Stoopid Doctors

In our litigious society where people sue because their coffee was too hot or their kids are too fat, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised when a doctor goes to DEFCON 1 when perfectly natural, explainable things happen during a pregnancy. Case in point: Yesterday Katrina went to her doctor for the now bi-weekly visit. Well, to be fair, it wasn't her normal doctor. At these visits, sometimes they do an ultrasound and other times they just have a chat or keep it simple, like a blood pressure check and a quick "How ya Feelin'." This time, the doctor used a stethoscope to check the baby's heart rate, which typically runs around 140 bpm. However, she noticed that the heart rate slowed down and then would go back up again. This happened twice. The doctor then said that she wanted Katrina to go to the hospital immediately and wanted to call an ambulance. However, our toddler was with her so that wasn't really an option. More stress icing came next when she stated 'if you need to deliver tonight, the baby is a good weight and will survive'. Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ! That's a load.

I got a frantic phone call as I was in a Falafel joint, getting dinner for everyone, at around 7pm. Since Katrina was going to, at the very least, be strapped to a fetal monitor for several hours, she sped from the doctor to pick me up at a tactical location. My job: Toddler Wrangler. We all go to the hospital and apparently no one was aware that we were coming. After waiting around for about 15 minutes, I mention to someone that the word "Ambulance!" was used by her doctor. Then I had their attention.

Much to my annoyance, the initial doctor never told Katrina how much the fetal heart rate was dipping. So we really had no idea how much of an emergency this was. What we weren't told until much later at the hospital, was that a heart rate dip can occur if the fetus is gripping or lying the umbilical cord. And the kicker, "It happens all the time."

By now, we had been there several hours and they still had Katrina on a restricted diet. That is, a diet of absolutely nothing. The Nothing Diet. They claimed that if they need to do an emergency c-section, she can't have food. Mind you, the entire time we're there, the baby's heart rate never dipped again. But the lack of food and drink was starting to show it's wear. As it turns out, stress and dehydration and starvation can cause CONTRACTIONS. Internal examinations followed to check for dilation. So now we're stuck there even longer because they want to monitor those. The very act of being treated and monitored created more problems then when we went in. I had Katrina's dinner with me, but they wouldn't let me give it her. Since she wasn't allowed to eat with her mouth, they decided it would be best to let her eat with her veins. They propped up this gimundo IV bag and put it on free flow. Now this chemical teat is making Katrina very cold as her body doesn't have enough time to warm the fluid to 98.6 with the new fluid piling in on top of it. Blankets please! This, of course, makes the contractions go away after about 20 minutes.

Throughout the evening, I'm trying to keep Alina off of Mommy's bed with various food distractions and whatever was on Cartoon Network. At night as some of you know, Cartoon Network turns into a very strange place. Courage the Cowardly Dog is uber-trippy and not terribly appropriate for a toddler, but that's why it's on late. Imagine Fantasia meets Ren & Stimpy. On top of everything else, my cell phone was vibrating non-stop and the room phone was ringing off the hook. Various grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc were trying to get the latest news. The nurses started getting annoyed and told us to tell them not to call anymore at this hour. They don't have a receptionist and answer the phone themselves - taking time away from patients.

I've mentioned in a post titled 'Lamazarific' that labor and delivery rooms have bright theater lighting. One thing I geeked out on was that they're controlled remotely with a strobe wand. The lights point and focus to wherever the strobe is. It was very hard not to play with this when the nurses left the room.

There was probably a 0.005% chance that an emergency c-section would result and I guess that's why doctors were prescribing these tactics over the phone. We never actually saw anyone but nurses. But I always find that doctors, particularly OBGYNs, err on the side of Let's Not Get Sued. After going through all that bullshit and getting out at 12:30am (Alina still awake), we got the professional prescription of "Rest and plenty of fluids". Wow, really?? Do I sound bitter? Yeah, I thought so.

Dad vs The Fruit Fly

Is there an apple under my couch somewhere? Is there something unholy going on inside our potted plant? The vegetable eating iguana? The fishes? The cat? The flowers? Where do they come from and why are they here?? DIE! I've been doing battle with these little fuckers morning and night. Sometimes the wife just doesn't understand why I get so insane during battle. It's because it's BATTLE. I get to kill things! And sometimes it's the best part of my day after the long monotonous sludge that is the E Train and a Human Resources career.

My methods of fruity genocide have have varied over the weeks. We started out just clapping our hands at them as if they were mosquitoes. Even Alina got into it, saying "I got the bug!" after clapping her hands, even though she didn't. Just useless, this two-year old is sometimes - time to start carrying some weight, kid. So hand clapping was futile. They're just too fast. Lysol and/or citrus room spray was effective in dropping them but it got too extreme on the lungs and eyes. "Ahh! It burns!" Lysol with a lighter - now that was fun but inefficient and let's be honest, dangerous. Every teenage boy had a pyro period. It was fun to re-visit. Next, I tried a vacuum to suck them out of the air using the narrow hose attachment. Also fun, but limiting because of the power cord and I couldn't tell if they actually DIE DIE! Wielding a half roll of paper towels came next. It equipped me with not only a killing tool but a cleanup supply as well. These things bleed red! Hell, as long as it's theirs. It took a great deal of focus to wind up enough speed and accuracy to do the deed correctly. I felt like that spirit on the subway in "Ghost" who could move things with his mind if he concentrated enough. "All your love, all your anger, all your hate and you let it EXPLODE LIKE A REACTOR!" If you go too slow, you miss. Then my mother showed up with a metal mesh fly swatter. So....simple, so fast. But, as I mentioned, they leave a mark. The solution, which brings me to the present, is to scare them off the wall or ceiling and then swat in mid-air. They either get stuck in the mesh and DIE on impact or they get sent across the room and DIE DIE DIE! I try to send them in the same direction, which is evident if you look in our bathtub or on that big yellow stuffed bunny in the corner of the dining room. We'll probably need to burn that thing .... with Lysol and a lighter perhaps.

