Due Date

Today is Page’s due date and I am just wondering how many babies actually arrive on that predicted day.  Page continues to have boundless energy and has no significant signals that labor will start anytime soon.  We are all learning patience here. Page, her partner Chandy, and close friend, Shelley, from Nosara, and myself are all here playing the waiting game.  Then there are the other three women who are expecting girls who are waiting at another location fondly called the “farm.”  The owners of the farm, where Page decided not to stay and deliver her baby, commented that of all the births that have occurred there over the past thirty years, not one boy has ever been born there.  So it is interesting that Page was not able to picture having her son there and left.  She is pregnant with the only boy of her group of pregnant women.

We are learning to appreciate the gift of time.  It is interesting how we either have too much time or too little time.  When Page first got the news that she was pregnant, nine months seemed like such a long time in the future.  But actually the last few days of her pregnancy has been a more difficult waiting period.  Since we live high in the hills overlooking San Jose and the smaller town of Escazu, we are challenged by finding things to do.  While it is beautiful here it is easy to feel trapped.  There is either walking up steep hills or down them.

Mornings are warm and stunning with sunshine lighting up the green hills and mountains surrounding us.  Then, by afternoon, the cool rain returns for several hours and it is time to put on sweatshirts and find things to do indoors.  I have turned my focus to cooking.  I have baked some great desserts and dinners which have been appreciated by the all of us who are in a holding pattern.   Most of the programs on the television are in Spanish and not many of the English programs are interesting.   We should all be grateful for the time to read or make conversation knowing how much energy and time a baby takes. But we are just so excited to meet this little person that it is difficult to appreciate this “down” time.   We will keep you posted.  Until then, we are either walking up the hills, or down them, dodging the rain drops when they catch us somewhere in between. 

Playing the Waiting Game:

August 15, 2012

Today in Costa Rica it is Mother’s day.   Page and I are waiting for the arrival of her son, Sebastian Miguel, high up in the hills overlooking San Jose, Costa Rica.  To get to the home you have to travel up some nearly 90 degree winding roads that overlook the small city of Escazu and the larger, sprawling city of San Jose.  The mornings are sunny with comfortable temperatures that rarely reach 80 degrees.  Then, frequently in the afternoon, there are loud tropical rains that last an hour or two leaving cool evenings perfect for sleeping.  Last night there was a beautiful sunset that cast a purple hue on the mountains that surround the city.  We are living in a very modern two bedroom, three bath home owned by Americans who live in Texas.  It has all the modern conveniences that anyone would require, including maid service, once a week.  This house has hosted a home birth once before so we feel it is blessed with very good maternity Karma. 

We try to exercise daily.  But walking up the steep inclines can be challenging for both of us.  On one of our walks we found a charming restaurant that was up a bit higher in the hills from where we live.  We met the owner, George, just as he was coming home to open the restaurant for the Sunday afternoon lunch crowd.  He and his wife, and father have recently taken over running the restaurant and inn.  The rooms and restaurant are nestled among beautiful flowering trees, old growth palms, ferns, and bougainvillea.  George’s English is flawless due, in part, to having been transplanted from Costa Rica to LA as a youth.  He spent his young adult years, coincidently, in Manhattan Beach and Torrance.  His restaurant, El Gecko, has a stunning panoramic view of the city far below.  Jazz music adds just the right kind of ambiance.   Tonight we have a gracious invite to dine with our next door neighbor Midge, who settled in Costa Rica from Miami over ten years ago.  But some evening soon we are hoping to enjoy the view and an Italian inspired meal at El Gecko.

Page has had a very easy pregnancy and is due to deliver August 22 or 23^rd.  Her son, Sebastian is still moving like crazy.  Apparently he spent most of the pregnancy in a side lying position, just hanging out bouncing in a horizontal plane, like in a bath tub, while his mother went about her life in a little town near Nosara, Costa Rica.  I think it was a smart move for his survival to be in this position.   Page didn’t let pregnancy stop her from doing the things she wanted to do.  She even kept surfing into her fifth month.  Just yesterday I learned, from a shocked observer, that she took some very tough waves one day.  Her friend told me that he stood on the shore in shock watching, as waves that were well over her head, came through.  “Page was crazy to be out there I thought. But then she just slipped into the wave and dropped gracefully, enlarging abdomen and all, down the face of it without missing a beat.”  This comes as no surprise to me as she has always pushed the limits of her athletic ability.

