The birth story: Part 2

Binge watching TV is something we don't do much anymore. Before having kids, we'd sometimes burn through 4 or 5 episodes of a boxed set between dinner and bed. These days, if it's kid friendly we can do one a day, but anything more mature is more like once or twice a month. So when we sat down to watch Firefly by ourselves, it was just relaxing to just sit and vegetate.

At quarter to 10 at night, while watching Episode 8, L's waters broke. We'd had a few false alarms on the water breaking so far (it was August and a bit hot. Sweatiness can be confusing). This time we were sure. No doubt about it. This baby was on the way.

We had to get ready. We paused the show while we cleaned floor and took stock. It could be fast or slow. I went to prepare the bed, and get the battery and electrodes for the TENS machine.

At this point the weight of it all finally hit me. After years of trying all the false starts had taken their toll and I was emotionally drained. And up until this point the whole thing felt more virtual than real. Like the whole pregnancy was happening in a mirror and I was only just watching through the hard glass. I'd met all the ups and downs so far with a detached Oh, that's interesting. But that was over and it was now time to be present. So I burst into tears and had a good long cry.

With the house ready and my head finally in the right place I went back to join L on the sofa to watch the rest of the show.

A couple of episodes later, around midnight the sharp pains in L's lower abdomen started. L calls the midwife to let her know and they both agree it's probably not contractions. Human abdomens contain lots of things that can cause pain, not just birthy-things. I make a coffee just in case, because this night will need focus.

Coffee is not really working, because I keep dozing off during episode 12. The pains don't turn into contractions – things are not going the same as last time. We’re in somewhat new territory here.

Around 2:30, something more like contractions start. L starts, then soon gives up trying to monitor the contractions with her watch. It's pretty simple. Could we write an app to do it?
Yes… but now isn't a good time. Let's just download one. I’m sure we can find something.

The app turns out to work pretty well. I recommend it for anyone who is pedantic about exact numbers and labour. full disclosure – we didn't use it for very long, so YMMV.

Many somethings it turns out. A nicely rated app called Contraction timer won the random draw. After ten minutes of monitoring we were definitely in Zone. At 2:59, L calls the midwife and catches her up to the situation.

Are you sure you want us there?

We look at the app

We've had 5 contractions in 20 mins. Yes.

We'll be there in about an hour

When R was born we watched the birth episode of the V remake. It seems to be a trend, as much as two data points can be.

So back to the videos we go while we wait. We watch episode 13 – the birth episode – all the while tracking the contractions.

At 4:20, ten minutes shy of the end of the last episode the midwives arrive. I hit pause, turn off the display and get the door. There's two midwives, the one we’ve been seeing (yeah, continuity) and a midwife we've not met before. They immediately get to business and bring the bags in.

For the past week L has been baking biscuits. Ostensibly it was to make sure the midwives would have something to eat. But I’m pretty sure it was mostly to divert the nesting instinct into something practical.

I started the kettle for some tea, and got out the biscuits. I'd even bought some milk so there was something to put in the tea (we don’t use milk for anything, but I thought it important to keep these people happy and attentive and thinking good things about us). They had some of the tea and biscuits, but I don't think they actually finished any.

They got on with explaining what they were doing and telling us to get in the right mood. Plus paperwork. I remember papers and piles of things on the table. Oh, and being told We've not got a record of telling you about all these risks, let's list them all now. As if we could possibly change our minds now.

The midwives spent most of their time whispering to each other. I know it’s meant to stay out of our way, and keep us in control. But half the time it felt like What are we doing wrong that they judging us about? and the other half felt like it was the soundtrack for a spooky film.

At about quarter til 5 we decide we’re on the home stretch. They checked the cervix and it was only a little dilated – 4cm, I think. Not enough to say "This is it!" but enough to know things are on their way. At this point we bothering with the contraction timer and start trying for mood music. I get out the laptop which has the labour playlist we created for R, but never used. iTunes failed. It crashed over and over. Never got through a single song. Technology failed us.