Name Wars

The date for the C-Section has been selected. July 21, 2008. Kind of odd selecting someone's birthday ahead of time. If you place any stock in the Zodiac, it could mean the difference between having a child that's tenacious, intuitive, and moody versus one that's creative, fun-loving, and bossy - i.e. Cancer vs Leo (which starts July 23). Of course, this all goes under the presumption of Katrina not going into labor by herself or they don't postpone it. Alina was actually 5 days early.

We must be getting close. I'm already being hounded about all that's left to buy - extra carseat, crib and/or bassinet, stroller, etc. But we still can't come to an agreement as to what the name will be. Since (we've) made the decision not to find out the sex, our work is doubly hard. She picks very nice first names, but doesn't consider how it will sound with our last name: Sebastian, Violet, and Claire are some of the ones she floated recently that I quickly shot down. And she'll come up with ones that rhyme with Alina, not realizing it.

She too has knocked down my recent suggestions of Everett, Hannah, & Harper just as quickly. I've got a couple more in my sleeve that I won't reveal to anyone but Katrina for reasons discussed previously. Mostly because I really like them and don't want any influence to tell me otherwise - especially family. If you're floating names before the baby comes, people feel free to bash openly. Once it's born, they can't say shit - at least not to my face. Suffice is to say, I'm still fighting for my pocketed names. They're pretty flexible. One of them can go male or female and the other can be shortened in 3 ways that sound like names themselves.

We typically don't require much justification for shooting each other down. A audible "yeesh" is usually enough. Sometimes we invoke the popularity clause. If it's too popular according to ssa.gov, it gets shot down. As you can see, I know how to put the anal in "over analyze".

Blogadultery

Once in a while, I cheat on my blog and write on another. It's supposed to be about NYC so take it from that perspective. I wanted to put this here, because the site may go down soon and it was something I actually took time doing.

A View of the Universe + One Month Security

All New York conversations eventually turn to Real Estate. It usually comes before the weather, but after you’ve bragged about that new restaurant find. You know, that cool and cute little Thai place that will eventually get too crowded, become uncool, get more expensive, and dwindle in culinary quality? We’re all about Real Estate because most of us are always moving. Either it’s because our rent for that one-bedroom with the one-ass kitchen has been hiked to $3200, or the neighborhood changes beneath your feet and it no longer holds the same appeal. The Scene. Case in point, K-Mart in the East Village (you’re DEAD to me, East Village) or the Trust Fund Ghetto that has become Williamsburg, Brooklyn (I didn’t have enough ironic t-shirts to stay). I don’t know whether to think of The New York Apartment as a fleeting natural resource or a very worn in 80-year old prostitute. We’re always on the prowl for the new up-and-coming neighborhood, building, or rent-stabilized unit. Though, the latter is more akin to a Sasquatch, White Whale, and endangered species all rolled up into one.

There are very few native New Yorkers in New York so perhaps we’re transient by nature: molting our apartments like crustaceans and hoping the landlords have paid to paint our new shells. The constant shifting results in no real sense of home with fond bygone memories. There's nothing invested because you’re a lifelong renter. So, we scuttle from place to place and it’s never easy. We put ourselves through the misery of moving, often several times per decade or more. It could be the square footage, but you’ll just buy more stuff and need more space later. You may love the view, but chances are a luxury monolith will stymie your skyline vista eventually. Aesthetics? They got those marble counter tops at Home Depot just like everyone else - why have that translate to more rent? Schools? If you’re really concerned about education, you’re either moving to the suburbs or staying in the city and forking out kindergarten tuition. Wouldn’t it be nice if that phrase was an oxymoron?

We all have our methods and tricks to the moving madness. Some go to Craigslist, the New York Bible. Bonus: Our Bible has used furniture and casual encounter sections. Jealous? Others enlist scads of brokers to pounce on vacancies and show them like a proud kitty with a dead mouse. Though when I say the word ‘broker’, I usually spit on the ground to get the taste out. But that’s just me right? There are lotteries you can apply for and sweat through. Maybe your name will come up you’ll get that condo in the newly gentrified neighborhood. I hear South Harlem is being called SoHa in Real Estate circles. Too. Damn. Funny.

We have a symbiotic relationship with our city. It moves and we counter. Long after the spread has reached far and wide and the latest opulent high-rise looms twenty feet from JFK airport, New Yorkers will still be accessing the classified ads via the chip in their brain, using the landing lights to read by. In the land with limited open space and endless crowds, we create our private universe of peace and self between exposed brick and drywall. There is no one like us. We like sushi and fried pizza, we simultaneously trend set and trend scoff, we ride four subways to work by day and join pillow fight leagues by night. Don’t try to understand us. We fly the flag of New York City.