So this happened

Gestation begins anew!

Well, not really begins. Began. Not quite sure when though. L is either 4 or 8 weeks pregnant. Which puts us at expecting a baby sometime in July 2017. So far, all I can say is second child is very different. Where the first pregnancy was a life changingly shocking in a I've got make some tea. Wait I don't drink tea kind of way. This one was more of a Take it in stride. Take it in stride. OMFG are we doing the right thing? feeling.

L had been feeling pregnancy symptoms for a several days now, but the timing was off. Then again, she'd been feeling symptoms off and on for a few months. So clearly her body was up to something, but that something was not incubation. Twice so far the signs were there, but the tests said no. But this time the signs were stronger, with a bladder the size of a thimble being the most telling. So yesterday morning before the school run L did a pregnancy test.

I knew keeping R in the dark about trying for another child would be challenging. But being that we'd been keeping it from friends, coworkers and family, I didn't think much about it. It just makes it harder to have all the conversations L and I need to have. And in terms of the test, unlike last time where we looked at the results together, L just came out of the loo and subtly told me to take a look on the counter.

It was positive.

But we couldn't talk about it. Just a quick discussion while over breakfast while R got dressed. L made an appointment the GP for after R's school run, and I… well, not much I could do at this point. I went to work.

We spoke on the phone after the doctor’s appointment. They told L It's your second child, and you did a test, and you said you feel pregnant, so we believe you. Expect a letter in the next few days to set up your first midwife appointment. So that's the effect of the Tory cuts then. At least last time they did their own test to reconfirm things. Now, we weren't sure how far along things were. The timing of the symptoms implied she was pregnant before this cycle's fertile period. But she'd had a period, albeit a relatively mild one. So either the symptoms where phantom and the pregnancy started about 3 weeks ago, or the period was phantom (which can happen) and it started a month before that. The GP told us to plan for the latter since it's easier to slow down the whole midwifery process than to speed it up. So I guess that means our first appointment in a week or so, and the 12 week scan late next month.

So, last night, after R was in bed we finally got a chance to talk about it. Not that there's much we can do now. Beyond We really need to clean the house and Damn, I was hoping I could finally put our nice rugs back down without risk of someone peeing on them. A new bed for R. Got to decide if we're up for a home birth or not. Clothes and nappies. But there is time.

We're doing the usual not telling people til the week 20 scan and we're sure everything is going ok. We’ve told some of the immediate family. L told her sister while R was at school. We also caught my parents and brother on Skype between American Thanksgiving dinner and dessert. I made sure the nieces and nephews were out of the room when we told them since children couldn't keep a secret if they were in a secret making factory and were given easy-attach leashes to keep their secrets from getting away.

We've not had a chance to tell L’s parents yet. That’ll be tomorrow I guess.

98.7% cooked

We seem to have finished the last of the major house construction. All the curtains we can have up are up, the floors are under our feet, and roof properly over our heads. I really wish we didn't leave it to the last minute to do all this, but bad timing really conspired against us. What makes it worse is that I can't tell if the wife is in nesting mode if we've been doing house prep stuff for the past 3 months.

A co-worker of mine’s wife gave birth today. He went on paternity leave yesterday. When we heard, the whole team went to the pub to have a drink in his honour. I'm sure he appreciated it. I would have liked to go, but I had to get to the shops to buy baby things before it shut. At least I feel a bit more confident at having enough stuff for the first few days of the wee one being around.

Now all we need to do is pack the bag.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Now we are reading

Quiet. It's been a while since I’ve posted. I've been rather busy. The job ended up not going all wrong. I was at risk of redundancy, but ended up moving to a completely different business unit that has nothing at all to do with the pit of despair my old job had become. The new job actually means doing things I'm good at and enjoy and seeing what I do have positive results.

The downside is that, by the time I get home I’m knackered, and have no interest doing anything with a computer. So blogging has kind of fallen by the wayside.

That and this bloody cold which won't end for two months now. It's faded out and come back so many times now. I'm finally on antibiotics, and I appear to be getting better now – we'll see if it keeps this time.

For the first few weeks of the cold, I tried avoiding the wife so I don't pass on my cold. But after I while I realised that if she's not got it by now, she's not going to. So I'm a bit more comfortable being around her, but I'm still a bit wary.

By the way, it's a girl.

We found out in week 12 and got confirmed in week 21. But I never go around to posting about it. I don’t see any reason to keep anyone in suspense anymore.

In other news, I've taken up reading to the wee one. I've figured that babies-in-utero have ears, and they should work. And I'd like mine to recognise me at least a little. The baby is bound to bond with the wife – everything about her is familiar. I'd like some baby-bonding with me, and the only way I can think to get through is by talking. So I read. Mainly fairy tales. It's practice, you see. However, with the cold, reading hasn't been so easy, so I've not done it much lattely.

Last night the wife pointed out research that says exactly what we thought and that babies do recognise sounds from when they were in the womb. So, with my cold at a lull, I started reading again. But this time I decided to be practical and read sections of the UCLH guide to their pregnancy services (a booklet in dire need of a copy editor – there are soooo many grammar and stylistic errors in there). After all, we're going there so we need to know what's in store for us.