At to keep the trend going, at this point the TENS machine gives out. I hunt for replacement batteries which surprisingly were in the place I remembered putting them, just in case. Thank you, younger me.

At around sunrise L is no longer comfortable on the sofa so we head to the bedroom. It feels like it's time, but the cervix is not dilated enough, so clearly we’ve some ways to go. How much can I dilate in a single contraction? Dunno. I Can't see why you can't do a cm per contraction. So 4 contractions and we'll be ready.

L got on all fours on the bed. A few feet away from the waterproof sheet I'd put on the bed earlier (we’d only bought the mattress a few months ago). But, damnit, I was not going even suggest moving.

This is when the painful contractions start and L really felt the need to push. After 4 contractions the baby was crowning. It took two more before he came out.

And there he was.

A few moments later, he cried. The first few breaths were all gurgley with the sounds of the remaining amniotic fluid. Each cry has less and less gurgle until the fourth cry was clear.

Unlike R who was blue at first, he was red. And he looked so different from her when she was born. He was huge, a full kilo heavier than R, and it showed in the chubby limbs.

In a slightly organised chaotic way, L rolled onto her back, lay down and held the baby on her chest. He immediately started feeding. The midwife rubbed his skin to help moisturise it with the vernix. I lay in the bed (on top of the unused waterproof part) next to L, both of us happy and holding our newborn son. The birth had been perfect.

It stayed that way for about an hour.

To be continued

The birth story: Part 1

Now that things have settled, more or less, I figured that before I start forgetting the details it is time to write up the story of the birth.

We were late. We'd refused to be induced early, which bugged the doctors. And when we finally did give in and got a sweep, there was still no baby. The home birth team was getting skittish about L's advanced maternal age. They would just say that while we still can have a home birth if we wanted, the risks keep going up and up.

Note that the statistics they use are based on everyone of L's age, but take nothing else into account. So, despite L having given birth successfully before and being a fit and healthy athlete, very active, even in the 9th month, she was lumped in smokers and first time mothers of the same age. It's the only data they have, but it's not very fair to paint with such broad strokes

When we left off in the real-time updates, I'd just started paternity leave and we'd had two sweeps. Every night we'd decided to sit down and watch a relaxing TV show or movie. And in each case, R would throw a fuss – she didn't want to watch with us, and she found the light sit-coms chose to be unwatchable (she can't stand the "car crash in slow motion" situations). And somehow every night would end up with us more stressed than relaxed. It's no surprise nothing happened.

On Thursday morning we'd scheduled the midwife to come so we could make plans and do another sweep. To keep things chill for the visit, R went over to a friend’s house. With an overnight bag, just in case. The midwife arrived around midday, and we discussed our options. In the end we agreed we go to the hospital Friday morning for an assessment, and if there was still nothing, Saturday night at 9pm we scheduled a full-on chemical induction.

Of course that would be a logistical nightmare. On the plus side, that would put the birth to most likely be 1 Sept, and after the school year cutoff. So I had to make calls and organise things.

First, to the family looking after R, I arranged her to definitely sleepover with us picking her up on the way back from the assessment Friday morning. Next I had to arrange with my parents, who still had a few hours before getting on the flight, for them to have R spend the night in their hotel room while we're doing the induction. With all that set in motion, we were set. We’d made a plan and had time to just sit and relax for a bit.

Why don’t we watch something?

More Jeeves and Wooster?

No. How about Firefly?

ok

We sat on the sofa and watched. Interrupted only by me making dinner. With R not there, I decided to make a birth-inducing spicy aubergine parm, but without the cheese, since we didn't have the right kind. It was delicious.

To be continued

The next generation

We finally got R to watch Star Trek. It’s been about 5 years since we first tried and 3 years since the last attempt. But this time it seems to have stuck.

