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

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.

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.

Eating out

When you have a child, summer is a special flavour of madness.

There are six weeks between the end of the school year and the start of the next, so it's kind of enforced family holiday time. Even if you don't take a holiday, most of your child's friends will disappear. The side effect of this is that not only do you have to figure where the child can physically be for those extra 6½ hours per weekday, but they need activities as well, or they go crazy. So the lack of the normal playmates just means the entire time is spent following one long map from event to event to event.

A lot of those events for us ended up eating out.

Between my parents visiting for R's birthday, R and L meeting me for my lunchhour at work. Meeting up with visiting friends, and our actual holiday, we found ourselves going to restaurants more often than we had for a some time.

Eating out with a child is risky.

A continual problem is that she doesn't understand that what she asked for when she orders is what she's stuck with for the rest of the meal. We try to mitigate things by ordering for ourselves things she might like. So if R doesn't like what she gets, L or I can share parts of what we get with her.

Best case, she ends up with something she likes and eats all of it.

Next best case, she eats until she's full, then L and I eat the remains. It helps in restaurants with small portions which don't fill up an adult.

The worst case, she refuses to eat anything. Not her meal. Not L's meal. Not my meal. And, of course, when we get home she asks I'm hungry. What's for dinner?

We had dinner. It was at the restaurant. That was it. We told you it was dinner and to eat at the time. It's bedtime now. You can eat in the morning.

It usually ends up with her delaying bedtime for uncomfortably long while eating some hastily prepared rice cake and something sandwich. It's not like we have loads of snacks and easy to prepare foods around the house. Because they are snacks and easy to prepare — they just disappear.

It doesn't end with just food choices. You never know when you make meal plans if the child is going to be in a mood or not. Or, if there are other kids, if one of them moods out, then that will just be contagious, and it's all grumps and I wants.

On the other hand, R does know how to handle herself in a restaurant, even if she forgets sometimes.

Dinner is always when a child is most tired and fragile. No wonder so many parents end up doing dinner at 5pm. It avoids the daily meltdowns. And also avoids family dinners with friends as well. Not at all ideal.

R and I used to play café when she was around 2 and 3. We'd sit on the sofa and pretend to order food from a menu, talk to the waitstaff, eat, and so on. It was fun, and it means she knows how a meal in a restaurant is supposed to go, even if she often gets distracted and forgets. However, when she gets in the moment, she is on it. If she's thirsty she'll hail a waiter and order a sparkling water. If there's no waiter in sight, she'll just walk up to the bar and order.

You'd be surprised how few bars will even talk to six year who is queuing with the rest of the adults

Often, at the end of the meal, when we start talking about getting the bill, she'll just get up and go up to a waiter and ask Can we get the bill please?

So while eating and interacting with us in a restaurant may be a challenge for her, dealing with the staff she seems to have mastered.

Now we are two

We decided to try an experiment. We went to visit the family in the US. And then we left the girl with her grandparents. She's been there almost two weeks and she comes back tomorrow.

A bit of background. Life's gotten quite busy here. A planned visit to the States was to end with us coming back at the start of half-term. A magical period where not only schools are out, but so is nursery (because why would you need extra childcare then?). So zero free time has turned into negative free time.

When we mentioned this to L's mother she asked Why don't you just leave her with us for a while? You can change her flight home and I'll come back with her. Which we though Ha ha ha. That's silly — Wait.... why not?   Hey, what do you think about staying in the States with you grandparents for a week?

Yeah!

And that was that. Actually not quite. We were quite hesitant. But with her excited about it, we could at least take it seriously. I know we'd always expected for her to spend a summer or other break with her cousins or grandparents, but at 3½... we'd not expected to get the chance so soon. So to make sure we were doing the right thing, we did a number of tests.

Test One: The Sleepover.

The girl had never spent the night away from us. She'd recently gotten to sleep for a sitter, so we knew it was possible. But we'd never tried. So, with her assent, she spent a night a friends house. It worked. She had dinner and went to bed and eventually got to sleep and woke up without freaking out. Score.

