The Burden of Cosimo

Rosanna and I have been fielding numerous questions about Cosimo's name and how we chose it. The short answer goes something like this: uncommon, internet list, cute. Naturally there is a longer answer, so if you're truly interested, read on!

We wanted a name that is uncommon, doesn't remind us of students who gave us nightmares, and wouldn't lead to trite or idiotic nicknames. Also, Rosanna is half Italian so we wanted an Italian name to go with his middle name of Gabriele (his grandfather's name). As we were going through internet lists of Italian names we both had a strong reaction to Cosimo and put it on the short list. In the end, it was the only name that survived the capricious whims of soon-to-be parents.

FYI: The Italian pronunciation goes something like this (and yes, gesturing wildly with your fingers pinched together REALLY does help the pronunciation!) ko-SEE-mo. Our bastardized pronunciation requires no gesturing, and goes like this: KO-see-mo.

Part of the vetting process for the name (yes, we were overcomplicating things, but we didn't give a hoot), I researched who in history had that name. I really didn't want there to be an Italian tyrant named Cosimo. When I googled the name the only major historical figure to come out was the grandfather of Lorenzo de Medici. A Renaissance-era patron of the arts? Hey, I'll take that.

Cosimo is, of course, the Italian form of Cosmo, which in Greek means "orderly universe." Again, I'll take that. The only unfortunate part is the obvious: Cosmo Kramer from Seinfeld. Luckily Seinfeld is not quite at the same level of fame as it was ten years ago, and the youth of today don't have a clue about this. Something tells me the future friends of Cosimo also will be relatively clueless.

There is also the patron saint of surgeons, Saint Cosmo and his brother Damian. Of course, being a doctor or a surgeon back in the day meant you were in expert in leechcraft. Saint Cosmo and his brother lived quite a life. They healed whoever they treated, and always refused payment. When Damian took a payment, God ultimately forgave him. A local tyrant, back then known as kings, heard of them and had them questioned. Not liking the answers he had them bound and thrown into the sea. Naturally, with saints you can't just expect them to die that easily. Ultimately the tyrant gave up trying to kill them after failing at having them stoned and shot with arrows. Those darned stones and arrows just reversed course and flew back to their owners. What do you expect when you're messing with saints? Or maybe the canonization process way back when wasn't quite so rigorous with oral testimony. Either way, Cosmo, Cosimo, Kozmo is a cool name.

A final anecdote about Cosimo. About three weeks ago I learned that (gasp) a celebrity named their child Cosimo. The only celebrity to name their child this cool and fun name is, my favorite musician: a man I believe is a relatively unrecognized musical genius of our time, Beck! Incidentally, California Pacific Medical Center allows you bring iPods and such to the delivery rooms. We put our Touch on the genius setting and, strangely enough, the playlist kept coming back to Beck even though I have a number of other possibilities for it to choose.

After telling our story about the name, and being asked about how to pronounce it, we realize now that our child is burdened with spending a good deal of his life giving pronunciation advice and telling these same silly stories. But hey, that beats being asked if you were named after the character in Bewitched!

Cosimo's first day

Rosanna and I are so happy that Cosimo is healthy, hungry, and sleepy. As you know, he arrived last week, the day after the first day of the new year. Rosanna went to sleep at the normal time, around 10, while I followed her after watching some late night TV. Little did we know that was our last night of being responsible for just ourselves.

At 2:30 Rosanna awoke to use the bathroom and noticed how active little Cosimo was. After going to the bathroom she also noticed that her mucus plug had "vacated." The next thing she knew she was having contractions. All this while I was in the liminal state between sleep and not. By the time I was with it, Rosanna wasn't sure if she was having Braxton-Hicks false labor contractions, or if it was the real deal. So in our rather teacherly way we consulted our pregnancy books and checked that information against our common sense. We also started timing the contractions, which hit between 4 and 8 minutes apart, and Rosanna gave a rating of 4 or 5 on the 1 to 10 pain scale. By the time we called her OB's answering service Rosanna realized her water had indeed broken, and that the supposed 2 to 7 day warning of the mucus plug was in fact a 5-minute warning. We were going to the hospital.

By 5 am she was admitted, and at 6 we were calling our parents. All the while contractions continued at a steady pace. When we went to the delivery room at 7 Rosanna was at 2 or 3 cm. Rosanna tried all sorts of ways to get comfortable during contractions: standing up, sitting on her feet, sitting down, giving my hand the death grip, etc. When she was 5 cm, or halfway there, it was 9 am, and she had had enough of self-managed pain care.

Luckily the gas doctor was close by. Unfortunately for him, Rosanna is one of the most tickle-prone beings he has ever stuck with a sharp needle. Each time he touched her back, for the sanitizing, for the marking, for everything, Rosanna flinched. He was a good sport though, and was able to get the needle in without tapping into her spinal column and compounding the problems.

Rosanna slept for the next 4 hours or so, and her mother arrived either before or after the epidural. My folks were driving to Phoenix to catch a flight.

At 3 pm the magic number of 10 hit. 10 cm, as you know, is how far the cervix must be expanded for birth. With this we moved on to pushing. The nurse, Michelle, had to do some unsightly things to Rosanna during this period. If you're not sure what I mean, I'll say just one word - stretching. Eventually I just stopped watching what she was doing because I couldn't help but imagine that pain upon myself.

Her OB, Jane, whose office is next door to the hospital, was able to be there for the delivery. She initially decided to use forceps because Cosimo kept sliding back after Rosanna had pushed him further out. Shortly after this the anesthesiologist was summoned to top up her meds. Bad news here. Somewhere along the line her catheter had moved and small amounts of blood were now in the line, making it useless after the last dosage. Luckily, that was that was needed.

After 2 1/2 hours, at 5:28, and with a vacuum instead of forceps, Dr. Fang was able to bring Cosimo out of his shelter. They put him on Rosanna's chest. Tears were shed. Rosanna, crying with pride, announced his name to Ana Maria, and all was well. They weighed him (6 lbs, 8 ozs), measured him (20 inches), cleaned up his hair which had dried up blood in it, and returned him to us.


We went up to the 4th floor recovery rooms and listened to our nurses when they advised us to leave Cosimo in the nursery for the night so that we could get some shut eye. That was the best rest I have ever had on a cot, and something tells me that was Rosanna's best sleep ever.