Saturday 18 August 2018

Valley of the low sun

Round 37: November 2045 (Spring)

Daniel Halmi is 38, Susannah is 35 and Zac Whitney is 11. 
(Kimberly is 74)


Narrated by Daniel Halmi

Susannah and I will have been married for two years in February and so far, it’s been amazing.


I love coming home to her, at least on the nights she doesn’t have to work. 

She does tend to work pretty late sometimes but I always stay up and wait for her. 

It’s usually the only time we get to spend together that day and because Zac is asleep by then (or with his dad, depending on the night), we have the place to ourselves as well. 

It’s mostly because I’d been in his life since he was 3 and moved in with Susannah before we got married but Zac has had no issues at all adjusting.

He’s here with us most of the time - five nights a week during school time and half his breaks - and I try to spend as much time doing things with him as Susannah does.

We share a love of science, so it’s never difficult to find something we both enjoy.

Susannah is quite happy with this development, because it means she doesn’t have to feign interest when Zac wants to watch documentaries about natural disasters on the Weather Channel. 

While we’re doing that, she’ll head over to the computer and work on her cookbook which she’s hoping but not expecting to be finished by the time the baby comes along. 

Susannah just entered her third trimester and we’re looking forward to finally meeting Baby Halmi.

This pregnancy has been less difficult emotionally for Susannah, seeing it was totally planned, but much harder physically. 

She’s noticing a big difference between pregnancy at 24 and pregnancy at 35. 

Her job is a very demanding one physically and although she says she’s been fine, I’ve still been worried. 

Of her own accord, she decided she’d be starting her maternity leave early, in two weeks’ time and I’m very glad about that. The fatigue is catching up with her and she can’t currently do her job as well as she normally can.

With some time off, she can just relax until the baby gets here. There’ll be plenty of time for us both to be exhausted once he/she does.

People ask whether we want a boy or a girl and I never have an answer. Until people started asking, it didn’t even occur to me to hope for one or the other.

I think Susannah might like a daughter but it’s all going to be new to me no matter what. I’ve known Zac since he was pretty small but it’s not the same thing as knowing him from birth.

Zac is quite adamant that he’d like a brother. He’s not going to complain if it’s a sister instead but he's already got a sister on his dad's side, and Zac would like one of each kind of sibling. 

Susannah’s mother Kimberly offered us some money to finish the nursery for the baby. It’s sitting mostly empty at the moment, because we really don’t have the money. Everything is being poured into the mortgage.

If it was solely my decision, I probably wouldn’t have taken the money but Susannah accepted it almost immediately. 

I’ve always been a bit proud about asking for help but Susannah insisted. It’s not going to be something Kimberly holds over our heads or anything. It’s just a no-strings-attached gift, because she genuinely wants to help us out. 

And honestly, we do need the help! Money is very tight for us at the moment. I’ve been more worried about it than I’ve been letting on. 

Shortly after Kimberly’s visit, Susannah started experiencing some complications and went into preterm labour. I was at work at the time and had to rush away to be with her. 

At Sullivan Hospital, they did everything they could to stop the labour from progressing but were unsuccessful. Our baby boy Jeremy Raphael was born at 28 weeks. There’s no NICU at our hospital, so the decision was made to transfer Jeremy to another hospital. 

We’re very fortunate in that he is doing about as well as can be expected, considering how early he was. He’s obviously small and he needs some help breathing but he's responding very well to treatment so far. 

At the moment, we’re spending a lot of time away from Zac, which is obviously not ideal. He’s staying with Sam and Julia during the week, so his schooling isn’t interrupted. 

On weekends, Sarah drives him down to see us and his new baby brother (behind glass only, at the moment).

We’ve been told that most likely, we’re looking at a couple of months’ stay for Jeremy, so this will be our life for a good while yet.

I’m not even thinking about that too much at the moment. I just want to make sure Jeremy has the best chance at making it as possible and we’ll deal with anything else later.

Notes:

  • Title is from Valley of the Low Sun by Jakob Dylan. 
  • Ugh, so this whole thing was a bit of a disaster and I wasn't ready for it!! I had forgotten to suspend Susannah's pregnancy again after I let her advance to the third trimester, which resulted in little Jeremy arriving early! I was planning on quitting without saving and then absent-mindedly saved anyway. So I kind of had to go with it. 
  • The reason you don't see Jeremy in this is because I no longer have the deco premie babies in my game, nor do I have an NICU! But I will sort something out by January birthdays, which is when I plan to revisit this family (Susannah's birthday is then). I think Jeremy would be big enough by then that just showing him as a regular sim baby will not be too unbelievable. He'd be like 34-35 weeks by then. 
  • I briefly considered a couple of other solutions once I realised what I'd done but they were both unappealing to me, for different reasons. I could have gone back to a back-up...but I have not been as vigilant recently, so the back-up was from before Josh and Elspeth's wedding, possibly even before November birthdays. I also could have made Susannah pregnant again, got the pics I needed and then quit without saving...but we've already established that I can't be trusted with that. ;) I could have made her pregnant again and then ended the pregnancy with InSim but I've had major glitchiness doing that past the first trimester, so I avoid it wherever I can.

14 comments:

  1. Whew! For a minute I thought the baby had died. I noticed right away that she didn't have a baby bump anymore in the hospital bed, before I'd actually finished reading. Eek. Aww on a little Jeremy. That's my husband's name, and a pretty good one I think. ;) I definitely wouldn't have gone back to the backup, way too much work. I think this works fine. I like the photo of Sarah bringing Zac out to the hospital. Great shots of the library too! Every time I see yours, I want to redo mine. I'm excited to get a peek at Jeremy in the birthday post, I'm curious if he will get his Dad's chin.

