I miss my family so much. I can’t get through a video call with my parents without crying. I’ve missed two calls from my grandma in the last week because I was doing something with Ashwin and both times she left me the sweetest voicemails. It’s just horrible to me that she hasn’t even met my son yet. It’s not right. I want that four-generation photo with Ashwin, me, my mom, and my gram. I just want to get on a goddamn plane. Part of me wouldn’t mind grabbing Ash and V and the MIL, getting in the car, and hitting the road for Wisconsin with only what our trunk could hold. Because fuck our stuff, we can get new stuff.

It’s a nice little fantasy.

I am so fucking sick of seeing and hearing the words coronavirus, COVID-19, pandemic, social distancing, and Zoom. People want to talk about absolutely nothing else and my brain cannot take it.

You’d think, minus the whole postpartum thing, I would be thriving under these conditions of what is essentially house arrest. I love staying home. I love not going places. I love my couch. But turns out, I only love it when I can choose it…which I think is probably the case for most of my fellow introverts. We are not enjoying this much more than our extroverted friends.

This isn’t how Ash’s first few months were supposed to go. The NICU was stressful enough – when we got out, nobody was under quarantine yet, and it hadn’t really occurred to me that that was a possibility. So I was still daydreaming of taking him to the park in his stroller or in a baby carrier, meeting up with other new moms and their babies and commiserating about our collective lack of sleep and how we’re always lactating through our shirts and all that fun cool stuff. I thought I would have a village. You’re supposed to have a whole village of mom friends and female relatives to get you through this stage. Instead I have to lean so hard on my husband and my MIL, who have both been so patient and kind and loving to me, but who shouldn’t have to bear my weight and their own.

If you’ve made it this far, you must truly love me (or enjoy hate-reading, which… fair, I do it too). I hope you are safe and happy and healthy and you remain so.

What I’m reading:

• “Wow, No Thank You.” by Samantha Irby. I own and adore her previous two books. It’s her voice I’m often trying to imitate when I think I’m being funny. She’s just the best.

What I’m watching:

• We are rewatching Lost with my mother-in-law and it is a trip. The early/mid-2000s fashion is worth it alone.
• I’ve watched one episode of Little Fires Everywhere and keep meaning to get to the rest but you know…baby. There’s always some task that needs doing. (I’m internet-pseudo-friends with one of the show writers!)

What I’m cooking:

• Not much these days, because MIL spoils us, but tonight I wanted to get back in the kitchen and make something again just because it had been awhile. Plus, my psychiatrist recommended doing something I enjoy and something I’m good at every day, so I chose a recipe that is pretty difficult to screw up and that I’ve made a hundred times: minestrone soup. Really, it’s only difficult to screw up if you have all the proper ingredients. When you have less than half the required amount of vegetable stock (used water to make up the difference)…no diced tomatoes (subbed 2 fresh, which you’d think would be better?? but isn’t)…no kidney beans (subbed cannellini beans)…it starts to look pretty goddamn unappetizing and now I’m just mad at myself for fucking up something so easy when MIL kept saying we should just have leftovers, but I just HAD to cook.

What I’m fuming about:

• Wisconsin Republicans: what the fuck else is new.

I’ve told the story a million times already, but I haven’t written it, and I do think that matters, for me at least. If you’ve heard it already, feel free to skip like, waaay down.

The morning of Saturday, February 1, I woke up at 8am sharp. My water had broken. I was very much in denial of this because I was only 32 weeks and 4 days pregnant, and there was absolutely no reason to think that our son was going to come early. But the volume of water soon convinced me that we needed to go to the hospital. Had we packed a bag? No. Well, I had tossed a couple things in a duffel: our baby’s coming home outfit, pajamas, socks. So V quickly threw some more stuff in and we were off.

At the hospital, the fluid tested positive for amniotic fluid, which the nurses told me meant I would not leave the hospital until I gave birth. It…definitely took me awhile to absorb that! We were not prepared! AT ALL! It went way beyond the hospital bag. We had been trying to find a new apartment for weeks without success, and we’d bought little more than clothes and some small odds and ends for the baby. We hadn’t taken any of the birth or parenting classes we’d signed up for. All of this we had said we’d do in February.

We were eventually transferred (via ambulance! very exciting!) to a different hospital with a more sophisticated neonatal intensive care unit. All of this time I wasn’t having any contractions, at least not that I could feel; their monitors did pick some up but I was none the wiser.

