Pox

The girl came down with chicken pox Tuesday night. She was exposed when we went on holiday at the beginning of the month, right after her birthday. An unfortunate gift that ironically took the same route as a lot of her hand-me-downs.

Incubation period is supposed to be up to 3 weeks. I was trying to keep her away from crowds and other babies, just in case. And as more time passed she stayed clean and we figured she got lucky. Or maybe the fact she's still breastfeeding helped. But no. The first spots came Tuesday night and the number seemed to grow exponentially. By now she's completely covered with hundreds of pox from head to toe – though the growth seems to have plateaued.

To all those who have told me over the years that if you get chicken pox really young, you hardly get any spots at all – that's clearly a myth. Stop telling people that.

I'm really worried she's going to end up scarred for life. I caught chickenpox at 33. It was a nasty case and I ended up in hospital for five days. I was completely covered from head to toe, about the same amount as the girl is now. Today I have little white scars scattered all over my body. My scalp and forehead are awkwardly lumpy from where chunks are missing from the subdermis. I'd hate for the girl to have put up with this for effectively her entire life.

I'm also really furious with people who take a lackadaisical attitude toward exposure to the pox. Yes, it's an inconvenience to have to stay at home if you or your child might potentially have chicken pox. But you don't go out and slash random people with razors – which kind of amounts to the same thing.

While she's not getting more spotty, she's been getting more and more fragile. She still has her chipper periods, when she acts like her normal self. But it's so easy to set her off on crying bouts which are really hard to console. So far it seems to be a moderate fever and bad moods. So while it superficially looks as bad as what I'd had, at least it doesn't itch much (yet?). Perhaps she's been hit especially hard because she was just getting over a cold when she caught it. Or maybe it's just genetic from me.

Plus I feel insanely guilty for exposing her. I had wanted to get her vaccinated when she turned one (Privately. They annoyingly don't believe in the varicella vaccine in the UK – but then again, they don't believe in allergy shots either). I should have cut short the holiday the moment it was clear the other child had the pox. I misunderstood how long the disease is contagious, so the girl was constantly exposed for another 4 days or so, guaranteeing that she'd come down with it.

It's hard to not apologise for putting her through this every time I see her. I just hope I'm overreacting. I'll know in a couple of weeks.

The birth story. Part 4

Saturday, 30 July 7:05pm. A sense of reality starts to return a bit and the midwife mentions the placenta and having to wait for it or taking drugs to get it out sooner. L says she wants it to come out on its own. So they bring in a birthing stool (a chair with a hole in the seat) for L to sit on. I ask about weighing and the Apgar test. They say they can wait for the measurements and she's clearly fine so doesn't need poking or testing.

We look at the umbilical cord, which is a pale organic-looking tube – reminds me a bit of a pulsing sausage or something. It's nice to finally see it, having been so dependant on it working for so long. I wonder what it's providing to the baby now. Is it just topping up her air and nutrients? I mean, it was working full force just a few minutes ago, and it's clearly still running. The baby can't go long without oxygen, so it must be providing at least some of it, just in case the birthing takes a while. I'm just curious what it's doing and how the mechanics of it shutting down work.

L tells the midwife to wait for it to stop pulsing before cutting it. I've no idea if the midwife did or not, but she eventually clamped it in two places and asked me to cut it. this couldn't have been more than 10-15 minutes after the birth. I specifically mentioned in the birth plan that I had no desire at all to cut the cord, but there I was, handed the scary scissors and in a state of massive suggestion. (now I know why the neighbour named his 3rd child after two of the midwives). So I cut the cord, and a splatter of blood comes out and onto the towels on the floor. The midwife asks if she can take the cord blood for testing. Again, yeah, whatever. It's there. Help yourself.

So the baby is finally free and her own entity for the first time since she was a bouncing ball of a few dozen cells trying to find a nice place to attach to. She doesn't seem to notice, so we don't make a big deal of it. We're just staring at her and smiling.

She's this wee tiny thing with an elongated misshapen head and greyish blue skin with a fine down of dark hair on her arms and back. Her head has dark hair with drying bits of goo in it. It's lighter than mine and L's, but not a lot. She's got a V-shaped widow's peak line of light-coloured hairs at the edge of her hairline which I still don't know what's going on with. Her nails are long and rather sharp. I guess she did get my nails in the end.

