. It made me so sad to see her there all alone. There was a nurse at a desk in the room, but still. Where were her parents? Later, when Carolina and I left the hospital, they'd closed the blinds, but you could still see through the cracks. That little baby was crying, and nobody was holding her. When your time comes, they're not keeping you away from me that long, unless there's a serious problem!Odd that I said that you'll be here with us. You're already here, of course. But I don't know your world right now, and you don't know mine. They say you already know our voices. I sing to you, and sometimes you move and kick. Soon, we'll try putting a flashlight on your Mom's belly to see if you respond. You won't remember any of it, of course. But I can tell you what you did, and maybe someday, you can read it for yourself. My dear little Zoe. I love you already. Who will you be? Where did you come from? It's a strange place to be in. I know that six weeks or so from now, I'm going to be totally exhausted, and totally, madly in love with you. But tonight, I'm sitting here in the dark, and you're floating in your darkness, and we're waiting to meet each other.

The Hypochondriac

The hypochondriac stands in the warm flow of the shower,guts grinding, frozen with fear.Shaking hands palpate the liver, slide around behind the neck,poke under the jaw, looking for evidenceOf hardened lumps, of swollen nodes, or unexplained pains,Looking for evidence that he is, as expected,Damned after all, and has just begun the tortuous descentFrom a living hell into a permanent one.The water runs down his body unnoticed, wasted, and swirls into the drain,Through the systems, into the pools, then down the streamsTo the rivers, where it glides past rolling hills,Circulates in muddy eddies, and arrives at last, to the sea.Little by little, the sun lifts it up into the heavens, andon some gray day, sooner or later, it falls back to earth.

The Hypochondriac

The hypochondriac stands in the warm flow of the shower,guts grinding, frozen with fear.Shaking hands palpate the liver, slide around behind the neck,poke under the jaw, looking for evidenceOf hardened lumps, of swollen nodes, or unexplained pains,Looking for evidence that he is, as expected,Damned after all, and has just begun the tortuous descentFrom a living hell into a permanent one.The water runs down his body unnoticed, wasted, and swirls into the drain,Through the systems, into the pools, then down the streamsTo the rivers, where it glides past rolling hills,Circulates in muddy eddies, and arrives at last, to the sea.Little by little, the sun lifts it up into the heavens, andon some gray day, sooner or later, it falls back to earth.