Hydroponic Tomato

Two snowstorms in less than a week, the second one leaving about 50cm of snow in less than 24 hours. These two pictures are taken during and after the second, record breaking storm. Houses and cars were buried. We’re way beyond 400cm of accumulated snow fall this winter. Québec-City alone uses 12.000 litres of gasoline per day (and plenty of human resources) to shuffle the snow away. Imagine if they were shuffling earth, rather than snow. The excavations would be permanent, the major arteries could be put underground and the solution would be more ecological, longer lasting and probably also more economical in the longer term.

Like most of the St-Lawrence valley between Montréal and Québec we’re under heavy snow - probably the worse storm of the season. Not much to do other than wait for it to pass. Surfing the web this morning I found this interesting article about parental control and the internet. Remote access to the office is down, so the image processing and tutorials for my panorama technology blog will have to wait.

The little pulsating pixel has grown to more than 7 cm (head to bum) in a few weeks. Click on the picture to see it full scale. And it gave us a whole dance show during the prenatest ultrasound scan. We’re all excited. Nicole’s blood samples are out to the lab, results are expected at our next visit with the doctor.

There is more to write, but I’m tired now. It’s 3AM. We came home very late and all I wanted to do was just to scan this beautiful picture and share it!

More snow! For the record (and for those friends in warmer countries) those are doors, not windows

Encore plus de neige! Pour nos amis qui ne connaissent pas les hivers du Québéc, c’est de portes, pas des fenêtres

This morning we had to dig the car out of the snow. Last night’s snowstorm brought 30 cm of snow and the winds did the rest.

We took it easy over the Holidays. Nicole was feeling tired. Instead of joining my family visit from Switzerland on their tour of New England down to New York, we had them over for only two days. I quickly joined my sister Jasmin, her kids Shani and Eran, and my brother Yariv for a day in Montreal. Other than that, we watched the first two seasons of “Life on Mars”, an excellent BBC series and slept a lot.

The back-to-work Monday became nightmare Monday. Nicole had a bleeding! A dark déjà-vu feeling descended on us, like the fog that covered large stretches of the St-Lawrence valley these days because of the abnormally warm temperatures. This time we executed well on our emergency. It did not take long and Nicole was in good medical care. It was late for an ultra-sound scan and her condition was not life-threatening, so we had to come back on Tuesday morning for a more precise diagnosis.

Same place, same people, same excellent service, same way up to the ultrasound scanning rooms. We went through it with resignation in our hearts. We were braced for the worse. The quarter of an hour wait felt long and painful.
The first images and the technician reassuring comments brought up tears of joy. There it was, a tiny little black bubble in the right place. Inside it a 9mm pulsating embryo. 6 weeks and 6 days old according to the doctors. All looked normal. Nicole did not have her glasses so the technician increased the magnification factor. We could see the tiny heart beat.

The doctors could not explain the exact cause of the bleeding, nor the atypical pressure and heartbeat of Nicole that morning. But they could exclude that it was the beginning of another miscarriage.

We’ll take it easy this week, staying in Quebec with Nicole’s parents. Seven weeks are done, another 33 to go.

No sushi this time at the exit of the hospital, so we went for some unhealthy fast food.

It takes 38 weeks for an embryo from fecundation to complete development until a baby is born. Toward the end of the second week, the pregnancy hormone can first be detected by a urine test commonly found in pharmacies.

We’re back on track!

This last week has been extremely stressful. Miscarriage at the tenth week. 20% of pregnancies end this way. We are just a statistic. This is one of those moments when character becomes more relevant than statistics. We look at it as having been handed the “Return to go” card. I am very proud of Nicole. On top of the emotional issues that affect both of us she had to deal with medical complications. She showed courage and determination.

We are resilient. A lot of sadness of course, but we had taken good care all along to be realistic about this being an embryo. We lost an embryo, not a baby. The inevitable has slightly changed our plan, not our objective. We are back to square zero and will be back at it with renewed energy once Nicole will have recovered physically.

We take some positives out of this tragic experience.

We had exceptional support from people around us. Our gratitude goes particularly to Danny and Guylaine in Trois-Rivières, to Simon in Québec-City, to Dr. Line Blackburn and the medical staff in Québec-City and to Nicole’s parents.

We learned a lot about the local health system, we understood the deficiencies of our nearly inexistent emergency plan and we are more determined than ever to make a baby, which means that our further plans will likely be postponed by a few months because the circumstances are such that we’d rather do it in a health system that we know.

