.thirty five.

For those of you who may not know, 35 years ago today was the most important date in all of history.  It was the day that my husband, Leif, was born.  He just happens to be the best person on the planet.  If you haven't yet met him then you will just have to take my word for it.  But if you have already met him then you know I am not exaggerating when I say that he is the kindest, smartest, handsomest, funniest, gentlest, talentedest, plaid-wearingest, linux-lovingest, and generousest man who walks the earth.

Happy Birthday, my love.

.ohana means family.

This post is a little late.  But it is perfect because anyone who knows Jackie knows "a little late" is right up her alley.

Jackie, my beautiful and kind and funny and wonderful sister-like friend, came to visit me a couple of weekends ago.  She and her husband, along with their adorable one-year old twins, live in Oahu.  I've known Jackie since I was fourteen.  We met the summer before our freshman year of high school during volleyball camp.  She lived just up the street from me so after we met we, of course, we ended up spending a lot of time together over the next four years.  After high school she moved around quite a bit but we always stayed close.  I've been very fortunate in that I have kept a close relationship with quite a few of my childhood friends.

One of my favorite memories from high school was Jackie recounting a reoccurring dream she had about a rubber chicken in a lab coat attacking her with a scalpel.  I am not even entirely sure if that memory is real or not, but I like to think that it is because the thought of a rubber chicken wearing a lab coat makes me laugh.  Even if the scalpel part is creepy.

(Jackie if it isn't real don't ruin it for me)

While she was here we went to Ikea so she could stock up on some things since there isn't one on Oahu (sadness, I know).  I have to say that she makes shopping at Ikea so much more fun than it usually is (and that is saying something since I always enjoy trips to that ridiculous place). We also went to a fabric store downtown where we bought some nice gray chenille to cover the cushions of the new chair we bought at the flea market.  That night we stayed up watching Elvis movies on Netflix as Jackie cut out a pattern to sew the cushion covers.  That's right, she is also a great seamstress.

I can't put into words how much her visit meant to me.  Spending time with her was like having a weight lifted off of my shoulders for two days.  It is hard to explain but seeing Jackie literally felt like she was carrying some of this load for me.  I know that even though she never met George she loved him and feels his loss with us. 

Leif and I love Jackie and her family so much.  We wish we were able to spend more time with them.  For now we have to be satisfied with occasional visits and checking their blog for updates on their little munchkins.

Thank you Jackie.  You are an amazing friend.  I love you.

.when the elephant in the room is named George.

Today at clinic one of my patients asked how my baby was doing.  The last time I had seen him in the office I was still pregnant and since he hadn't seen me in a few weeks he thought I had given birth.  When I told him that my baby had died he got very quiet for a moment and then told me how very sorry he was.  I didn't feel strange telling him about what had happened and as weird as it sounds it felt good to say something about it aloud. 

Most people I come across never say anything to me about the loss of my pregnancy.  People in school and the people I work with in clinic...most of them talk around the obvious or just pretend like everything is the same as it was before.  They ask how I am feeling or tell me that I am looking well but rarely does anyone actually say to me "I am sorry for your loss."  I understand that most people just feel uncomfortable with the situation or aren't sure if I feel comfortable talking about losing George. For that I can't be angry with them.

But to be honest some times I just want these people to acknowledge the profundity of what happened to me and Leif by just saying that they are sorry for our loss.  We lost a child.  He was born and he lived and then he died.  He was our son.  Even if he only lived for twenty minutes outside of my body we loved him as much as we would have had we been able to take him home and watch him grow up. 

It is hard to get through the day going along with people when they want to pretend like something terrible didn't happen to us. 

.nobody walks in la.

Some times I get so tired of the hustle and bustle of Los Angeles that I can't find a single good thing about living in this city.  Other times I have such a great time living here that I am reminded why so many people live here despite the traffic and over crowding.  This past weekend was one of those times when I feel excited to be in Los Angeles.

Saturday, thanks to Melissa and one of her very nice patients, were able to go to the LA Zoo and meet some of the animals up close and personal.  First off let me just say that I have mixed feelings about zoos.  On the one hand I feel a deep sense of sadness associated with seeing animals on display. On the other hand, and especially after speaking with the zookeepers on Saturday, I see the value that zoos have in teaching the general public about preservation issues associated with the animals in the zoo.

During our visit to the zoo we got to meet the gorillas, the orangutans, and the giraffes.


LA Zoo from leif hanson on Vimeo.