Her eyes are still a bit bulged out. She favours her right eye, and is not opening her left much. The blood vessels in her left eyelid are quite visible and I wonder if she scratched it in the womb or hurt it on the way out (turns out there's no persistent problem – she's using both eyes just fine now). She has golden eyelashes. Far blonder than the rest of her hair. Rather odd – normally people have dark lashes and light hair, not the other way around. So I can't tell if her hair's dark and going light or light going dark. With that combination people might think she dyes her hair :)

She has L's nose – I was right about the 22 week scan. (turns out, looking back at the 22 week scan, it looks just like her. We couldn't guess what she looked like at the time, but looking at the scan now, it's clearly her forehead and nose and lips and chin). Her cheeks and mouth and nose look a lot like a baby picture of L taken when she was 5 hours old. She's much thinner in the face, but the resemblance is clearly there (and has been getting stronger as her face fills in). I love the fact that she's me from the side and L from the front.

Around now, the original midwife comes back from her break. She's rather surprised to have missed it all: Wow. That was fast. I'm glad it was so easy. You should consider doing a home birth next time.

After some more gazing at the child the midwife points out that L's feet have turned blue, and asks if this is normal for her. No. No it's not. So she goes to sit on the toilet instead. They take this time to finally weigh the girl. I stand next to her while they put her on the scale. 3180 grams (7 pounds) and 49 cm long. They put a nappy on her (she's already passed some chocolately-looking meconium) and hand her back to me wrapped in a hospital towel. I hold her and stare at her and smile and walk around. She's soooo light, and the first baby that I ever held that didn't melt down after a few minutes.

I say she's very light, but I weighed over a pound less when I was born. L weighed over a pound more. So my family thinks she's a large baby and L's family thinks she's so very small.

I hear a plop from the loo and L says that the placenta has fallen out. This is 40 minutes after the birth – another textbook figure which encourages me. L comes out and picks up the camera and starts taking photos of me holding the baby. It's the first photos of the child and I'm beaming at her in all of them.

L convinces me to give her the baby back. I use the lull to tell a few people about the birth. I send my inlaws an SMS saying It's a girl, but of course you knew that already – what else could I say as tersely? SMS the sister-in-law to let her know she's an auntie. And I phone my parents (curse their lack of GSM phones) and am finally able to say yes, you are grandparents now (the answer to the first question out of their mouths every single time I've called them for the past month).

Meanwhile they check L for damage. Turns out she has class 2 tearing, which the midwife explains that class 1 is minor, class 2 is deeper tear and could need stitches. Class 3 is a nasty tear, and class 4… you don't want to know. Given how nasty she described class 3, I really don't what to know about 4. They initially want to stitch up L, but the midwife who comes on after 8 (when they change shifts) says it's better to just leave to heal as is – which L is fine with.

Things start to quiet down a bit. Around 10pm I start telling non-family people about the birth. I completely forget that we made a list, and just pick a few seemingly at random (a few days later I find the list and realise that I can't be trusted to do this from memory, since I'd still not told them). I joke with L that we should call the people who gave us a lift to hospital and ask if they could pick us up on the way home from the party.

I finally turn to the bag we brought. Three bags, actually. One an insulated bag of food. Still full of all the frozen smoothies we'd planned to keep L going though the long labour. I give her one – may as well not go to waste – and put the ice coffees I brought into the kitchen fridge. I try to eat some of the emergency rations I brought. Turns out they're terrible. Note to self: don't make emergency rations in a hurry, just make your usual tasty food.

It's cold in the birthing centre, so we dress up the baby in pyjamas and a hat and gloves and socks. L is very cold due to the loss of so much mass and fluids, so we wrap her up in blankets so she can doze off. Around midnight I take a picture of the baby and try to upload to Facebook, but the phone fights me and refuses to do so. L goes to sleep on her bed-thing, I lie on the fold-out futon and we put the baby in the cot between us, all wrapped up. I keep a hand on her while I sleep.

Stuff happens with L and the midwife during the night. Something about breastfeeding. But I am oblivious to it while I "sleep".

I wake up at about 5am, and finally get the other phone to upload the baby's photo (I've been carrying around two phones for a couple of months, with SIMs from different operators, just in case one has no reception or conks out or something), though it required ages of fiddling and some annoying app updates to finally get it to work (grrr).

We realise later that, while it's cold in there, we've probably overbundled the wee lass. So we remove the overlarge clothes and just plunk her down on my chest, skin on skin, and I put a towel over us. I have the cutest sweetest most precious thing in the world sleeping on my chest and I am in bliss. I lie there with her for hours.

