Ah, yes, September 1 and the first day of school. I almost didn’ t make it for the event because I haven’t paid much attention to the Starbucks schedule lately. Let’s just say I’ve been distracted. Luckily for me, one of my compatriots needed to make a schedule switch. That gave me today off. It just means I’m looking at a week of closings, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights. Saturday I’m off. That’s a break. I usually open. If that had been the case, I could be considered legally brain dead. Instead, I’m opening Sunday. But I digress. Already. Call it adult ADHD.

By all accounts, it was an easy first-day-of-school morning. Aaron was up an hour early in anticipation of becoming a third grader. Thalia came waltzing out of her room at 6:20 a.m. this morning, now a seventh grader. Last year, I’d be up and down the stairs for a solid hour between the hours of six and seven. Her bus arrived at 7:10 a.m. She’d drag herself out of bed ten minutes before the bus arrived and be, amazingly, ready to go right on time. Aaron gets picked up at the door. I drove Thalia this morning because her busing situation is unclear. Busing issue aside, this will be the easiest week of the year for me. Starting next week, the battle will be engaged on two fronts. One battle will be with  the school system itself. The other battle will be with my charming and delightful bride. I’m like the crap in the middle, always getting squeezed. Call this a rant.

I have seen the enemy (in fact, I live with it)

The biggest battle of all will be on the home front. Beth will go into what I like to call “unrealistic achievement gear” early and stay there until the bitter end. Thalia, of course will have it the roughest of the two. In fact, she already told Thalia she expects all As. Thalia just looked at me and rolled her eyes. I returned the gesture. Thalia and I both know that’s not going to happen, and it’s not a major concern for me. Beth’s attitude, on the other hand, is a major concern for me. Why? Because Beth is already planning Thalia’s college education without actually participating at this level. How does that work? Hint: It doesn’t.  Hell, I’m just trying to deal with a seventh grader. Never the twain shall meet on this one. Let me tell you why Beth should be thrilled about what Thalia has been able to achieve so far.

Thalia, for the first time since the first grade, will not be considered a special ed student. This is a child that has overcome a language-based learning disability and dyslexia to bring home a certificate of excellence in language arts at the end of last year. (Of course, let me tell you that I saw this certificate for the first time four days ago when she cleaned out her book bag.) I also found out from her language arts teacher that Thalia’s writing a book. She spent some of her summer working on it. Thalia did not spend a lot of time in front of the television this summer, although she did keep up with CNN, the History Channel and the Discovery Channel. She spent a lot of her time on Korean and Japanese multi-player adventure gaming sites and I have to admit she’s really good. I have no idea how she got access to some of them, and I don’t want to know. But this is a far cry from where she was when she entered middle school.

Her first year in the middle school (fifth grade) she brought home an F in social studies her very first term. It was a rough transition from grammar school, and she was in one-on-one Language Arts and Math. The F was the result of a failure to mesh with her homeroom teacher, also her Social Studies teacher. Now, I’m not saying that Thalia handled that whole conflict correctly, but I’m not sure I expected her to either. I used to call her homeroom teacher that year Mrs. Switchblade because I didn’t like her much either. So, we’ll call her that here.

My feeling about Thalia and Mrs. Switchblade being a bad fit was confirmed by Thalia’s teacher from the previous year in grammar school. She thought Mrs. Switchblade was too rigid a teacher for Thalia. She was being kind on that assessment.What a difference a year (and a new teacher made). Last year, Thalia decided that social studies was her favorite subject. She did exceptionally well in it.

Why all of this isn’t enough for Beth will forever remain a mystery to me. Let’s also be quite candid here and add that Thalia is just about blind in one eye and you’d never even know it. According to the doctor at Mass Eye and Ear, Thalia has managed to compensate for that problem. She has glasses, which we can’t find at the moment, to protect her good eye. There’s another thing about Thalia that’s tough to explain in words. She’s just different thinking in many ways, and she’s one of those square-peg kids that administrators like to try to force into a round hole. Thalia’s day care teacher and I were very good friends when Thalia attended. She saw Thalia nearly every day from the time Thalia was about five months up until she went into pre-school. She once said to me, “Your child is very different. You’ll spend the majority of your time advocating for her.” I never forgot that, and I have indeed been thrust into that role.

I’m not going to go into burdensome detail here about some things that go back in time because I have yet to write narratives about my kids. Don’t want to be too repetitive. Suffice it to say that Beth and I will do battle over her need to see Thalia produce an A average. I have no such requirement. The most important column on her report card, in my opinion, is the effort column. If she’s trying, no issues. If she’s lazy, she and I will figure it out in league with her teachers.

Thalia is the kind of kid who needs to be invested in it. In other words, her teacher will say, “You know, it’s 40% of your mark. If you don’t get it in, this is the grade you’re looking at. If you get it in, you’re here.” More often than not, Thalia gets it done. In other words, I do not allow homework to become a battleground at home. There are other ways to handle it. If Beth becomes involved, it will be a battle and that is unpleasant for everyone but one person. You know how it works, Beth is largely a non-participant in parent-teacher one-on-ones, school meetings and IEP reviews. They pass around an attendance sheet and “absent” is always next to her name. Then, one day she wakes up and plays parent in this area. Pisses me off.

