366 days later

Monday, 30 July, 12:30 in the morning. The girl woke up very congested and could not sleep. After trying to settle her with no luck, we took her to sleep in the bed with us. Which she did. In her usual big-arms way – leaving me about 10 inches to sleep in. Eventually she's breathing well enough and L takes her to sleep in her own cot. Around 4ish I fall asleep.

8:30 exactly. The wife and I wake to the sound of her crying. I smile and say to L This better be important.

She laughs and and we get up to the girl's first birthday.

Again, it's a not-very-rushed breakfast of smoothies for everyone. The girl gets her first blueberry smoothie. She drinks a bit, but not very much. We prepare for an afternoon in the park. The weather claims to be an island of no rain in a week of drizzles and thunderstorms. Her party on Sunday was rained out, and we ended up all squeezed into our dining room.

Monday was much better. Though quite chilly for most of the day. We went to the park to try out her new scooter. Ever since she got it she's been trying to play with anything scooter-sized with wheels – most of which belong to other people, so I have to drag her away crying. Not the nicest side-effect.

After much rolling around the park, we went to a birthday picnic hosted by the other child in our NCT group that was born on the same day. There was much frolicking with other babies of her age followed by a tuckered-out trip home.

The first birthday is the last one for the parents. It was our celebration of having kept her alive for a year. She'll never remember this, so all we needed to do was a have a good time and take lots of pictures of her having fun. From here on out, it's her birthdays and it will be all about her. I've got to figure out more baby-flavoured fun by then.

Remaining NCT classes

I've been quiet for a bit. It's a combination of the job and getting the house ready. She's not popped yet. Anyway, I never wrote this bit up, so I may as well do this now while I have time...

The second NCT class was a few weeks back. It went well and was a reasonably productive use of time. It was unusually hot for England and I seemed to be the only one not boiling in the room. I don't see how they could all be hot and me not - though I was sitting under the air conditioning for part of it. None of the pregnant women seemed to believe me when I said it was the coolest spot and they could have it.

The updated expectation count is 2 known girls, 3 known boys and one guess of each. I'm a little let down that we don't have the drama all the books prepared me for. I can't see how any of these couples will break up between last week and next week – perhaps the people in the book took courses longer than 3 days over two weeks? We were supposed to have eight in the class, but one couple gave birth before the first class. I'm curious if their experience will differ from anyone else's. I mean, will going on the course have made a difference?

For one of the sections we split into preggos and partners. The partners' group focussed on fatherhood and the role we'd play. The women's group more focussed on squidgy things. One father mentioned his concern with gang culture, and how he was afraid of his son being drawn in. One of the fathers was a teacher and said that it was easy enough to stay out of the gang culture as long as you didn't actively try to be part of it – which is a mixed relief.

There also was a bit of discussion in our group of how to fix all the things our parents did wrong. One person mentioned his insufficiently affectionate father, and how he wanted to change that. I mentioned how my parents told me once they were trying to fix all the things they saw wrong with how their parents raised them. I, similarly, am going to try to fix all the things I see my parents to have done wrong. I said at the time Either we will slowly move to perfection, generation after generation, or, more likely, each generation will just repeat the mistakes their grandparents made.

One couple were both women. The non-pregnant one was convinced they were having boy, and was a bit worried about the impact of not having a male influence. I mentioned that it's generally not an issue and that there's plenty of cases of men raised by one or two women who turn out perfectly well. Or at least no more screwed up than anyone else. Every family is going to be missing some aspect of some gender role. You do the best you can between you, your friends and family. I'm pretty sure someone quoted a few lines Philip Larkin's famous poem at this point, but that may have been later.

I was reminded of Patrick Macnee who was raised by two lesbians in 20s and 30s, and spoke well of the experience. From what I understand, he seems to be reasonably well adjusted. That and I'm impressed that they managed to get away with such a relationship back then.

I'm glad to see that all the group pregnancy events we've been to so far has had at least one lesbian couple. Admittedly the Meet the ISIS Midwives event at UCLH may have just had two friends rather than a couple – it's hard to tell when there's no signs of affection between them. Anyway, it's nice to live in a place where the only issue is that the course leader has to remember to say partners instead of fathers.

The next weekend was the breastfeeding workshop. It was a more air-conditioned venue, but otherwise wasn't as nice. I learned stuff, but it felt rather rushed. The course leader wasn't as friendly or forthcoming with personal anecdotes. The most interesting part was watching the video of newborns being placed on their mothers' torsos and crawling slowly by themselves into place to feed. Instincts are nice!

