Shutting down this blog...

This blog hasn't been very active for a while...
A couple weeks ago, we (Anat, myself and our four kids) have embarked on 7 week long travels to Laos and Vietnam, and were looking for a venue to share our photos, thoughts, adventures etc.

We realized that Blogger is barely maintained these days, and that Picasa is actually dead. Owing to being employed by Google, I figured I'll give Google+ a try...
As such, this blog would be discontinued. If you read this, are interested in what we report, and for some reason (namely our omission, sorry!) haven't been getting our updates in the last two weeks, please follow my (Giora's) Google+ profile.

Cheers,
Giora

Rest in peace, Shlomo Bentin

Anat, who is now in Paris, called yesterday and broke devastating news to me. Shlomo Bentin, who used to be her PhD advisor, was killed in a car accident in Berkeley, CA.
Ever since, my eyes are on the verge of tearing. Even I myself am surprised by the intensity of my sadness.

I realize this might sound strange. In most cases, a PhD student's spouse barely knows their advisor. They might meet a couple times and shake hands, but typically no personal relations are formed.
This is probably a pure indication of Shlomo's greatness, as a person.

It makes little sense for me to elaborate about how magnificent a scientist Shlomo was. I'll leave that to far greater people than me. In fact, they did just that a couple months ago, when declaring Shlomo an Israel Prize winner.
What I valued most about Shlomo was his personality, the way he nurtured his students, the extent to which he deeply cared about them. Having seen quite a few people in the academic world, I was awe-inspired by the atmosphere and enthusiasm Shlomo managed to inject into his lab and his students, by his ability to form personal and affectionate (rather than authoritative) relations with people around him.

Merely two months ago we attended a party in Tel-Aviv, where generations of Shlomo's students celebrated his nomination as an Israel Prize winner. Shlomo and Miri, his wife, were glowing and happy, full of optimism and plans for the future. We hugged and chatted and I was amazed by how close I still felt to them, despite seeing them infrequently in the past few years.

In a chilling hindsight, that was a farewell from Shlomo.
I still can't believe I'm writing these words.

Back Pains :-(

The past week was one of the worst in my life. No less.

I've been going through a terrible lower back pain outbreak, harsher than anything I've known to date. I've waited with writing until I'd be somewhat relieved, so that these lines wouldn't be too bleak, but this post is not a happy one nonetheless...
For six full days, I spent most of the time in bed, the vicious and sharp pain engulfing me, becoming my existence. At the height of the pain, I was collapsed on a pavement, every tiny move yielding unbearable pain (tight muscles have probably applied direct pressure on a nerve). I was then taken by an ambulance to the hospital, where a shot of morphine-like material was my only salvation.
For almost a week, I couldn't walk, couldn't stand, could barely sit. In addition to the pain, I felt mostly helplessness and despair.

Today, after a couple of acupuncture treatments, things are improved. However, 9 days after this started (almost comically, in racing with my 5-year-old Maayan, from her kindergarten's gate to door...), I'm still far from being fully-functional, and have a long way to go.
I'll need to work hard, finding some treatment and life-style routines which would hopefully allow me to live and function without repeating this experience, at least not with such intensity. I can't say I know how to get there, but I don't really have a choice...

Giora

Auto-Completions in GMail

Time to share a piece of my professional life.
This recent announcement - http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/improved-search-in-gmail.html - is a result of what I've been working on for more than a year (with several other people, of course).
Still only available for those of you who use GMail with English UI (buttons, menus etc.), but hopefully before long it will be available in all languages.

Under the hood, this is a fairly complex and challenging system, and releasing it to the public at last makes me fairly proud :-)

Cheers,
Giora

Our car is on Street View...

A friend noted to me that I was probably captured by the Street View cameras, driving our car in our neighborhood. A bit big brothery, but I actually find it amusing :-)
See the maroon Toyota Previa at:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=%D7%A9%D7%99%D7%9E%D7%A7%D7%99%D7%9F+%D7%97%D7%99%D7%A4%D7%94&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=32.778751,34.991605&spn=0.005854,0.01074&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=44.658568,87.978516&hnear=Dr.+Nahum+Shimkin,+Haifa,+Israel&t=m&z=17&layer=c&cbll=32.778983,34.991845&panoid=5NYCT79RQhW2LL38aZr9Ew&cbp=12,97.52,,0,9.63

Photos

Dear family and friends,

Yet another attempt to increase the frequency in which we publish photos...

http://picasaweb.google.com/AnatGiora/2011FirstHalf

Cheers,

Giora

Becoming Home Owners

Dear family and friends,

I meant to write this post 4 days ago, but was insanely busy. So let's pretend this is being written on Tuesday, January 25th 2011...