It all started out Saturday morning when listening to Underground from Labyrinth. I had an "all the things you like are connected" moment. Did you know that, for Labyrinth, David Bowie did the music, George Lucas produced it, Jim Henson from Sesame Street did all the goblins and creatures, and Gates McFadden, the Doctor from Star Trek, did the choreography.

The last bit L was unaware of, so after a quick check of her filmography online, confirming it was true, L suggested We haven't tried watching Trek for a while. Maybe she'll like it now.

Even R was up for it. So we agreed that, since it was clean-the-house day, we'd watch some episodes, clean a bit, and watch some more. In the end, we got through 8 episodes of The Next Generation and made a dent in the mess that just spontaneously generates in the house.

We started with episode 3 of season 3 because that was the first DVD we could find. It turned out to be a good place to start since that and the following 6 episodes were all self contained and needed no knowledge of who any of the people were or what the overarching story was. The most memorable episode to R was Who Watches the Watchers. She really identified with the primitive race being covertly observed and their leader who gets to tour the Enterprise (She says Nuria is her favourite character so far, even more than Data). Which makes sense because it really sets the scene of what's important in the series and from the viewpoint of an outsider.

At one point R had a wow moment when L pointed out that actor who played Picard was the Narrator on the Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack.

Since then she's been asking to see another episode every day. Which is nice since it's always good to expand her horizons. I've seen the series enough that I've been bored of it, and it's also good to see it through fresh eyes with her. It's made me appreciate some things which I found very dull first time around.

Assorted highlights

How can she be 100 years old? Oh! She must be an alien!

They're all aliens. We knew she was an alien. It's got to be something else

... I think we'll catch the Romulans with their pants down...

With their pants down? What does he mean?

With their pants -?

A metaphor... goes on to explain it so we don't have to

After seeing Riker die in an alternate timeline Will is dead? Does he not appear in any more episodes after this? ... Wait... He's not dead. What happened?

No. He didn't die. dreading having to explain the next bizarre time travel episode

28 Days Later

The boy is 4 weeks old now. I'm now back at work. So I guess we've entered the 3rd stage of normality where this is what stuff will be like from now on.

Which isn't entirely the case. I'm still trying to find my new routine. I've been doing the doing the morning school run every day, which I wasn't expecting. So apparently I'm no longer that guy who gets in early to work. I am I guy who always stays late? Am I the person who's always working from home? I'm not sure yet, but I guess having kids forces you to learn things about yourself.

The boy is getting bigger. He started out quite big at 4.2kg, and has put on another 820g. So we're now into the next size up nappies. He's been wearing 1-3 month size clothes since birth and we're now on the verge of getting out the 3 month size stuff. We're in a hurry to get him in all the cute infant stuff we've got or else we'll never get a chance to use them. This is very different from R who was reasonably petite throughout her infancy.

Needless to say, I am constantly comparing the new child to my daughter. This is the same, this is different. Based on x, y should happen next. Etc etc. I found I spent more time with R just drinking it all in and living in the moment as if it would last forever. With the boy I recognise where he is and I am anticipating what comes next. Next should come smiles and hand control. That should be fun. But really, I don't mind if we just jump straight to walking and babyproofing.

We started EC from week one with the boy, and it seems to be working decently well. Whereas the daughter we started from month 5, so she had to unlearn using nappies in favour of the loo, the son was introduced to toilets as soon as we could and is managing a degree of bladder control. He'll fuss when he needs to pee, and if we get him there in time, he'll hold it til he's over the toilet. We've been catching at about 50%, so we're only going through several nappies a day instead of many-many per day.

Like with his sister we're putting him in disposables at night and reusables during the day. I'm finding the reusables we've got now leak far lass than they did with his sister. I can't tell if that's 8 years of nappy tech improvements or it's a boy/girl thing.

Level 2 normality

The boy was born 2 weeks ago today. We've now reached a steady state to the 2nd stage of normality.

For context, the first stage of normality was after the child was born, his grandparents came to visit. So we'd gotten used to having the baby around and seeing my parents or my in-laws every day. Our main concerns were what nappies to use, how and where to have meals with the family, and getting the daughter to school.