My discipline with Thalia is even simpler. Let’s try this: “Hey, Thalia, you don’t get your homework in and you don’ t get a Nexon game card when you want it (she always wants these).” Or, “Hey, Thalia, if you don’t bring up your marks on the next report card, I’m unplugging your Internet connection and there’ll be no gaming until you do.” That means something to her. Beth’s rant goes unheard, let alone unheeded. Thalia just turns her off.

Aaron is about to be indoctrinated into the pressure cooker

Aaron’s story is pretty amazing as well. Just before his third birthday, Aaron was given a full autism diagnosis. We were homeless at the time and I had made myself familiar with every possible angle available to me. One of those great laws was the McKinney-Vento act which allowed your children to return to their previous school in spite of homlessness. That brought Aaron to the Lynch School in Winchester, where they worked wonders with him. One thing I learned about the law was that it applied to siblings even if they had never attended that school before. Thalia was already at Lynch, which made Aaron eligible.

When I left Lynch every day, he would have to be held by his teacher to prevent him from hurting himself.  He would bang his head on the ground and just cry forever. I used to just plain fucking want to die walking down the hall towards the door hearing him call my name.  Two things kept me sane: One, it was better for him that I do this. Two, he would eventually stop and they could work with him. They did work with him and worked wonders. I was worried about moving to Amesbury, and it was unfounded. He’s improved even more here. Aaron was placed in a first-second grade multi-year class for modeling purposes. It also ensured he had the same teacher two years in a row. His teacher was amazing with him and I have no problem tell you her name is Billie McLane.

Aaron’s progress has been pretty remarkable overall. As a third grader this morning, Aaron didn’t even need me to drive him to school. That may seem like a small thing, but it’s not for Aaron. He got on the bus with no issues and he’s starting a new grade with a new teacher this morning. Luckily for Aaron, it’s Mrs. Gagnon. She was Thalia’s fourth grade teacher and the match was great. She’ll be excited she has Aaron. I’m not saying there won’t be a bit of a bumpy road for Aaron. He’ll be introverted and may not participate at the beginning until he knows his classmates. That’s a work in progress. There’s always the possibility that he’ll fall behind academically. That’s their major area of concern. Aaron is still a special ed student (in an inclusive class) with an IEP.

His problem area is reading. He has been behind from the start. However, in his final testing at the end of second grade, Aaron tested right exactly where he was supposed to be. Everyone thought that was pretty amazing. In fact, Aaron’s academic improvements in the second grade made him ineligible for summer school. I think that’ll be a problem for Aaron when he starts up. I think he’ll lose a bit of his edge. And again, the battleground here will be homework because — if it’s possible — he hates it more than his sullen sister. He’s just a bit more creative in his delivery, preferring to tell me that, “Ma,my brain is full from the school day. I can’t fit anymore stuff in here.” This year, I’ll end up being the buffer for both of them. What freakin’ fun.

Go ahead, ask Aaron the next time you see him what his favorite subjects are.  I guarantee you the answer will be gym and recess. Ask him what he likes the least about school and he’ll tell you, “The learning part.” Oh boy.

Of course, do I think that Aaron will be put under as much pressure as Thalia by his other mom? Not even. I think he gets a huge ‘bye’ from her on most stuff. He’s the chosen one. Do I understand the reason for that? Well, he’s a pretty special little guy. Billie McLane used to tell me last year that he was a beautiful little boy. He’s very gentle and sweet. And he’s pretty funny and engaging for a kid that’s supposed to be autistic. But Thalia is pretty neat in her own right. She’s a thinker who likes to ask questions, which really aggravates Beth. I don’t know the reason for that either. I prefer to just answer Thalia’s questions straight out or show her where to find the answers if I think she’ll get a better explanation somewhere other than me.

I was just looking out my back door and it’s beautiful up here this morning. Funny thing is, I just don’t want to be here. I think I’ll take a walk to Woodsom Farm before the kids get back from school. Clear my head.

I’m not sure how we came to this conclusion, but we decided to try a different facility for a second opinion. Our pediatrician suggested Dr. William Dec at the Mass General Hospital.  This one didn’t go well from the beginning.  We didn’t actually see Bill Dec, but we did have an appointment with his fellow (I’ve wracked my brain, but I cannot remember this guy’s name). He was a jerk, but his assistant was just plain dumb. After studying all of Beth’s test results and the massive file that had been sent before our appointment, he — this pinheaded wanna’ be — had come to the conclusion that Beth could resume her normal activity. We just looked at each other. She was winded just moving around the house. There was no way that was either possible or advisable.

