Getting out of our parkade, however, is another story. The ramp that leads out to the street is very steep and the angle at which it intersects the road is impossibly sharp. That means that cars that are low to the ground (like ours) will scrape the undercarriage unless some fancy manouvering is done. Dan calls is the “shuttle re-entry”. Basically what one has to do is go up the ramp, turn the car at the last minute to bring the two wheels on one side over the edge of the parkade, bring the other front wheel over and then finally the back wheel. This is done simultaneously as the following:

1. watching for other cars who are exiting/entering at the same time
2. listening to the kids whine they don’t like the music we put on
3. repeatedly pressing the button on the keychain fob to keep opening the parkade door, which sometimes decides to start closing right after it reaches the top
4. avoiding little 80 year old ladies who think the alley is a sidewalk, or groups of Korean exchange students who also think the alley is a sidewalk and walk even slower than the 80 year old ladies
5. avoiding entire families (with strollers!) who think the alley is a sidewalk
6. watching for and avoiding garbage and recycling trucks
7. watching for and avoiding drivers who use the alley as a shortcut to avoid one way streets in the neighbourhood (and some of them drive recklessly fast, clearly not noticing the FLASHING BLUE light that is activated when the parkade door opens, the fact that a CAR is coming out of the parkade or the possibility that someone might be pulling out of the parking lot of the next door building).
8. not get blinded by the low-in-the-sky southerly winter sun

Yes, I am serious. At least one of these happens every time we go out of our parkade! Not surprisingly, we have had a few “incidents”. Fortunately, never with people or other cars (we’re always very cautious when we leave) … just with the parkade itself. The first thing that happened was we scratched some kind of plastic cover off the bottom of the car. Replaced it and scratched it off again. Dan broke off the part and as far as we can tell the car isn’t any worse off, so whatever.

The second thing that happened was I had a little “accident” going into the parkade once. Our strategy was to hug the wall when entering the parkade to allow as much angle as possible, but I got a bit too close and scratched the side of the car. Badly. Like insurance claim badly. This week Dan had to avoid an oncoming garbage truck and had another incident, for which we will need to put in another insurance claim.

When I call the insurance company or get a quote (or make a police report, which I had to do for the first accident because it was over $2000) people just don’t believe me. They furrow their eyebrows and squint their eyes trying to picture it. It makes us look totally ridiculous! Seriously, who can’t get out of their parkade without scratching the car anyway??

Parkade, I hate you! (and I love you)

In 2006 I got a call that my mother was going to the hospital for emergency surgery and that she only had a 50% chance of surviving (see the full story here if you really want to know details). So I packed my suitcase, booked a flight and took a taxi at 5 in the morning, not knowing how things were going and without any sleep. I almost missed my connection in Toronto but arrived in Calgary. Needless to say packing wasn’t my highest priority.

After all the events of the week, I was left in a state of shock. Being the only child in my family, it was up to me to decide what to do with my mother’s clothing, furniture, kitchen items, car and apartment. I was staying with my aunt who kindly cared for me while I dealt with everything. I have asthma (which I gather was fairly serious as a child although it is generally well managed now) and my aunt smokes and also was caring for my mother’s dog. Needless to say my asthma was getting pretty bad. I decided I would stay at my mother’s apartment for a night to go through her things and also get a break from the allergens. I have to say my mother was a heavy smoker and ALL of her items were heavily saturated in third hand smoke (yes, it does exist). The more I worked, the worse my breathing got. By about 11 PM Dan and I decided to go for a walk outside to get some fresh air, and after about a block I said “I need to walk to the hospital.” so we did.

They checked my oxygen saturation on intake (which was fine) and the intake nurse was really kind to us. When I went into the ER a nurse took my history and I explained about the events and the emergency situation. I guess she didn’t bother to tell the doctor or write it down on the chart (or he didn’t read it), because he came and gave me a lecture about how I didn’t pack my aerochamber. Yes, the FIRST thing that was on my mind at 3 in the morning when I was trying to get my credit card limit increased to book a flight to see whether my mom was still alive the next day was … “where’s my aerochamber?”. Needless to say he probably looked at me and thought “irresponsible” and “waste of health care resources” while I thought he was insensitive and too lazy or self-important to ask me why I didn’t have it.