Test Two: The Flight.

After staying with the grandparents she has to get back home. Which means a 7 hour flight. Her grandmother was going to fly alone with her, and the girl had to be trusted to behave for the duration. In other words, not run up and down the aisle into first class like last time.

Not an issue, if her flight over is any basis. she spent the entire time engrossed in the entertainment system. Hours of Doctor McStuffins and various other children's shows. She had to be bribed to leave the seat and go to the loo. So this would not likely be a problem.

Test Three: The day with the grandparents

She's a lovely lass, but can be a handful if you're not expecting it. So we had to be sure the grandparents knew what they were getting into. On the first full day we were in the States, we got up early and left the girl with her grandparents while we spent the entire day shopping and seeing friends, with the plan of returning after she was asleep in bed. We had a lovely time. She had a lovely time. She was actually asleep when we got home.

With all those tests passed, we still had one final challenge

Test Four: The airline tickets

We had to change the girl's ticket to a new flight, and get her grandmother on the same flight, and get them linked so they could fly together. And agree on a day with the grandparents. Not trivial but also not a big deal. Except to save like £100 per person we went through one of those cheap ticket resellers. Over email, resellers told me they can make the change. Good. But then they say on the phone only the airline can do it since it involves the grandparent's ticket. The airline, on the other hand, says only the resellers can do it since we bought the ticket through them. Back and forth few times til we learned the grandparent had to buy the ticket less than 24 hours before the child ticket was changed. During the back and forth we had to cancel the grandmother's ticket just so we'd have another 24 hours to resolve it. Finally, after a bit of escalation, a manager at the resellers says Look, only the airline can do it. If you don't believe me, call them. Then call me back on a three-way-call and I'll talk to them with you and we'll sort it out together.

So I gave the airline another call. After being on hold for 30 min. I got through and they, as chipper as can be, said, Of course we can help you with that... huh, there's a funny grinding noise on the line. Is that teeth?

I do understand why they initially denied it. Even with things going smoothly it took another 45 minutes of changing flights, changing times, moving seats, breaking up bookings, regrouping bookings, and so on and so forth. Until finally, everything was in order. The seats were booked and all was set in stone for the girl to stay.

As we stayed there we all became more and more comfortable with her staying without us. At one point when she was sleeping in another room, she got up in the middle of the night and walked to the room sister-in-law was sleeping in, and crawled into bed in between her and her infant daughter, and went back to sleep. In the morning when we spoke to the girl she said I thought you went back to London. Given how blasé she was about it, we figured she'd be just fine.

Our flight back by ourselves is where it started to hit us. First time in ages going through security without the child and her accoutrements. It was pretty easy. And on the plane L and I had a row of 3 by ourselves. It was too uncomfortable to sleep, but I had the luxury to find out, which was nice in itself. And when we landed we could go through the e-passport queues, so that took no time at all getting out, getting baggage and getting home.

It's been weird not having her around the house. Part of it is reverting to how life was before, when L & I were just a couple. So weird in that it's completely not weird at all. Though I do like being able to make the food I like to eat without worrying about spices or avoiding certain foods. La la la, let's just put a quarter cup of chilli peppers in here. Oh crushed chillies, I missed you. Let's be friends again. For a little while.

Another part of of the weird is recovering from the exhaustion of the past 3.5 years. So far I've twice slept in 12 hour chunks. I once went to bed at 7am and still got some sleep afterwards.

And there's the part where we can finally do the things that we've been putting off, like moving heavy furniture. I've been able to clean and hoover the house, and use caustic chemicals without putting them away immediately. I've done two years worth of shredding. We've 5 full recycling bags with just shredded paper and boxes we no longer need.

L on the other hand is taking the opportunity to let her attention drift. I suppose not having a child around lets you just sit and vegetate. That plus a phone with games and internet means you're not there when you're there. I found earlier that in order to keep her attention for the full duration of a conversation, I had to phone her despite being in the next room.