On Tuesday the last of the grandparents left and we've settled into the second stage of normality. School runs. Cooking dinner at home for 3 people. Laundry (unending laundry). Cleaning. You know – basic life stuff. Well.. except for work – I've a couple of weeks left of leave. We seem to be settling in to it ok. The school runs seem to nicely bookmark the domestic management of cleaning and whatnot. Once R is home, life descends into the usual chaos it's been for the past few years, except she's constantly asking to hold her brother – which has its own complications.

R can only really interact with or hold her brother when he's awake and not feeding. Now, as 2 week old spends the bulk of their time either sleeping or eating, the window of opportunity is much smaller than R would prefer. That plus R's stubbornness that she knows what she's doing has led to a few arguments. She's loving and really wants to be with her brother, which is delightful. When all is in order, it's lovely. She'll sing to him and hold him and rock him to sleep. On the other hand she'll advise me on how to settle him, and refuse to listen when holding him dangerously. Please just listen to the 2 people in the room with you who have actually gotten a child to survive infancy. A few days of experience does not make you an expert.
At least she means well

Next week we'll focus on getting ready for 3rd stage normality – me going back to work. The baby will need to go with L on the school runs, and I won't be around to cook dinner every night. That's going to be the tough bit.

Now we are four

The baby was born at 615 Friday morning after a sleepless night of labour and Firefly. Home birth has its benefits. We are now in the company a surprisingly padded baby who is the same size his sister was at a month old!

He's been very good at giving us opportunities to sleep so we're not completely wiped out. That said, I'm going to bed the moment I post this.

I keep looking at him and wondering who he looks like. I see small flashes of me and the wife, but more in common with his sister in her first week than anyone else so far. He's very much in the newborn mode, so it's far from how he'll end up looking.

I'll post the birth story when I get the time. Until then I am going to ponder how a raging feminist can raise a boy. I've already got lots of ideas.

Paternity leave

I started paternity leave today. No baby yet, so now we have an unspecified countdown to the birth and a 4 week countdown til I'm back in the office.

Last time, with R, I started my leave on the due date and took 4 weeks off. My plan this time was to start on the day L went into labour, so I would get maximum time with the newborn. Turns out, that was impractical. Since the baby did not come over the bank holiday weekend, I went back to work on Tuesday. I won't say it was a mistake, but I did find between the monitoring and inducing and actually getting work done, I was spread too thin to be useful. So I tied up all the loose ends I couldn't resolve last week and said goodbye to everyone. And that was that. All that's left is to figure out how to turn off notifications on the various work apps on my phone.

Labour hasn't started yet. We've had 3 sessions of 20 minute monitoring in hospital (which, for some reason takes 4 or 5 hours end-to-end) and two sweeps. The waiting game we're going through now is how long can we go before we go for stronger intervention? And how long until we've can't do the planned home birth and have to do full-on labour ward?

On the other hand, this child seems much more interactive in the womb than R was. She would push and kick as usual, but this one seems to do things like responding to rubbing legs by moving feet. Perhaps we're just better able to recognise body parts through the uterus, but it does make it more like there's a real baby in there.

Induction

We've gone with the sweep. It's the most innocuous induction method on offer. L got swept yesterday. So far nothing beyond the sudden desire to bake a cheesecake. Clearly it's having some effect, though no birthing yet. Which means I'll be back at work tomorrow. Which, in this heat, might be a good thing. We'll likely got for another sweep tomorrow.

In other news, R is tired of the indirect attention. Are you excited to be a big sister? used to meet with silence. Yesterday, she just got up and walked away when asked. Today she just rolled her eyes as far as they would go. Why not ask her something that she hasn't been asked 10,000 times already? Like What toys would you like to give to your sibling?, or something like that. Asking a real question goes get R involved in the conversation and she'll think and give an honest answer. It's good to know it's not just me that's done with the more monotonous questions.

Induction or no?