So … yes patient centered care does matter. You never know what someone is going through unless you ask. The doctor could have explained how it’s a good idea to keep an aerochamber available at all times (without being judgmental) or could have given me advice on other therapies I could have taken or places I could have gone (e.g. pharmacy, clinic) to get advice for my worsening asthma. Although this was both frustrating and disappointing, it was a good lesson in what NOT to do. I hope I can be more empathetic to patients I encounter in the future than this person was to me!

Ok time to study for my midterm now…

So I made the appointment in January for insurance reasons and had two appointments. First I think they examined the tooth and killed the nerve and the second appointment they put supports in the canals of the tooth. The first appointment was very stressful because the endodontist had to clamp the tooth to isolate it (the tools they use are veeery small and you don’t want one of those going down your throat by accident). The only problem was that there was only 1 wall left on the tooth and he tried for about 20 minutes to clamp it without success. Finally after about the 10th different clamp he was able to isolate it well enough to do the surgery but I know they were getting ready to extract the tooth if the couldn’t get something to work. I think he had to either clamp on the gums around the tooth or way under them because it really hurt after the freezing wore off. After that the rest of the first appointment went quite well and I was quite relived how easy it seemed.

Three days later I ended up with an infection but fortunately they were able to prescribe a prescription by fax and it worked to clear it in 2 days. It was incredibly painful. So I went in for the second appointment and I realised that the first one was a cake walk to what happened in the second one. He had to put so much freezing that it actually made my left eyelid numb! I saw the X-ray afterward and it was very high up and right below my sinus cavity so it was really, really hard to reach. Anyway lots of funky stuff went on and it was pretty tense there for a bit. Afterward the assistant told me that most dentists wouldn’t have even tried given how difficult it was, so I am very, very blessed to have had such a good dentist for that part. They put in a temp filling and so far it has felt fine.

Now I am waiting for the post and crown which will cost $1300-ish dollars but unfortunately most of my dental work quota is used up so it’s going to come out of my pocket. But it’s worth it to keep the tooth!

Let this be a lesson to you all – take *very* good care of your teeth or it will hurt a lot and cost you either a tooth or lots of money (or if you are really unlucky, both). Also get yourself a good toothbrush, one of those ones that cost $6 and have the raised bristles at the end to clean behind your molars (between them and the gums at the very back) since that’s where the infection came from in the first place for my tooth. These have small heads to let you brush far back since the larger ones won’t fit there.

I also had limited success using a mesh bag “teether” which is basically a small bag that one can put pureed food into and the baby is supposed to chew on it and the food comes into the baby’s mouth in small pieces. She chews on the handle and when I try to gently turn it around she screams. Once I managed to get it in her mouth she did manage to eat a small bit.

I tried to give her a rice cereal biscut – I think this thing is supposed to turn to mush as the baby chews on it, but she just scraped a whole bunch of crumbs off and got them all over the stroller and her clothing. I then tried mushing up the biscut in formula and putting that in the teether mesh bag and all she threw it around and got mushed biscut on her clothing.

However we seem to have a larger problem in that Evelyn is refusing to have milk more often. I tried giving her bottles at every opportunity and she has only had 400 mL or so. I have tried nursing her and she refused to nurse after a minute or two.

We can feel her bottom teeth coming in and sometimes babies loose their appetite when teething. It would be nice to just leave it at that. But with the whole weaning thing and me going back to work in January I am worried it’s more complicated. I am just so scared of what will happen if I don’t try and feed her.

Evelyn also hasn’t been sleeping well lately and has continued to wake up throughout the night. I have also had a lot of back pain lately and I think my scoliosis is really starting to make itself felt. I have tried not to carry her in the sling for two days with the hopes that it will help but I am starting to think my baby carrying days are over. It makes me really sad.

We’re going back home for Christmas. I was looking forward to it but now I think it’s just going to be a horrible sleepless nightmare with me having to try and feed her all the time.

I had to start off by handing her to the instructor while I got in the pool (at which point she burst into tears) and then she basically cried the whole time except when she didn’t see anyone else and was looking at the floating boat toys. By the end she was shaking because she was so cold and scared. Yes, there were other babies her age there, don’t ask me why the people who arranged the lessons think this is an acceptable temperature for kids under 1 year old. I don’t think a doctor or nurse would recommend putting your baby in cold water for half an hour, right? Needless to say I am going to cancel the lessons this week. I might just let her play around in the bathtub at home a bit – it’s warm, there are no strangers and it’s free!