Writing is therapeutic too. I’ve been writing a lot these days and will likely do a lot of it in the near future.

Finally home! Nicole’s operation went well, and I could fetch her at 03:00. Unlike planned, I could not get any sleep, so we first stopped for a sleep at her parents before continuing for Trois-Rivières.

Driving back was liberating. For the first time in a week, that highway I had seen so often looked completely different. No pressure. I set my cruise-control to the exact speed limit. Almost all cars would speed me by. Despite the authorities’ declaration of the year of road safety, over 80% of highway drivers are still driving faster than the speed limit.

We had finally time to talk things through. Discuss our priorities. Make plans for the future again. Once at home, it was time to take care of Nicole properly.

I went grocery shopping to prepare her a good dinner. To pamper her after the curettage I stopped at Lush on my way home. It was my first time ever in the shop, and the sales lady was trying to be nice. Of course she could not know what we’ve just been through.

Her first suggestion was a full kit that starts with a bath… stop! Can’t take a bath after surgical intervention. “I was thinking more of something for a massage”, I told her.

The next suggestion was at the display of parfumed massage bars. They have edible ones, very sexy… stop again! “I’ll have to share with you the situation we’re in: we just had a miscarriage, I want to pamper her, not to sex her”.

Now the sales woman knew what we needed, and I got a couple of excellent, relaxing massage bars. But she kept trying to sell me shaving foam, for both my beard and my scalp which have both grown to same length since the beginning of the week.

It was a quick drive to the CHUL. We arrived around 20:00 and Nicole checked in. We went up to the ward. The personnel was very competent and professional. They apologized for the chaos although we felt we were serviced very well and noticed very little chaos.

Service was given by females and male nurses. The rooms were mixed. It did not bother Nicole so I did not investigate further, but I can imagine that this can hurt some sensitivities. My guess is that the hospital was at or beyond operating capacity so they had to accommodate Nicole in whatever bed they found. I can’t believe that a hospital that size does not have an area dedicated to women undergoing this sort of procedure. There were at least six of them scheduled before Nicole when we arrived.

What did bother me was the TV rental in-room: 11$ for the first day and 8$ each additional day, for a tiny 12″ or so! Whoever has to go to hospital is better off passing at Wal*Mart and buying quickly a portable DVD player.

The nurse gave us a whole overview of the procedure and timings. The surgery itself lasts only a few minutes and after that they would keep Nicole for about three hours under observation. Nicole wanted me to be with her throughout the procedure but hospital policy was against it. And visitor hours close at 21:00. The nurse was very forthcoming. She offered to make an exception for me to stay after visitor hours because the exact time for the procedure was not yet scheduled and most likely Nicole could quit the hospital around midnight if there were no complications.

I did not want to cause trouble. Nicole and I agreed that I’d go home to rest and come later to pick her up A.S.A.P. But I could not even think of sleeping. I was too nervous. Lucky me I could go to my friends Simon and Catherine who are living nearby. At 21:00 Nicole called that she was going in. 3-4 long hours to wait. Simon kept me company over a small scotch and introduced me to some subtleties of classical music that I was never aware of.

I expected Nicole to call, as agreed, as soon as she is next to a phone after the procedure. That was meant to be around 60 to 90 minutes later. When at 23:30 there was still no news, I took initiative and called the hospital. I could not speak with her but I was told she was OK and I could pick her up at 2:00. Relief!

Simon had to work next day and I did not want to be too much of a burden. I left around 1:00. This was a quiet moment. Humidity had fallen and it was a kind of ghostly/foggy atmosphere. It was the second time in 24 hours I regretted leaving the camera behind in Trois-Rivières. The first time was earlier in the day, when driving with Nicole on Rue des Braves after buying her pain killers. There was a park with a church there that still had beautiful autumn colors. Next year.

I drove slowly from Simon’s place to the hospital stretching it and with the car’s ventilation at the maximum to get rid of condensation. I was slightly hungry and Simon recommended a Lebanese restaurant that is open 24 hours in Place de la Cité. I discovered there was a whole night life patch there, but did not really feel social, so I made another round of the block, parked, and walked slowly into the hospital.

It was so good to see Nicole doing better. We spent about half hour at her hospital bed, waiting for the last formalities and the official release. Then I drove her to her parents home where we could finally sleep. It was over.