I’m not exactly sure how things transpired with this handful of caregivers. I know that we decided to see how it would go before jumping off the bandwagon. What actually happened was that they enrolled Beth in a drug study without consent or without her filling out any kind of paperwork. The drug was Carvedilol (generic: Coreg), which I myself happen to be on right now. Back then, however, it was an experimental drug. I may not remember much about this event, but I do remember that we found out on a routine visit when a nurse mentioned the study and why Beth had to come in that day. That really set Beth off and I have to say that I don’t blame her. Nobody wants to be a guinea pig when living and dying is the issue. That was the end of our experience with the proteges of the supposedly venerable William Dec.

It was at this point that Beth’s primary caregiver repaired her reputation with us, albeit temporarily. She suggested that we see someone named Dr. Abelman (sorry, can’t remember his first name) at Beth Israel. He was considered the last word in cardiology, but he was close to retirement. It didn’t matter to us; we just wanted a second look. Her office made the appointment for us and we went. This experience was so different from our experience at MGH that it was unbelievable. First off, we weren’t dealing with some lackey who had no idea what the fuck he was talking about. That was encouraging right off the top. We went to see Dr. Abelman and that’s who we saw. He had already had access to Beth’s files since all of the tests had been done at BI, so his first priority was to examine her.  We liked much better the prognosis when we left his office.

He did not offer Beth the heart transplant list. Instead, he differed with the original diagnosis of viral cardiomyopathy. He told us that he firmly believed that Beth’s cardiac “event”  was directly related to her pregnancy. This was the difference: He went back and looked at everything she had gone through over her pregnancy. He didn’t stop at the echo that was run after the pregnancy was over. I do remember the good doctor’s words exactly, “I don’t believe this is viral cardiomyopathy. I believe this is perinatal cardiomyopathy and that it is already remitting, and that it will completely remit over time with the proper care.” Unfortunately, Dr. Abelman would not be the doctor to follow Beth as he confirmed that he was retiring. He told us that his colleague, Dr. Carol Waksmonski, would be his choice of cardiologists to work with Beth.

Because of Beth’s fragile emotional make-up (is that a gentle enough description???), getting her to trust anybody new is a battle. She really felt comfortable with Dr. Abelman almost immediately, however, and she was willing to give Carol Waksmonski a shot. It was one of the best decisions she ever made in her life.

Dr. Carol Waskmonski to the rescue

I’m not going to paint Dr. Waksmonski as a miracle worker, but the one thing that stood out was that she could handle Beth’s illogical emotional forays into fear. Perhaps her biggest fear is of being abandoned. This is a constant underlying theme of Beth’s issues, and it’s no doubt due to the fact that her mother basically left her at home to be abused. It was abandonment of the worst kind. Dr. Wasksmonski knew Beth’s story going in because that’s my job. I make sure every health care provider that Beth will be interacting with on a regular basis understands exactly what’s going on in Beth’s head. The one ability Dr. Waskmonski had that I didn’t see in any of Beth’s other providers was the knowledge of how far to push back at Beth. She did with some success.

The focus of Beth’s care turned to perinatal cardiomyopathy. I believe that Beth came off the Carvedilol.  She had tachycardia, so she needed a medication for that. That’s when she began taking Lopressor (not generic back then, but now is — metoprolol). We moved from heart transplant to diet and exercise. I remember one of the most nerve wracking things I had to do throughout this process was check Beth’s pulse with a stop watch. She could not go above a specified level (although, to be honest, I forget what the number was now).

Beth, after a period of despair, went at it with her usual amount of determination. Her workouts started at 30 minutes, wearing a manditory heart monitor. By the time she was done over the two-year recovery period, she would be at the gym for nearly three hours a day, four days a week. In between, there were monthly visits to Dr. Wasksmonski and serial echocardiograms to track her heart’s recovery.  When Beth was diagnosed at the Beth Israel about four or five months after Thalia was born, her ejection fraction was 15%. At her most recent check-up, just about two months ago, it was 55%, or dead-on normal.

Beth’s achievement was huge. Two years later she was declared healthy, and Carol Waskmonski remained Beth’s cardiologist right on through Aaron’s birth and early life. (Today, Carol Wasksmonski is at Columbia in New York and she and Beth still keep in touch via email.) There were, however, losses in other ways. Somehow, Beth had managed to keep herself from bonding with Thalia early on because she believed she would not be around for long. I think that was a decision made in haste –a ’self-preservation’ effort that hurt rather than helped. Because of this, Thalia and I developed a very special relationship. Beth eventually got there, but it took a lot of work and happened much later. For sure, Beth missed a lot that I had the pleasure to be part of.

To Thalia’s credit, she “gets it.” This is perhaps because she’s been exposed to a lot of  what I like to call “adult stuff” a lot sooner than most kids. I feel badly about that, but I tried to keep her from it as best I could. There are just times when there’s no hiding some things no matter how hard you try. I’ve been in that situation a lot, and it never gets any easier.

Back from a death sentence

Beth would be totally healthy by 1999-2000. Did I mention that she has a short memory? By 2000 she was ready to get pregnant again, to my dismay. She wasn’t kidding either.  Ah, but that is a different post for a different day! Stay tuned for the next episode of WTF is with my life.

