Growing up with Anne Sophie

Anne Sophie first 6 weeks

Papa (me) has been very busy lately with his work and his little daughter, that's why he hasn't posted anything for a few weeks. But despite lack of time, I'd like to write briefly about our progress and show some pictures of Anne Sophie!

What can I say? Anne Sophie is a sweet, good hearted little girl. She needs and gets a lot of love and care from mama, papa and grandma. But I can also say that she takes care of them too. You might ask: How is that possible?

Well, she does that by sleeping well through the night, thereby giving mama and papa the much needed rest. She would usually wake up once or twice a night to drink some milk and would then fall asleep again. Even when she wakes up when she is not hungry, she would usually stay relatively quiet. She likes the fact that she can sleep very close to her parents and hear and feel their presence. But what can be a better bed than papa or mama themselves?

She also likes taking long walks together with papa in a special sling. Sometimes during these walks they find mushrooms, and sometimes very big ones!

She often enjoys talking in her own baby language. Sometimes I think that she thinks to herself: "These adults are not developed enough to understand what I am saying. But never mind, they'll learn to understand as they grow up."

A few days ago

Anne Sophie went to a reunion with the kids that she met while still in her mother's womb (the mothers were then following a pregnancy yoga class). It was a lot of fun to see them all with her own eyes! Can you figure out which one is our Annushka on this photo?

Let's pray that she "may be trained, grow and develop, and appear in the utmost beauty."

Thinking about Germany

A very dear German friend of mine (whom I met when studying in Oslo, Norway, and who is now an Assistant Professor in Chinese and Japanese studies at the Barnard College, Columbia University in New York City) remarked to me in a recent letter that she never felt any resentment from my side towards Germany and the German people, given the terrible fates of my family during the Nazi occupation.

This made me really think and reflect on this very sensitive question. What do I really feel about this?

No, I don't feel any resentment towards Germany or the Germans. And how could I? About the time of the rise of Nazism, the German culture produced the two most influential authors in my life: Herman Hesse and Erich Fromm. And how about Meister Eckhart, Bach and Goethe? The great legacy of these people, who reached the heights of the human spirit, will live for centuries to come, while the Nazis will only be remembered for their heinous crimes. The Germany that I know is a fine country, with picturesque countryside, beautiful nature and fairy tale-like medieval towns. The German people that I know are open, kind, hospitable, intelligent, engaged individuals. Off course, there is immense pain and grief and unbelief at the thought of all the dear innocent relatives of mine being cold bloodedly murdered just because they were Jews. And often I cannot help crying over the fate of my little uncles who had to die such a violent death at such an early age. And their loving memory should live and should be passed on to younger generations for as long as possible, but not the feelings of hate or resentment or vengeance.

There is also something else. I myself come from a country that committed horrible atrocities against its own people and people of other nations. Millions upon millions of innocent people have been killed, tortured, starved to death, sent to labour camps. The country of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov produced Stalin and KGB. And while Germany managed to become a flourishing democracy with respect for human rights and for human beings, most countries of the former Soviet Union have remained in the steel grip of the old elite, whereby an individual life is nothing compared to the so-called state interests. Russia is essentially ruled by the once so hated KGB, whose former and present agents and their friends now held all key positions and keep lying and committing unspeakable crimes. So actually I feel much more ashamed of my own country than resentful towards the country that has taken responsibility for and unequivocally condemned the Nazi regime.

Anne Sophie and Religious Experience

In his brilliant work Psychoanalysis and Religion, Erich Fromm describes humanistic religious experience (versus authoritarian one) as "the experience of oneness with the All, based on one’s relatedness to the world as it is grasped with thought and with love." This is an experience of "love for others as well as for oneself and of solidarity of all living beings."

Seeing my baby being born, holding it and caring for it has been a truly religious experience for me. It has evoked in me a deep sense of love, wonderment, tenderness, caring, giving, and not only towards my little girl, but towards the whole world around me. Suddenly, strangers are no longer strangers, and I smile at every person I come across.

This has probably been the most powerful experience of this kind in my life. Other examples include watching my wife as she is sleeping or embroidering or doing something else unaware of my watching her; or wondering at the majestic beauty of nature in the mountains, at the sea or in the countryside; or reading the writings or a book and being struck by the truth conveyed in them; or being with a group of people and suddenly feeling an intense sense of oneness with them.