To top off the day at the zoo we got free shaved ice.  Yum.

On Sunday we started off the morning with our normal trip to the Hollywood Farmer's Market.  This week we saw Andy Richter (Team CoCo!!!!). We like to say we go to the market for the fresh produce but to be honest it is for the pupusas, strawberry lemonade, and coconut cakes.



Hollywood farmer's market from leif hanson on Vimeo.

After the farmer's market we headed out to the Antelope Valley Poppy Preserve for some awesome orange flower action.

And orange they were.

After a long morning of hiking around it was off to Ikea to return a rug and to eat hotdogs and frozen yogurt. 

In the evening, after a dinner consisting of a giant artichoke and pasta, we walked over to Pinkberry for the day's second serving of frozen yogurt.

Yep, sometimes it is good to live in Los Angeles.

.back on the chain gang.

This has been a hard week. 

It has only been three weeks since my c-section but I had to go back to school and back to clinic.  In some ways it has been really good for me to get back into a normal routine but in other ways it has been completely overwhelming.  I find myself utterly exhausted, both physically and emotionally, when I get home.  So much so that I don't feel much like cooking or eating and all I want to do is sit on the couch and zone out for the couple of hours before we go to bed.

On the bright side treating patients takes my mind off of my own issues by focusing on other people's issues.  I always enjoy talking with patients and making them feel comforted and taken care of. 

Yet I still don't know if I am going to get to graduate this year or if I am going to have to wait until next year, all because of the time I had to take off while I was in the hospital and after the c-section.  It is so hard living in limbo.  All I want to do is focus on grieving and healing after losing George and a big part of my emotional reserve is wrapped up in this whole graduation fiasco.

I just want to run away and go on vacation.  Somewhere warm and on the beach where there are no phones and no email and where Leif and I can be completely alone with each other. 

.until later.

This is Melissa.

Anyone who has ever met her will gladly agree with me when I say that she is one of the coolest people in all of Los Angeles.  Soon she will be one of the coolest people in a myriad of other countries because she is saying "arrivederci" to the US for the next few months.

She has been such a great friend not only to me but to Leif as well.  While we were in the hospital the first go-round she bought a scrabble game and played with us after she got off of work. We still laugh at how Leif beat us both into the ground with the winning word "squatting."  She has always made an effort to check in on us to make sure that we are doing as okay as we can be.  If I need to bitch and moan about how life has been screwing me over she is content to listen and holds not a single judgment of me.

In addition to being a dear friend she has taught me so much about taking care of patients.  I can only hope to one day be as competent and charismatic as she is.  Her patients adore her.

Leif and I will miss her when she leaves.

Thank you, Melissa, for being such a great friend.

.to do list.

So my "to do" list has been significantly changed in the last few weeks.  It now consists solely of things that will make me happy. 

No schoolwork.  No housework.  No studying.

Now it is only a list of indulgences and activities in Los Angeles that I either haven't yet done or that I enjoyed enough the first time around that I want to experience it again.

Here it is so far:

Activities

Griffith Observatory

Basketball game at Staples

Huntington Library

Beach

Charmlee Park

Poppies in Lancaster

Thai Elvis

Hollywood Cemetery Cinespia

LA river tour with Friends of LA River

Esotouric tour

Bob Baker Marionettes

Angel’s Flight

LA Zoo

Restaurants

Hatfield’s Tasting Menu- Best food I've ever had.  Hands down.

 U-zen sushi

The Corner Place- Korean cold noodle soup, so popular patrons can't take it "to go" for fear of the recipe being copied.

Bulgarini Gelato- We have a favorite gelato place (Pazzo) but this one is supposedly even better...I am dubious.

NBC Seafood- Dim Sum.

Animal- Lots of pork (this one is for the hubster).

Auntie Em’s- The best biscuits and gravy I've ever had.

El Parian- Goat stew.  I can't say that it sounds super appealing but I am curious.

Let’s Be Frank

Golden Triangle- Chinese food.  For reals Chinese food.

Pollo a la Brasa

Guelaguetza- Mole.  Ole!

Jitlada- Southern Thai food that is so hot it will cause fire to shoot out of your ears.

Kyochon- Korean fried chicken loaded with MSG (so I hear).

Park’s Barbecue- The best Korean bbq in K-town.

Pho Minh- Lines for pho so long that it is an hour wait time.

Tacos Baja Ensenada- Fish tacos.