Still no sign of birth. Head looks more or less engaged. All vitals are healthy.

We saw a doctor 2 days ago who wanted us to go for daily monitoring. Now it's clear that daily monitoring is pretty much a full time thing, taking at least 4 hours to do 20 min or heartbeat monitoring. I'm not sure it's worthwhile. On the other hand, the doctor also told us Remember, it can die suddenly and for no reason at any time. Have a nice day. Bye! Thanks doc.

At this point we need to decide if we want a sweep to kick start the process or we just wait. hopefully today's observations will give us more data on how ready to we are naturally, and if intervention will make a difference.

Birth plan and waiting

We actually got a chance to go over the birth plan with a midwife. Well... sort of. I held the birth plan in my hand, asked questions and made notes. The midwife had some practical suggestions for things to have on there that we'd not considered before.

The new birth plan is just a modified version of the one we had for R but never go to use. So we've deleted some of the parts we now know to be useless ("maximum possibility of enjoyment") and added some things we now know are useful ("fresh o batteries for Tens machine"). The midwife suggested some terribly practical things we'd not have thought of:

• 7 towels (why 7? does each have a specific purpose? Or do they know that if they ask for less they'll get none?)
• parking permits
• a hand mirror (for checking on progress without making L move)
• portable lamp (for the same reason)

Note: this is not a complete practical guide for would-be at-home parents

Also she gave us instructions for what to do if the baby comes before the midwives arrive. It's pretty much: call 999 so you have someone to guide you, then make sure to catch it and keep it cuddled til someone arrives.

So every few days we make some edits to the Plan, then print it out again so it's nice and legible. And repeat. In the end well have some well formatted and crafted thoughts about the birth, but I suspect it'll just sit on the clipboard in a corner of a room when the time actually comes.

In other news, every day at work I've been treating as my last. It's pretty much Bye. Maybe see you tomorrow. at the end of every day. So every day I try to have everything wrapped up as much as I can assuming everyone has to carry on on their own without me.

I'm getting lots of questions at work. I get a lot of Do you know if it's a boy or a girl? To which I always answer Yes. followed by nothing. It's fun to see the awkward pause expand til the person feels the need to say something. I always explain how we've got so much time after their born to fill their world with gender. It's nice to have these few months in advance of that to just be nicely gender neural avoiding gifts of bright pink or with guns and sports equipment.

The other question I get a lot is Are you excited? How do I answer that? I mean, not excited. Nervous? Apprehensive? I could just say that all the miscarriages took more of a toll on me than I thought and I'm still kind of numb on the inside. I want to be more excited, but not being excited also keeps away the spiraling disappointment of when things go wrong. But it's not a direction most people want that question to go. So, in reality, I usually either say Yes or, in the more unguarded moments It's been a long road getting here. I suppose it's like my stock answer to Do you want a boy or a girl?, which is A live birth. I'd just like to get to the point where things are ok and we can get on with being an expanded family.

Last Scan

Yesterday was our final scheduled ultrasound. This time we brought R along with us so she could see her sibling. Unfortunately since it's such a late scan, the wee one is too big to see overall and too uncooperative to see any detail. Not even a nose.

R watched for bit and started to get bored. L asked R to take photos of the ultrasound screen.

to RHere. Take my phone. Can you take photos of the screen?

R gets up close to the screen

Don't get close. Stand back there. You can take some good photos at the end.

Moving to the back of the roomI'll stand over here and take selfies.

grinningShe's a millennial.

Um... the millennials are in their 30s now

their jaws drop

She's like 2 generations later

jaws can't fall any further

What generation does that make her then?

trying to remember 'Alpha'. It went to 'Zed' and then wrapped around again.

Never before have I had such an opportunity to make people younger than me feel so old.

Regardless, the scan went well, despite the lack of any visuals more interesting than a ribcage and maybe some hair. While at the last scan everything was bang on average, things have started having some variation now. Head is a bit bigger than normal at 11cm across – the magic number at which birth starts to sound a litter scarier.