Today Anat and I signed a contract for an apartment, the first home we are to own. It's a nice apartment, in the same neighborhood we live in now, still a short walking distance from Noga and Hadas' school. We insisted on this particular neighborhood, which certainly narrowed the options drastically. Eventually, with quite a bit of luck, we found exactly what we were looking for and are very happy (albeit empty-pocketed ;-)

The place is going to be officially transferred to us on May 15th, and we plan to move in around June 30th, when our current rental ends.

The process was fairly quick (2.5. weeks from first seeing the place to signing), and we've gone through a crash-course in Israeli Real Estate issues, many of which we wish we could have stayed blissfully ignorant of.*

The girls loved the new place and are extremely happy that the deal closed. So is Shahar, but he's always extremely happy ;-) More details about our princesses and prince in a separate post, some other time.

Cheers,

Giora

* I'll spare you the details about corruption and such - those of you interested in the details will need to find a less public medium.

New photos

Dear family and friends,

We've been getting quite a few complaints about our negligence in publishing photos...

Hence, we're trying to improve - see http://picasaweb.google.com/AnatGiora/2010SecondHalf

Take care,

Anat & Giora

Home Birth

This is a long-overdue posting, which I meant to write shortly after Shahar was born, more than 11 weeks ago.

Shahar wasn't born in a hospital, but with a (fantastic!) midwife, in what is formally labelled as a "home birth". A big portion of the comments we got following the labor were of shock and surprise, often questioning whether we made a safe choice. Some people decisively said that having a home birth was a risky, not to say irresponsible, thing to do.

I spent a lot of time researching the subject, and figured I'll share some information, which might be of interest to some of you. I have a lot say about the subject, I hope this piece won't end up being way too long...

I'll start with a description of our personal birthing history.

Noga was born, 10 years ago, in a traditional hospital in Petah-Tiqwa, Israel. Back then, we weren't even aware of the option to give birth outside of a hospital. A few hours into labor, Anat chose to get an epidural shot, and the labor was long, difficult and traumatic. Eventually, Noga was pulled out using a combination of vacuum and forceps, on the verge of sending us to a C-Section.

2.5 years later, prior to Hadas' birth, Anat knew she wanted to insist on a natural birth, without an epidural. In an act we both fail to understand to this very day, we returned to the same hospital. Despite promises that they allow natural birth (notice, not encourage), the reality in the hospital labor room was very different. In theory, Anat was allowed to walk around the room and mitigate her pains with movement. But in practice, the crew wanted to constantly have a monitor attached to her. And while walking the monitor detaches, so, back to the position loved by physicians - lie on your back, without utilizing gravitation, with limited ability to move your pelvis as a way to cope with pain during contractions.

Only after a lot of insistence on our part, and standing up to a doctor that appeared to be shocked by an opinion coming from the other side of the birthing bed, Anat was allowed to give birth on her hands and knees (rather than on her back), a position suitable to her anatomy.

This second labor was a lot shorter (less than 2 hours), and a lot less painful, but the unnecessary medical intervention was so blatant that it was clear to us we'd explore other options the next time.

With Maayan, in Pittsburgh, PA, we turned to a great midwife center, in early stages of the pregnancy. The experience was so strikingly positive, that we couldn't believe it. It felt like 180 degrees from what we had previously encountered in hospital births.

Less than 3 months ago, we had a very similar positive experience, when giving birth to Shahar, in Israel, in Mindy Levy's Agoola birthing center.

To remove any doubt - there was nothing special about the hospital Noga and Hadas were born in. Stories shared by other women in a group meeting in the midwife center, described an almost identical attitude to birthing in US hospitals.

Simply put, in a hospital it felt like the crew wanted to manage the delivery, instructing the woman what to do. On the other hand, A trained midwife helps the woman to manage her own labor, and boy, what a difference that makes!

Now, if you had the patience to read until here, you're probably saying something like - "this is all very nice, but what about emergencies, when a medical intervention IS desperately needed?"

Ah, an excellent question, which I'll happily try to answer.

Let's first get some preliminaries out of the way:

- There should be a clear distinction between assisted home birth and unassisted home birth. Obviously, I'm praising the former.