The birth, part 3

Saturday, 30 July, 6pm. We arrive in the birthing centre, wind our way through the halls, luggage in tow, to reception. The midwife at the desk is the one we'd spoken to on the phone earlier. Rather chipper and likeable. I bitterly wonder why she hasn't been answering the phone for the past hour. We explained the situation and she immediately steps out for lunch. Or so the wife (L) tells me later. All I saw was that she disappeared just after I gave her the hospital notes.

At this point things get a bit mad so I may have a few of the details wrong. I asked L to edit this to make sure I got it right.

They put us in a room with an unmade bed while they prepare a real room for us. We slightly settle in for about ten minutes. Then another midwife comes along to check out L, so she's moved to room 4. I grab all the stuff and L shuffles in, the TENS machine still dangling from her back, and switch in hand. The floor's still wet, so we leave muddy tacks all over the floor. Great, that's sanitary, I think, but at least the midwife cleans it up. I help L out of her pants, and she lies down on the bed to be checked. I notice there's nothing to plug the iPod into. Great. They told me they had docks for those. Grumble.

They check her blood pressure and the baby's heartbeat, which are doing just fine and not noticeably different from that morning. That's one worry smoothed out for me – having just read a story about a woman whose baby went into distress from just the contractions (how annoying is that? I mean being distressed by contractions? That's what being born in all about). Then came the first big check – how dilated is she?

For me, this felt like the first real big moment. For those who don't know, the cervix is what opens up to let the baby out (or stays closed to keep the baby in for most of pregnancy). As a general rule, it opens up to 10cm slowly over the course of labour. When it hits 10cm, then there's enough room for the baby's head (the widest part of the baby) to come out (which is usually around 10cm across, though ours was 11), quickly followed by the rest of the baby. So when I say this was the first real big moment, I mean this is what determines how long the labour's going to take. If the cervix is closed or just a couple of cm dilated, then we're likely in store for one of those 20+ hour labours, punctuated with lots of helping L focus on getting the contraction muscles to work together. On the other hand, a larger dilation means baby comes sooner, usually a few hours of hard contractions. Given L and her sister's births, I imagined the latter (L's sister was born 5 hours after contractions suddenly started. L was born in an ambulance outside a petrol station 10 miles from hospital) and expected maybe 6cm dilation and maybe some notable birth and transition stages. I was wrong.

So, the midwife waits till the current contraction is done before sticking her fingers in and says something like I can't find the cervix. It's got to be in there somewhere, so it must be in an unusual place. So I'm going to guess you're about 8cm dilated. then she left to sort out the room. While she was gone L and I discussed how that was, of course, crap. L's cervix has always been in the usual cervical place – at the end her uterus. It was just so fully dilated that the midwife could find no trace of it. So now we knew. We were in store for a quick labour.

The TENS electrodes have been slipping over the past few hours. I've had to adjust them a few times, but at this point L is sweaty enough that they just keep slipping out of place. I'm wondering if they're actually doing anything for her anymore. The midwife asks would you like some gas and air to which L responds Yes, please or at least would have if she'd have had time to before covering her face with the mask and breathing deep. At this point we'd been in hospital maybe 20 minutes.

We're left alone again for a few minutes with L intermittently breathing the nitrous. I tell her comforting platitudes about how everything is going well, and she gets annoyed about how I'm just saying platitudes about how everything is going well. The midwife comes back and L she says she has to go to the loo. I know it's just the baby's head putting pressure on the rectum. The midwife knows it's just the baby's head putting pressure on the rectum. Even L knows it's just the baby's head putting pressure on the rectum, but if it makes her comfortable, what's the harm? So into the loo she goes.

She sits there around ten minutes. We briefly discuss getting in touch with family, at least L's sister, to let them know labour's begun. But things just got out of hand. The midwife comes back and says she wants to check the baby's heartbeat. She tries, but couldn't do it with L sitting there, so L comes back and lies down on the bed-thing, and the heartbeat is found (all good).

Quick aside. The bed-thing is a curved bed with a giant bean bag chair as the pillow. So it's not very straightforward to lie on.

At this point L points out to the midwife she has the urge to push. She's not very convincing in the it's coming now front. So the midwife interprets it in a isn't that interesting to note kind of way. L is lying on the bed, which is just about the worst position possible for birthing. L just can't get up – which is going to be a real bother for the birthing. I tell the midwife we'd like to use the birthing pool. She says it'll take an hour to clean and fill up. I don't bother mentioning that we'd asked for it when we came in. L and I just look at each other and share a knowing glance of we've not the slightest chance, do we? and L asks, with just a hint of futility, can you start filling it now?

