Sylvia's Journal

Everything that Sita, Jim and Kara their doula, decided to put on their ‘don’t want’ list materialized as she found herself succumbing to the relentless pytocin-induced contractions all day long until the release offered by an epidural. She was hooked up with all sorts of wires and finally ended up with a C-section. The baby, a sturdy little fellow of 8 pounds, 7 ounces and 22 inches was born minutes before midnight on June 6.

The C-section, although not desired was unavoidable as baby Bliss was not well positioned – his cone head is proof – and also post due – as evidenced by his peeling skin and the meconium that he had ingested.  As a result Sita had to wait several hours before she was able to hold him. The camera pictures had to stand in for the real thing while the pediatric team checked him out.  He too was hooked onto several wires, just like his mom.

It is 3:30 AM now and we are all exhausted and very very grateful for the staff and their expertise that helped on this difficult journey. And of course we are all hooked already by this darling little creature with his cone head and a fuzz of red hair.

We’ve all converged onto the birthing center of the Cooley-Dickinson hospital where w found Sita attached to diverse monitors that made the place look more like a hospital than a birth center.It wasn’t quite what they had had in mind.

After some intense chemically induced contractions they unhooked her from the chemical drip so that she could have a good night sleep before proceeding.

We said goodbye to the exhausted couple and installed ourselves, including the doula, in their house. Tomorrow we promised to show up again at the birth center, early in the morning when the more potent labor inducing drug will be dripped into Sita’s arm.

We’ve all converged onto the birthing center of the Cooley-Dickinson hospital where w found Sita attached to diverse monitors that made the place look more like a hospital than a birth center.It wasn’t quite what they had had in mind.

After some intense chemically induced contractions they unhooked her from the chemical drip so that she could have a good night sleep before proceeding.

We said goodbye to the exhausted couple and installed ourselves, including the doula, in their house. Tomorrow we promised to show up again at the birth center, early in the morning when the more potent labor inducing drug will be dripped into Sita’s arm.

A timer on my computer has been blinking for the last 5 days with the words ‘Time’s Up!’ I installed it some months ago and put ‘Baby Bliss’ as the name of the event. Everyone except baby Bliss agrees that time’s up, Sita in particular.

And so we continue to live our pre-grandparent status lives, a penciled in social life – all events listed as tentative, just in case we’d be heading west.

On Friday night A and KB joined us for a quick summer meal in the late summer afternoon sun so we could go out to the movies. After 6 months of teasing trailers of the Marigold Hotel we finally watched the movie with all of our favorite actors and enjoyed ourselves fabulously in a nearly empty theatre.

On Saturday we celebrated  the retirement of Allegra and Peter from the Waring School after 34 years of beyond-the-call of duty service. I fondly remember working with Allegra on bringing the French immersion program back to the school. It was nice to see friends we hadn’t seen for a long time. Despite the pouring rain, 100s of parents and alumns showedup and seated themselves comfortably under a giant tent arund a spectacular meal to pay homage to an extraordinary couple.

In the evening we attended Verdi’s Requiem, a wonderful performance by the Chorus North Shore and the Festival Orchestra. Once again we had to brave pouring rains. I parked the car while Axel bought the tickets. This was a bad division of labor as I had to park practically in the next town over and then struggled with a defective umbrella as I walked the long way to the church where the performance was held.

The umbrella struggle may well have restarted my rotator cuff tendinitis. I arrived in the church in a bad mood, with puddles of water in my boots and an aching shoulder – the music improved my mood but the shoulder is still in bad shape the morning after. Will it ever get better I wonder?

I am feeling re-integrated into parts of MSH that I was so very disconnected from since I returned from Kabul now nearly 9 months ago. The two days we spent talking about the integration of governance and gender into the management and leadership curriculum that we developed and fine-tuned over the last 10 years. I met new colleagues who I had only seen on TV screens during teleconferences and some I had never met at all; and then there were my old buddies and our new partners (from Yale). It was a good experience for that reason alone. It was odd to be a participant with no facilitation duties – it felt like a free ride. And baby Bliss gracefully let me complete the two days.

For 50 dollars I bought myself an earlier flight home – an expense I would usually not allow myself but baby Bliss changes everything.

A Bangla taxi-driver brought me to the airport, a most entertaining ride during which I learned much about the American spirit that he fully embraced. It is a spirit from some time ago (sacrifice all for the education of the children), which he claimed is evaporating now in a society he has made his own and which he loves and hates.

After we talked a bit about the politics in Bangladesh (such conversations are always about corrupt politicians) and the strikes I encountered in April, we returned to the safer topic of him and this future. He told me is going to retire from taxi driving and return to his ancestral village in Bangladesh. He will probably leave behind his grown up son and daughter. This (the US) is their homeland. But they do speak, read and write Bangla, he saw to that, so they can return to their ancestral lands if they ever feel moved to do so. They got education, they got good degrees and now jobs in HR and accounting – portable skill sets. I think he hopes secretly that they will eventually return to Bangladesh; like him.

When I paid him for the ride and verified that I had giving him enough he said that sometimes the money doesn’t matter and the conversation and company was worth more than any tip I could have given him. My benefit was that I never noticed the rush hour traffic we encountered.

Back in Boston, as I drove out of the airport parking I noticed a small note tucked under my windshield wiper. I pulled over and worried that it was from someone who had scratched my car but it turned out to be a note from someone (a man suspect) who responded with great vehemence to the sticker on my car for Elizabeth Warren and John Tierney.  In poor handwriting the note read:  GRANNY WARREN + tHAt crook TIERNEY? ARE YOU SERIOUS. GRANNY stolE somEBODY’s JOB + SHE’s pART OF tHE ONE PERCENT!! WHAT A PHONY BITCH!

The juxtaposition of granny and bitch struck me as odd though it is a combination that is common in fairytales (bitch becomes witch).  I am of course very partial to the granny part now. Let’s vote for granny!