Spring...Finally

And we celebrated Spring by going down to the Tidal Basin in Washington D.C. and saw the Cherry Blossoms and also saw the Kite Festival which kicks off the 2 week festivities for the Cherry Blossom Festival. I never miss seeing the blooming of these trees, probably one of the best aspects of living her. Too bad it is so brief. The blossoms usually only stay on for a week or two and don't bloom again until next Spring.

Kaya was curious of the branches with all the flowers. She really loves nature, we often take her to our back yard where she loves pulling at the bamboo leaves.

An Indian couple took our family picture and Longben thought it would be a good idea to take a picture of them. Such a weird custom, it's not like we're ever going to see them again, let alone send them copies. but the woman immediately took Kaya out of Longben's relunctant arms and as you can see, quickly made her part of her family.

In this picture I feel like just a friend of the family, in no way related to their new bundle of joy.


The kite festival was very cool, though Kaya didn't really notice it until the end. She was a little overwhelmed by all the people there, I don't think she's ever been outside with that many people around before. She had a nice long nap after that.

It's not just a title

The title of this blog is "MamanKaya." And while some may think I am simply to lazy to put in some spaces and an "and" Mamankaya actually means Mother of Kaya in Hausa. Hausa is the language of the people in the middle and northern regions of Africa as well as the general name of the people in that region. My husband speaks Hausa and is considered Hausa, although his ethnic group is a smaller tribe called Mwagavul which has it's own language with the same name. As soon as we named her, I was no longer Dominique but Mamankaya, actually MamanDihye since that's her Mwagavul name. I am ecstatic to be the mother of Kaya/Dihye, the mother of an African child (my father is from the Ivory Coast) and adopt the African cultures surrounding being a mother and apart of an African family. At the same time I don't want to throw away Dominique DjeDje, the individual, the business owner, the independent woman.

I was talking to my friend today and we were discussing the challenge of new moms today. Mom's of the 50s and 60s were in the true since stay at home moms. The Leave it to Beaver mom's who cooked, cleaned, raised kids, was constantly a suportive wife and mananged to not get a hair out of place through all of it. While the 70s to 90s mom was living during the women's revolution - seeking to break out of the house wife role and into the male dominiated role of a career woman. As the daughters and granddaugters of these women we see the drawbacks of both but also seek to take the benefits of both and at the same time live sanely in the 21st century. And slowly it's working with the longer maternity leaves and the emergence of WAHMs; we see an envoirnment where a woman could just possibly have it all, or is that possible? Well, I surely hope it is and am making every effort to make it possible for myself and Kaya. I will be sahinr my attempts in this of course regularly here.

On a slightly different note, my friend mentioned a book called "Migrations of the Heart: An Autobiography" about a black woman who married a Nigerian architect and ultimately moved to Nigeria for several reasons including the desire to escape the racism here. But she finds once arriving that she encounters many hurdles she did not expect and inevitably divorces and returns to the states. Now I may be inaccurate about some of the details of the book since I haven't read it yet, but if there is such a thing as parallel lives, she is living mine. As most of you know, I share almost all those things in common with her except she is much older and I haven't moved to Nigeria yet (but hope too very soon). So of course I will be purchasing this book today. Hearing that her hopes didn't turn out as planned makes me skeptical of what it is I am trying to do, and figuring that out is so improtant once you're a mother. So among many other things we will be exploring that aspect and I'll definitely be expressing my thoughts on it once I've read it.

So in titling this blog MamaKaya I'm documenting and honoring this new position in my life at the same time balance all the previous hats I wore and continue to wear. It's a journey and an daventure to say the least, and I'm here to tell it.

"The Secret" to God's Goodness : the secret to Dihye

My first post starts in the middle of the beginning...chronogiclaly speaking. But on a more spiritual level, it's a pure beginning in every possible way. Dihye, in Mowogovol, my husband Longben's native Nigerian language, means "God's gift" or God's goodness." This was officially given by her grandmama after her birth. It has a lot of personal meaning to their family and I was delighted to add a traditional African name to the mix. But it was only until this weekend that I fully appreciated the meaning of her name for myself.

As most of you know my baby girl arrived 3 months early on March 12, 2006. She's been through a lot, which I'll get into later in "Backtrack" but the biggest being a tracheostomy that was performed in early May of 2006. She still has a trach and we feel it is one of the last of many hurdles of her being a preemie. The plan was always to do reconstructive surgery. The surgeon decided this would happen the end of 2006. We counted down the days as you can imagine. In November 06 she had a bronchoscopy in which they take a scope down the throat. The surgeon discovered that the scar had grown so much so that the trach tube was now her life line - there was no other way for her to breathe. Due to this unexpected development, our surgeon pushed the surgery until late summer of 2007. This was devastating news. We had so many plans surrounded around the fact that she wouldn't have a trach, and now...

Well we recently seeked a 2nd opinion, ideally a surgeon who could do the surgery sooner. The second opinion surgeon only crushed our spirits more by telling us that he saw some separate swelling in her throat that may be caused to acid reflux and may need surgery before the reconstructve surgery.

2 more surgeries! I was depressed to say the least, but this one was different from sadness in the past. I received a wonderful new year's gift from a friend. The DVD " The Secret." (Find it, watch it!) And since watching that I've been in high spirits about the future and what I want to happen. I even wrote it down. One of those things being the removal of her trach. So after this 2nd opinion news and after the boo-hooing I resolved that she may have this trach for awhile but I would dedicate the rest of my present time getting as much information so I could make the best decision for my daughter when the time comes. I joined two trach groups on yahoo, the best being tracheosomy_infants@yahoo.com and was already getting reading material.

We had a follow-up appointment last Friday with our trach surgeon. He told us that after viewing the CT scan that was done on Kaya just before our meeting he discovered that the scarring was not as significant as he thought. The width of the scar was indeed end to end of the trachea but the length of it was only 5 ml which meant they could do the surgery in April 2007. I was shocked, not only because this is the news I'd been waiting for but it occurred to me that I wrote something on my list of desires for the new year. It read "I want Kaya to breathe only by nose and mouth by April 2007." At the time I had no idea how it would happen, and I realize now that it's not my place to know how. That's THE SECRET to universe's goodness. It figures out the how, we just need to BELIEVE. I now know it's so appropriate for her name to be Dihye. She is absolutely the universes gift to us, 10 times...no, infinite times over.