At the other hospital, we were admitted and tried to prepare ourselves for what could potentially be a very long stay. I was told they wouldn’t let me go past 34 weeks – so about another week and a half – but that they wanted Baby to stay inside as long as possible so his lungs and brain could mature more.

In the spirit of preparing ourselves for that long stay, the next day V went home to get more supplies: snacks, clothes, cards to play rummy, etc. I had started to have some discomfort and feel the occasional contraction, but things still felt very, very early stages – I did not think I’d be having the baby that day. However, of course, it was not up to me. V called me from home to ask about something and while we talked, my pain levels really started to go up and I got off the phone. I squirmed around for a little while – no more than a half hour – before finally calling for a nurse. By this time my legs were shaking and the contractions had hardly any time in between. A doctor checked me and said I was fully dilated to 10; a few hours ago, they had checked and my cervix was completely closed. Basically I went from 0 to 10 in about 30-45 minutes. I asked for the epidural, as had always been my plan. I texted V to come back immediately.

They wheeled me into the operating room – at 2:45pm, I remember very clearly – because apparently no clean labor rooms were available at that moment. I’d never been in an OR before. It was extremely bright and the room was filled with over a dozen people almost immediately (it is a teaching hospital). My legs were jumping all around totally out of control. I was sobbing because of the pain, but also because it was not supposed to be like this. I was alone! No husband, no doula, no parents, no nobody. I was terrified. Thankfully, both V and our doula showed up as the epidural was being administered.

Let me pause for a moment to sing the praises of that epidural. My God, you guys. It was everything I dreamed it would be and more. I felt 10000x better. The needle going in wasn’t pleasant, but I’d do it a thousand times over to get that relief. No question. V and I talked and joked around and I was able to calm down immensely.

The crowd in the OR thought I’d give birth like immediately since I had dilated so fast, but the epidural slowed things down (or maybe not – things slowed down, maybe it was the epidural or maybe something else entirely). They moved me to a clean labor room. The next several hours I pushed…and pushed…and pushed. I’d had no preparation for this, I really didn’t know what I was doing. Our doula and the nurses and doctors were all very encouraging. The pain still wasn’t that bad, even when pushing…until shit got really real and Baby was crowning. THEN the epidural seemed to fail me and I was beside myself and saying I can’t do it, I can’t do it. Of course, that’s when he popped out, all 4 pounds and 5 ounces of him, at 9:09pm: our Ashwin Daniel.

And he’s been in the NICU ever since. They laid him on my chest for approximately six seconds before taking him away. He is what they call a “well baby”, a preemie who is healthy but for the fact of being born too early. We are so thankful for that.

The NICU, it should go without saying, is not awesome and there’s plenty of things I don’t like about it: the sterility, the uncomfortable furniture, the bad cafeteria food, driving back and forth every day, the awful incessantly beeping monitors that make you think your baby is always on the verge of having a seizure or something. But…and I’m sure you know what I’m going to say…we are so fucking fortunate. He’s in the best NICU he could possibly be in; it has private suites for each baby/family; the food is cheap, if not delectable; we live close enough that the daily commute is totally manageable; the monitors keep him safe. Many of the other NICU parents are living in the hospital full time because they’re from Spokane or one of the islands or even Alaska. I can’t even imagine that. We get to go home every night and try to be normal, even though that’s difficult.

The main thing Ashwin needs to do before we can bring him home is learn how to eat. Honestly, before this, I kind of thought babies were born with an instinct to suckle but I have since learned over and over again that this is not really the case. Currently he gets most of his food – my breast milk – via feeding tube. He gets a little more when we are successful bottle feeding, and a wee bit more when I am successful breastfeeding. Luckily breast pumping has been going well enough that he is exclusively consuming my breast milk – that said, pumping sucks, and the only thing that’s worse is actual breastfeeding.

I’m serious. I know a lot of women go on about how glorious it is, feeding your baby with your body, and what a fabulous bonding experience it is, and so on. Ashwin and I…are not there yet. Most of the time he’ll take a sip or two and fall deep asleep. When he does latch, it’s painful. Between him and the pump, my poor nipples have really taken a beating these last three weeks. Everyone says I have to be patient, that it takes time. I get that. But there is nothing pleasant about it for me so far – except one photo we got of him latched on and looking up at me with his big beautiful eyes. That one is great.