We've been getting reports from the grandparents about how she's doing. The first week seemed fine, though it looks like she's starting to wear down and tire of all the uncertainty and how different everything is. We've been doing Skype calls every 2 or 3 days, It's been lovely seeing her. Especially when say says I miss you dad. She's so much more rational on the calls than when she's with us talking to her grandparents.

Anyways, she's back tomorrow. We'll just have to see how she comes with this change and all the rest that's in store in the next month.

Now we fly

Just over a month ago, we took the child on her first intercontinental plane trip. We went to see her grandparents, aunts and uncle in the US. Planning this journey was a lot of work. I've travelled a lot, so at this point I've got it down to an art. At least if it's just me, or just me and L. No need to plan how to get to the airport, or anything. Just set out on autopilot and don't think till we hit the destination.

This time we had to actually plan. In great detail. How do we feed and change her on the flight? How many changes of clothes do we need to bring? How many just for travelling. How do we get her and the pram to the airport with our luggage? Do we need the pram? How does security work? How do we carry her around the airport? How will she deal with the air pressure changes on takeoff and landing? What do we do if she fusses? How do we get from the airport at our destination? Our birth plan wasn't this complicated.

Or expensive. We ended up using minicabs for the London-side travel, and a rental car in the US.

The minicab picking us up at home arrived 45 minutes early since they wanted to fit in an extra fare that morning (or, as they said, traffic). We weren't done packing so all we could do was have them wait. We barely squeezed our luggage plus the folded pram in the car. So now we know how much we can take with us an fit in a reasonable sized minicab.

Rather than detailing the whole adventure, I'll just recount the interesting bits.

The wee one had about as much luggage for just herself as we did for both L and I combined. Or more for her, if you include the pram.

All the airport and airplane staff cooed over the child. Even UK immigration said awww. Only Dulles security were heartless and mean. More on that later.

We flew Virgin Atlantic, which had good parts and bad parts. The seating on the plane over was lovely. It was one of their newer planes. The "sky cot" was easy to get the kid into and out of. She even slept in it a little. We were sat next to the double-sized loo which had a good sized changing table. We had row of 5 to ourselves.

The real down side was Virgin breaking our pram. Two of the wheels just snapped off. They said they'd pay us back for the repairs, but I'm still following that up with them. Not at all impressed. Especially with their customer service: Here's all your paperwork, phone the number at the end to make the arrangements. When we got to our destination, only then did we notice there was no number in the paperwork. Or on the web site. Or anywhere. Not impressed.

They also appear to have a policy of taking 3 weeks to respond to any communication. This is not sarcasm. This is their actual policy.

Anyways, once we arrived, we got to spend some quality family time plus occasional visits to friends in the area. The little one behaved quite well through most of our social events. In fact, we benefited from her jet lag since she was not able to get to sleep at a reasonable time, instead of after midnight.

My first time alone together with the wife after the child was born was when we left her, with the mother-in-law and a bottle of breastmilk, while we went off to renew the wife's drivers license. Then shopping at Target.

Sounds romantic, doesn't it?

The worst trouble we had was car rides. The babe would sometimes just hate them. That was yet another thing which was the opposite of what we were led to believe. About 1/3 of all drives had her needing consolation at some point. Either I had to reach to the back seat and try to calm her down, or, I would just sit next to her for the duration of the drive.

We ended up not using the pram much at all – even after we got the replacement parts. It was car seat for the drive, then the sling at the other end. I did end up getting a number of amused my god, there's a baby in there when people noticed that the bump on my chest was a cute little tiny person rather than too many pies.

Flying back the UK was less pleasant than leaving the UK. Dulles has dropped in my opinion to a strip mall with airplanes. There are no changing tables at the airport. None. The family restrooms are just large restrooms with a single toilet and a sink. I had to change her on the floor. I still cannot believe it's that bad.

