Ooh Baby Baby

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In my early twenties I had absolutely no interest in babies. I didn’t find them cute, or interesting, or cuddly. When friends or classmates were showing off their babies, I would of course say Oh your baby is so adorable, but I actually thought they were ugly and noisy and smelly. I certainly didn’t want to have one of my own.

Then in 1977 my sister had a baby. I was still not all that excited, until I went to visit. When I saw my little niece, by then about four months old, for the first time, I had such an overwhelming feeling of love, like nothing I had ever felt before. This baby was so beautiful, and I was ready to do anything for her.

So at age 26, I decided that having a baby was an appealing idea, assuming I could find the right person to do it with. That was an obstacle for quite a while. I had women friends who went the sperm bank route, or the get-pregnant-on-purpose-and-don’t-tell-the-guy route, but I didn’t think I wanted to do it that way. When I was 29, I met someone who wanted children too, and two years later we got married, and two years after that (and after one miscarriage), we had a baby.

She was two weeks late to be born, and had grown very large — 9 pounds, 8 1/2 ounces, as it turned out. I was in labor for many, many hours, and they kept lying to me, saying the baby was coming, just a few more contractions. . . . Finally the doctor said the baby isn’t coming out, and I recommend having a Cesarian, but I know this is a big decision so I will give you some time to think about it. As he started to walk out, I grabbed my husband’s arm and said Don’t let him leave. Let’s do it RIGHT NOW! So they gave me something that made my midsection completely numb, and that was the most wonderful feeling (or lack of feeling) I think I have ever experienced!

Sabrina was a joy. I was so in love with her from the moment she was born. Everything was new with her, and I was fascinated by each milestone she reached. She started talking early, and had such interesting things to say. She had a puzzle of the United States, and she learned the name and shape of each state. She seemed like a baby genius! I nursed her until she was three years old, when she lost interest and weaned herself. I was pregnant again by then, and apparently pregnancy makes the milk taste different. Here she is, in a swing at a neighbor’s house, just shy of two years old.

I wondered if I could love a second child as much as I loved her. It seemed impossible. And yet when Ben was born, I felt that same overwhelming sense of love and connection as I had with Sabrina. He was a scheduled Cesarian, so we just showed up at the hospital at the appointed time with a suitcase, like checking into a hotel. Easy peasy. He was a little more challenging than Sabrina, but that was due, at least in part, to there being two of them, both wanting attention at the same time. I nursed him until the age of three also, but the third year was a little problematic, because my husband and I split up a couple of months after his second birthday, and then he was spending weekends with his father. Here he is, also just shy of two, wearing the t-shirt of his future alma mater.

I had my third child, Molly, when the other two were eleven and eight. I had to be talked into having another one, because I was already over forty and much less energetic than I had been in my thirties. Also, it turns out that it’s much harder to get pregnant in your forties, probably because nature thinks you are supposed to be done with that sort of thing by then. I went through fertility treatments, but only ended up getting pregnant after I had stopped the treatments and given up trying. Ironic. She was also a scheduled Cesarian, so off to the hospital with my little suitcase, someone else took the kids to school where they proudly told their teachers that their mother was having a baby that day. When school was over, they came to the hospital to see Molly and me, and we have Polaroid pictures of each of them holding her. They thought she was the best new toy we could have gotten them! Here she is at eighteen months.

Each child has been a joy and a challenge, in wholly different ways. I kept thinking that I was learning from my mistakes, and that I was getting wiser with experience. Turns out that what works with one child will almost certainly not be right with another. They have grown up into three such different people, it’s hard to believe that they are products of (mostly) the same heredity and environment. They are all wonderful, and I am very glad I had them. I cannot imagine my life without them, so I am thankful that my sister’s baby convinced me all those years ago that having children was something I wanted to do.

 

Meeting Madeleine

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My journey to meet Madeleine began with a phone call. I was in the midst of cleaning out my late mother’s kitchen, standing in front of her pantry looking at boxes and cans dating back to the 20th century, when my son-in-law reached me on my cell phone. “I guess you know why I’m calling,” he said. “Caitlin and I are at the hospital. She’s in labor and doing really well.” I glanced at the clock—late morning California time, afternoon in Rhode Island where they lived.

 I said, “So you’ll call me when—” and we both laughed.

“Of course,” he said.

