18 Years Ago: May 18th--The day after

May 18, 2015: Simon's birthday fell on a Sunday this year. The big 18th birthday--the one I've been gearing up for, the one I wondered how painful it might feel, the one I've been writing up to--came at the end of a four-day weekend. We used the time as a lazy "stay-cation," and I'll admit I got used to the slow pace. Waking up for Monday again today was tricky, especially since it was a "home office" day for me, which means I can use my time as I see fit to get done what I need to do. Sometimes it's hard to un-pause.

It was a gorgeous day, and I spent some time in the garden--long enough to stake my peonies (they reach my shoulders) before they open their heavy blooms. Lunch on the back terrace and some reading time. Course prep. Invoices. By late afternoon I felt mostly back to normal. I wasn't sad today, but I experienced some blankness. I think that's one of the harder modes of grieving--it's vague and uncomfortable. It's not a time for tears; it's a loose-ends feeling. A gap.

May 18, 1997: After Simon's 2:30 pm birth on Saturday, we stayed one night in the birthing room. Markus must have had a fold-out bed. I was on the hospital bed. And Simon moved between the clear plexiglass bassinet thing and a place tucked in beside me. We never let him out of our sight and scarcely let him out of our hands. We chose not to circumcise, and we didn't want anyone to assume otherwise. On Sunday morning, the three of us followed a nurse to another station where she would prick Simon's heal to soak five quarter-sized circles on a paper card for the PKU test. We had tried to get out of that one but followed our birth teacher's advice not to get a mark against us in the State's records by refusing. We didn't like doing it, but doing it together made it feel OK.

Anne Adams

Before our discharge in the afternoon, we had three important visitors. Anne Adams, who had watched Gilbert Grape with us the night before my labor started, came to meet Simon. We were lucky to have her nearby. She was a huge support through pregnancy and labor, and she was a patient friend and willing babysitter later on.

Markus and I had thought a lot about our wishes for getting started as a new family, and we decided we wanted to be on our own in our home for the first two weeks. We wanted to learn from our baby and give ourselves time and space to bond. We'd encountered this recommendation in a number of readings and birth class discussions.

Grandad

This bonding time made sense with Markus' academic schedule, too. He was nearing the end of his first two years of PhD studies. As I recall it, we had two weeks before Markus entered a three-week period of intensive research and writing on three complex questions. The PhD students and their families talked of prelims with shudders befitting horror movies. (The Organizational Behavior department changed the process not too many years later.) We wanted Markus to get undiluted father-baby-mother time before that craziness started.

Grann

Soon after Simon's birth, we called my parents in Ohio to tell them the happy news. We wanted them to meet their tiny grandson, and we invited them to drive up on Sunday morning to meet Simon in the hospital and spend time with us after we got back to our apartment in Family Housing.

My parents did some grocery shopping, and my mother cooked a nice evening meal. It was lovely to have them there and to be taken care of. Respectful of our plan to move forward as a threesome for the earliest days, my parents drove home again that evening. Simon was the tiniest grandchild they had held in their arms (the others being born further away). That is, until my mom was right there in the room with us when I gave birth to Miriam (but that's another story).