Security made things worse. They were nice and cooed over the babe up until the metal detectors. At that point they made us dismantle the pram, on top of all the various take off shoes, take out laptops, etc etc they usually make people do. Then when madly putting the pram and luggage back together, with just one shoe on between us, all while trying to keep the child calm, then they told us to vacate the secure area. Really. That actually happened.

I swear, if I didn't have to return to DC, that would be enough to convince me to just give up and never go there again. It's not that nice a place to warrant that sort of trouble. (Then again, arrival wasn't so bad, maybe next time I'll try leaving from another city)

The plane ride back to the UK was innocuous. The plane itself was not as new, so the facilities were less nice, but certainly passable. The cot did look like it was slept in more times than I care to imagine. This time Virgin didn't break any of our stuff, which was a bonus. Passport control was a breeze. There was sizeable queue, but they herded us to a new queue with no one ahead of us. We were stamped in by a officer in training, who clearly had not gone through her cynic training yet. She cooed the most of any public official yet over the child. That made for a nice welcome home.

I'm stopping the story here so I end on a high note

First day out

We took the little one out to lunch today with my parents. It was our first attempt at a restaurant . It seems to have been a success. It was the wife's turn to carry her in the sling (I took her last time). We did take longer than expected to pack the Bag – mostly because every time we'd packed before was on way to midwives and such, and we knew they'd have stuff if we forgot it. This time we were going to the real world, and we'd have to make sure we had everything we needed.

The wee one spent the bulk of the meal in the sling. The wife only dropped food in her hair once. The baby slept or was quiet the whole time. After the meal she seemed to be getting a bit warm, so we took her out of the sling. That's when the next table over noticed and decide to pay tribute to her by cooing, asking her age, and informing us they have 3 girls in their twenties between them.

This seems to be pretty common. It's happened every time we've left the house with her. Later in the meal one of the staff asked how old she was. I told him 8 days and that this was her first meal out. He spread his arms in welcome and smiled. I don't mind this at all. A friendly bit of natter with complete strangers is a good thing, and something that city life seems to miss out on. I don't like the unsolicited advice about how we're doing it all wrong — but only one person's ever done that. The Isn't she cute and You're brave leaving the house so soon I can live with.

The place had cooled down by the time we had coffee, so we put her back in the sling. The wife drank hers with a straw with the excuse that most baby burns are from spilt hot beverages. We clearly are still quite a bit paranoid. The walk home in the rain showed that, me walking close with my arm around the wife making sure she can't slip and fall. And us stopping at every intersection waiting for the green "walk" light regardless of how little traffic there was.

All in all a success with no crying or meltdowns or anything. I wonder how old she has to be before she's too fussy to take out?

Completely unrelated — I keep pondering the adage sleep when they sleep. I don't know if I'm missing something, but it's the opposite of what I find I'm doing. When she sleeps, I do dishes, talk to adults, go online, read, blog, and variously maintain the household. When she's awake I try to calm her down if she's annoyed, or cuddle, or just stare at her. I can't see how I'd do the opposite. Ignore her and do work when she's up or crying. Perhaps this too will make more sense later.

Now we are 6 days overdue

I'm slightly surprised to have gotten this far after the due date. I know first children are usually late – average of 8 days I hear. Most of my NCT group has already sprogged. Only the wife and one other are left. Practically every day we get an announcement and a baby photo in the inbox. I don't mind. I'm enjoying the extra rest and lack of nappy changes.