On a separate note, the wife is getting close to the end. A bit irritable due to all the discomfort – swollen painful hands and feet, back pains, etc etc. I don't know if that means she'll go into labour soon, or it just means she's reached the end of her tolerance. We'll see in a few days.

A day at NCT

Today was the first NCT class. For the uninitiated, the NCT is the National Childcare Trust a charity which, amongst other things, runs antenatal classes. First off, a whinge from me about while they have student rates, they're only for students under the age of 22. Why even bother having a student discount at that point? why not just call it a young person's discount? How many 21 year old pregnant women do you know that are flush with cash because of they have full-time jobs?

Ok… that rant over, it was an interesting class. All the women were first-time mums-to-be around 34-36 weeks along and seemed to be in the 30 to 40 year old range. It was good to see I wasn't the oldest partner there, and the wife wasn't the youngest or oldest either. I'm assuming the matching up of people in similar circumstances was intentional. The first thing I noticed was how very pregnant all the women looked. I'm used to be around a single rather "full" looking woman, but the extra 6 made for an exercise in comparing bump size and shapes. Some carried small or hid it with their clothes rather well, but most were in the tight or flowy attire that emphasises them as eye-poppingly wow-that's-pregnant. It felt a bit leery to look around and judge everyone like that, but it's really hard to not be amazed at how the body transforms.

A lot of the day was nicely informative. There was stuff I'd not come across before in books or in documentaries. So it was helpful going (still undecided if it was worth going – I'll wait till it's done to decide that). Chatting to a nice sample of other couples who are facing the same issues also helped (Oh, you've not packed a bag yet either, I feel better now). I suppose that's one of the main benefits of the class. So, of the lot of us, there's 1 girl, 2 boys, 2 who don't want to know, and 2 I didn't get around to asking. Most people have decided on at least one name, and no one wants to say what that name is (though people are happy to say what names they've ruled out). There's a roughly even split between the Whittington and UCH, plus one planned for Homerton and one debating between home birth and Homerton.

The bits of the day that felt most awkward for me were the breathing exercises. Partly because I won't be doing it – she will. And partly because I kept having to stop myself from dozing off (see last night). I question the wisdom of, right after lunch, asking everyone to close their eyes, imagine a relaxing place, and breathe slowly. They also suggested trying to match breathing between the two of us in order to be a calming influence. That so can't work for me. I've tried it before. My lungs are literally (according to the peak flow meter) twice the volume of the wife's. So if we try to match breathing I start to suffocate due to lack of enough oxygen.

We're back again tomorrow to learn about pain relief, drugs and suchlike.

Home Stretch

From today we have 4 weeks to go til the due date. The wife's doing well, though the hardcore pregnancy effects are starting to take hold. Especially the feet swelling. I doubt we'll be doing much in the way of marches anytime soon. Milk production seems to be kicking off. Which means I expect more and more achey breasts.

We saw the midwife today. The wee one is head down, but not yet engaged (thank sod). Heartbeat's doing fine, she's the right bump size. So all seems good.

I'm adjusting my life a bit too. No more work travel. I'm also hoping to get my big work project done before the birth. Due date's the 22nd. Project completion on the 27th. So there is a chance. But I'm also worried that during some important meeting or workshop I'll get a phone call saying "birth in 2 hours" and I'll have to drop everything and run. We're also trying to get all the work on the flat done in time. At least get the home into a liveable state so we can fill it with baby things and stuff. In the meanwhile we're living in the dining room until all the bedroom floors are done. Fun! I've been moving all the furniture in the flat from room to room. Each time I move things I seem to be clumsier and clumsier. Cursed narrow Victorian hallways.

I keep being shocked to realise it's four weeks left. I keep thinking it's five, which is just fine. But when I remember it's four, I kinda head to panic mode. I just need to make sure I don't actually panic.

I do look forward to the kid being around, but also I do like her where she is. It's fun having a mystery wriggle-beast in the wife's belly. Plus no nappy changing yet – I'm not looking forward to that, tho I suppose I'll just deal with it when I can. I've got the intensive NCT classes starting tomorrow. I hope they do actually prepare me for what's in store. I'll be really annoyed if they're no better than reading a selection of books - they're not cheap.