Beth remained in the hospital a little longer than usual for a pregnancy simply because the doctors wanted to be sure that her blood pressure returned to normal (she had always had excellent blood pressure), and that there was no evidence that she had developed diabetes. We had lots of visitors over those few days. Everyone came to see Thalia,  officially known in my family as the Thanksgiving Baby. They finally released Beth and Thalia, under the orders that Beth was to take it easy for a while so that her body could recover, and that a visiting nurse would monitor her at home for a few weeks. That meant that I would have most of the baby duty. It wasn’t a problem because I was out on family leave for eight weeks.

We had already been discussing pediatricians and had decided to choose one near home rather than traveling to Boston. I do not really remember how I found Dr. Paula Heimberg, I only know I’m glad I did. To this day, she’s not only Thalia and Aaron’s pediatrician, we consider her a family friend. She works out of Garden City Pediatrics in Beverly. She’s the embodiment of how a doctor should be. I called her, and she scheduled an appointment with us before the baby was born. Because Beth was bedridden, I went alone and she spent an hour talking to me. We decided that she was the right choice for us, and were very happy to have her on board before the delivery.

Life with baby begins

Thalia’s room was all ready when we got home, and it was pretty cool. The room was bright and sunny, and the crib was decked out in colorful bedding. There were great mobiles hanging in her room. We had purchased a combination changing table/bureau and had moved a small pull out sofa into the room because Beth was going to breastfeed and I wanted her to have a comfortable spot. Of course, there was a small TV too since we’d be spending a significant amount of time there, particularly in the wee hours of the morning when Thalia Assuras was on.

Okay, I don’t want to say that Beth was OCD about Thalia, but she was. Thalia spent the first week in our room, but we were concerned about our two cats being able to jump into the bassinette so we moved her to her room because we had a cat tent over the crib. To say that they were curious was an understatement, but Ling Ling, our Maine Coon, was the most curious. She was only six months old when Thalia was born and had been the center of attention up to this point. In fact, Ling Ling took up residence at the very top of the cat tent so that she could see Thalia. We called her “watch kitty.”  Oh, yeah, did I mention that there was a pretty amazing camera attached to Thalia’s crib? Still, that wasn’t enough for Bethie. No sir!

We moved into the room with Thalia, spending nights on her floor in our sleeping bags. This didn’t go on for just a couple of weeks. It went on for just about three months. Beth sometimes reads more than she should. This time around, she got herself all wound up over SIDS. Now, I don’t want you to think I’m cavalier about SIDS. I am not. It is a real problem for newborns, and it was a frightening prospect for me as well because nobody really knew why it happened. However, being shaken awake every three hours to check if Thalia was still breathing took a bit of a toll over three months!

We had also decided that Thalia would not go into daycare until she turned six months. There was no real deep reason for this; Beth simply wanted the opportunity to bond with Thalia. So did I. However, we were both big believers that socialization was important. (We checked out many daycare settings, but settled on The Children’s Workshop in Waltham because it was close to where I worked.) I had met several mothers who were dead set against daycare, but in my mind they didn’t have very good reasons for their attitude. Basically, these women didn’t want their children to pick up germs and get sick. I wasn’t worried about germs and illness. Unfortunately, they are facts of life with children. Sooner or later, Thalia was going to be going to school and it was going to happen. My attitude was that the earlier the children are exposed to them, the better their defenses down the road when they do get to school.

I returned to work at Millipore after eight weeks, leaving Beth and Thalia alone during the day. Because Millipore had ‘flex’ hours, I was able  to change my hours so that I went in earlier than usual and returned home earlier than I normally would. This worked out really well. Thalia had lost interest in breast feeding after three or four months, and I took early morning feeding duty. I would sit in Thalia’s room on the sofa watching World News Now while I fed her.  Then, she’d immediately fall back to sleep and I’d leave for work around 4:30 a.m. Beth would handle the days and I took over when I came home, giving Beth an opportunity to nap. Beth still seemed to be suffering fatigue from the pregnancy. One day during my first week back to work, I came home to a very wierd scene.

I walked in the door and heard what I thought were pots and pans banging together. I figured something was going on in the kitchen (even though Beth was never really the cook in the family), but I was surprised to hear the banging coming from up in Thalia’s room. I walked in the door to find Thalia laying on her back on the changing table while Beth banged two pans above her head. I had to ask. “What the fuck are you doing?” Beth picked her head up with an utter look of terror on her face. “I’m trying to see if she’s deaf, Deb. I think she’s deaf.” I looked at her in amazement. “Beth, if she wasn’t deaf before you started this, she could very well be now!” I knew I had my work cut out for me. Bringing up baby was going to be a challenge.