I started my paternity leave today. So I might just have enough energy to post more than once a week. Or take care of the baby once she arrives. The past few weeks at work have been mad. The past few weeks preparing for the baby have been mad. The past few weeks of construction and repairs to the house have been mad. The past few weeks helping the wife submit her PhD thesis have been mad. But that's all done now. We just have to wait for the little bundle to come out. Perhaps then we can experience true madness :)

The in-laws are visiting. It's both nice and an exercise in patience. I'm a bit of a control freak so I'm uncomfortable when things are out of my hands. Like I come home to glasses put away in the wrong cabinet. I should really just appreciate the dishes put away in the right place and that I didn't have to do it. We're also having loads of problems with mobile phones. They've been through 3 so far, each older and simpler than the one before. The latest is 6 years old and really quite simple. It was working fine until they locked it and have been unable to unlock or use it since. It's currently off (how'd they manage to turn it off without unlocking it? it was on full charge) in their flat while they're out and about. I guess if the baby comes we'll just have to let them know via more traditional means.

My parents are still in the States. My mother's been ill and is waiting for an all clear to get on the plane and see her granddaughter. Perhaps the little one is holding off waiting for both grandparents to be around. That's awfully kind of her. That and it's awfully kind of her to have given her father a few late lie ins before she shows up.

So very different

I was talking to my parents over Skype a bit ago and my father mentioned that things have changed since they were new parents. I agreed and pointed out that we were chatting overseas over video for free. Since then I've been thinking about all the ways things are so very different now.

Birth philosophy has changed, making it far closer now to how it was in the grandparents' time. Except there's far more washing of hands. For a while everything was clinical with mothers giving birth on heavy drugs on their backs and feeding the kids of this highly artificial but easy to store cow's milk product. Now we know on your back is probably the worst way. The coccyx just blocks the whole exit making things much harder. Birth positions are quite varied – under water, on a bouncy ball, leaning against the wall, etc etc. Drugs are still strong, but much more targeted to avoid affecting the offspring. Breast feeding is still a bit awkward in the UK, with about 20% of children still getting breast milk after 6 months – but at least medicalness and legislation is trying to make it easier.

Nappies. As far as I can tell, there are like 30,000 alternatives for nappies. At least we've got velcro now, and don't have to deal with pins.

Information is soooo much easier to come by. The wife posted a comment about how the baby seems to have engaged, and she got lots of replies saying things like my baby dropped 2 weeks before I gave birth and other really useful things. It's like having the joint experience of all your friends and relatives, and a few strangers on tap. I can hardly imagine how hard it must have been just not knowing and not knowing you didn't know.

We've known the sex of the child for about 26 weeks now. It makes picking names much easier. And we've already got a bunch of clothes. Not that getting unisex clothes would have been so hard – I have no idea what people used to do. Just do the bulk of the shopping after the birth?

I don't know what they did in my parents' day when it came to exposing children to music. Especially while they're still in the womb. Put on record after record? Put on the radio and hope for something good? The wife and I put together a playlist of 3200 songs combining our favourite appropriate contemporary music and a huge chunk of classical music. We just hit play and let it go until we need to turn it off. The other day work gave me an iPod nano as a baby shower present. Quite nice of them – I really appreciate it. I've whittled the playlist down to the 2500 songs that fit on it. We can now play it all day at a fraction of the power consumption of the PC we used to use. Plus UCLH apparently has iPod docks, so we we can have music for the birth without needing to being a laptop (no wifi, what's the point?).

Some months ago I made a list of things cultural things I wanted to export the kid to. A fair chunk of that was meant for when she's older and can read herself or watch TV, but one thing I really want to do is use Skype video and get her grandparents to read to her. I really want her to get to know them, and them living on another continent would otherwise make it hard. But as long as they're comfortable reading to a small camera… I just have to figure out where to position the camera so it looks like they're making eye-contact.

Seeing the family

One more trip to go before the baby. Well – one more that I know about, these things can sneak up on you. After we hit 35 week I am staying by the wife's side until the kid is safely born and our lives are relatively stable. We're just coming up on week 34, which means she is considered fully at term and able to pop in as little as 3 weeks!

So this last trip was a cousin's wedding in Boston. It was neat to see all the relatives again. All the cousins of around my age and generation that were there had kids, barring the couple who just got married. So there was a mass of children about. It's been quite a while since I've been around so many children at the same time. Running, playing, melting down, etc etc. It's not as scary as it would have been if I weren't planning to breed. I think I can deal with it.