- Midwives accept only women with low-risk pregnancy. Any birth of twins, breech (מצג עכוז) or the like would always start in a hospital.

- Midwifery is a well-defined profession, with extensive medical training. A trained midwife is capable of conducting many of the typical procedures upon emergency (such as resuscitation).

- A good midwife, at the first sign of complication during labor, will make the necessary decision to go with the birthing woman to the nearest hospital.

Now to your question. There is a solid body of academic research about the subject.

Almost none of the studies challenge the conclusion that home births are better for the mother's health.

And as for perinatal mortality and severe perinatal morbidity, the vast majority of studies conclude that assisted home birth is as safe as hospital birth.

Since you had to read a lot until here, you can choose to simply trust me.

Or if you, like me, are convinced only by seeing the data, read on below :-)

Cheers,

Giora

- Janssen et al., in a study from 2009 (http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/rapidpdf/cmaj.081869v1, see also abstract) conclude that:

"Planned home birth attended by a registered midwife was associated with very low and comparable rates of perinatal death and reduced rates of obstetric interventions and other adverse perinatal outcomes compared with planned hospital birth attended by a midwife or physician."

- de Jonge et al., in a Dutch cohort from 2009, spanning more than half a million women (http://novahomebirth.vamginc.com/safe/documents/DutchHomebirthStudy.pdf), conclude:

"This study shows that planning a home birth does not increase the risks of perinatal mortality and severe perinatal morbidity among low-risk women, provided the maternity care system facilitates this choice through the availability of well trained midwives and through a good transportation and referral system."

- A recent meta-analysis study by Wax et al. (http://download.journals.elsevierhealth.com/pdfs/journals/0002-9378/PIIS000293781000671X.pdf) claimed the opposite, and stirred a lot of buzz, including citation in regular papers (like Haaretz in Israel):

"Less medical intervention during planned home birth is associated with a tripling of the neonatal mortality rate".

However, upon closer examination, I was convinced that this study was severely flawed, for several reasons:

1. It didn't distinguish between assisted and unassisted home births, which is a crucial distinction. I read a comment by someone (though didn't see any data), that when applying that distinction, the above conclusion no longer holds.

2. It gave similar weights to studies with very small samples (few dozens of women), and to studies with very large samples (in the thousands and sometimes hundreds of thousands).

3. See an example response, explaining why the meta-analysis was flawed, pointing to some perplexing deficiencies. Well, not really perplexing - the issue of home birth is politically charged, and some would say that every study in the field is biased by the authors' opinion.

Note that, interestingly, even that study didn't question the fact that home birth was superior for the woman's health: "These women were less likely to experience lacerations, hemorrhage, and infections."

- A factor many people omit when considering risk, is the personal familiarity of the medical crew. A midwife typically conducts full prenatal care, and when labor arrives, she's intimately familiar with the birthing woman. This is with striking contrast to what happens in a hospital. Another related factor is the personal care during labor - a midwife is present during the whole labor, 1-on-1, which in most hospitals is certainly not the case.

Note that these factors aren't just for better atmosphere during labor; they dramatically increase the chances of identifying complications early on, and avoiding an emergency.

Photos

Dear family and friends,

We've been a bit negligent in sharing recent photos. But better late than never...

See our Picasa albums, and specifically this album, which features a smiling Shahar :-)

Cheers,

Anat & Giora

Could Social Networks Foster Social Activism?

These days, with the hype around "The Social Network" movie, and when Social Media in general is celebrate as a revolutionary enabling factor for social activism, I found Malcolm Gladwell's recent piece in the New Yorker - http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all - particularly illuminating.

Insightful as always, Gladwell explains (convincingly, in my opinion), that while the Internet and Social Media have numerous benefits, fostering true real-life activism isn't one of them.

The article isn't short (again, as always...), but I think it's certainly worth the time.

Cheers,

Giora

Chauvinism

I consider myself a Feminist, and I'm proud of it. I do my best to act accordingly in everything I do, especially when it comes to raising and educating my kids.

Turns out that having a son after three daughters prompts quite a few people around us to offer comments with a blatant chauvinistic flavor. It was truly saddening to see how ingrained chauvinism is in so many people. The precise wording doesn't really matter (an example would be "At last! Now you've finally got a diamond in the family!"), but more importantly - there's no mistaking the intention expressed, that having a boy is better than having a girl.

