This time, we're doing it at home.

It's been a very long time since I've posted here. Needless to say, but time is a commodity these days and there doesn't seem to be much of it left over at the end of the day. I'm going to make a point to carve out little pockets here and there to take a step back and get my thoughts, feelings and observations onto paper—or pixels.

For those that don't know about our plans, we've decided to have our next child in the comfort of our own home, working with a very talented and highly respected midwife that lives and works in Nyack (hi Martha!) Dana and I had wanted to have home births for Sofi and Noa, but without prior experience with the process, felt much safer knowing we'd be in the hospital—even considering negative side of being in a hospital for something that is not an illness (but these days might as well be!).

Noa's almost walking!

It's been almost a year since my last post—proof that once you have kids your life changes in big ways. Two kids, and the time you took for granted is suddenly hard to come by. We're off to Israel for two weeks, looking forward to the trip.

(Thanks for prodding me to keep posting to this blog Jon Drummer cellphone dude)

House Full of Ladies...

Is it bad that I started wearing nail polish and crimping my hair?

A quick update on our little tribe of doubleX chromosome people.

Noa is now starting to look human. We're all a bit relieved that she left her infantile looks behind her. She got a cute little button nose, and eyes that we're having a very hard time identifying exactly from which side of the family they come from. Some days is Dana's side, others it's mine for sure. What's the deal with babies, they can't make up their minds!

Right now, Sofi is giving Noa her morning wake up routine, squatting over Noa as she sits in her bouncy chair. Noa looks petrified as Sofi waves her arms and pokes her nose and tries to make baby talk.. it's really funny.

... gotta go... will add to this later.

Dana and Noa

Introducing Noa (continued)

Not much time here, but I'll take a stab at squeezing out an entry.

To wrap up the story of Noa's birth:

we got to the hospital, Dana was already transitioned, her contractions were strong but not quite close enough together to have the baby in the lobby. a little while longer (3 hours) she was ready to go, and our doctor came into the room looking like she was still dreaming, since I had woken her in the middle of the night with a phone call.

Dana gave one gigantic push, and Dr. Solomon noticed that the crown of the baby's head was already visible. She commanded her to stop pushing to give her enough time to get her gloves on, but Dana ignored that (who wouldn't? Hey Tom, just hold that ball of fire with your bare hands while I check my email.. then I'll splash water on it). The next push popped the head out completely, a blue mess of flesh and hair that I was supposed take to the park someday. All the while, the doctor had one gloved hand under baby's head to support it, and the other was frantically motioning to the nurse, accompanied by the most serious facial expression I'd ever witnessed, to put the @#!@%#% glove on. (no curse words were used, mind you) She noticed that the umbilical cord was wrapped around baby's neck, and the doctor performed a series of ninja-like moves with her scissors to cut the cord, then suctioned out mucous and pulled baby fully into the outside world. There was a moment of silence during which my heart sank, but shortly thereafter the baby (yet un-named) began to cry it's first cry, filling it's lungs for the first time with the refreshing natural scents of––a hospital.

Next one we're delivering in the woods.

We had a short list of names, and after ruling out Broome Hilda, we decided on Noa, which means movement in Hebrew. Noa turned six weeks old yesterday and she is no longer blue, but she is getting more hairy as the days pass. Her older sister Sofia likes to occasionally kick her, and she threw a tennis ball that bounced right on the soft spot of Noa's skull. But other than that, Sofi shows much love and affection to her new little sister.

Introducing Noa...

Ok. That wasn't so bad. Here's how it went down.

Friday night we came back to the house around nine or ten, both of us sure that the baby was not going to come until Saturday or Sunday––if we were lucky. Sof went to sleep without much effort and we were just winding down from a busy week.

I was sitting in bed reading about the environmental troubles facing modern China (boring, I know) in a great book I'm reading called Collapse. when suddenly, Dana's water broke. Within five minutes my adrenaline level hit the roof and we were scrambling to get our overnight bag together and make sure someone would be able to come stay at our house to be with Sofi. (Thanks Sabba, Safta and Nat!)

By the time we hit the thruway it was midnight, and after a few minutes we hit the worst traffic I'd seen in a long time on the thruway during rush hour––and it was midnight! We had just passed an exit about a mile back, so it was too far to drive the shoulder backwards. I put a call into 911 and told them our situation:

I've got a pregnant wife here...her water just broke.. she's having pretty major contractions...we're heading north on the NY State Thruway, between Exit 14B and the toll booths... we're in a blue Toyota Rav4 and we're in the right lane...we're stuck in major traffic and we need to get to Good Sam Hospital in Suffern

Long story shorter (since I only have a few minutes until one of the little ones needs us), the nearest state trooper was far away, and for him to cut through the traffic from where he was would be much too late for us. So I did what every man dreams of doing with a pregnant wife in his car––drive like a maniac.

I was driving on the shoulder, weaving in and out of traffic cones marking a construction site which was the reason for all this untimely traffic. Oh, and I bet you can guess how many workers were on the scene... not one! Might have been a lunch break or something. Whatever. Every few minutes or so we received a call from the dispatcher in the thruway authority command center asking where we were, and his tone changed from indifference to emotionally invested, as if he were part of an important event. He became a cheerleader of sorts. He told me the contruction site was breaking down, and that traffic would clear up after the tolls, from which we were still pretty far from. I made him promise that he knew what he was talking about, since I didn't get my Labor and Delivery merit badge during my stint as a Boy Scout. He laughed and swore with a scouts honor, so we pressed on.

He was right, after we reached the tolls by Chestnut Ridge, the traffic did, in fact, begin to break apart, albeit one lane. So a little bit of fancy off roading got us to the head of the long line of truckers waiting to lay down some pedal to get to the other end of their runs. The Suffern exit came into view, the radiant welcoming green that shone in the night, easing my fears that I'd need to perform a C-Section in a Toyota Rav4 with a bunch of overtired truckers cheering me on.

The final check in call came from Mr. Anonymous at the thruway authority, and I'm sure it made his night to know that we were pulling off the highway to bring another life into the world that he played a small part in.

[ Due to crying baby, this story will be continued in next post ]

It's a girl! (well, almost)

Had another sonogram yesterday... the technician showed us a closeup of the area in question, and asked us to guess based on what we saw on the screen. Looked like a package to me, and I said so. But I was wrong. Apparently, girls special places look a lot like boys in the womb. Maybe that's why women are so jealous of men once they're on the outside (cheap shot, i know.. and not really how i feel)

So, Sofi's going to be a big sister to a little sister... they can share clothes (we'll see how long that one lasts) If only they can share a college, and a husband, and a car... we won't have to work like dogs to save up for all that stuff ;)

We're really happy about it.. the scenes are already playing in my head of how cute they'll be playing together....