The Story of How 'The Baby' Got a Name

I've been back at work part-time since December just 2 days a week but as of next week it will be 3 days a week.  This week went really fast because one of my 2 work days was a public holiday - Australia Day.  It's now the weekend already.

Last weekend we went away for for a couple of days to a farmstay up near Bendigo.  I thought it would be nice for Emma to be on a farm and see the animals.  The owners were really nice and showed us their farm all for Emma's benefit.  The best thing we did was to go out in the paddock in our 4wd's and round up the sheep - all for Emma's benefit.  It was also the first time Emma had been in the front of the car and  got really excited about the buttons on the dashboard and no amount of us going 'look look' pointing at the sheep, could stop her from starring at the buttons.

I mentioned on my first post for the year that it took six months to decide on a name for our baby.  Patrick and I had very different ideas about names and really struggled to find one we both could agree on.  When she turned exactly six months old we had to have a name or we would miss out on the baby bonus. We were up until 3:00 am trashing it through until we picked Emma Sarina Frances.  Emma being the only name we both had in common on our short lists.   Sarina was my maternal Granmother's name and Frances came from both sides of Patrick's family.  Unforturnately in the rush to get the registration in, we forgot to put Emma on the form and I only found out in the process of getting a passport for her.  So it took another 2 months to get that all sorted out.

Funnily enough we did get her medicare card and a bank account in the name of Emma before the mistake was discovered and almost also got the passport done but had it rejected not because of the name error but because the referee's details on the passport form was in blue ink instead of black.  Had that not been the case, it is likely the passport would have been accepted with the worng name on it as the interviewer at the post office didn't seem to notice either.  A scenario most criminals could only dream of.

Anyway it was a great relief to be able to call her by a name.  Within my family I was calling her Eliana which was the name I originally liked best (Hebrew name meaning G-d has answered me) but between Patrick and myself we referred to her as 'the baby'.  'Hey did you see what the baby did today'   Yes it was a huge relief to finally call her Emma and now I can't imagine her being called anything else.

Choochie Passed Away.

 Another thing that happened while I was away from blogging was that my beautiful dog Choochie passed away.   I used to have a slide show on the right side bar with photos of Choochie and Patrick - my two boys.  I just replaced it now with photos of the three of us.

After Emma was born Keith - an ex who also was a big part in Choochie's life, looked after him because I found it was too much with getting up to feed Emma umpteen times during the night and giving Choochie his insulin shots every 8 hours.  Choochie became a diabetic as a consequence of pancreatitis and then as a consequence of that he became blind.  Chasing balls was his life.  He lived for it and when he slept it was clear from his movements that he dreamed about it.

When Emma was born, Choochie was almost completely blind - it happened fast toward the end.  So he was to old to know Emma and Emma too young to know him.  Just before we put him down he had a seizure and could no longer walk.   Keith and I were there at the vet to put him down and it was heartbreaking.  The next week Keith rang to see how I was doing but I couldn't talk long because Emma was sick and I had to attend to her.   She just started daycare and so started to pick up all the bugs that she could.  The following week Keith rang to ask how Emma was and I couldn't speak because I was at sleep school with Emma.  I said to Keith, 'I'm at the South Eastern Hospital and we are just about to put Emma down.  Keith screamed back 'what do you mean put her down'.

So here is to Choochie who brought me so much joy and had such a beautiful nature.  While I was sick he helped to put a smile on my face.   I miss him dearly.

New Years Resolution

OK it's the first day of the year - 2010. So one of my new year resolutions is to start blogging again. I'll just post this quick one to get the ball rolling. I won't even start here to say what has been happening in the last however long its been because I think that is what has bogged me down from starting blogging again - where to start.

So, we'll see how long I can keep up this resolution. If I broke it I'd have to break another resolution which is not to break my resolutions this time. So thank you to my readership who I'm sure have been logging on each day to see if I have blogged :-) Or maybe you have just subscribed to the rss feeds in the past.