Plenty of clouds on the horizon

I had promised Beth that she could return to school when Thalia was a few months old. She wanted to update her science degrees, so she enrolled in a cell biology class at the Harvard School of Public Health. It was an evening class, so I was on baby duty anyway. I remember those nights. Thalia and I would lay together on the bed and I’d place her on my stomach to sleep while I watched television. It was great. I’d talk to her and she’d smile like she knew what the hell I was saying. One day when I returned from work and Beth was getting ready for her class, she confessed that she had fallen down the three stairs to the landing while holding Thalia.  She was fine and the baby was fine. Beth had managed to keep hold of Thalia even while falling. She had landed on her back with the baby perfectly positioned on her stomach. We made jokes about what  klutz she was, but we would soon be in for a rude surprise.

A few weeks later, Beth came home from school and told me that she had difficulty completing her sentences in class because she seemed to run out of breath. She wasn’t feeling well and was still having problems with fatigue. Given her ill health during the pregnancy, I thought it would be prudent to check it out. We called her primary care doctor and made an appointment. We went in, she had an examination that included an EKG right in the office and things looked normal, at least from a cardiac perspective. We were relieved, and we returned to our lives.

However, the symptoms continued and Beth was feeling weaker and weaker. She didn’t even have the stamina to care for Thalia during the day anymore. So, we enrolled Thalia in daycare at The Children’s Workshop in Waltham two months earlier than we had originally planned. We remained insistent about Beth’s not feeling well and saw the doctor yet again. Nothing was resolved. According to her, Beth was fine and the exhaustion would eventually abate. Of course, part of the problem was the stigma of mental illness. Frankly, this particular primary care doctor had known Beth for many years. She knew of her past and her issues in the present. I could see what was happening: Because of these issues and because the illness is not immediately apparent, her doctor assumed the illness was “in her head.” The one thing I know for certain about Beth is that she is not a hypochondriac. She knows when her body is telling her something, and she absolutely knows and admits when something is “in her head.” I became adamant about looking further. She had not been back to school because the smallest physical effort on her part was exhausting her. On the third visit, Beth’s doctor scheduled an echocardiogram at the Beth Israel Hospital. Of course, her doctor was confident this would prove she was just fine.

The other shoe drops

Within a few days, we got the call. Beth’s doctor was stunned. The result of the echocardiogram was not good, and she had scheduled an appointment for us at Beth Israel with a Doctor Joe Cannon. She had given us some basic information, but I truly believe she knew she had blown it and she was just too upset to tell us how serious it was. Dr. Cannon, on the other hand, had no problem doing that. While he didn’t have much in the way of bedside manner, he told us straight out that Beth appeared to have viral cardiomyopathy and congestive heart failure (CHF). Her ejection fraction was at 15 (normal is in the 55-65 range), accounting for her fatigue and shortness of breath. The prognosis was not good, and Dr. Cannon offered her the heart transplant list.

This news was devastating. We had a baby at home that was less than six months old, and now we had a very uncertain future ahead of us. I was going to have to balance taking care of Thalia with taking care of Beth. I admit I had no fucking idea how I was going to get through it. I only knew that Beth was emotionally falling apart over it, and that I had to let that happen as hard as it was for me to watch. I would have been the same way had it been me. The one thing in Beth’s favor is that she’s a fighter. That’s how she managed to survive her ugly and violent home life. After the appropriate amount of grieving, and after deciding that Beth and Dr. Cannon were not a good fit (mostly because he was a pompous asshole), we decided to get a second opinion.

Speaking of television, let me tell you a little story here that I probably should have told sooner. Beth and I decided early on that we wanted a combination Greek-Italian name for Thalia, given the fact that Beth was Italian and the donor was Greek. We had narrowed it down to two names: Thalia and Elektra. We had been leaning toward Thalia, however.

While Beth was pregnant, she often had insomnia, but she couldn’t take any medication for that little problem. She used to meditate, and that helped. As she progressed into the pregnancy and the health complications began to multiply, sleep was at a premium. We would end up either watching television late into the night or waking up very early in the morning. The TV was always on, even if the voice was turned down. One of our favorite shows was World News Now and the anchor on that show was a woman named Thalia Assuras. If you do nothing else, just kick back, grab yourself a beer, martini, doobie or whatever might be your particular poison, and spend seven minutes watching this link. You won’t regret it.

The show was great. It was informative, but the anchors covered some offbeat news stories and were extremely irreverent. Thalia Assuras had long been a favorite with Beth and I, and that is — in large part — why Thalia got her name. However, what really clinched it for us was when we researched the name and found that Thalia was the eighth of the nine Greek muses. She was the muse of comedy and idyllic poetry. The name fit Thalia Assuras and I can tell you now — with Thalia almost thirteen — it fits her as well. She’s a piece of work.

As I said, Beth chose the first name, and I chose Thalia’s middle name, Francesca, in honor of my mother. By the way, you will learn somewhere down the road that there’s also a whacked out connection between Aaron’s name and World News Now. For that, you’ll have to wait.

There’s nothing routine about pregnancy anyway, but most people can fall into a pregnancy “routine.” Not my bride. No sir. Before this pregnancy was over, Beth would emerge as the Medical Marvel. That’s what I called her. That’s what her health care providers called her. Of course, we laughed the whole time we were doing so. Dr. Weiss, who had turned out to be a great infertility specialist, recommended an ob/gyn he did his residency with. Her name was Dr. Susan Hellerstein and she was at Beth Israel.