Some highlights: one young cousin I thought had a fair resemblance to my brother as a wee youngster. I showed the photo to my brother and he said the resemblance is closer to me. So I suppose my brother and I must have looked similar as kids. Also, I paid special attention to my two baby cousins that were 2½ years old. They were soooo different. One was a rambunctious tall blond lass who could not sit still. The other was small(er) dark and quiet. I’m guessing mine will be somewhere on the spectrum between the two.

I went to the wedding alone since the wife is too pregnant to be covered by insurance when flying. And with America being the most costly healthcare country in the world we decided to play it safe and stay home. Then work told me You have to go to Boston for a week. Can it be at the end of May? Sure, go ahead. How could I say no?

While in Boston I looked for toys to bring back for the soon-to-be baby. Small snuggly toys were my preference. I went into one shop and picked up a cuddly looking bear and read the tags to see what ages they recommend it for. It didn't say anything about ages, but it did say which web browsers it was compatible with. That was the moment I gave up and stopped looking for toys.

Note to child — If you're reading this in a few years and have no cuddly toys, now you know why.

Otherwise, the pregnancy is going well. The wee one has been squirming and moving in new and, to be honest, quite odd ways. Very quick and rhythmic – not the slow stretches and shifting I'm used to. Which reminds me, I should read to her some more, I don't want her to forget my voice.

Kicking and reading

The little one was been moving around enough that even I can feel it. The wife's been giving me reports for a while of various pokings and shufflings, but I've only directly felt anything a few times. It involves a lot of me sitting there with my hand on the wife's belly waiting for something to happen. Not that I mind.

We've been reading each other things, so there's plenty of time for sitting and waiting. I've mostly been reading excerpts from From Here to Paternity and Angela Carter's Book of Fairy Tales. It's mostly for the foetal-one's benefit since it really needs to get used to hearing my voice. The former book is easy since it's just straightforward informative monologue. The latter is a bit harder since I've been using multiple voices for the dialogue in the fairy tales, in practice for reading to the baby once it's out. It's surprisingly hard to come up with new voices on the fly, especially when you have no idea how many characters the story is going to have and double especially when you can't always tell who is speaking. I often find myself forgetting what voices I used at the start of the story when throw-away characters turn out to be significant later.

Why is the prince's father now Canadian? Wasn't he Russian earlier?

Ah. Yes. You see he'd been listening to a lot of CBC while his son was captured by the witch, and it kind of rubbed off on him.

The wife, on the other hand, has been reading to me from pregnancy books and web sites. Each week she reads a Your Baby at Week x from a few different places, so we know how big it is and what organs it had this week. Last night she was reading a section from a new book which covered how to recognise when you're near and in labour.

Anyways, I seem to have gotten sidetracked. Most of the movement I've felt so far can only describe a light brushing. It kind of reminds me of the movement under the covers someone makes when they shift when sleeping (probably because that's essentially what it is). Last night was the first sudden and obvious movement that I could feel. Did you feel that? Wow. Yes. You mean that wasn't you? It felt like she'd strongly flexed a muscle. After that it settled down and went back to its subtle shifting movements. At each one I'd ask Was that —? Yup.

I was in the middle of writing a cover letter when I got distracted and started writing this. I really need to get back to applying for jobs, so I have some income when the baby arrives. It's just that it's so much easier and interesting to write about impending fatherhood than to gently segue into my ability to collaborate with external stakeholders.

I got a no from the job I interviewed for yesterday. It was for a contracting house. I strongly suspect the reason they rejected me is because I clearly stated that I will not work offsite anywhere I can't return to London every night. When I was a toddler my father worked in a different city during the week, and came home on weekends. I didn't resent him for it – in fact, it made it exciting whenever he'd come back (Daddy's home!). My mum would stuff a very sleepy and pyjamad me and my brother in the car and drive to the train station to pick him up.