I called my husband at work and gave him the news: “Hey, Gramps,” I said. “Game on!” I got back to my task, accelerating my efforts so I could go home and wait for another phone call.

No one ever forgets what it’s like to be expecting that first baby: a complicated months-long dance that twirls between excitement and fear. My husband and I were so young and unprepared for what was to come, not like my daughter who is a well-trained nurse with lots of experience with labor and delivery. Even so, I told her, when it’s your time, all bets are off. Each birth is different.

“I know,” she’d replied. But you don’t really know until you find yourself living out the events you have been obsessed with for so many months. Everything planned, nothing predictable.

A million scenarios go through your mind as you try to visualize your own labor. Most of these scenarios will be pleasant ones: you will fill the air with your careful selections of birthing music— some instrumentals or the sound track from that movie you both love, but nothing with drum solos— that’s a deal-breaker. You will have a focused, prepared, supportive and minty-breathed partner/coach at your elbow who reminds you to breathe with your contractions and who will not think even once about grabbing the remote to “just check the score.”

Softly murmuring nurses will offer soothing hands and calming words; they rub your back and place a cool cloth on your brow. You are strong and brave, and your hair is clean. You have a little lipstick on, maybe. Waterproof mascara for sure. You do not sweat or swear or scream. You exude grace and confidence. Everyone around you will comment on how graceful and confident you are, and isn’t it lucky that you don’t have stretch marks anywhere. And then you will begin to push that baby out. One or two, maybe three good pushes, and the baby will be born and sunlight will fill the room, and you will hear joyous birdsong like in an old Disney movie, and the doctor will put a hand on your shoulder, smile and say, “Congratulations! It’s a perfect…whatever,” and you will smile back and reach for the beautiful, clean, round-headed, sweet-smelling baby who will fit in your arms  perfectly. You will put the baby to your breast and a maternal flood of emotions will fill you to the bursting point. You may shed a happy tear or two and your mascara will not run. Transcendent and glowing, you will fall back on your pillow in a state of contentment, or…or… pure bliss! Yes. Someone should paint this portrait right now, for the ages.

But then, of course, there is the reality…

I woke with a start from a deep sleep and a dream about babies. The phone was ringing, just after midnight. Oh my god, oh my god. The brand new father was calling: their baby had arrived healthy and pink. Seven pounds, two ounces.

I was so sure this baby was going to be a boy that I started to ask what his name was, when my son-in-law said, “And it’s a girl! Her name is Madeleine Olivia.”  I reached for a pen and scribbled the name on a piece of paper. A girl?  A little girl—born to my grown-up little girl, the child of my heart, now with one of her own.

I nudged my sleeping husband. “Wake up,” I said.  “It’s a girl!”

 The next night I would get on the red-eye to Boston, willing the airplane to fly faster. I would race off the plane to baggage claim, rush to grab my suitcase, and hop on the Silver Line bus to South Station so I could catch the 8:30 train to Providence. I would check into the Radisson near the river, brush my teeth and rake a comb through my hair, take a cab to Women and Infants Hospital, pick up a bouquet of tiny pink roses in the gift shop and let the woman behind the counter know, with a catch in my throat, that they were for my granddaughter.  At last, I would walk into room 5120 and hug my tired daughter.

And there, in her lap, swaddled in pink—a sleeping baby. “Hello, Madeleine,” I whispered. “I came a long way to meet you.”

Born That Way

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In the eternal “nature vs nurture” debate, I can assure you that both play a big factor in how one’s child turns out, but babies are born with certain traits that cannot be denied.

David was born 10 days after his due date; I labored for 37 1/2 uncomfortable hours and he was whisked off to the neo-natal ICU, with jaundice and a fever (he was fine within a few hours). I joke that he has been slow and deliberate ever since, could sleep through anything (we used to vacuum under his crib and it didn’t wake him) and is habitually late. He is naturally reticent, was very shy as a youngster and worked hard to bring out a more sociable personality.

Jeffrey was delivered on his due date in 45 minutes and has been running around since (not so speedy any longer). Cracking my knuckles used to wake his SO active brain and he was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 5. He was a smiley baby, but at an early age showed great frustration and could throw a temper tantrum that would melt your face off.

New-born Jeffrey

I love both my children dearly. They are brilliant and sweet. They have many interests in common, but are so different in so many ways, yet they both have the same parents and were raised in the same household.

