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