It can't have been easy on my mother raising two small children by herself during the week (did we have a nanny? I vaguely recall someone else being around, but I can't remember), and it can't have been easy on my father not being around for large chunks of time. I promised myself (and my wife) that I would not do that. Not that I think it's wrong, but I personally I want to be around as much as possible for my kid's babyhood.

Planning past week 30

I'm beginning to discover that a child is a disruption to anything planned, even weeks before it's born.

The first spanner in the works was my plan to go to my cousin's wedding in Boston in May. Travel insurance says that they won't cover the wife from week 32. Which means she must be back before week 32 starts. Of course, depending on how you do the maths, week 32 starts 2 or so days before the wedding.

However, if she gets a note from the doctor and the airline agrees, she can travel. And insurance will cover her for everything except childbirth. The last thing our finances need is to give birth 2 months early in a hospital in the US. I may as well just declare bankruptcy on the spot and give the hospital the keys to my flat.

Of course, I can still go to Boston by myself. But then I run the risk of being out of the country when the birthing starts. I'm not going to miss that!

Or we could try to find someone at the insurance company to do the maths themselves and see if they count the trip as being in wk31. As long as we can get their bad maths in writing we should be ok.

The other potential spanner is having the grandparents-to-be around for the birth (both sets live in the States). If they come for the due date then there is a small chance they could be around for the birth, get to see the grandkid, and help us prepare and recover. Even if they arrive after the birth, they'd at least be able to meet the wee one and maybe change a few nappies and help with meals. Worst case is they just sit around reading books with us and have to up and go before it's born.

How long should they stay around? How long can they stay around? It can't be trivial to up and go to another country for an unknown indeterminate amount of time. Airlines hate that. Or, actually, airlines love that and all the extra hundreds of pounds it rakes in for them.

So, needless to say, I'm at a bit of a loss on this one.

Telling the family

On Tuesday I made the announcement to the extended family. The parents and siblings already knew, of course, so it was just a question of how to tell the cousins and aunts and uncles and so on. We debated a bit how to tell people, and in the end decide on a short and sweet email. We had thrown around a number of options, which got me thinking about how long distance communication has changed in the past few decades.

Thirty years ago a pregnancy announcement would have all been done almost entirely over the phone, calling on weekends or after 11pm. Phone the parents and siblings and maybe a few key extended family members and let them pass the info on virally. Some people might have even sent letters, or maybe some kind of share our joy mass mailing greeting card. This is just a guess since, as a kid, I wasn't really privy to the we're having a baby announcements.

Twenty years ago would not have been much different. Close family would be told over the phone. The dozen or so people you knew in other countries or states that had email could be told by email. Mass announcements to friends could be done on the more social Usenet groups.

Ten years ago there was a bit more choice. The younger generation of many families had email, plus a few in the older generations. I suppose I would have phoned the immediate family, IM'd those I could find logged on when I was around, and emailed the relatives I could. Then just rely on them to pass it around.

Today I find IM to be fairly useless. There are so many types that everyone seems to have the one you're not on. So it's really hard to find anyone around. I didn't even bother phoning the immediate family to make the announcement in the first place - I just used Skype. A video call is so much better to see the eyebrows raise when you tell them you're expecting. We considered using Facebook, but apparently they limit messages to 20 people max, and I'm not ready for a wall post about this yet. We ended up going with email is that it's so saturated that just about everyone has an account. It's just the easiest way to reach as many people as possible.

So, I managed to pull together about 50 email addresses in an hour or so and I was pretty sure they all worked. I sent off the message in the morning and spent the rest of the day slowly getting congratulations from people who live further and further east from us. It was nice to get all the good wishes. I suppose the you're doomed, doomed, I tell you comments will come from the friends when we tell them :)

On another note, I've decided this blog looks hideous. I need to sit down and figure out the set of bizarre incantations I need to invoke to twist this into something reasonable.