I nursed each of them a year. I did a lot of research and believed it was the healthiest course to take, if I was able. Babies are so soft and smell wonderful (most of the time). Holding them as long as it took to make sure they were properly nourished was an intense experience. David looks the most like me and nothing could quite describe how I felt as I nursed, feeling that my eyes gazed up at me. Occasionally I would have to play “mean Mommy” and flick their toes to wake them to get them to continue to nurse, ensuring adequate nutrition. Even then, Jeffrey was easily distracted and would look around, rather than concentrating on the task at hand!

Watching them hit their milestones was another amazing task that certainly happens within ranges, but was different for each child. Turning over, holding up the head, holding up the body, scooting, crawling, taking those first tentative steps, those first words, solid food. Then of course, babies no more, but full-fledged toddlers. Jeffrey was slow to walk, but crawled so quickly that we called him “turbo-charged”. No need to walk…he got around just fine, thank you very much.

Infant diseases are terrifying, particularly for new parents. When the babies start teething and crying from pain, we didn’t know what was going on and they’d start wailing, we just wanted to give them Tylenol all the time. I didn’t have any parents or other adults around to help or give sage advise and I couldn’t call the doctor for everything. David had colic and the cramps caused him to wail. His doctor did prescribe something, which soothed him

Poor little Jeffrey contracted meningitis at 11 weeks, brought home by David from day camp. David had a high fever, head ache and stiff neck, but he was four years old and the doctor said he’d be fine. Jeffrey hadn’t had his first shots yet. His fever spiked to 104 degrees. His doctor watched him for several days, assuming she knew what it was, but couldn’t be sure if it was viral (OK – it would pass) or bacterial (very dangerous; needed to be on IV antibiotics STAT!). The fever ebbed and flowed. When it spiked again, she sent me to Children’s Hospital for a spinal tap (and we called Dan home from out of town). I sat on the floor of the hospital, listening to my baby scream, as I cried too.

The nurse brought him back to me with an IV of antibiotics in his tiny arm (to be safe, while they waited for the culture to come back). She put me in an isolated room, without offering me food or water. She said they’d get me a room on the isolation ward when one became available. I asked what was going on. She said if it was viral, he’d be fine, if it was bacterial, there could be consequences like blindness, deafness or death! With that, she left me alone. For hours. At one point, our doctor called on a line in the hallway (this was 1989, long before cell phones). She said she knew he’d be fine and to hang in there, she’d visit later in the day. Eventually, we got up on the ward. A chair in the room could be made into a bed for me, as I could not leave my nursing baby. Dan came later with David. They had gotten McDonald’s. David thought that was a real treat.

Except when Jeffrey slept, I held him round the clock, close to my chest, for two days. I sang to him constantly. I showered when the nurse came to draw blood from his heel. I couldn’t stand to hear that cry. In later years, before I understood all his sensory integration issues, some of which led him to find my high-pitched singing voice intolerable, I joked: because I had sung to him for those two horrible days, he subconsciously couldn’t stand my singing because it reminded him of his hospital stay.

After 48 hours, his cultures came back. The meningitis was viral, not bacterial and he was released from the hospital. He would be fine. But in all the years since, as we went from doctor to doctor, searching for a diagnosis for Jeffrey’s behavioral, learning and other differences, I always began the conversation with that infant illness, wondering if there was any lasting effect. The doctors always assured me that was not the case.  But I always wondered.

The Perfect Nanny

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“The Perfect Nanny” is a song from the movie Mary Poppins, in which the children describe the characteristics they want in a nanny.

You must be kind, you must be witty
Very sweet and fairly pretty
Take us on outings, give us treats
Sing songs, bring sweets

We were lucky enough to find our own perfect nanny who totally fit the description in the song. We considered her part of our family . . . until she disappeared.

My third maternity leave ended when Molly was ten months old. Instead of putting her in a daycare center when I went back to work, we decided to hire a nanny, who could also take care of the two older kids, then eight and twelve, picking them up from school and supervising them once they got home.

We filled out a lengthy questionnaire with a nanny placement agency, detailing what we were looking for, and received files on several candidates to consider. I can’t remember how many we interviewed, but one young woman stood out well above the others. Not literally – she was only 4’10” tall. But that meant she didn’t have to lean over to hold Molly’s hands to help her learn to walk. Her references all raved about her, and we could see why. She was bubbly and energetic, and had lots of ideas for things to do with a burgeoning toddler, as well as with older kids. We snapped her up, and felt very lucky to get her.

