Sleep Deprived

“The first gift you give to your children is sleep, and you never get it back.”

Brussels - 2056

When Sandra was pregnant with Ainoa, I reduced my working hours and planned eventually to be completely unavailable for work from a month before her due date. Half a year earlier a producer and director combo had signed up for a certain number of class hours with one of my employers, however they became too busy with work and postponed the remainder of the hours indefinitely. Now that I thought to take time off not only did they want to complete their hours, the producer had been feeling limited by his lack of command in English and had decided he would like to take private courses as well. I tried asking if they could wait until November to resume their study. The director had already filled his schedule and would not be attending any further classes. The producer would still be attending but he absolutely could not reschedule. Rather reluctantly, I accepted the job.

We met for one class and then Ainoa was born. When we resumed lessons a week later my preparation was hasty and I apologised for the slip in quality. The producer, a father of two-year old twins, looked at me and said, “You don’t have throw-up on your shirt, but if you aren’t getting any sleep, I believe you are a father,” and then he shared his wisdom about the gift of sleep.

This week, Ainoa has been struggling through the appearance of her two top-front teeth. She is inseparable from her mother and insufferable at night. For a baby who already wakes up three or four times under normal sleeping conditions, her insufferable nights are a marathon of wakefulness for the parents. The other day I crashed and had to rest in bed all day and the net day, Sandra fell in the line of duty and took her turn under the covers with the laptop.

Of all our difficulties here -- a foreign language, a foreign culture, administrative travails and no income -- sleep deprivation courtesy of Ainoa has been far and away the most challenging to overcome.

We woke up this morning at eight o’clock intending to arrive early at the ministry of foreign relations and submit our (finally) completed application for volunteer visas. In a fog of semi-wakefulness we prepared for the day and set out. At a tiny copy shop we bought a large manila envelope for all of our visa documents. Down the street we caught a cab to the ministry. The cab left us a block further than we had requested and we spent ten minutes searching for the correct address on foot, accompanied all the way by Ainoa cooing from the baby carrier. At last we saw it: a large concrete building with metal lettering on the facade. We queued behind seven or eight people at the information desk. When it was our turn I asked where we submit the application for 12-VII visas. “Visa applications are finished for the day,” replied the ministry agent. “We stop accepting new visa applications at 11am.” Was it that late already? We left the ministry and caught a cab back. I looked at the clock: 11:45. Where had the last four hours gone? And thus we were resigned to spend another night and day in Quito, all three of us feeling the pain of Ainoa’s teething.