My mistake / Wonderful life

A few days ago I wrote that, compared to other animals we are born early, and do an unusual amount of developing after birth.  

On reflection, it would have been more accurate to say, "unlike other mammals".  

Animals in general have a lot of weird and wonderful ways of managing the early stages of development -- laying eggs, for instance, and either sitting on them until they hatch, like most birds, or trusting them to their own fates, like frogs do.

But even among mammals, I've realised, we're far from being the only unusual ones:  

The platypus and echidna are mammals, but they lay eggs.  

Marsupials are mammals, but they emerge from the womb in a very rudimentary shape, and migrate to their mothers' pouches, where they spend more time developing than they do in the womb.  

Left: kangaroo at 5 weeks gestation, fastened on his mother's nipple soon after birth.
Right: kangaroo surveying his kingdom at 5 months.

A more appropriate comparison would have been between us and the rest of the placental mammals, including rats, bats, cats, and whales.  

Other placental mammals give birth to little ones who are livelier than we are in the days and weeks after birth, variously scurrying, flying, or swimming around while we're still lying on our backs, like Asa's doing.

So it's in respect to them that the "fourth trimester" idea makes most sense.

Wonderful life

These reflections may seem weird.  

All the work Jed was doing on that dissertation went to his head, some of you may be thinking.  

He has finally lost it completely, others of you may have concluded.

Here's the inspiration for these thoughts: 

Thinking about the stages of development that Asa has been through over the past months -- thinking about Asa in general -- gives me a new sense of the wonder of life.  Not just ours, but all the humming, buzzing diversity of life that animates this planet.  And a new sense of my own kinship with it.

On another level, these thoughts distract me from the sadness of being away from Selam and Asa.  Today, for instance, I found a sponge in the shape of a fish that Selam and Kuri had used to scrub Asa with when he was here.  That gave me a pang of nostalgia. 

But in a few weeks, I'll be with them again.  

Then the blog may become a bit more concrete.  

Or maybe Asa will continue to inspire me to write about how wonderful life is.

Fourth trimester

Since I've been working on my dissertation, I've not been able to write on the blog recently.  But now the dissertation is done, I can pick up Asa's story again.

Asa is 80 days old today: a little under 3 months.  So far he's racked up the following list of accomplishments:

• Feeding.  He's got that down, at least as far as breast milk goes.  
• Crapping.  Also under control. 
• Growing.  He has grown prodigiously, acquiring a second chin and adding rolls of spare fat to his legs.
• Crying.  Thankfully he doesn't do this too much.  But when he's unhappy, he lets us know.
• Smiling!  He started doing this after about 35 days, and does it a lot.  (He has even laughed a little in his sleep.)
• Moving around.  Placed on his stomach, he supports his head and writhes about a good deal.  He doesn't yet get very far.
• Finger-sucking.  Sometimes this happens in the womb, I've heard.  For Asa, it seemed to happen in the course of routine flailing, but recently he brings his hand to his mouth more often than you'd expect by chance -- and then to give it a good suck.  Once Selam reported that he put almost his entire hand inside his mouth.  (Try that for yourself.)
• Vocalizing.  Largely vowel sounds, but some consonants too.  Once I seemed to hear him say "Embi" (an Amharic word which translates roughly as "No way."). 

In addition to these achievements, Asa has gotten a passport, and has been Christened in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.  (The Christening deserves a post of its own, and I'll report on that soon.)

Asa's passport photo.  Not looking his best.

On April 1, Asa flew to Ethiopia together with his mum and grandmother Kuri.  

Selam has gone back to work with the UN Refugee agency in Addis Ababa, and I'll be joining her and Asa there in a few weeks.

Asa has reportedly adjusted well to Ethiopia.  We're not sure whether he noticed the difference.  In Ethiopia, as in the US, he's been doted on by his mum and grandmother, who cater to his every need.

Back here in the US, I wonder what these first months have felt like to him. When he dreams, for instance -- when he's asleep, and his eyes are darting around and his breath is irregular; when he laughs in his sleep -- what is he seeing?

Some people consider the first 3 months of life as a fourth trimester, a period of rapid development that in other animals happens in utero, but in humans happens after birth.  So in a sense Asa is as yet unfinished (more than us older folks): a compromise between what his mum's pelvis could accommodate in terms of delivery, and where he could get to in terms of viability.

On this basis, we should be generous in appraising what he's able to do so far.  

Bravo, my son!  Keep it up.