Oscar

OK..... All righty then. And other expressions that convey the lack of appropriate words for a life event.

My Grandson, Oscar Stewart Harvey, arrived in Asheville, NC, at 1:11 in the morning exactly 15 days ago, June 23rd. My world is forever changed as my daughter is forever changed.

Ben called me from the hospital around 8:15 to tell me that she was in full bore labor. I agonized for 45 minutes (while making two big pans of shitaki stuffed shells), before deciding to try and get some sleep. I had just worked a full day at our business, and had not slept well for two nights before. I took the last sleeping pill in my emergency stash and slept until 3am. The kitchen floor had been littered with my birth luggage for over a week, so it was a quick pack, a sweet sleepy kiss for my Johnny in the bed, and off in my husband's 18-year-old Mercedes. (We secretly pray to any God or Goddess who is listening whenever we venture on a road trip in our extremely old cars.) The longest trip to Asheville EVER ensued, something like 10 hours. Guess what? There's lots and lots of mountain fog at 4 in the morning, not to mention drenching rainstorms, stimulus construction, and a bladder that would not quit reminding me how excited I was and how much I feared for my Heather. She had been carrying Oscar just the way I had carried her, and I knew that he would be a big baby.

Sometime around 6 am, I got a call on my cell from Heater, who sounded otherworldly, telling me that I was now a Grandmother of a 10-pound baby boy and that, yes, she was all right. She had courageously labored and pushed him into this world in what has to be record time for a first BIG baby, 9 hours. She did it without drugs, without doctors, with the help of her midwives. I have honestly never felt a huge amount of pride over Heather's many accomplishments, mostly because she was in every way developmentally so far ahead of her peers in life no matter what her age. But in that moment, not far past sunrise in the mountains, I was bursting with pride for my scrappy girl.

So, Oscar. I have GOT to learn how to put up photos. Phenomenally cute with lots of black hair. When I arrived at the hospital, she was nursing, still high on the birth after 24 hours with no sleep. From that point on, things get a little fuzzy for me. Polly and Bob showed up with food at some point. I know I went to Heather and Ben's house and started cleaning as we were all hoping that they could come back home the next morning. The next morning I got a call from Heather saying that Oscar had been transferred to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit for high respiration rate and high white blood cell count. 

More later...