Friday, January 28, 2011

Human Kindness

In Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert quotes Ben Sheffield, another author, who says something along the lines of, "it's almost impossible to be a cynic after something bad happens to you because the kindness of your fellow humans will overwhelm you."  Sheffield suddenly and unexpectedly lost his wife, which he writes about in Love is a Mix Tape.  I bring this up because it's true.  I can't believe how many people have made the effort to express sorrow for our loss and wish us well.  It would be hard for me to think that the world is a cruel and unforgiving place when I'm surrounded by such love.  Bobby and I have had our ups and downs over the years, and I can tell you that the downs make me appreciate the ups that much more. Losing a pregnancy is a tough thing to get over, but I know we will come out stronger for it.  Thank you, everyone, for making this easier.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Life Happens

Three weeks ago, I found out I was pregnant. Four days ago, I lost it. It would make sense for me to leave this out of the blog, but I can't do it. It was a major experience in my life. Furthermore, I don't understand the cult of secrecy surrounding miscarriage. It's a very real, very painful experience that many people go through and no one talks about. If I had gallstones or something, of course I would write about it. It's far past time to lift the aura of shame from the experience.

I guess I'll start with the hospital. I found the staff at Hyosung Women's Hospital to be compassionate and professional. Hyosung is a little more expensive than YUMC, but the facilities are much nicer. I guess you would call it a “boutique” hospital. There were many English speakers. My friends in America who have miscarried have often gone through a “wait and see” period where they wait to miscarry naturally. If this doesn't work, they resort to drugs, and if that doesn't work, they do a D&C. My doctors seemed a little more interested in getting the whole thing over with, which I appreciate. Once the process started, I was given 12 hours to miscarry on my own or I would have a D&C (it turns out I didn't need it).

Not that expelling an embryo is a piece of cake. That's actually one thing I was not prepared for. On television, it tends to happen overnight. In reality, there were about three days of agony which has thankfully diminished. Bobby and I have been watching Battlestar Galactica at a rate of about a season a day. He has been wonderful, making dinner, taking care of the animals, and waiting on me hand and foot. Some people look at us and think Bobby got the better end of the deal. They're wrong.

I don't know how long it will take to get over it. I'm not going to push myself. I know it was nobody's fault, that sometimes life just doesn't happen. There are a lot of rules surrounding pregnant women, and it's easy to think that maybe if we want to carry a healthy child to term, we have to sit around and eat bananas all day, feel absolutely no stress, and avoid breathing too much air because it might contain toxins. One wonders how the human race survived through times of famine, war, and natural disasters.
In the words of president Roslin, “It was nobody's fault. It's bigger than that. It's life.” Here's to better days.

Friday, January 14, 2011

Week of Repairmen


 I've been a poor correspondent these past few weeks, I know. I spent the week after New Year's back at Camp Casey attending training. It was a nondescript week in which I missed Daegu's loveliest snow and ate an honest-to-god bean and chicken burrito. When I got back, our heater was on the fritz. My friends can tell you I am a wimpy southerner at heart, and I despise the cold, so I was less than pleased. The next day, our main kitchen light went out. Much to our chagrin, we can't just buy a new light and replace it over here. We've tried. There's some magical third step that requires a professional light bulb installer. Yes, such a person exists, and he has been to our house twice now. In Korea, there's a job for just about everything. Apparently most gas stations (which are all full service) have a professional tire filler.


Bobby's beloved flat screen went out one year and one week after we bought it (!) It's a Korean brand, so Bobby contacted the company, who said “ship it to us and we'll fix it.” We didn't know how to go about doing this, so at a local TV repair man's behest we drove our set down to his shop. He took one look at it and said, “no big TV! Only small TV!” With a giant TV in our car, we headed down the road to Louis, our genial realtor who has been known to help in a pinch. Louis walked with us to a Korean post office, where they said “too big” but referred us to a shipping company. Louis called the shipping company, arranged for a pickup, and told Bobby to have the delivery address translated into Korean and be prepared with cash payment. Our neighbor, Jin, translated the address and the delivery guys showed up and carted our TV to Seoul for a mere 25,000 won (about 20 bucks).

Four days later, we were getting nervous when Bobby got a call from someone who spoke no English. I did a reverse look up on the number (being married to a former reference librarian has its advantages), and saw that it was the shipping company. Bobby called the TV company, got through to the one guy who spoke English (the president), who said he would call the shipping company and get our TV. Our TV has now been delivered to the company, but it got a little hairy there in the middle.

We decided, since we were at it, to finally get our dryer fixed. We spent the summer happily hanging our clothes on a line on top of our building, but now that it's cold we can't do that. It's been a week of repairmen.
Maya loves balls

The view from our roof

Jin and Maya

The restaurants and the road