She was so conscientious, she wrote notes every day in a spiral notebook while Molly was napping, with details about what foods Molly had eaten, what words she had learned, what books they looked at together, and any other noteworthy developments. She took Molly to the zoo regularly, and taught her the names of all the animals. She did craft projects with the older kids and helped them with their homework. We hoped she would stay with us for years, until Molly started kindergarten.

She was married, and her husband worked for an insurance company. When she had only been with us a couple of months, she asked for a week off because her husband had won a trip to Mexico, along with a few of his colleagues, for being one of the top sales people at the company. It would be a hassle to figure out childcare for the week, but of course we said yes. Then, on the day she was supposed to be flying home, she called from Mexico and said there was a problem with their airline tickets and she couldn’t come back that day. None of the other people in the group had a problem, it was only her husband’s tickets that were somehow invalid. This seemed very odd. It was a couple of days more before she finally made it back. Something was off.

Then she found out that her husband had actually been fired from his job, and had been leaving the house every morning to make her think he was going to work. When he heard that some of his former co-workers had won this trip to Mexico, he pretended that he had won too and paid for it himself to impress her. She also discovered that he was an alcoholic, which may have been why he lost his job. He had lied to her about other things too, and she decided to divorce him. She moved out of their house and needed a place to live. She stayed in our guest room for a week, then went to her aunt and uncle in Elk Grove (a town about thirty minutes south of here). But that was only a temporary solution, she couldn’t live with them permanently.

So we bought her a house. We found a cute little house less than two miles away from us that was for sale at a great price. It was the perfect house for our perfect nanny, and she moved in as soon as we closed escrow. We charged her $400/month rent, which even in 1997 was way under market. We just wanted her to be happy.

A year later, she told us she was applying for jobs at daycare centers, because she needed a job with health benefits. We told her we would buy health insurance for her. We talked to our insurance agent and made all the arrangements to get a policy for her. That must not have been the real reason she wanted a new job, however, because she left anyway. We were distraught, but we let her continue to live in the house.

Her new employer had our contact information, because when she started work she had filled out forms that asked for her landlord’s name and phone number. One morning we got a call from the employer asking if we could check on her, because she hadn’t shown up for work and wasn’t answering her phone. My husband went over to her house. When repeated ringing of the bell and knocking on the door didn’t get any response, he let himself in with our key. She was in the bedroom, unconscious, an empty bottle of pills on the nightstand. He managed to rouse her, and somebody else came and took her to the hospital. She would never talk about it afterwards.

She recovered, and life went on, but shortly after that she gave notice that she was moving out of our house to live with her new boyfriend. We tried to keep in touch, but pretty soon she stopped answering our letters and phone calls. She just vanished. Over the years, I have looked for her, especially after online sites to locate missing people became available. I have never been able to find any trace of her. It’s as if she entered the Twilight Zone.

A Grand, if not Royal, Wedding Portrait

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March 5, 1895. That is the caption in my photo album. These are my grandparents, Samuel Sarason and “Lizzie” (Fruma Leah) Prensky (changed to Prentis by her younger brother Meyer in 1925) on their wedding day in St. Louis, MO, as referenced on the bottom of the photo.

I love everything about this photo. I love the photographer’s fancy marque at the bottom. How beautiful they both were (you can’t tell, but Sam had red hair and blue eyes…LOVE the bushy mustache). How beautifully they were dressed. I don’t know if the clothes were borrowed, rented, owned, hand-me-downs, but don’t they look spectacular? They don’t smile and look so stiff, perhaps a bit frightened of what lay ahead. That was the style for photographs in that era and I cherish this one, so old now, not even 20th century.

She was SO beautiful. He met her in his sister’s boarding house, returning there after being on the road, selling his wares across Arkansas and Mississippi. He loved her instantly. He was much older; she was just 19, he was 28 at the time of the marriage, already a prosperous man. He had been in this country 12 years. She went to night school to learn to read and write English well. The Prenskys were intellectuals.

I never knew them, as they were deceased long before I was born. I was named for her. When I was being dramatic in my teens, I worried that I might have her chemical imbalance, for she was bipolar, but they didn’t know that when this photo was taken. They were happy and in love. This was the beginning, before they had 8 children and it all fell apart.