Wurstkuche- The best french fries ever had...and the sausages aren't too shabby either.

Bibimbap at Gamja Bawi at K-Town plaza

Hainan chicken rice at Savoy Kitchen

.4/17/2010.

Today was supposed to be my baby shower.

.deflated.

Yesterday was a really bad day.  I still don't know if I will be able to graduate this year or if I will have to wait an entire year to repeat course work that I missed while attempting to fix George's heart.  They say they won't know for another week or so, which will bring the amount of time spent in limbo up to five weeks. 

When I woke up this morning the first thought that came to my mind was about what would happen to us over the next year if I can't graduate.  If I can't graduate I can't take my national board exam and can't work in my chosen profession.  I'll have an entire year of forgetting what I learned over the last two and a half years.  My school loans will continue to accumulate interest and we will have to start paying them back since I won't be enrolled in school.  I will have to find some kind of job...which will most likely have nothing to do with what I have been educated in.  We will be stuck here.


This whole process has made me feel like I am being punished for the way my pregnancy turned out.

.hair and what not.

Right now my hair is just about the longest it has ever been.  I've been growing it out for almost a year now with just a couple of trimmings on occasion.  I had planned on keeping it long but now I am contemplating a change.  I don't want to color my hair because it took me forever to grow it all out and it turned out that after I did get all the dye out I actually liked the color of my hair.  So if I do change my hair it is going to be all in the cut.

So here are a couple of options that I am thinking about (ignore the color).  And yes, that is a photo of me from my wedding three years ago...

The Bob (without bangs)

The Bob (with side bangs)

Keep it long #1

Keep it long #2

So which one?

.the body heals first.

Today I go to my OB's office for my two week post-op check-up.  I don't want to go.  I should be happy that I have healed so well in thirteen days...and the logical part of me is.  The other, louder and larger (illogical) part of me feels cheated that the last of the physical reminders of my child's life are fading away.  The abdominal pain, the sore breasts, the bruises from the IV site, the stress headaches are all but gone at this point.  My body has already accepted the fact that there is no baby coming but the rest of me isn't ready to do the same thing yet.

I guess that part only comes with time.

.of sea salt and chocolate chips.

There is a smell of chocolate cookies wafting through our apartment right now.  On Sunday, after our successful trip to the Rose Bowl Flea Market (more on that later), my friend Melissa came over and we made cookie dough from the New York Times famous chocolate chip cookie recipe.  You are supposed to let it sit for at least 48 hours before you make the cookies, which requires an enormous amount of will power. But the real kicker with this recipe is the sprinkle of sea salt that goes on just before baking.

I am making the cookies for Leif's co-workers.  They have all been so amazing to him/us during the last seven weeks.  After George died they took up a collection and bought us a week of healthy gourmet meals delivered to our house.  More importantly they also made a donation to the American Heart Association in George's name.  I can't think of a more thoughtful thing to do for someone after something like this happens.  I know cookies can't capture our gratitude but, hey, they are really good cookies.

.the birds don't know it is time for bed.

It is so late. Again.  I am awake and this time so is Leif. 

Apparently the birds are also having trouble sleeping because they are outside making quite a bit of noise. Usually it is pretty quiet around here except for the sound of the birds chattering away outside our windows (and the more than occasional helicopter but that is par for the course living in Los Angeles).  But for some reason these birds chirping at the wrong time is weirding me out. 

I feel a familiar sense of anxiety like when I haven't been able to sleep before a big event/test/trip and the early morning hours have crept up on me, as signified by the beginning chorus of birds, and I realize that I am quickly running out of time to get some rest.  But tomorrow is not a day for me to be anxious about, except maybe for the fact that Leif is going back to work.  He is my safety and my comfort and I am sad that he has to go back to work.

Two days ago a bouquet of flowers that we got after George died began to wilt and the petals began to fall off.  That struck me as so sad because it meant that time was not frozen and eventually I would have to learn to accept this new reality. 


But life goes on.  That is one thing that I am learning more about everyday. 


"You must do the things you think you cannot do."
Eleanor Roosevelt

.like a robot.

Today Leif and I made it a point to get out of the house. 

It was another beautiful sunny day in Los Angeles.  Not a cloud in the sky.

We ate fajitas for lunch that a friend brought over for us last night.

Two good friends came and treated us to Thai food and gelato.  It is good to have company.

We watched Top Chef Masters.  I had a second dinner of my sister's chicken pot pie.