Well Evelyn is now 2 weeks old and it’s been quite a crazy time. Thank goodness for the CLSC – there is a wonderful, extremely helpful nurse there who visits us every 3 days to make sure Evie is doing ok. Her weight gain last week wasn’t very good and we finally figured out that it was because I didn’t have enough milk. The best guess as to why is that it has something to do with me losing so much blood during the delivery. So the first week was really rough because she wasn’t getting enough to eat and would want to eat (i.e. scream) every 30 minutes but then fall asleep nursing (probably because there wasn’t any more milk). I was exhausted trying to feed her all the time and Gwen would have to take her in another room and try to comfort her so I could get a few hours of sleep. Once the nurse figured out what was going on, she suggested I try and pump the milk after feeding her to increase the supply. For three days straight I nursed for about an hour, offered extra milk in a cup or syringe (which is VERY messy with a squirmy newborn, I can say) and then pumped, only to do it all over again 1-2 hours later. It was miserable and I cried a lot. Now she is getting enough and refuses the extra milk, so we only have to deal with the typical unpredictable schedule of a newborn and not have to worry about an extremely fussy, overly hungry one. I can definitely say the electric breastpump is the world’s greatest invention and that the Bravado nursing bra I bought was an excellent choice and I recommend it to anyone who plans to breastfeed.

Evie knows exactly what boobs are for, where they are located and how to use them – she has tried to nurse with me when I have a shirt on (as pictured above) and even with Dan last night. It’s quite funny to watch her try.

She had her first books read to her yesterday – one about Tigger’s bouncy day (thanks Anik!) and one about animal sounds (thanks Dwayne and Miriam!) by her grandma.

So many people have generously given us a clothing and baby accessories. One thing we found particularly useful was this toy which goes over her bassinet – it’s a lifesaver since it entertains her when she wakes up and isn’t hungry. She is particularly interested in the one on the left which has a mirror. It’s a lot like the one I bought for the crib.

Today I was able to get out and go shopping for me – I used the American Apparel gift certificate from my co-workers to buy some nice light T-shirts for summer. I also put away most of my maternity clothing and took out the non-maternity clothing I had stored in the closet – what a great feeling! My wardrobe consists of more than 2 pairs of pants and 4 shirts again!

We are happy to introduce you to the newest member of our family: Evelyn Ada Hagen, born on April 19th, 2007. She weighed 3.375 kg at birth (7 lb 7 oz) and is 52.5 cm long (20.7 inches). As you can see from the photos, she has light brown hair (darker and longer in the back), dark blue eyes (hardly surprising) and is very pink. So far no indication of jaundice; she appears very healthy and has a very good Apgar score (9.95). Go Evie!

Here are some pictures, return to the Flickr page regularly for updates!

As for the story of how she got here … here are the gory details:
I was scheduled for induction and Evie definitely didn’t want to come out on her own. I was quite worried about the induction since it can be hard on the baby and have some complications. Well I was right to be worried, as it wasn’t a fun experience, especially for someone like me who wanted everything to be natural. I arrived at 6 AM at the hospital and was started on an IV drip of Syntocin at around 7:30 AM. They started the dosage very low and kept turning it up. They also tried to rupture the membranes but she was too high at the beginning. They succeeded in rupturing the membranes at just before 10 AM and she was still very high so I had to stay in bed the whole time. I really started to feel the contractions around noon and by 1 or 2 PM it was very painful. Most of the pain, to my surprise, was located in my pelvis (there is a good reason for this, as you will see later) and hardly anything from the contractions. Worse, the pain was non-stop, so I had no rest between contractions. It was so bad that I was sobbbing and they had to give me oxygen. I felt like it would last forever and everything was going how I had not wanted it to. I really wanted to do this without an epidural, but I had not dilated at all during the entire time and knew that I would not make it to the pushing stage like that. I asked for the epidural and fortunately the anesthesiologist was able to come quite soon (just before 5 PM). It’s a good thing I did, because there were still over 17 hours to go.