A dear friend of ours, Suzanne Gerstner, related a similar experience when I shared this with her. She remembered watching her then newly born son Erick (now a bright, kind-hearted young man) and wondering if anything less than a perfect divine being, God, could produce such a perfect little human being.

At this very moment, I am lying in bed with my precious baby half asleep on my chest. I could watch her like this for hours, sensing her breath and all her small movements against my body. My heart is overwhelmed with bliss and almost universal love. I wish and hope I can take this sense of unconditional love into my daily life, showing a little more kindness and appreciation towards everyone I meet!

Anne Sophie - birth and first week

Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles
song from The Fiddler on the Roof

Miracles happen every day. Sometimes we have to wait long for them to happen, sometimes years. Our little miracle happened after more than six years of patient waiting and trying, after a number of miscarriages, after an ectopic pregnancy (внематочная беременность), after many medical examinations. Finally, we conceived a child in a completely natural way, and out of seeming nothingness, out of two miniscule cells, out of love of two individuals, a little precious human being came to life!

Anne Sophie Levin was born on Tuesday, September 18, 2007, at the Westeinde Ziekenhuis (hospital) in The Hague, Netherlands. The contractions began early in the morning, and at 4 a.m. we took a 20-minutes ride to the hospital. The labour continued until 6 p.m. under close supervision from an experienced, well trained team of doctors and nurses. My wife Luda worked very hard, enduring often unbearable pain and fatigue. However, the uterus would not open fast enough. The doctors decided that letting the labour go on like this could put the baby at risk and opted for caesarean section. The operation was not easy, because the baby already went quite deep into the birth channel, and was additionally complicated by the presence of a few uterine fibroids. Yet the surgical team under the leadership of Dr. C.A. Yedema did a great job, and at 19:33 our little girl was born!

I was at Luda’s side during the operation and was the first of the two of us to see our little daughter. Luda could see her just very briefly, because the operation had to go on. After the birth, there was a lot of hustle and running around and photographing in the room, and I was given a chance to cut a piece of the umbilical cord and all that. But among all this hustle, the most amazing thing was the little pinky red being squirming in front of me.

I cannot describe my feelings as I was watching my own little baby for the first time. It was a combination of love, wonder and tenderness mixed with anxiety and exhaustion. The girl was so small and precious, she seemed so helpless and fragile … I could not keep tears from flowing. And yet she was amazingly awake and active, looking and kicking around. She wouldn’t cry much, but would rather frown and wriggle when she did not like something.

After she was examined, weighed (3.14 kg, 51 cm) and dressed, I held her in my arms for about an hour and a half until her mother was finally brought back into the labour room. With lights deemed, in complete silence and with classical music in the background, I could not take my eyes off my baby girl, who lay quietly in my arms.

Luda and Anne Sophie stayed in the hospital for 4 days. The doctors and the personnel of the maternity division took very good care of them, for which I am very grateful. Fathers are not allowed to stay in the hospital overnight, so I would come over every day. I’d talk with them, read to them, play the guitar and sing to them.

But what is better than home? We’ve been at home for 3 days now. There is a lot to learn for all three of us: breastfeeding, diaper changing, bathing, etc. Luckily, the Dutch health care system helps you a lot by providing the so-called kraamzorg, whereby a trained nurse comes over every day for a period of 5-7 days to care for the mother and the child, doing all kinds of chores and educating the parents about different aspects of child care.

Now a few words about the name. Anne Sophie is named after all four of her great-grandmothers (may they rest in peace): Hannah (Dasha) Levin-Pukhovich, Sofia Barshay-Disman, Hanna Verbnaya and Hanna Suslenko. The name Anne is derived from the biblical Hebrew name Hannah or Channah meaning grace, charm or mercy. Sophie is a Greek name meaning wisdom. So we pray for our Anne Sophie to grow up as a graceful, charming, kindhearted, compassionate and wise human being.