We went to bed and we agreed that today was a pretty good day.

Leif fell asleep right away because he was so tired.

I stayed up and cried and wanted to hold my baby again.

The nights are always the hardest.

.the rainmaker.

It is raining outside right now.  It started this morning around 3:30.  I know because I was awake, lying in bed with a heating pad on my neck, an abdominal binder around my belly and two freezer bags of frozen vegetables on my breasts.  A surprisingly comfortable combination, actually, once you get over the initial shock of the coldness against the skin. 

I love the sound of the rain.  We so seldom hear it in Los Angeles.  It reminds me of George now. Nearly every appointment that we had at the OB’s office before we found out about his heart condition was on a rainy day.  Living in LA that is unusual.  When we went into the hospital the first time it was raining and it continued to do so off and on for many days while we were there.  I think it even rained on the day that we went for one of the final ultrasounds where we found out for sure that the medication hadn’t helped his hydrops. 

It was supposed to rain last Wednesday, on the day he was born.  I can’t say for sure if it did or not but I like to think that it did.  Leif says he was a little rainmaker, which for us is a happy thought.  George means farmer and I like to think that he would have been pretty good at that job had he had the chance, given that he could call down water from the clouds.   

He was definitely his father’s child.

.sometimes life has a way of knocking the wind out of you.

I can’t say for sure why I am writing all of this “out loud,” so to speak.  I’ve never been one to keep a diary. I don’t like this feeling of being exposed, especially to people who know me in real life.  Which is why it is even stranger to me that I feel the need to publish all of this on a blog only read by my friends and family.  But I do, have this compulsion to want to record it forever, since I fear that one day I will try to remember how I felt and that I won’t be able to.  But no matter what I write here there will always be a part of this whole experience that belongs only to me and to Leif.

I wrote this last week sometime.  Since then things have changed quite a bit.  Having the opportunity to hold him while he was alive was simultaneously the most precious few minutes of my life and infinitely more heartbreaking than I ever could have thought possible.

Life is different now and I am adjusting to this new reality.

.....................................................

I’ve been struggling for weeks to find something/someone/some place that I can relate to during this time in my life. No matter what I do or who I’m with there is this black fog that encloses around me.  I hear the voices of my friends and my family but I feel like I can’t really see them these days.  They are just paper dolls and the only real person in my life is my husband.

I’m 28 weeks pregnant with a little boy named George, whom I am going to lose to a heart problem within the next couple weeks.  We found out five weeks ago that his heart was beating too fast which was causing heart failure and fluid accumulation in his body.  I was in the hospital for two weeks getting cardiac medications to slow his heart rate down but his is a stubborn heart and has decided to beat at its own pace. 

We could have opted to have him delivered and sent to the NICU.  But all the specialists were in agreement; he is so sick that he wouldn’t survive and on the slim chance he did he would have severe neurological problems for the rest of his life. So we chose to wait out the two weeks the cardiologist said that he had left before the fluid in his heart caused it to stop beating.

Now here we are.  Waiting.  An endeavor that is so much more difficult than I ever imagined it would be. He is still growing and doing all those things that healthy babies do but his poor little heart is getting weaker everyday. I still feel him moving around inside of me.  But I know soon I won’t be able to feel him anymore at all.

I simultaneously fear the day that he dies and anticipate it, just wanting all of this to be over.  A scary proposition, giving birth to a baby that you know isn’t alive.  I have a difficult time saying it, even to myself.  Giving birth to a dead baby.  It catches my breath every time I even think about it.

What will it be like after he’s been introduced to the world and we are left alone to hold and say goodbye to our son?  Because of all the swelling from the fluid accumulation I wonder what he will look like.  Will I be able to see his father in his face?  Will I be able to see myself in him?  What is it going to be like to hold him and look into his still face? 

What weighs the most heavy upon my heart is the fear of what comes after I’ve delivered my son and we come back home to our empty apartment.  I fear that all I will have are memories of a child that I was never given the chance to know.  Imagined snuggles, kisses, puddle-jumping, bug-hunting, lunch box packing… I fear that I will live in the shadow of a life that was supposed to be rather than the life that is.  Most of all, I am afraid of the amazing relationship that I have with my husband suffering because of my own self-pity and inability to move on.

People say I am so strong…I am brave.  I am weak and scared and humbled.  Yet I know somewhere there is hope.  I see it when I look into my husband’s face.

I wish I believed in miracles.