Another aside. I don't know anyone who has successfully used a birthing pool in hospital. Everyone seems to be talked out of it or given some excuse for for why they can't use it. Why do hospitals bother having one? Just to tick a box?

We need a backup to get L into a better position. I ask if we can get a birthing ball. That the midwife can do. So she leaves to get it. I have no idea if she even tries to get the pool cleaned and ready. While she's gone L lies on her right side and tells me to hold her left leg up. The TENS electrodes are still attached, clearly all migrated to the wrong positions. L has the gas in hand to hopefully take the edge off the pain, but I can't recall how much she's actually using (and she has no idea if the gas actually helped. At times it just made her nauseous). Then I see something coming out of her. I just think WTF is that? Is that a placenta? a millisecond later I realise I'm really stupid and that is a gooey matted bit of hair. Before my eyes can pop out of my head I exclaim She's crowning! to L and dive for the call button. Maybe 20 seconds later (though it felt like much longer) the midwife comes back into the room with the deflated birthing ball. well, that's not going to be of much help, now is it? I don't say. Instead She's crowning! comes out of my mouth.

The midwife replies with simply Dear sweet jesus christ!, puts down the stuff, fetches a coworker, starts putting on the blue gloves, and settles in at L's business end.

At this point the midwife says to L In a second I'm going to tell you to pant and not push, and starts adjusting L's bits to not break when the baby comes out. Then the head starts coming out for real this time and L says It burns!

The matted hair is visible again. On an elongated alien head. Which kind of answers the how can an 11cm head come out of a 10cm opening? I was asking the day before. Another contraction and the head is out. It's grey – something I was a little prepared for by all the BBC documentaries on birth I'd been watching. But it's still weird. I look closer and I say That's my ear! On the side of the baby's head is clearly my ear. I'm astounded.

Then the grey torso slides out at the next contraction. There's a face and a body. With limbs. In one move, the midwife scoops her up and onto L's chest. It's less than an hour after we got to UCH.

She's breathing – I can hear her breathing. Several breaths later she cries. Not for very long, but enough to make it clear she's ok. She settles back down to gentle breathing again. She's belly down on L's chest and L is cooing at her and telling her she's so sweet.

I ask the midwife It's a girl, right? I'd not seen the baby from the front yet. Just her face and back. She quickly checks and says, Yes. I've known it was a girl for about 30 weeks, but still, part of me didn't entirely believe it.

The midwife takes a towel and starts brushing her off, she claims it'll get the blood flowing to the skin. I say leave the vernix on, which she promptly ignores and says I am, even though she's clearly not. Whatever. The baby is safe and here and clearly alive and well in L's arms. I'm grinning like a madman. At this point I see the midwife taking note of the time and writing it in the notes. I'm distracted when I look at my child's feet and say to L I know those toes! Those are your toes!

To be concluded...

Now we are three

The baby was born at 7pm on Saturday night. Things kicked off not very long after posting that I should be on the ball and ready to jump into action. I'm really excited to have her around, though I'm really really knackered at the moment. Which is why it's taken so long to actually post about it.

She's so small and cute and adorable. She has the wife's nose (I knew it) and chin, and my ears and brow.

I took a lot of notes on the day, which I'll fill in and post later, possibly in parts as I have the time. Then I'll decide if I turn this blog into a fatherhood blog from a pregnancy blog.

Baby me. Baby and me.

So I dug out an old baby photo of myself. I must have been maybe 8 months old. It was really interesting looking at it in the light of my new baby-aware eyes.

First off, my ears have not changed one single bit. My nose is unrecognisable for the original, but my ears are so similar that even I can tell, and I don't get much chance to look at my ears.

Next, my hairline is the same. At the age in the photo, my hair was just starting to grow, so it was rather thin. Later in life it got much thicker and grew out. But, since my 30s it started retracting and is now thinner. My hairline has moved back, my widows-peaks pronounced, and bit of thinning in the back. Which is rather similar to how it looked in this photo. Weird.

The lines around my eyes and on my forehead have always been there. No change. Well... maybe a line or two, but not much.p

I spent a long while starting at the photo and comparing it to the wee one's 21 week ultrasound photo. The curves of the head and face are the same. The nose looks pretty similar too. I'd originally though the turned-up nose was wife-ish, but now that I look at my old turned-up button proboscis, perhaps it is like mine (tho, I'm not sure I'd wish the beak it became on her). It's really hard to tell, for obvious reasons. I wish I had a profile shot of the wife as a baby, but they're all head-on, so I can't tell which of us this sonogram more resembles.