Susan Hellerstein comes from an impressive medical family. Her dad was a cardiologist, and five generations have produced 14 doctors. The Hellerstein family is also the subject of a book written by David Hellerstein, who is a research psychiatrist at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. The  most important thing for us, however, was that Susan was sensitive and caring and had a great sense of humor. I wouldn’t give you a dime for BI now, but at the time we were seeing Dr. Hellerstein, it boasted one hell of an Ob/Gyn Department. We knew that, even if there was an emergency and Dr. Hellerstein was not immediately available, the other doctors there were just as capable. We signed on with Susan immediately. Prior to moving down this road, we were sure to set up a safety net for Beth on the psychiatric side. We knew it would be touch and go.

That being said, I don’t think either of us appreciated just how much havoc pregnancy hormones would wreak on her panic disorder prior to the pregnancy. There would be days when she was perfectly calm. Not many, but some. The rest of the time, she was busy fighting off panic attacks — which became worrisome for me because of the physical toll it took on her if they got out of control. We had to learn a whole new way to distract her when panic set in. Pregnancy meant that medication had to be either cut back or changed to new medication that was safe for pregnancy. Both Dr. Fames and Dr. Emory carried pagers, and you can bet your life they both got a workout during this nine-month span.

Let me give you a little example of what we were dealing with here. I came home from work one night and everything seemed to be perfectly normal. We had decided on amniocentesis, mostly because Beth decided she was older and did not want to take a chance. I honestly do not think Beth could have handled a child with problems like birth defects. Not with her emotional situation being so  raw. (I also confess that I’m not sure what I would have done had we been confronted with the possibility of abortion. I think either situation would have or could have been emotionally disastrous for Beth.)

At any rate, she made a comment about the upcoming amniocentesis and I commented back that I believed that there would be nothing to worry about. Of course, Beth interpreted this as placating her and trivializing the process of amniocentesis. Of course, I knew that amnio can cause miscarriages. However, I wasn’t trying to trivialize. I simply saw no reason to dwell on it because she gets into trouble when she dwells on negatives. I was trying to be supportive, but it was not received that way because she was uptight about the upcoming amnio. Whatever it was, it was certainly enough to generate great strength in my bride because with one flick of the wrist, she managed to flip over on it’s top the solid teak dining room table. I remember my reaction. It was definitely, “W-T-F is your problem, woman?” She was mortified, and became totally frightened of her own strength thereafter.

The amnio was to be the least of Beth’s pregnancy problems.

The physical conditions mount

Migraine headaches are common in the first trimester. Therefore, Beth’s first pregnancy problem was migraines. What we would learn on this excursion was that Beth was in the 1% of people who would develop every complication and would suffer every drug side-effect. After her morning sickness passed, nausea from her migraines would take over. They were brutal. She could lay for hours in the dark, but it would not alleviate the problem. She was prescribed Tylenol with codeine. The first time she took them, she went into respiratory depression and we had to call 911. I remember, we were in the living room in Beverly and Beth was laying on the sofa. The EMTs were helping her there. After that episode, we went in to see Dr. Hellerstein. It was determined that she had an allergy to codeine and they would have to find another medication safe for pregnancy to help with her migraines. I know they did find an alternative and it worked. I’m not sure what medication it was, however. All I know is that the migranes stopped sometime in the second trimester.

The amnio, however, was definitely a bright spot. It came at about fifteen weeks and went just fine with Dr. Hellerstein performing the procedure. There was no miscarriage, although there was some scary moments with spotting after. The wait for the results was excruciating, but it was worth the wait: The baby was going to be fine. We hesitated when they asked us if we wanted to know what we were having, but then we finally gave in. It was going to be a girl. And that may have been the last bright spot we had. It would be hairy to the end.

Beth was carrying huge, despite the fact that she really was taking care to eat properly. We found out why when she went for her diabetes test. She was borderline gestational diabetes, but strongly leaning in that direction. That meant even more of a change in diet for the rest of the pregnancy. Again, compared to what was coming, this too would be a minor blip on the radar screen. Beth was saving the best for later in the pregnancy.

The plot thickens

Sometime around week 28, Beth developed pre-eclampsia, or pregnancy-induced hypertension. This condition is dangerous not only for the mother, but the baby. There was no big event surrounding it. No ambulance to the hospital. It was discovered on a routine check up with her primary care doctor, who then called Dr. Hellerstein. In no time, we were on our way to the BI pre-natal emergency room. Beth not only had an elevated blood pressure, but she also had the protein in her urine. She had rapid weight gain as well, but this could also have been attributed to the gestational diabetes. This would be a scene we’d repeat over and over. We’d make the drive from Beverly and they’d be waiting for us. Beth would be put on a monitor and the baby would be put on a monitor. It was tough enough worrying about Beth, but listening to Thalia’s little heartbeat was maddening. Any little blip made me jump through the ceiling.