One thing I regret about not blogging much over the past year is that Emma (yes we did find a name for her at the 6 month mark) reached so many milestones that I would have had documented. Oh well never too late to start doing that.

Corrections

I made corrections in my post below because my father said I had some of the details of his last moments in the camps wrong.

Where There Is Life There Is Hope

I'm embarrassed to say that I still can't report on a baby name.  I was hoping that on my next post I would be able to let you all know her name.  Soon I'm sure.

Since my article in The Age, I was contacted by someone from an excellent blog called mymeso.  The blog is an excellent resource on the latest mesothelioma research and on people with mesothelioma.  They did a post about me and so I checked out their blog where I read the story about Debbie Brewer who has a blog called Mesothelioma and Me.  She did a treatment called chemoembolization which is traditionally used to treat liver cancer.  Yesterday her oncologist told her that he doesn't need to see her anymore as she is in remission.  There are so many amazing things happening with technology, I think when you have a terminal illness, you have to just hope that some cure will come up before you die and that you find out about it and can afford it.

My father at age 15 was sent to concentration camps during WWII.  He first arrived in Birkenau and then spent most of his time in Auchwitz.  From Auchwitz they were sent on a death march to Buchenwald where thousands were killed on the way.  From Buchenwald in April 1945 just before it was to be liberated, five thousand inmates including my father were put on a train in an open goods wagon which for 4 weeks had no where to go as Germany was shrinking.  On the 8th of May the train pulled into Teresienstadt which had been liberated.  A head count 2 days after arrival showed that only about 250 out of the 5000 survived the trip.   Dad was taken from the train by a stretcher to the hospital and overheard a doctor telling the Red Cross nurses that my father would probably die before the next day.   He then spend the next few years in hospital in Czechoslovakia suffering from tuberculosis which he acquired while in the camps along with typhus.  Luckily with a prognosis of only months to live, relatives in the US sent him a new drug, streptomysin, that could cure tuberculosis.  He was the first person in Czechoslovakia to have tried the drug and it cured him.  He was saved twice at the last minute.  

Had he died I would not have been born just as had I died my beautiful daughter would not have been born.  While there is life there is hope.  

Link to The Age article corrected

I just noticed that the link to the article in The Age was linked to page 2 of the article.  Here is a link to the full article.

Finally another post

I think it is about time I started blogging again.  My last post was about an article on page 3 of The Age about me.  Now almost 4 and a half months later there is another article in The Age about me - this time I made the front page.  Here is a link to the online version.  

I don't know why I hardly blogged through my pregnancy.  I wrote on earlier posts that I should do regular posts so that people don't worry about me.  Another blogger who I became friends with was suffering from a brain tumor and I always felt reassured when she posted on her blog. She used to comment on my blog here under the name Team SAK and first contacted me after coming across my blog.  We were both doing chemotherapy at the time at Cabrini.  She started her blog around the same time as me and used to post very regularly.  Sadly she passed away on October 16th having posted her last beautiful post on September 6th.  I feared that she wasn't doing to well when she hadn't posted for ages.  I haven't blogged for so long that I assume no one reads my blog anymore anyway but I know that in the past, people have told me that they were also reassured when I posted on my blog.

I was on the Channel 7 news tonight.  I have embedded the segment below.  Also if you want to download a clip of the segment you can do it from here.  There is no need to sign up for anything, just click on the 'download this file' button.  

So we now have a beautiful daughter who is absolutely perfect (no bias there) but after 3 weeks today, we still haven't decided on a name for her. Patrick and I each have favourite names but nothing in common. We do have names that we can both agree on but none that we both are particularly crazy about. We also haven't had much time to sit down and seriously work on this but I'm hoping during this next week while Patrick is off from work, that we will come up with something.

Just prior to the birth we bought a new camera so I'll upload the photos from the camera and put some up on the blog.