Because of the epidural I had to lie on my left or right side and was allowed to change sides every hour to hour and a half. It was tricky business because we had to move the tubing for the IV and epidural around, along with the oxygen mask and all the required bedding. What a mess I was. One leg was entirely numb so I couldn’t turn myself and Dan had to help me every time. By around 9 PM the baby’s heartbeat was dropping too low when I was lying on my left side and I had to stay on my right side for the rest of the labour. Dan and his mom took turns watching the heartbeat and I would take deep breaths from the oxygen if it dropped too low for too long. Dan rubbed my legs and feet with a special scented lotion we made up from Aveda.

Around 3 AM the I was feeling the pain again and had to take another bolus of painkiller and they increased the dose. I was still on oxygen. After that I was able to take a nap (thank goodness – I really needed it) and woke up to find out I was finally fully dilated. The nurses came and told me to start pushing with the contractions (which I could barely feel) so I worked on that for about an hour but it didn’t feel like much was moving. The thing that had me worried was that she was facing upward and the doctors were quite concerned that she would not be able to fit through my pelvis, which was too narrow for the position of her head (no wonder my pelvis was hurting so much!). They were talking caesarean if she couldn’t fit, which scared the heck out of me. My doctor arrived around 10-ish and took a look, at which point she declared that we could do it without a C-section since Evie had turned her head enough to fit sideways. I was both relieved and terrified, since I knew I didn’t have the strength to push her out. I had to lie flat on my back (another thing I didn’t want to do) for the pushing. There were 2 nurses, 2 residents and and my doctor helping me out – one each holding my legs, one pushing from the top of my tummy, one using a vacuum to pull her through my pelvis and then twice more to get her out. Dan held up my head and counted for the pushing. Finally she was out at 10:47 and I held her for a few minutes while a flurry of activity happened. They collected the umbilical cord blood (Dan cut the cord!) and it was a strange thing to feel the placenta hanging around while they finished that. Evie pooed on my tummy during those few minutes and they took her to wash and wrap her. Then they started to work on me. First, I had an episiotomy (another thing I wanted to avoid) and second, because the contractions in my uterus were too weak, I hemorrhaged and lost 1 L of blood. The doctor had to push it out with her hands and then they did the stitches. I wasn’t able to hold her again and rest until almost noon, at which point we were able to breastfeed (with lots of help from the nurses) and were moved to our room. I was so weak from the pain, painkillers and blood loss that it took an hour for me to eat half of the supper they brought me. I wasn’t able to get out of bed until the next day and walking was very hard at first.

Despite everything, I am feeling much better now and have even taken two short trips outside today, which felt great. The first few days were exciting and horrendous, because she wasn’t getting enough food from the colostrum, cried almost non-stop and I had to cup feed her formula constantly after nursing, which happened every hour or so. Now that there is milk, she is doing much better and has even started regaining some of he weight. She has also learned to feed much better and is less sleepy so I can actually do other things like read or watch TV while she eats than watch to make sure she is sucking well.

Anyway, that’s it for a while, but I wanted to post the pics and story before I forgot the details.

I found a wonderful online store this past week: the Playstore, located in California, sells high-quality, renewable & non-toxic nautral sweatshop-free toys, made mostly out of wood and cotton. They sell a good selection of the wooden toys made by Plan Toys. I was searching for a baby brush with nautral bristles and decided to buy a wooden vegetable toy set (so Kicky can cook when we’re cooking!), a super-cute carrot rattle and the brush, which is so incredibly soft it feels like it’s made out of feathers. They shipped to Can for only $7 US via post (no stress for missing UPS delivieries) and were very friendly. So I highly recommend this to anyone who has kids or is buying presents for kids. I think the wishlist will have a few things from this store added to it in the next few years!

I scanned and uploaded three drawings my mom did.

Yesterday Dan’s mom and I visited Jean-Talon market and mostly avoided the sleet. The market is still indoors but I was able to buy some oranges, ground cherries, avocados and strawberries. We also ate lunch at the restaurant and had Polish donuts for dessert.

For something on the serious side: we bought the Gazette last saturday and I recommend reading this story (warning, it’s graphic) – it’s something that shows the worst and the best in people. It’s a horrifying example of how vulnerable women are in times of war and conflict.