Needless to say - I don't subscribe to this point of view. I can't imagine I'd ever love my child more (or less) due to their gender. In the beginning, I used to murmur something about a 4th daughter having been equally welcomed. Lately, I've decided to simply ignore such remarks, wishing that I would have been spared hearing them altogether.

Giora

Israel - State of the Nation Report

Disclaimer: if you don't deeply care about Israel, you might want to skip this posting.

I recently became aware of a fascinating report, titled "State of the Nation Report – Society, Economy and Policy 2009" (see full pointers, also to the report in English, at the bottom of this posting), published a few months ago by the Taub Center.

It's not uncommon to read and hear discussions in the media, which are practically based on intuitions, assumptions or even prejudice.

This report is based on hard economic data, examining high-level and long-term trends. I think it makes it an unusually important and educating read.

Not many of you are likely to read the full (very long) document.

Hence, I particularly recommend the first chapter ("A Macro Perspective on Israel's Society and Economy"), and the third chapter ("Israel's Education System - An International Perspective and Recommendations for Reform").

Enjoy,

Giora

English version: http://taubcenter.org.il/index.php/featured-publication/state-of-the-nation-report-society-economy-and-policy-2009/lang/en/

Hebrew version: http://taubcenter.org.il/index.php/featured-publication/state-of-the-nation-report-society-economy-and-policy-2009/lang/he/

Letting Go. And Becoming Happier!

Summary of previous chapters:

- Shahar, a perfect baby otherwise, wasn't successful in nursing.

- In parallel to feeding him expressed breast milk from bottles, we invested tremendous efforts in trying to teach him how to nurse. We employed the most professional lactation consultant one can find, and a lot of emotions, tears, stress, time, money and effort were put into achieving this goal.

- Despite fantastically gaining weight and getting bigger, Shahar hasn't been able to get sufficient milk directly, from his Mom's breast.

A few days ago we decided to let go. And what a transformation this has been for the entire family!

We decided to continue with intensive breast milk pumping, and we hope to avoid any substitutes as long as possible. Anat's body magically produces more-than-enough breast milk (approaching 1 liter a day! We're considering the possibility of no longer purchasing milk in the grocery store ;-)

Expressing milk 6 times a day is labor-intensive (since it doesn't replace the feeding itself), but ironically it seems so much easier than the previous weeks that were marked by the stress of "will he manage to nurse?". Quite like that Jewish folklore tale about the Rabbi and the Goat...

Instead of stressful sessions of attempted nursing, we're all busy enjoying our wonderful baby, who's been growing rapidly, becoming more charming by the day. His sisters, who were very stressed by their parents' gloomy mood, are evidently happier and more relaxed. Heaven!

Giora

Google Instant (and me)

These days I'm on Paternity Leave, and thanks to Google's generosity as an employer, I get fully-paid 4 weeks at home with Shahar - a benefit unheard of in the Israeli market.

Combined with regular vacation and the September Jewish holidays I'll end up being absent from my workplace, and getting to know my new baby, which is certainly a luxury.

Rarely did I use this blog to write about professional matters. But there's a good reason for an exception now. I mentioned to some of you that the months leading to Shahar's birth were particularly hectic at work. Now I can fully explain why...

Last week Google officially launched Google Instant (showing search results with every letter you type).

I encourage you to try it out - it works only in www.google.com (not in www.google.co.il, or in the Toolbar search box etc.). You might find it weird at first, but I strongly believe that once you get used to it, you'll love it.

This complex project was obviously a huge effort inside Google, and the fruit of many many engineers working together. I'm very proud to say that my team, and myself personally, took an inherent role in driving this project to completion.

If you go to the launch event video, and jump to 49:30 minutes after its start, you'll even hear this explicitly. Prizes to those who would recognize my tiny photo among all the others there ;-)

Those of you who read Hebrew may also look at a relevant TheMarker article.

If you're a tech-geek (like me...), and are interested in some technical details, I recommend the ~10 minutes in that video, starting 37:40 minutes after its beginning.

Othar Hansson and Ben Gomes (with whom I work very closely) gave there what I think was an excellent explanation.

Cheers,

Giora

Getting Better

I realized that since reporting on our difficulties, about how Shahar was not gaining weight, I haven't posted an update. Well, I have an excuse, we were fairly busy...

Bottom line first - things are a lot better now.

Shahar has no serious medical problems, or any inherent growth issues, only some breastfeeding difficulties - he's having a hard time nursing.

