Sebastian Alberto Azpurua-Askowitz

born January 14, 2009, at 2:53 P.M.

8 pounds, 7 oz., 22 inches 

We are thrilled and exhausted.

Here he is, 3 days old.  He could be a model. 

(Victoria and me at our baby shower)  

Victoria said, “After the baby’s born, we’re getting old.”  I hadn’t thought about how pregnancy marks youth.  But we’re both 40.  I think she’s right.

Victoria and I had her 28 week appointment.  Our doctor was attentive and unhurried.  Dr. Paez is like a big cherub.  I wanted to hug him.  I took out my notebook and began asking our questions.  I asked if he thought doctors were too quick to cut the umbilical cord.  Dr. Paez said there was no medical reason not to snip it right away.  I said that a dula told me the placenta pumps blood to the baby and that the baby relies on that blood for a little while after birth.  The doctor said that when the baby is placed on the mother’s chest, gravity pulls the blood down and the baby could lose blood if the cord isn’t cut.  I said I didn’t think the chest was that high, if the mother was lying down, unless she had enormous breasts, which Victoria doesn’t have, and that in my case, with Tashi, I remember feeling the cord pulsating on my belly for a while before they cut it.  Dr. Paez said there was no medical reason to wait, so he cuts right away.  I asked if he’d wait if we wanted him to, and he said, there was no medical reason to wait.  

That’s when Victoria said, “Yeah, gravity pulls the blood down.” 

I figured out something profound:  Victoria hates to appear ignorant on any subject.  

Here I can have all these question ready in my notebook.  Questions she asked me to write down so we wouldn’t forget.  And as soon as I ask them, as soon as I get to a hard one, she acts like she knows the answer.

When I’m smart like this, people always ask me if I was a psychology major in college.  I was a psych major.  Those people weren’t psych majors or they would know that you learn nothing about the human psyche studying it in college.  You do learn about the human psyche in the dorms or at frat parties or in the school cafeteria, if you’re paying attention.  But you really don’t need to go to college for that.

 So I gave Victoria a dirty look and told this story my cousin, who’s a veterinarian, told me.  He’s been treating cows and horses for probably 25 years.  When he started, he learned to put on a plastic glove to his shoulder and reach into a cow’s vagina and scoop out the placenta after a calf was born.  He scooped placentas because cows had a hard time passing the placenta and scooping it out reduced her likelihood of infection.  He did that hundreds of times, maybe thousands until he got a new job on a different farm.  

A calf was born and he went to scoop out the placenta, when his new boss told him it was better for the cow to absorb the placenta herself, she’d be less prone to infection.  He went to his first vet school professor and said, “What’s with the placenta?”

His professor said, “Half of everything we do is wrong.  We just don’t know which half.” 

This story and others like it can also be read on Offsprung.com .

My book is coming out in two weeks and six days.  My Miserable, Lonely, Lesbian Pregnancy is about pregnancy, but I don’t think that’s why this whole experience feels like I’m having a baby.

I’m noticing a lot of similarities between birthing a first book and birthing a baby.  I want to say first though, that birthing a baby is a lot more important and while I’m stressing out right now, three weeks before my book, I am also telling myself that I’m ridiculous.  I’m having…a book.

But I am one who tries to be gentle with myself when I’m experiencing a big emotion, even when I think that emotion is stupid.  So, instead of flagellating (not flatulating, as in farting, like I did a lot while I was pregnant) I’ve been thinking about why I’m waking up at 4 a.m., again (just like I did at week 22 and every day after until Tashi was born).  I’m not obsessing about circumcision this time, but whether or not I emailed Linda Villarosa about the theme for our event together at the NYC Gay and Lesbian Center on May 13th, or how I have to call Lisa Niven today to see if I can put my book announcements in the opening gala gift bags at the Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, or how I should pitch my story to Steve Rothaus for his gay blog at the Miami Herald.  Those are the details flying around in my head.

I’m scared.  I want to do my best with this book.  If this book does well, then maybe I could have a career at this.  It not, then maybe I’m washed up.

I don’t usually play by the odds, but my girlfriend Victoria told me she read in the NY Times that something like 200,000 books are published every year.  That’s so many books!  How will anyone find mine?  And she told me that 95% of all books sell less than 5,000 copies.  Oh no!

But more than that, I want people to like My Miserable, Lonely, Lesbian Pregnancy.  Or even hate it.  I worked hard on it and I want people to think it’s pretty good.

So I’m a little anxious.  Because I’m trying to go easy on myself, I think what I need right now is bed rest.