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    1. When Susannah went into labour, I started madly googling to see if a baby this young could even survive. As it turns out, nine out of ten babies born between 26-29 weeks do survive, with four out of ten not suffering for it in the long term either. So it could have been much worse! I still have to figure out how to sort Jeremy out for the birthday posts! I might age him up in a year's time but make him a smaller-than-average toddler.

      I love the name Jeremy. I had actually picked it out for Sam and Julia's baby if she'd been a boy and then picked it for this one without remembering that, lol! Guess they'll need to go back to the drawing board if they have another.

      Glad you like my library! It's my favorite community lot (probably because the layout was done for me - my layouts are never very good!)

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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  2. I like how the game threw a wrench in your plans. Your frustration with the early baby is probably a bit similar to parents of nicu babies. Are you going to associate any health problems with the early birth? I do that with my glitchy pregnancies that end with early deliveries.

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    1. Now that I know a bit more about where I might like to go with this, I kind of like it too! I'm undecided on health problems - it's a possibility. I think developmental delays are another maybe. I'm going to have to do some more reading!

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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  3. Yay, I'm finally up-to-date with Sullivan. This is apparently the "exiting-with-saving" moment you talked about on Twitter. You wrote it in very well! I was a bit worried in the beginning though that the baby wouldn't make it.

    I have to say I love the way you write the birthday posts now with little mini-updates for a couple of families. I think this is something I'll consider as well because I've gotten so sick of playing the same round for months (or years).

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    1. Yay! Yes, this was indeed the moment I was talking about Twitter. What a hassle! I'm glad it all seems to have worked out okay, story-wise.

      I think you'd enjoy doing birthday posts the way I do them now, if you do go ahead and try it. It's nice to slot the less exciting families into birthdays, not feel the pressure of writing a full update about them where nothing is really happening but not resigning them to playable NPC status either. I still feel like I'm moving pretty slowly but I dread to think how slowly I'd be going had I not changed my birthdays system!

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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  4. Oh no, I hope little Jeremy will be okay! That's all a bit scary for the two parents and also with Zac kind of those a spanner in the works but at least he has someone he can stay with during the week. I'm sure Daniel & Susannah want to be close to their new bub as much as possible to make sure he makes it through.

    I love how real you make the scenario's with your sims. As I was reading I wasn't expecting anything like this to happen, I was quite shocked! lol

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    1. Definitely a lot of upheaval for Susannah and Daniel (and Zac, of course) and at a time when they're already on shaky financial ground as well. Fortunately, Sullivan has universal health care, so there won't be any medical bills to contend with, at least!

      Ha, imagine how shocked I was! LOL!

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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  5. I wasn't expecting that twist, I like how you took the in-game problem and created a story around it. I love the challenge when that happens, and some of my favorite stories have come about that way.

    Looking forward to meeting baby Jeremy.

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    1. Nor was I! This was really the most workable way to deal with a situation I wasn't expecting, so I'm glad it seems to work. I've come to terms with it now. :)

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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  6. My niece is now 16 and she was born at 28 weeks. She weighed 1 pound. She's had very little long term repercussions but it was really difficult getting through the NICU part. I went to help my sister for a while by keeping my other niece who wasn't three yet. My youngest was 5 so it was the first time I was away from them more than a couple of days.

    Anyway, I was really worried too, reading this, and sort of relieved to hear the gameplay backstory, in fact your statements about not being able to be trusted really cracked me up.

    Also, it was funny to me it looked like Leia (sp?) was pressuring Daniel to choose a preference for a birth sex assignation for the baby. I thought that fit her and she looks so intense in the picture. I look forward to seeing baby Jeremy soon!

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    1. That's great about your niece! I was really surprised to read how good the prospects are for babies born at 28-29 weeks, because at first, I didn't think there was much chance that Jeremy would eventually be healthy. But like with your niece, it looks like the actual NICU part is often the worst.

      Glad I gave you a laugh! I thought the same thing about the picture of Daniel and Lia, though the funny thing is, I never really imagined her hoping for one sex or the other when she was pregnant! She ended up with two of each, so I guess she can't complain either way. :D I can imagine her being very interested in other people's pregnancies and wanting to know all the details too though.

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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  7. I'm having so much fun catching up!

    Grandmothers don't always know best but this was a practical and caring offer. I'm not all that surprised Daniel would have turned it down if had been up to him but pride would have been misplaced that time.

    I wasn't expecting the baby to be born early either, and early enough to need a NICU. Not only is that frightening for the parents, Zac will probably need some extra reassurance along the way.

    I really love the shot of Susannah in the tub. The light and steam and moment are just so pretty.

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    1. It's been so long since I've played I can't actually remember if I had Kimberly transfer them any money! I might just pop in and send some money over to them anyway - this poor family are in so much debt! Kimberly is living in a household that began very, very early on in the life of the hood, so they've accumulated a lot of money.

      This whole birth was a bit of a disaster from a gameplay perspective! I think the game is 15 years old this year and I'm still accidentally saving or not saving, lol! But fortunately, Susannah was far enough along in her pregnancy that even in real life, Jeremy would have a pretty decent chance at survival. It's going to be a stressful time for the family anyway though, for sure.

      I think that was a dawn/dusk pic of Susannah in the tub! I don't often get pics in that light, nor do I often get pics in my sims' bathrooms. So that was an unusual one for me. :)

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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