At nineteen, Page hung up her toe shoes to become a very gutsy surfer catching waves in many parts of the world.  She has also worked out her need to dance by ripping up the dance floor in Latin dance clubs where ever she lives or travels.  When I recently asked her how she was feeling she complained about being tired.  This is understandable in the ninth month.  But then I found out that her fatigue was mostly due to having gone out to dance salsa for three hours straight the night before.  In addition to hours spent at the beach, or on the dance floor, she has been busy growing her Pilates business since moving two years ago.

There are no paved roads in Nosara and the only transportation Page has is a quad.  It is either a dusty or wet ride depending upon the season.  But it is almost always a bumpy ride.  Page worries that the Sebastian could easily have shaken baby syndrome before he is born.  But I think he has been a smart baby and protected himself by staying in a horizontal position so that he just rocked from side to side and enjoyed the ride.  But luckily, in the last two weeks, he has decided that he wanted to be ready to enter the world and moved into the head down position.  But, like his mother, that hasn’t prevented him from moving around.  I have witnessed him literally moving from side to side in her beach ball sized belly.  There are times we can make out the outline of his foot as he kicks and squirms as if he is practicing some soccer moves that would make his athletic father proud.  I hope that by my next blog I can introduce everyone to this surfer and potential world cup footballer.

New Beginnings

August 7, 2012

Please join me as I travel (August 10^th ) to Costa Rica where my grandson, Sebastian Miguel’s arrival is eagerly awaited by his parents, Page (my daughter) and Chandy.  This little stranger will be a welcome diversion for me and a rebirth of life back into our family after the loss of my husband, Michael, April 15, 2012.  Michael had the opportunity to get to know Sebastian by his ultra sound done the beginning of April, during our stay, in Costa Rica.  He was there when we all discovered that the baby Page was carrying would be a boy.  This is a very momentous development on many levels.  Firstly, in the little town where Page now lives, Playa Guiones, Costa Rica, there are four other pregnant women all due within weeks of each other.  All the other women are carrying girls.  Secondly, Page’s partner, Chandy (Jose Alexander) has two children from a previous marriage and they are both girls, ages 15 and 8.  With the loss of Michael, it is as if this new male heir will provide a possibility of rebirth for Michael and the whole family so touched by his loss. 

Page is officially due to give birth on August 22.  She is planning to have a home birth near San Jose, Costa Rica with two Midwives, Chandy, and friend Shelley and me to cheer her on.  There will be a backup gynecologist who will be available, as needed, in a hospital just twenty minutes away.  My role as grandmother will be to support Page through the waiting period leading up to going into labor.  Then act as videographer during the delivery.  

Even though I am a capable family Nurse Practitioner, to quote a famous woman from Gone with the Wind, “I don’t know noth’n ‘bout birth’n no babies.”   The fact that I have had two of my own and watched several births in training doesn’t make me able to deliver a baby.  However, I will be able to fully evaluate my new grandson to make sure he has all his parts in the right places.   I will be able to support Page and Chandy where needed and help them focus during the laboring and postpartum period. 

This will be an exciting event.  It is one I would never ever have expected.   I had come to grips with the fact that my daughter was not going to leap into motherhood.   This time last year Page told me to never expect her to produce a grandchild for me.  “I love my independence mom.  I can surf when I want to and I am too busy with a new business in Costa Rica to ever become a mother.  I like having dogs and other people’s kids, not my own.”  Then love intervened on my behalf and hers.

This has been a crazy roller coaster of a year of love and loss.  I am enjoying what little warmth summer brings to Manhattan Beach this time of year.  While the rest of the country has been cooking since June, we have barely had a warm day.  However, August has been transformed from grey, overcast days into blue skies and sun.  I have been busy tying up all the last minute problems that come with the loss of a spouse.  Additionally, I have been packing for the possibility of a three month stay in Costa Rica.  And with that comes shopping for all the things a baby would need that can’t be purchased in their remote village.

Page is doing very well.  I don't know if you ever go on Facebook but there are cute pictures of her there with a very large abdomen full of promise and a squirming baby boy.  I think that my once, reluctant mother to be, will embrace this motherhood thing far more completely than I ever expected.  She takes on responsibility with determination and excitement.  Now that she has time to rest from the rigors of starting a new business, she is reading and nesting in preparation for the prospect of this new life.   I can't wait to see her give birth and be transformed from an independent girl, surfer, and business owner into a woman who melts at the sight and smell of her infant son.  I am blessed beyond belief with this unexpected event.   I leave Friday and will start this blog so that everyone can follow along with me on this journey.

As reflect back on the recent chapters of my life I am challenged by the realization that we are not immortal.  We all come into life with an expiration date.   Then, if we are lucky, we get one chance to fully live.  Please enjoy every moment of each day.  Take nothing or no one for granted.  Love and be loved.  Dance and fill your heart and the space around you with laugher.