Both Anat and I value breastfeeding tremendously, and are willing to go to great lengths in order for our kids to grow on breast milk (see more below).

That being said, 12 days ago, with weight loss and no bowel movements, there could be a lot worse causes, and we were very happy when it became evident that none of them proved to be real.

So, we first gave up (temporarily) on nursing, got Anat pumping breast milk, and myself feeding it to Shahar using a bottle. Within a few days, Shahar started eating beautifully, gaining weight and spraying poop generously...

We then got an excellent lactation consultant involved, and she diagnosed Shahar as having a tied tongue. We consulted a specialist, and ended up snipping Shahar's tied tongue; surprisingly to me, it turns out to be a not-terribly-painful, and fairly standard procedure. Shahar's nursing abilities have started improving as a result, but naturally not magically so. In the last 5 days, Anat is breastfeeding Shahar, with effectiveness mildly increasing by the day, and some fortification of pumped breast milk from a bottle. Typically, the middle-of-the-night meal is bottle-only, to allow Anat some sleep. Most importantly, we're happy that he is drinking only breast milk.

We still have a long way to go until Shahar will comfortably depend on nursing only, gaining weight steadily while doing so, but hopefully we'll get there within a few weeks.

The past week and a half were certainly hectic and challenging, but I believe we're in the right direction.

Cheers,

Giora

Difficulties

Our first 13 days at home with Shahar were so calm and peaceful, that it was hardly believable this was a house with a newborn.

He generally didn't protest about anything - a meal every 3 hours or so, and in between sleeping wrapped inside his favorite baby carrier, on our bodies, was all he was wishing for. Well, at least that's what we thought...

However, today we found out that Shahar hasn't been gaining weight as expected, and he's actually about 350 grams below his birth weight.

We were advised that this, combined with lack of bowel movement in the last 5-6 days, implies that he should be breast fed more, and more often.

So, starting earlier today, Anat has been breast feeding him pretty much continuously, including waking him up every 2 hours if he was still asleep.

Our immediate goal is seeing a bowel movement. Honestly - I never thought I'd ever wait so anxiously to see a diaper full of poop! :-)

We had raised 3 babies, and never had to do anything special in order for them to gain weight as newborns. Certainly a new challenge for us.

Clearly, so little sleep for Anat, with very limited ability of mine to make it easy on her, would make our lives a lot more difficult.

Combine this with circumcision (planned this Friday, after a lot of debate and deliberations we decided the social reality in Israel makes it the right choice for us), a start of a new school year for the girls tomorrow, and the constant stream of envious feelings expressed by Maayan - and we're probably facing a bumpy couple of weeks.

Hopefully sooner rather than later things will get on track again, and we'll end up stronger, knowing we've beaten all the difficulties...

Cheers,

Giora

Photos, mostly of Shahar

Due to popular demand, we've uploaded some recent photos - see http://picasaweb.google.com/AnatGiora/WelcomeShahar#

Enjoy,

Giora

Welcome Shahar Unger!!!

Dear family and friends,

We're thrilled to share some happy news with you all!

This morning, around 11am, Shahar Unger (שחר, free translation: Dawn) has joined our family. He burst out to this world - less than 3 hours from first contraction to first (baby) scream, and made all of us extremely happy. We came back home from the birthing center (not a hospital, but on that in another post) after a few more hours.

Shahar weighs 3.260kg, modest compared to all his sisters, and since labor he mostly sleeps. Anat is expectedly tired, but is feeling well and happy to be home with the most beautiful and perfect baby boy we could ever ask for :-)

Hugs and kisses,

A decade of parenthood

Dear family and friends,

This brief posting is meant to convey one thing - happiness.

I realize it might come across as somewhat corny, but I'll take that risk :-)

There are certainly also negative things going on in my life - my back is giving me a lot of pain, not allowing me any regular and fun exercise; my general health is not at its best; Anat is weak and tired of the pregnancy (getting there, real soon now...).

However, these are minor compared to having Maayan, Hadas and Noga and living our routine family life. The love and affection I get from these 3 princesses is something I can't explain in words. Cuddling with Maayan when she goes to bed, hugging and kissing Hadas when she wakes up, caressing Noga (well, when she allows me, she's now literally a teenager...) and chatting with her about this and that - all these little things make me very happy.

Two days ago, we celebrated Noga's birthday and 10 years of parenthood for us.

These have undoubtedly been the best 10 years of my life!

Giora