A baby bird fell out of a tree: on learning to fly

 We've become familiar with our feathered neighbors this spring: the hummingbirds who are always vying for ownership of the feeder, the little brown birds who fly around in a pair making high-pitched cheeping sounds, and the scrub jay family who are nesting in the tree on the west side of the yard, near the fence.

I was pottering in the garden yesterday afternoon when I noticed something tiny and fluffy flapping and cheeping on the ground in the fallen leaves near the fence. It was a baby scrub jay, fallen from the nest. One of the parents was hopping around near it, looking concerned. The little chick can't fly yet.

We didn't know what to do. They looked like a family in crisis, a nestling on the ground and the nest so high up. That little bird just a ball of dandelion fluff. I didn't believe it would last the night.

We did some research and contacted some wildlife rescue people. They said to leave the bird where it is, that it is a fledgling and often they spend a few days on the ground before they learn to fly. The parents will watch over it and feed it, and they will hear the baby call.

We kept an eye on it yesterday, concerned because we didn't see the parents around much. We kept the cats inside and hoped a raccoon wouldn't find it. I am so tender-hearted, even worse than usual these days, and that scared little chicky made me so sad. It looked so vulnerable, sitting on the ground in its tender baby fluff, about to spend its first night out of the nest.

I keep thinking of Pema Chodron's passage about the baby bird:

...Another image for maitri or loving-kindness is that of a mother bird who protects and cares for her young until they are strong enough to fly away. People sometimes ask, "Who am I in this image--the mother or the chicks?" The answer is we're both: both the loving mother and those ugly little chicks. It's easy to identify with the babies--blind, raw, and desperate for attention. We are a poignant mixture of something that isn't all that beautiful and yet is dearly loved. 

I feel like that baby bird a lot, since becoming a mother: vulnerable, uncertain, and completely ill-equipped for life outside the nest . Sometimes I lose the mother bird part of me, and all I feel inside are those hungry chicks, cheeping cheeping. Now I have to take care of my own inner baby bird, and my outer baby bird who always needs physical and emotional caretaking. (And my husband's baby bird, who I love as much as my own.)

But I can see what that baby scrub jay outside in my back yard can't: the parents are there, watching out, and so am I, a benevolent gardener. This is what's supposed to happen. This happens to all baby birds learning to fly: they spend some cold nights on the ground. It's lonely and painful, but a part of the process. This bird is lucky it fell on our side of the fence, and not the neighbors' side where the pit bull lives. Its feather will grow in and it will learn to fly. 

lessons in gratitude #2

I'm feeling tender and vulnerable the last few days. There are definitely more tender days now that I'm a mother than before; there's just something painful about watching your own inner child learn to toddle around.

We put him down for his nap this afternoon, thinking it was a good day to snuggle up in bed, read a book, and take a nap ourselves. Of course the baby didn't want to sleep. He fussed and yelled. Then there was a period of silence long enough to make us think that maybe he'd fallen to sleep. But then he'd fuss some more and we'd hear him standing in his crib and dropping things on the floor. We brought him to bed with us, hoping he'd vibe with us and we'd all fall asleep, but of course he just wanted to crawl all over us and pull my hair.

Anyway... eventually I got up, and fed him an avocado and some leftover pasta, but we were both annoyed with each other and not very friendly. He tried to make peace by offering me some rotini with his slimy little hand. He is so cute and sweet, and his heart is so pure that my heart melted and I felt like such a jerk for letting him fuss in his crib for so long. I let him put the pasta in my mouth, and I praised him for being such a generous little boy and thanked him for thinking of me. We played on the floor for awhile. I was so impressed with how he's understanding more words and he's getting so much better at moving through space and manipulating objects. When he smiles at me we share such a beautiful feeling of pleasure.

Then it was bedtime so we took a bath. He likes to drink water from a black mug with a panda face on it. We played with the rubber duckies. He likes it when I put one on my head, and when it falls off he stands up and puts it back on my head. He smiles and laughs and squirms with pleasure. His little belly was all sticking out, full of avocado and noodles, and his little hands dart everywhere like fish.