The original goal was to get Beth to week 40. Realistically speaking, the desire was to get Beth as close to week 40 as possible. She went on complete bed rest with three months left in the pregnancy, with daily monitoring by visiting nurses to check her blood pressure. If her blood pressure went above 140, we were instructed to drive in to the ER. They would be waiting for us when we arrived. The routine would be the same. Beth and Thalia would be hooked up to monitors, and they would go about bringing down Beth’s blood pressure and the protein level in her urine. After a short stint in the hospital, she’d be released to complete bed rest.

Somewhere in the process, Beth was given steroids to help Thalia’s lungs develop more quickly. This would be crucial if Thalia were to be born prematurely. And that’s just what would happen. One night we made our routine run into BI. We expected that we would be back home a bit later that evening, but it would not turn out that way. Beth’s blood pressure was not subsiding, and the protein level in her urine was climbing, if anything. This was not a good sign. Susan Hellerstein was not on call that night, but we had a terrific doctor there anyway with Susan on the phone.

We thought they were coming in to send us home, but they announced that they thought it would be a good idea to take the baby right away. I’m sure that was Susan’s decision, and Beth was disappointed that Susan wouldn’t be handling the delivery. Beth was also disappointed that it would have to be a C-section. However, Thalia was going to be a big baby and they could not let Beth deliver naturally with her blood pressure where it was. She was in immediate danger.

Everything seemed to move in fast motion. There was no delay. The anesthesiologist was already there, so we met with him for a few minutes. Then, we met the ob/gyn that would do the C-section. I wish I could remember her name, but I cannot. Beth is generally very uptight about residents handling things like this, but this woman had made her a believer by the end of the procedure. Beth was betting that I was going to pass out when they opened her up, but I was fine. [Frankly, blood I can handle. Vomit is another story.] It went smoothly and fairly quickly. The resident held Thalia up for everyone to see and said, “Hey guys, here’s your daughter. She’s ready for college!” Thalia Francesca was born four weeks premature at 8:33 p.m. on November 27, 1996, weighing 9 lbs./6 oz. Her nickname in Neonatal Intensive Care was “Bruiser.”

I made sure Thali was okay and then ran back to Beth. Her blood pressure was in the danger zone. They put Beth in a private room in the maternity ward and gave her magnesium sulfate in an attempt to lower her blood pressure. It took a few hours, but it finally came down and the protein in her urine also worked its way down. She had dodged a bullet. By the time she woke up, little Thalia was already in the room with us. She hadn’t needed more than four hours in neonatal ICU. The next morning, Dr. Hellerstein stopped in to check on Beth and to see Thalia. She picked Thalia up and said, “Jeez, Beth, I haven’t held a newborn this big since I volunteered in Samoa.”

I had taken family leave and was not due back in work for a while. I spent my days and nights at the hospital to help Beth out.  Then, we brought Thalia to her new home in Beverly. We thought everything would be just picture perfect from here, but the plot was about to get even thicker.

Beth’s backward slide and panic attacks caused us to shelve our baby plans for a while, but she was determined to forge ahead once she felt we had found the right combination of medications and was stable enough. We were hunting around for reproductive endocrinologists, and someone recommended Dan Tulchinsky who was working out of the Malden Hospital. This guy was no lightweight. He was pretty accomplished. He was also an incredible homophobe who clearly had a problem with same-sex couples having children. I cannot recall exactly what his comment was, but it had something to do with refusing to help unless we had counseling first. While I don’t remember the exact conversation, I do remember two unspoken words that kept running through my head as he spoke. I believe they were, “Fuck you.” In spite of his credentials, Dan Tulchinsky was a totally negative experience (something that Beth did not need at this time). I brush assholes like that off, but Beth does not. It turned her off to the process for quite a while, like maybe two years.

By the way, I suppose this as good a place as any to relate the family response to our decision. There were really no issues on my side of the family, other than how some of the elders would take it once they found out. By elders, we meant good old Auntie Buddy and her sister, Auntie Muff (don’t ask, don’t tell on this one — for now). My sisters told me to do it and not worry about it. When we told Beth’s mother, her only response was, “Gay people shouldn’t have children.” Actually, she pretty much felt that gay people shouldn’t even draw a breath, so we just shrugged that one off and moved forward.

Going it alone

Our post-Tulchinsky foray back into baby making started at The Fenway Community Health Center, which has always been a great resource for the GLBT community. We were readers of Bay Windows and there was an ad there about an information session being given by a woman named Jennifer Firestone, who runs an organization called Alternative Family Matters. She was nothing like Dan Tulchinsky. She was positive and upbeat, and taught us how to deal with the negativity we’d come up against down the road. We have fallen out of touch with Jennifer now and I have been unable to find her organization on the web, but we were in touch with her for many years after.

After our visit to the Fenway, we were definitely ready to go. We left with all our ovulation charts and instructions for taking basal temperatures. All we needed was a physical and a letter from Beth’s primary care doctor stating that she was healthy enough to move forward. We had no problem getting that. Then, it was a question of deciding where to order the sperm and what kind of donor we would choose. There are many more sperm donor sources now, but back then there were just two reputable sources — the California Cryobank and one other somewhere in Virginia. We decided to go with the California Cryobank.

