Trying to read as Alexis bounces around me attempting to steal my pen or push a button on the laptop, reminds me of the scholarly virtues of patience and perseverance. Research can be slow in coming, for various reasons. There is so much to take care of on a daily basis: housework, cooking, entertaining the kids, self-care, trade off with Andy so he can work, too, etc... The moments to read uninhibitedly are far and few between: while the kids are entertained by themselves for a moment, while they're napping, while waiting for the train, on the train ride to work, in between calls at work, before bedtime while hangin' out with Andy. Then there are moments of word waterfalls, where the writing flows jealously, incessantly. Perseverance means staying on top of it while taking what I can get, 5 minutes, 30 minutes, yes, but an instant for one sentence or a word -after all, that one could be it, the clue, the new impulse that builds on the path ahead as time rolls on. Everyday a little bit, in many days it will be more. So much to read, wish I could lock myself in a tower for hours with all my books and an internet connection of course. For what is available online has made all the difference in the world for a mother in a little Swiss village. Thanks to google books and google scholar, I can read virtual books, even old ones.
Here is Alexis again, little scholar spirit, tr....there, she pushed the off button on the laptop. Hahaha. I attribute it in large part to being pregnant with her, that I finished my Masters' thesis. On the day back in February 2010, that I went with my mom to the Mexican Embassy to interview her for my research, I found out, right there in the Embassador's office bathroom, that I was pregnant again. The interview, of course, began with the strained voices of two women who had just learned of an unexpected pregnancy. We followed through with it professionally, the way it would be expected of diplomats. In April I had kidney stones. The pregnancy was rough. So, I had a lot going against me. I had already failed to hand in my thesis once. I was also taking an entirely different approach. The push was on, and now this! Luckily, Puyi was going to the Tagesmutter 5 times a week for 5 hours. Andy took to bringing him there in the mornings, so that I would have enough energy to go to the library and work for a couple of hours before picking up Puyi. I didn't make it to the library every day, of course, towards the end of the pregnancy I wans't even able to turn around by myself anymore if I lay on my back. I was a whale. Lexi was a bigger baby than Puyi had been and moved so much, that I believe she stretched the placenta to have more room. Plus my body got all fancy with unbelievable amounts of water. I was a huge bubble. There was so much water, that her head never dropped. She was floating around in there until the very last moment, the Hebamme had to rip open the placenta, so Alexis could come into the birthcanal. Anyway, she never let me give up. There were countless discouraging moments in which I felt I wasn't advancing, that I wouldn't make it to the deadline in the fall. People around me had their doubts, too. It was the persistence regardless of the circumstances, regardless of set backs coupled with divine intervention and loving people around us, that made all the difference.
On Friday October 15th, the baby's due date was October 17th, Andy accompanied me to the copy center to print out my finished paper. We very slowly walked down Akazienstrasse. It was a beautiful late morning. At 17:00 I had an appointment with the midwife. She did something down there, she pushed in real hard. The walk home took me forever. Going up the three flights of stairs of our Berliner Altbau was torturous in its own way. By the time I got home, something had started happening to my body. I went straight to the bathroom to find that this huge smudge of something had come out. With Puyi I never experienced anything like that. With him the water broke and I had no contractions, so that they had to get jump started with pills at the hospital. Anyway, I was beginning to experience waves of crampy pain. After bearing Andy, I discovered that I have a pretty high tolerancy for pain. It was bad but not intolerable. Since they became quite regular, and it was my sister on skype who noticed this, I called the midwife. She came and said that it was time to slowly make our way to the clinic. The taxi driver was more nervous than we were. With Andy Eugen I had had time to pray a full rosary, but Alexis just happened.....
By the time we got to the Antroposophisches Krankenhaus Havelhöhe, the contractions were very persistent. I got to take a bath. Andy feel asleep in the warm moist air. With Puyi, he'd also fallen asleep through the first part of the process in the clinic. In the water and while concentrating on my body, I could feel Alexis in there doing her part to move ahead. She would push her feet from my ribs head first, just to bounce right back. She did this several times, until she grew tired I suppose, or realized that it wasn't working. I pictured her as a little arrow. There was simply too much water. What represented the luxury of space during pregnancy wurde nun zum Verhängnis. I stumbled out of the bath with the midwife's and Andy's help, went to the bed. Whereas I'd wanted to be quiet at little Andy's birth, which didn't work, I did not care this time around. During the last contractions leading up to Lexi's passage into an artificially lit world, I screamed so loud, I saw the walls shaking. The water went everywhere and soaked the sheets, the mattress and the floor around the bed. Alexis immediately attached to the nippel and remained for about a half hour until the midwife came to pry her off to be weighed, she would have stayed there otherwise. Alexis was born on October 16th, 2010 at 02:01 a.m. She was gorgeous! A few days later my thesis was off to the Europa University Viadrina. Andy personally took it there with the train I used to take to the classes, one hour from Berlin to Frankfurt-Oder. I would never again go since becoming a mom for the second time. I was too busy breast-feeding a greedy little girl. The exam took place exactly a month later on Novemeber 16th, my Mexican grandmother's birthday, at my professor's Berlin apartment. She had made tea and I brought cake. The two women examiners were disappointed that I had come without a baby. I passed with flying colors. It was a beautiful experience in the end.
Anyway, my second baby was the most beautiful and miraculous surprise gift ever! She loves books, even those without pictures. She pulls out a book, flipps through the pages as if she had done this a million times before (she's only one!) and walks around with it for the rest of the day. I've begun to make a little fortune telling game depending on what book she picks. For a while there she was very fond of a little Rousseau biography. Two days ago she brought around Camus' Stranger. Another favourite is Foucault. I try to keep the books I am currently reading from her, though she is always very careful with them. It is almost eerie sometimes, the way she handles a book, the way her eyes examine its content though never having learned to read yet... It makes me wonder where her soul may have come from on this journey. Anyway, she has been full of scholarly fortune and she reigninted that schorlarly fire in me. Te amo, mijita bonita, te amo y muchas gracias, mi amor!
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