We're on the final road now. We're term soon and then it's the waiting game. Does the kid come before or after I start paternity leave?

New clothes

We have quite a few hand-me-downs we've gotten from various people over the past few months. Today we organised the baby clothes, separating everything by size. This time remembering that they get big pretty quickly and that 9-12 month pile is going to get used sooner than we'd think, and to make sure we remember where we put it.

It's starting to really home that there will actually be a baby soon. We've only a few weeks left. I kind of miss last time when I was so paranoid I spent the whole time reading up on everything and making sure we are prepared. This time, well, I remember what I read last time, and I'm pretty sure I recall what we need. Nappies. A birth plan. A bed. A changing table. Something to carry the child around in. Something to carry the stuff around in. some kind of pump/bottle/steriliser situation. And a hefty supply of panic attacks that I can pick up and use when I realise I've forgotten something rather critical.

On a similar note, I've been continuing the pre-midwife cleanup to get at least my bedroom tidy and ready. Or at least pretend there is an away for everything in the room. I even cleaned under the bed. It's a pretty high up bed, so we store boxes under it. Somehow, after cleaning, there was more storage space than there was before. This is just encouraging me to do more cleaning.

I found a bag of my clothes I put away. I recall one t-shirt and one pair of trousers I hated enough to put away, but not throw out, but I've no idea why I stashed away the rest. It's all reasonable stuff that seems to fit. I worry that if I try to wear any of it, it'll turn out to have a hole in an awkward or embarrassing place that only reveals itself when I'm far from the house and have no backup.

The other downside of the big clean, is I've vacuumed up so much dust into the air, I've been constantly sneezing with a sore throat for days whenever I'm in the house. With luck that will settle down soon.

Meet the midwife

The home birth team came to the house on Monday. The team was a midwife and student midwife come to take various measurements and answer all our questions about home birth. It's rare enough a medical professional comes to your home, so that was in our thoughts above everything else.

Of course we spent the entire week before cleaning the place just so they wouldn't end up saying I'm afraid your place isn't clean enough to give birth in. It’s the labour centre for you! before giving an evil laugh and dropping a smoke bomb to hide their escape. But that didn’t happen. We sat around the kitchen table having a pleasant discussion. The downside being, the whole time I was tempted to say And why don’t we go down to the bedrooms and see how clean they are, but perhaps them thinking me sane and not at all creepy is the better approach.

Of all the people we've met at the various hospitals during this pregnancy, these were the first to actually try to convince us to do a home birth. Everyone we've come across so far has told us the dangers and other problems associated with giving birth at home. The closest we'd come was a consultant who essentially said well, it's your choice, you know what you're doing, so do what you want.

This was different. They spent half the time telling us all the ways that a home birth is good for the mother and good for the baby. And that we should expect a faster, easier birth. They made it clear it would not be a home invasion – though they did say they require tea and snacks, so we have to take their orders in advance. How we chose to do the birth in the house was up to us. They don't require a specific room, it's all about the mother being comfortable.

They also suggested renting a birthing pool, but, given the only place we have enough space for it is the balcony, L decreed that an al fresco birth, while primal, would not qualify as "comfortable".

It was nice to hear at what stage to call them, how many people would be there, what happens if things go wrong, how long they stay after, what paperwork we get at the end, how to register the birth and so on. They also actively engaged me in conversation, rather than looking up surprised with a Oh you're still here look when I speak. All in all, a fairly comfortable experience which has left me much happier about the whole plan.

Also in the good news is the baby is no longer breech. So that’s a win too.

Different surnames

My wife and I have different last names. I discovered a new interesting side-effect of that. I volunteered to help out at our daughter's school fair. Today, the person coordinating it introduced me to my wife as someone who could help out at her stall, saying that we should get in touch to work out the details.

Fair enough. The coordinator didn't know us, so it shouldn't be shocking. On the other hand, it amuses me that they thought I would work well with L – which I appreciate.