We play a game when we get out of the tub. I toss him on the bed and rub him vigorously with a towel to dry him. He tries to get away, but I catch him and say, "Is the baby dry yet? Nooo!" And I toss him back on the bed and dry him some more. He thinks it's sooo funny. He laughs and laughs and kicks his feet in the air, flips over like a turtle and tries to crawl away again. We do this 3 or 4 times before I take him to his room to dress him for bed. He was trying to squirm off the changing table as I was strapping his diaper on, so I sang "You are My Sunshine" and he quieted a little. I kept singing and making up verses as I put his pajamas on.

It is night, dear, and time for sleeping
You are tired, so am I
But when you wake, dear,
we'll have breakfast.
I will love you all of your life.

Things felt right with us when I put him down, and he went right to sleep. I still feel like a jerk, though. 

What we've been through (part II)

Baby's third hospitalization must've started toward the end of August. He was four months old. By the time we were released, baby had spent more than half his life in the PICU.

We went to our ENT doctor when babe's breathing was troubled again. We packed our bags this time, expecting to be admitted again. We were planning to go to our friends' wedding over Labor day weekend and expected this hospitalization to be quick and easy like the last one.

My memories of the first days are vague. We knew that if the sclerotherapy wasn't successful, the doctors would press for a tracheostomy. We still didn't want to do that, but it was starting to look like the other options weren't working. We were admitted, the sclerotherapy scheduled. We tried to extubate immediately afterwards, but baby didn't tolerate it. He had to be reintubated. We slept at home on the nights baby was sedated and intubated. I was pumping breastmilk for him to be fed through a tube. When we did extubate a few days later, baby had a facial droop. The left eye was still droopy from the first procedure, but now the left half of his mouth drooped, too. Actually, "droop" is too mild. It was totally paralyzed. I was anxious about his ability to swallow, but the doctors said we could try to breastfeed.

In the days after intubation, it was really difficult to get the baby to nurse and make sure to pump enough to maintain supply. The drugs made baby irritable. He wouldn't latch. When he did, I wasn't sure I could hear him swallowing. I wasn't pumping enough because I wanted to have milk for him when he did nurse, and I thought that at any moment he would feel better and I would have my happy, hungry baby back.

What we've been through (part I)

 I've mentioned many times here that my baby was sick. His first birthday is fast approaching, and so is the March for Babies, and our doctor says that there's an 80 percent chance he will never need more intervention. We are cautiously optimistic. Our babe is a normal, happy, healthy 11 month old.  Last night I dreamed that I became a pediatric nurse. I cried in my dream, because my heart still hurts so much, and being around sick children all the time would be so hard. But it felt right, because now I have greater compassion and respect for parents and the urge to help other families through such trying times.


Around 26 weeks in my pregnancy, my midwife sent me for an ultrasound because my baby was measuring small. The ultrasound showed a healthy-sized baby with a cyst in his neck. The doctor thought it was a benign branchial cleft cyst that would resolve on its own. I had a follow-up ultrasound four weeks later, which showed no change, and my midwife and I agreed to continue with our plan to birth at home.

I had a very long labor, and babe was born at the hospital. He was perfect and vigorous. We enjoyed a blissful 6 weeks at home. We learned to breastfeed and my postpartum recovery was pretty easy.

At our one month well-baby visit, our pediatrician was worried because baby's breathing was noisy (lots of snoring and snorting sounds), and the cyst in his neck was now visible, an egg shaped lump below his left ear. He suggested we go for an ultrasound. We didn't want to. We didn't want there to be anything the matter with our child.
"How about next week?" we said
"How about tomorrow," said our pediatrician.

Election day

Our little family walked to our polling place to vote this morning and then had pancakes at our local greasy spoon. The baby is too young to remember, but I hope he will be proud one day that he was there when Obama won a second term. I want him to learn that it's his duty to vote, and I want him to value justice, diversity, and social responsibility. I want to raise a feminist son.

Here in California, we voted for labels on GMO foods. I sure hope this is the start of national right to know campaign.

I am cooking dinner and drinking wine. Feeling celebratory. NPR's on the radio and my good man is putting the baby down. Maybe I'll bake cookies later. It's a good day.