April Fu

Hey, all you cool cats and kittens! Welcome to Week Two of Shelter-in-Place! There is a lot of social media FOMO going on with parents feeling HashtagBlessed to finally have some down time with their kids. As an Empty Nester, I’ve got my college kids at home. I LOVE having them home. HashtagReallyNoNotReally.

They don’t belong here. Not at this age and not at this stage. Watching “Tiger King” with their parents. That’s a big bag of NOPE.

They belong out in the world with their friends and with adults who are brilliant and caring and, most essentially, not their parents. But I am feeling grateful that they are excellent people and that we have a house that allows each of us to have adequate personal space, EVEN IF my personal space is the 30 square feet of my walk-in closet. No joke. All my Zoom/FaceTime Happy Hours take place at The Fu Closet Cocktail Lounge. Seating is limited but drinks are all on the house.

I don’t know how much FOMO my kids feel. Our family is a little….ummmm…different. And that’s something that you don’t really realize until you spend some significant time in the world. Until that time, your family is just a fact. Like how our dogs thoroughly participate in family conversations. They ask questions and express opinions. Oftentimes, they are so brutally honest as dogs tend to be, unabashedly advising a Fu of annoying behavior as the rest of us stand aghast at the brazen canine candor. My kids are discovering that not all family dogs engage in such complex discussions.

But this week our dogs are feeling a great deal of compassion for Chris. You see, Chris will be celebrating his 21^st birthday on Thursday, April 2, 2020. With all his friends on Shelter-in-Place orders and all the bars and restaurants closed.

He’s our True Blue April Fu.

I should have made myself a damn t-shirt every time I got pregnant. Why do people even think this is funny?

NO. I am not going to name my baby
Kung
Toe
I Pity Da
Little Bunny Fu

Those are not even names. So stupid. With a last name like Fu, Albert and I were definitely mindful of the names we bestowed upon our children. We would never be parents to Adam, Juan, or April. Christopher seemed to be a perfect name. Classic and heroic. We didn’t anticipate this:

Or this.

Bless you.

He might have been March Fu; my contractions started coming every five minutes on the evening of March 31. MY DAD REQUESTED THAT I NOT HAVE MY BABY ON APRIL 1! Albert and I headed to the hospital where I was monitored for a few hours. The contractions subsided, and we were sent home. I experienced exactly ZERO contractions on April 1. Best April Fool’s prank EVER, Chris!

Soon after, I was at my mom’s house for lunch and had just put Alex down for a nap when I felt a familiar squeeze. My mom used to work as a midwife and wanted to take me to the hospital right away, but I wasn’t ready to go. Albert’s last patient was at 4pm, and I thought I could probably hold out for a few hours before heading to the hospital. My mom tried everything to convince me to go to the hospital.

“You’ll be more comfortable laboring in the hospital.”

“You’ll be less anxious with the nurses helping you.”

“I’ll get your bag and then drive you to the hospital.”

And finally, the most significant justification?

“Don’t have your baby here! I just had my carpets cleaned!”

After a chat with my doctor, Albert cancelled the rest of his afternoon and came to pick me up. My first son, Alex, popped out in about 45 minutes, so my doctor advised us to head straight to the hospital and he’d meet us there.

It was about 4pm on Good Friday 1999, and the 101 North was extra packed going from Camarillo to Ventura. One of our ObGyns had warned us against having the baby in the car. “You’ll never get the smell out.” He told us of the time his wife started labor panting in the car, and he threatened to pull over and deliver the baby on the hood if she didn’t hold it in.

The traffic was crawling. Albert made the executive decision to drive the rest of the way to the hospital on the shoulder of the freeway. I was pretty uncomfortable as we walked into Labor & Delivery, but they were ready for me and checked my cervix.

9.5cm

It looked and sounded like chaos that ensued. My nurse started yelling to the desk nurse to call Dr. Coyle. It was coincidental that “A Baby Story” recently aired with a local ObGyn named “Terry Cole” who also had privileges there.

“She’s at Nine-point-Five. Call Dr. Coyle!”

“Who?”

“Dr. Coyle!”

“Dr. Cole?”

“No, Dr. Coyle!”

“Terry Cole?”

“No! Dr. Coyle! C-O-Y-L-E!”

My eyes were screwed shut by this time, but Albert tells me that Dr. Coyle briskly strolled in a few minutes later from his office across the street. He calmly tucked the bottoms of his pants into his socks and gowned up. Up went my legs as he broke my amniotic sac. Then the real show started.

Fortunately, the pain didn’t last long. Chris arrived just a few minutes later. 7 pounds, 10 ounces at 4:30pm.

From the moment Albert and I walked into L&D to the moment Chris was born: Seventeen minutes. He arrived so quickly that he created his own vacuum. Perhaps this explains his aversion to these handy cleaning gadgets? His whole face was deep purple and many vessels in his eyes were broken. His little head was a giant hickey, and his little bloodshot eyes made him look like he was turnt 24/7 for about a week.

I asked Chris whether he was disappointed to be spending his 21^st birthday this way. “Not really,” he told me. He is choosing to regard this as an interesting life experience. So many people tell stories about their 21^st birthdays, getting shitfaced with friends in bars and not really remembering the day. Few people will have the opportunity to tell the story of turning 21 during a global pandemic.

What a lovely, positive attitude! Sorry you are quarantined and celebrating your 21^st birthday with your squarents, Son. We’ll try to make your day fun and memorable.

I hope that you and your family are staying in and staying safe during this crazy time! Thank you for reading!