Mrs. Stevo and Baby Stevo a week later.

It happened like this:

Monday, June 7: We went to the hospital. Knowing someone that knew someone, as well as a giant basket of fruit to bribe the floor nurses, secured Mrs. Stevo a nice room and attentive care. After checking in and meeting with the doctor it was off to the labour room. A bag of IV fluid, labour-inducing medication, and five hours later, Baby Stevo had yet to arrive. Baby Stevo was stubborn. Back to the room and a night sleep for Mrs. Stevo – back home for moi.

Tuesday, June 8: Back to the labour room. Unlike the day before, the medication kindled a fire. Just after lunch a stronger medication was introduced. Mrs. Stevo’s contractions went from winces to bed-sheet clawing near-convulsions. Our temp Nanny arrived, a sentinel over Mrs. and yet-to-be born Baby Stevo. By early evening Mrs. Stevo was in agony. No epidural until she was dilated enough, said the doctor. “I’m going to die,” she said, again and again. Because things were progressing slowly she was moved back to her room. The baby would come tomorrow, they said. I returned home, to be called when Mrs. Stevo returned  to the labor room.

Wednesday June 9: 1 am – The nanny said “Guo Lai!” when I picked up the phone. I dressed, found a taxi and headed back to the hospital. Mrs. Stevo was in the labour room again, pale, sweaty, and grimly facing her fate. No epidural yet. “I’m going to die” was her mantra. A doctor appeared and I was ushered out. When I returned Mrs. Stevo was roses and rainbows – an IV line snaked from under the sheets to a stand above the bed. She was able to get some sleep, as did I, outside the mosquito net, eaten alive. Three other women arrived in the labour room, they were quickly taken into the delivery room. Baby Stevo was still stubborn. By 5 am the doctor suggested Mrs. Stevo drink Red Bull and eat chocolate. They took her away and the orderly showed me the door. Husbands don’t routinely go into the delivery room in China.

I anxiously sat until an entire extended family arrived to wait. Quiet is not ever a word I would use to describe China. I roamed the corridors, coming back every 10 minutes to see if a nurse had appeared. Tired of walking I stood by the waiting room window and listened to my iPod (with noise excluding headphones) to drown out the unquiet family.

The door to the labour room had been dead-bolted – I had tried to get back in earlier. As I took a break from my musical escape I heard the bolt scrape open. A doctor emerged. All I caught of her statement was “… nu hai.” A  girl. What I wanted. I was excited, but exhausted. No where near as exhausted as Mrs. Stevo must have been. After another hour I was allowed in to visit.

Mrs. Stevo was radiant and angelic, like a renaissance painting. A bundle of blankets was held in the crook of her arm. Babies aren’t bathed their first day in China. Even with a mucky head, Baby Stevo was beautiful. The nanny fawned over them both. I sat a spell and returned home.

I returned mid-afternoon, after sleeping and packing. Baby Stevo and Mrs. Stevo were back in their room. I held my daughter for the first time and walked about the room with her in my arms. It was a brief first meeting – I was headed for Beijing. It would be a week before we spent more time together. (In Beijing I did not get to take any Great Wall Tours – for the second year in a row. One day Great Wall, I will climb you).

Welcome Baby Stevo.

CHINA–Blissful sleep came to an abrupt end for The Stevo today. After three days of sleeping far later than his biology allows he was roused by the masked civet living in his kitchen.

The cat, said The Stevo, was out of the bag. The burlap sack lay in shreds. A raccoon-like face stared at him before plunging back into the garbage bin.

“I thought they would meow, it looks like a cat,” he said. Instead, he described a high-pitched whistle-cum-wail emanating from his glassed-in kitchen.

“It’s pretty damn freaky,” said The Stevo.

The civet was last seen feasting on a bags of skim milk power and uncooked rice. In an attempt to appease the wild fucking animal in his kitchen The Stevo tossed some papayas through the door.

“I just want it to shut up,” he said. “There are four more papayas and three oranges. After that all bets are off.”

The owner of said civet, The Stevo’s brother-in-law, who had spent the previous two night on the sofa, has departed Chateau Stevo. The dismayed kitchenless man said it was an unjust karmic joke.

“I would really like to get back into my kitchen,” said The Stevo.

Authorities fear there may be a double slaying, the brother-in-law, and the civet, if The Stevo is not able to get into his kitchen during the next 24 hours.

“I really want a sandwich,” he told this reporter.