I have oh, so much more to say, but this has gone on long enough and I’ve got things to do. I pump every 3-4 hours…around the clock.

I strongly disapprove of 50 degree snowless barren Christmases in Wisconsin, but as usual, no one asked me. We got about 3 inches of snow on our very last night here, thank God, not much but enough for me to feel good.

Belly is growing bigger and heftier by the day. Putting socks or shoes on is a feat, as is going up a flight of stairs, as is entering and exiting a vehicle, as is turning over in bed. Maneuvering around the belly is increasingly demanding of my cardiovascular system. Our little boy is kicking quite a bit, finally – yesterday was the first time I could actually see movement, which was very cool and sort of bizarre. Pregnancy/birth/reproduction in general really is some sci-fi shit.

But that’s not why we are here today. It is time again for the NBAs: the 2019 Nagappala Book Awards!

Best fiction:

• “Normal People“, Sally Rooney. This just charmed the hell out of me. I’m kind of a sucker for on-again, off-again relationships between people who *get* each other but for whom, for whatever reason, long-term successful togetherness hasn’t been in the cards. It’s being adapted to TV via Hulu next year and I cannot fucking WAIT for the feels.
• Runner-up: “The Song of Achilles” by Madeline Miller. Exquisite writing, beautiful Greek tragedy.

Best nonfiction:

• “Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come: An Introvert’s Year of Living Dangerously” by Jessica Pan. If ever there was a book written for me! Reading this yearlong attempt at extroversion was inspiring and made me wonder what I could be capable of if I just “put myself out there more” – though Pan doesn’t use that phrase, IIRC, and I am not at all fond of it. She does all sorts of wild things that I’d never ever do: taking a stand-up comedy class, reading a personal story to a crowded room of strangers, taking shrooms while camping in a Portugal forest. And at the end, she’s still an introvert, but an introvert with a greater understanding of her limits – which limits maybe were self-imposed a long time ago and aren’t relevant anymore, and which limits are real and necessary. Just loved it.
• Runner-up: “Heavy: An American Memoir” by Kiese Laymon. I read a ton of memoirs, often by pretty un-famous people like Laymon. He’s known by people in and adjacent to the writing world but is by no means a household name. That said, given the quality of his work, he really deserves to be. I’ve never read such an engrossing story about someone who couldn’t be more different from me. He is a king and I can’t wait to read whatever he does next.

Most disappointing:

• “The Monk of Mokha” by Dave Eggers. I thought I liked Dave Eggers enough that I would find his Yemeni coffee storytelling interesting. I was wrong; it was decidedly uninteresting.

Most educational:

• “Bad Blood” by John Carreyrou. By now we’re all familiar with the road and fall of Theranos, the Silicon Valley startup headed by alleged young genius Elizabeth Holmes. While I only gave this one 3 stars on Goodreads, I still have to say I learned a great deal about startup culture, pharmaceuticals, confirmation bias, intellectual seduction, and I guess whatever the opposite of imposter syndrome is.

Cutest:

• “Seattle Walk Report” by Anonymous. The author’s name is out there now, but for a long time she was simply known by the name Seattle Walk Report and she traversed our fair city on foot, finding all manner of peculiar ephemera to draw and then post on Instagram. Apparently you can get a book deal from that! It’s pretty cool, I think, maybe moreso if you live in Seattle but it’s a great reminder that if you look up from your phone once in awhile, it’s an interesting world out there.

Most depressing:

• “Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators” by Ronan Farrow. Don’t get me wrong: great book, deserving of its lavish critical reception. But it really hammers home the fact that powerful men protect other powerful men at all costs, and there’s not much we can do to change that other than demand justice – whatever that looks like – when the Harvey Weinsteins of the world assault someone. I don’t know how we can get to the point of prevention because that requires a monumental cultural shift in how young men and boys are conditioned to think of women and sex. So as much as you read this and cheer on Farrow and his dogged investigative team (the ones who aren’t actively trying to sabotage him behind the scenes) it’s still not exactly uplifting.

That’s it for the 2019 NBAs! I hope they were useful to you. I haven’t decided on a 2020 reading goal… theoretically I’ll have a lot of downtime while nursing the baby, but then I may not have the brain space for anything but Netflix. I still haven’t so much as looked at the NPR Book Concierge, which is basically my favorite end-of-year thing.

If I feel like it, I’ll do a separate 2019 retrospective post later.