One other important decision we had to make was whether or not we wanted a donor who wanted to be involved, or one that wanted to remain totally anonymous. We chose the latter. What is right for each couple is different. We knew we wanted to build a family together and that we did not want to have to consult a third party for every decision. We also did not want the headache of dealing with the biological father should we disagree on certain issues. (By the way, Jennifer had chosen differently. She and her partner knew the donor and he was involved in the child’s life.) Now all we had to do was look for Mr. Right. Because we are both 100% Italian, we decided that we wanted a donor of Mediterranean descent — preferably Italian or Greek.

We had access to short bios online. If someone looked good to us, we could pay $25 to get a very detailed, multi-page report that would tell us everything about the donor: physical characteristics, education level, work history, ancestry, genetic diseases — the whole nine yards. We chose a Greek donor. Hey, what could be better — Greek and Italian. Can’t beat it. We registered with California Cryobank and sent in the required paperwork, including the letter from Beth’s doctor. We were all set and ready to go. All we had to do now was chart, order dad and break out the old turkey baster.

I do not know how it works now, but we literally had to make three attempts on our own before Beth could qualify as infertile and a candidate for artificial insemination. That meant $1,500 worth of “dad” right off the top, one of the expenses in the equation not covered by insurance. We would have no problem getting there. From the first attempt, Beth’s temps were all over the place. We couldn’t figure out if she was actually ovulating or not, but we pressed on. We’d take the temp. We’d order from California Cryobank and it would arrive via FedEx. [The first order had to go to the doctor's office as a confirmation that it was a legitimate approval. The rest were shipped to our condo in Beverly*.] Then we’d try the insemination at home and Beth would stand on her head for a while. The next step was the inevitably disappointing ept pregnancy test result.

Time to choose a new doctor

By the time our third attempt had taken place, Beth had moved on from her therapist in Cambridge to a new therapist in Newton. We’ll call her Laura Fames, even though I’d prefer to call her something quite different. In spite of my opinion of her as a therapist, she did turn us on to a great infertility specialist — Robert Weiss at Boston Medical Center. We made an appointment and brought all of our charts and bits of information with us. Beth and I both liked him immediately. He had no issues with lesbians having babies. Dr. Weiss had helped others. After looking at the charts, he determined that Beth had not been ovulating. He prescribed a round of clomid, an oral drug that induces ovulation.

The statistics we saw at the time showed that clomid was pretty successful, with pregnancy occurring within the first six cycles. We tracked temperatures again and when the time was right we went in to Boston Medical for artificial insemination. The one thing we didn’t want to do was hang around just…waiting. Then, inevitably, you start looking for signs…evening imagining them. We had a trip to Washington, D.C. planned and we stuck with it. It was one of our favorite places. We were going to drive down and hang out for a week, so we did. It kept our minds off what was hopefully going on in Beth’s body.

We stayed at the Omni in DuPont Circle because it has a large GLBT population. We did the Smithsonian in its entirety; my favorite at the time was the Air & Space Museum. We visited the Lincoln Monument and walked around the mall. We went by the White House several times, but never went on the tour. We could live without that. We visited some coffee shops. Yes, that included Starbucks. There was one right there in DuPont Circle. We ate dinner one night at Trumpets, a gay restaurant on Q Street. I remember we also ate at Nathan’s in Georgetown (now gone), but I really don’t remember any of the other restaurants we visited. We kept busy and kept our minds occupied. Because I was the Massachusetts 6th Congressional District coordinator (a fancy term for gay rights lobbyist) for the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), we paid a visit to our contact at their D.C. office. Before we knew it, it was time to drive home!

A triumphant return

On the ride home, Beth wasn’t feeling that well. To be honest with you, we didn’t put much stock in that because we figured it was way too early. Before we left on vacation, we had set up a time to go back to Boston Medical Center for a blood test. It was at least a week away so, again, we tried to put it out of our minds. Over the remaining waiting time, Beth complained about her back hurting and some nausea. We chalked it up to the fact that she was a chiropractor’s dream anyway and nausea was a way of life with someone who had ulcer issues in the past and who was presently saddled with panic disorder.

Our routine continued, and we went back for a blood test. The next day, we received a call from Dr. Weiss himself with the great news: Beth was indeed pregnant! So much for routine. Nothing was going to be routine anymore. Beth’s reputation as the Medical Marvel was about to be born. The fun was just beginning.

*Here’s a funny little story about one of our sperm shipments. One Saturday morning, we waited for the delivery to arrive. It didn’t show up at the door. We waived FedEx signature requirements and it had always been there just about the same time every time. We decided to track the shipment, and the records showed that it had been delivered. I was just about to call the toll-free number when our bell rang. The little old lady in the end condo was standing there with her son, who was holding the FedEx box from the California Cryobank. She said, “I don’t think this belongs to me.” We all just started laughing.