This reminds me of a story from the another point of view. A couple of years ago I was visiting my cousin. At one point, her 15 year old son, asked how his grandmother and his great aunt (her sister) could have had different surnames. His mother had to explain how they were married and took their husbands’ names. Oh yeah, he said I forgot people did that.

Now to sleep

Just to keep track of this milestone... for the first time ever, R completely put herself to bed with no help at all from either parent. While bedtime has been getting easier and easier over the past few months, this is the first time we had no involvement. Well, none beyond We are sooooooo tired. We're just going to go to sleep now. Please don't stay up too late. You have school tomorrow. Zzzzzzz Or something to that effect.

It was a long day. We had out annual street party. I was up early cooking a nice chilli for the lunch (the longer you spend cooking, the better it tastes). The party iself involved loads of food, to the point that once it was over, despite it being dinner time, we had no room left. Except R, who has been too busy playing to notice there was lunch. So after putting together a quick sandwich for her dinner, I went to bed. The above conversation was done with me under the covers and my eyes closed. I'm pretty sure I was asleep before she was in pyjamas.

She clearly went to bed at some point, as we had to wake her in the morning. But she did the job of getting to sleep, and, more importantly, showed no signs of resentment toward us for having to do it. Nice way to turn a parenting fail into a parenting win.

Heart

One day last week I was having increasing chest pain after work. It was making me both more and more worried and more and more irritable as the evening progressed. R was a bundle of energy, bounding around and jumping on the sofa. I kept asking her to be quiet and not stress me out, all the while I was searching online for evidence it could somehow be gastric (despite being on antacids). It culminated with me going to hospital in the middle of the night.

This is a conversation the daughter and I had after picking her up from school the next day.

Just so you know, I went to hospital last night.

I didn’t realise you were gone.

Yeah. I left at 5am and got back by 6:30 before you were up. It was pretty empty in A&E. So it all went pretty quick.
When I got home I just went straight to back to bed. I was so tired and you were both asleep.
Did your mum tell you what happened?

She said you were feeling bad and to let you sleep
…
I thought you had a heart attack.

So did I. It felt like how they describe it. But I wasn't a heart attack. They did tests and were pretty sure of it. I'm sorry we didn't tell you sooner. Were you worried?

…

At this point she dropped the subject. I didn't want to pry any further as I didn't want to upset her. When she feels things she doesn't understand she gets upset if you pry, and I didn't want to ruin the nice moment between us. We spent the rest of the walk home just walking together and occasionally talking of innocuous things.

It's clear she knew exactly what I feared was going on. I felt awful for putting her through this. I also felt grateful that she was so concerned and understood what it all meant without me having to explain. I appreciate her loving heart. It's a kind of curse of being a parent. Reveling in the love they give you at the same time feeling sorry for your child for the pain they'll feel on your own mortality.

After the A&E visit and a follow up with my GP, it turns out the chest pains were probably the only thing it could have been that wouldn't call for a major lifestyle change. A swelling the in cartilage on the side of my sternum. Most likely due to my heavy laptop bag constantly banging against my chest during my daily commute. Exacerbated by stress or anything else which makes one hold their shoulders or posture in a funny way.

Nothing makes a little girl as happy as having her own spaceport

Avoiding talking about it

Last weekend we went to a wedding. It was fun seeing loads of friend for the first time in ages. Parenting does not lend itself to being social very often. So while most of the parents at R's school know that we're expecting, very few of our friends know.

That became more obvious pretty much every time anyone would see L that night. Almost every meeting went like:

Hi! How’s it going? looks down at L's belly for a moment it's been ages. What's new?

Which was fine. We didn't want to steal the celebration on their wedding day to make it about us and our news. So we were happy to let the topic slide. A few times, though, someone would say Okay, I have to ask... which would lead to OMGs and congratulations and suchlike – which makes for a good icebreaker between friends who've not been in touch lately. But, for the most part, it was just the long pause and carry on with conversation. That's the downside of not seeing people much.