As if last year had not brought us enough changes and adjustments, this year is proving to be no less active. Here are just a few thoughts from the past three months…Chloé Valentina is three months on Saturday! It went by in a flash of sleep deprived nights and most recently curious babbles and shy smiles from this little someone who is rocking our world.
Being pregnant and delivering a child abroad was a good experience, although at times lonely. Pregnant women here are treated quite gallantly, the recipients of courteous and kind acts on a routine basis. I would say that the showering of attention due to your protruding belly is greater here than in California. I enjoyed that elevated status and the nice gestures that it conjured.
The care we received at Ruber International at the hands of our doctor was outstanding. Although, Arnaud was always a bit bothered by the way the doctor would lavish me with compliments and kisses on every visit. Admittedly, it started to creep me out after a while. Arnaud attended every doctors visit, when he wasn´t making his commute to California. 
After delivery of our precious little darling, I was ever so pleased to have my mother around. She had been exercising patience, having been here three weeks before the little girl decided to join us. When she arrived, she was only scheduled to be here one week before Chloé´s birth. By week two, all three of us were exercising patience as we didn´t know what to do with ourselves. There are, after all, only so many fast walks you can take around El Retiro Park in hopes of the onset of labor pains.
But it wasn´t my mother´s experienced hands at caretaking that were so gratifying for me to have nearby, it was simply her presence that soothed me. It was fulfilling for me to share this mysterious and unfamiliar experience with the woman who raised me. The generation gap between us shrunk during those three weeks after Chloé birth. I actually ¨got¨ parts of her that had been lost in translation for all of my 39 years. The day she left to go back to California was difficult for me. I felt the void that a close collegue leaves (someone who knows your game) when you are left alone on a project. These feelings were mixed in with baby blues (and I don´t mean the color). Overall, not a pleasant state.
But as parent´s know, there is little time for self pity, as your child keeps the pace up demanding the next new thing…sometime routine but often requiring a new approach to accomodate their curiosity or boredom. Arnaud and I found our way, at times with difficulty, tripping over ourselves and our good intentions. Sometimes we try to hard to do the right thing. The problem is you often have no idea what the right thing is. They tell me this is a continual part of parenthood…cluelessness. I´ve also read that the key is to keep searching for what the correct approach might be and to be creative. Pray for stamina!
We returned from our travels to the California in mid December. It was a much needed break for me. Arnaud intuited my need for family, friends and familiarity and in a quick decision, the new family of three was off to SFO. Seeing familiar faces that know you and genuinely care about you and your new baby was a breath of fresh air. The girl did beautifully on the trip and rose to the occassion like a true survivor. I realized that a large part of parenting is sharing your little one with others and the give and take that this puts you and your child through. We got a taste of that in California–both the wonderful and the challenging–all part of the process.
More to come…