Now about the date: 18-9-2007 was a special day in The Netherlands. It was the third Tuesday of September, and hence a prinsjesdag, the day on which the Queen, cheered by the crowds of her loyal subjects, rides in her golden carriage from the Noordeinde palace to the Binnenhof in The Hague to open the parliamentary season with a speech outlining the government policies for the coming year. Well, all of this was happening just a couple of hundred meters away from the Westeinde hospital, where Luda was labouring. There is a wonderful view over the city from the 12th floor of the maternity division, but we couldn’t actually see anything going on, because of the narrow streets lined with stately houses.

Those of you who like number 9 will be amuzed to notice that the day, month and year of Anne Sophie’s birth are all multiples of 9. Number 9 is the highest single-digit number (at least in base ten :)) and symbolizes completeness in the Baha’i Faith. Number 18 is special in Judaism, for this is the numeric value of the Hebrew word life (chai).

As a pleasant surprise, as if a reward for her hard work and patience, the day after the birth, Luda received a letter from the Dutch Naturalization Service saying that the Queen approved her application for Dutch citizenship! Congratulations!

Well, this was the story of the birth of Anne Sophie Levin. Through this blog, I’ll keep you up to date on how she is getting on. If you pray, please pray for her health, growth and development!

Click on the image below to see some pictures of Anne Sophie!

Anne Sophie Levin - first week

Here you can find out more about the history and genealogy of the family Levin.

New generation

Well, while our dear older generation is slowly passing away into a next world, the young generation is vigorously pressing forward into this one. This year alone were born:

Name	Born	Place	Happy parents
Pinchas Stern	Mar 17, 2007	Jerusalem, Israel	Dina Tunik & Andy Stern
Alexander Jacob Chterental	Mar 27, 2007	Boston, MA, USA	Eugenia Perelman & Igor Chterental
Lilach Tunik	May 8, 2007	Jerusalem, Israel	Elena & Evgeny Tunik
Peri Sylvia Teten	Aug 30, 2007	New York, NY, USA	Luba Kozlova & David Teten
Anne Sophie Levin	Sep 18, 2007	The Hague, Netherlands	Luda Verbnaya & Leonid Levin

All in all, starting from my great-grandfather Simche Levin (1873 - 1941), the youngest (4th) generation of his descendants now counts 15 (16 as of 9/18/07) children, from a couple of days to 23 years old! And I hear there is someone else on the way :)

Here you can find out more about the history and genealogy of the family Levin.

Homage to Maria and Samuil Levin

It is a little sad to start my first blog entry with sad news. But let me pay respect to Maria Levin (née Kogan), who passed away on September 2, 2007, in Toronto, Canada, at the age of 86. Aunt Maria, as we used to call her, was the wife of my grandfather’s dear brother Samuil Levin, who himself passed away just two months ago at the age of 88. She was a wonderful person, always smiling, cheerful, energetic, full of enthusiasm and love of life. This is how I will always remember her. When I last saw her in September 2004 in Toronto and when talking to her on the phone, it always felt as if I was not talking to an elderly person, but to a woman in the prime of her life, both mentally and physically.

She was born in the town of Krichev in the present-day Belarus on August 20, 1921. She lived in Leningrad before marrying Uncle Samuil in 1950. He was an army doctor, so they would often move, from Belarus to Kamchatka, then to Latvia. They finally settled in Jurmala near Riga, where Uncle Samuil worked as chief neurologist at a military rehabilitation center. Throughout the years following World War II, they supported the family of my grandfather Aron Levin (killed in action at the Volkhov/Leningrad front in 1942), both morally and materially, for which my deepest gratitude and respect. After the break-up of the Soviet Union, they found themselves part of the unwanted Russian-speaking minority in Latvia and moved to Toronto, Canada, together with their children and grandchildren.

Aunt Maria and Uncle Samuil had lived a long and happy life together, and they passed away almost at the same time. They are survived by their children Sofa Perelman and Simon Levin, their granddaughters Eugenia and Lina Perelman, and their infant great-grandson Alexander Jacob Chterental.

They belonged to the war generation, underwent enormous trials and difficulties, lost many of their most precious loved ones at the hands of the Nazis, and yet remained loving, humble, compassionate and caring people. It is now our turn to carry on these values into the world. They will live as long as their memory is alive in our hearts.

Here you can find out more about the history and genealogy of the family Levin.