Today was Day Three of sleeping like a “normal” person, although The Stevo is anything but normal. I awoke ravenous, wanting bacon and eggs. Both were in my larder, ready to be tossed into the wok and served with two thick slices of bread slathered in New Zealand butter.

The masked civet in my kitchen prevented the cooking of, and feasting upon, of the previously mentioned breakfast items. Yes, a wild cat, inside a burlap bag, still sat on my kitchen floor. The civet, best known as the animal responsible for the SARS epidemic (or pandemic) in 2003, prevented me from preparing breakfast. Last night it kept me from the fridge and frosty, malty beverage.

Why, Stevo, is there a feral animal in your kitchen? Is this unusual?

No, not unusual. This is the life I chose, or rather the life that chose me (thank you Jay-Z for the apt description). My existence is a collection of amusing, frightening, and like this one, inexplicable tales. Wait and see.

For the first time in more than two years I slept eight entire hours. That’s right, last night I slept like a tired toddler. I’m usually up-and-at-em after four or five hours of shui jiao, a rather distressing habit.

I awoke beside the lovely Mrs. Stevo, the sun streaming through the somewhat dirty window. I could hear birds chirping and students laughing as they walked to school. Idyllic comes to mind.

Upon leaving the haven of our bed I was assaulted by real life. There was no coffee in the kitchen. In fact, there was a live, fox-like creature inside a burlap bag, a present from my brother-in-law, who was sleeping blissfully on the sofa. In the shower the only soap available was broken little bits. My towel was wet, forgotten to be hung out to dry the day before.

I thought of crawling back into bed and returning to dreamland (aside: dreamland was a term used by USAF pilots for Area 51). There was no turning back. I soldiered on.

More about the fox-like creature in a further post….

I was asleep when the phone rang. Jay-Z and Linkin Park rapping 99 Problems interrupted a midday nap and an interesting dream I can’t quite remember. I didn’t recognize the number. That didn’t mean much; I get a lot of calls from unknown numbers.

“Hello?” I said, trying to sound fully awake.

“Hello, Dear.”

It was my wife. I had received a text message over night, but hadn’t heard her voice since she left early Monday morning.

“How are you,” I asked.

A giggle. Then, “We’re in Washington DC.”

“How are you?”

“I’m sick.”

“Sick?”

“I was sick on the bus this morning.”

My wife suffers from motion sickness so intense that I sometimes wonder if it is a biblical plague (not to be confused with bubonic plague). Many Chinese people are the same way. “Sick bags” hang from bus handrails.

“Tomorrow, go buy some medicine,” I told her, “Ask for something that won’t make you sleepy.” I had visions of my beloved, full of dimenhydrinate, ushering teenagers around America. I’ve seen her in the morning, and the idea of a sleepy Mrs. Stevo, wandering through the Smithsonian, made me uneasy.

“It was raining at the capitol today. We had to run for the bus. I tripped on my trousers and fell down. I have nowhere to wash them.”

I quietly groaned. Her trip was not off to a good start.

“How was the flight?” I asked.

I am not in this photo (thankfully). Mrs. Stevo is in green.

“It was fine. I was sick when we started to land in San Francisco.”

“In a bag?” I asked. I had a vision of my wife, not knowing about airline barf bags voiding her stomach in the aisle of packed 747.

“Yes, in the bag,” she said. “The students felt sorry for me.”

I was relieved while feeling her pain. She managed a flight last summer without difficulty.

“Tomorrow, buy some medicine,” I said again.

“I’m okay if I don’t eat,” she explained.

I knew her trip for the next few days would consist of being herded on and off buses. Not eating wouldn’t work. For a 90 pound woman my wife can pack away a heroic portion of rice. I’ve also come to believe that snacking is mandated under Chinese law.

“We saw a lot of foreigners today.”

“You’re in America. Now, you’re the foreigner,” I said.

She laughed.

“There were a lot of black people.”

I smiled. After getting to know a few black teachers she has been able to overcome the stereotypical belief that black is bad.

“There are a lot of black people in America,” I said. And everywhere, outside of China. “Did you see any fat women?”

She giggled again and said, “Oh my God.”

I laughed. A Chinese woman that a foreign man would consider curvaceous is called “a little fat” by her Chinese friends. My wife, seeing the fast-food nation and its victims up close would be awed.

The talk turned to all the men reminding her of me. She conceded I was more handsome, or would be if I shaved the goatee I’ve been growing since school ended.

We said goodbye.

She is on an eye-opening adventure, something few of her colleagues will ever be able to do. Properly medicated she should do just fine.

The same goes for me.