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.