Since I was reading mostly for the wee one's benefit, decided to change all the pronouns and read directly to her. Stuff like:

You will be thoroughly examined by a paediatrician or midwife or neonatal nurse skilled in examination of the newborn infants, to ensure that there are no unexpected problems and you have adapted to life well. This usually happens before you leave the hospital and is done in the baby clinic on the ward. If your patients choose to go home before you are examined you will be given a time to return to the hospital to be examined, this should normally occur within 72 hours of your birth.

After all, the little one needs to know what she's getting in to.

Ten weeks to go.

Work and labour

I've been rather silent for the past few days as real life has gotten in the way of me writing anything beyond cover letters.

I'm keeping myself quite busy with the job hunt and in bringing my skills up to date. I do wish I could have spent all this time off work after the baby is born when I could really use it. As it stands, I'm spending too much time contemplating the future rather than doing something with it. I'm still rather concerned about all the time off work I'm going to need to take. Paternity leave is only ten days, and, since I'll be too new at the job, I won't get any paid leave. And since I won't have much holiday accrued yet, I'll probably need to spend all of it just on baby.

All the stuff I've been reading lately has got me afraid of how long the wife and kid will spend in hospital. If it is two weeks, there goes all the paternity leave in one fell swoop. Unless things really go wrong, I don't want to spend my days in hospital waiting for test result after test result to see if they'll let us go home. I'm just picturing the wife and I going stir crazy with no sleep waiting for result of a blood test they took 12 hours ago to drop or go above some magic number an NHS manual considers to be healthy.

I'd voiced my concerns to the wife earlier and she asked if I'd reconsidered doing a home birth then. I though about it and then realised that at least in a hospital we only ran the risk of the staff not knowing what they were doing. At home it would be guaranteed.

The wife's superpowers were in full force last night at a house party. Various smells from foods, drinks, people, etc, were starting to annoy her, while being undetectable from everyone else. Or at least the first real day of spring here was blocking my nose enough that I wasn't able to tell at all. It was good getting out and being socialable. And even though she spent most of the party in a chair, she did noticeably have a good time.

She got a bloody nose today. Every year I can tell the first day of spring since I get my first (and often only) bloody nose of the year. I am wondering if the offspring is passing my allergies on to my wife. Is that even possible? Or is this just an oddly timed pregnancy symptom.

The little one's been moving around quite a bit lately. Today I put my cold hand on the wife's belly and I could feel it shift and squirm under the skin. I drew my hand back quickly and said I'm sorry! I'm sorry. I didn’t realise it was so cold. The wife said It's ok. Your hand isn't so cold. You can put it back. Um. I wasn't talking to you — I'd managed to offend them both in one gesture. I'm off to a good start.

And finally, words have started to take on the special birthing meaning. When I hear the word "engage” I immediately think of the proper positioning of the baby's head just before it starts coming out. And the song Express Yourself now just makes me think of lactation.

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.

A conversational attractor

Now that most people know, the pregnancy seems to be at the centre of most conversations – conversations seem to just revolve around it. Well, at least those that don’t seem to orbit it instead.

Friday I had lunch with a male friend of mine. The pregnancy seemed to hover on the periphery of much of the conversation, and every now and again it would touch on the pregnancy, dwell a bit, then fly off to some other topic for a while, but eventually coming back for another go. Perhaps this is the birds and the bees that metaphor is really supposed to be about.

Today I had lunch with three pregnant women: my wife and two others. All of them are due within 3 weeks of each other. This was actually a bit of a relief in the sense that I didn't have to steer the conversation away from my baby all the time. There were plenty of other present or forthcoming children to keep mine from dominating the conversation.

It's not like I don't like talking about my wee one, but I don't want to be one of those people who, once they get a taste of parenthood, it dominates their life and they never talk about anything else. This is cake is excellent. You know, it's the same colour as my kid's poo this morning — stuff like that. I'd like the kid to remain an integral, but not exclusive part of life. Besides, I doubt I'll run out of topics to talk about. Between turning 40 this week, all the repairs on the flat, me losing my job, and all the interviews I've been on, I do have plenty to fill the conversational lulls.

Now they know

I've finally come clean and have told the world about her pregnancy. Everyone knows except work: mine and hers.

She's keeping it quiet since they might renew her contract, and we could use the extra 3 months income. If they know they might not bother.

I'm looking for a new job. I'm being made redundant in the current job, so there's no point in telling them, unless, of course, I want to make them feel bad. I suppose I could have mentioned it before they made the final decision, but, to be honest, I'm better off leaving. Though it is still tempting to tell them just to guilt my soon-to-be-ex-management.

The question is when to tell the next employer. The law here is that they're not allowed to ask in an interview, so I can only assume there's a reason for it. I suppose I'll just have to wing it and see what kind of feeling I get from them. I do want to try to talk them into giving me paid paternity leave, so I've got to bring it up at some point in the hiring process.

Besides all that, at least the cat is out of the bag. Which good since the number of baby books and pamphlets around the house have reached a critical mass, and I don't think I could possibly hide them all.

Bad timing

As part of the masses of paperwork we got from the midwife, we got a guide to what benefits and financial help we can get as parents-to-be. First off, I think it's utterly brilliant that we get a extremely detailed centimetre-thick bound booklet Parent's guide to money. The downside is that that in several places there are notes like … until January 2011… or …born before 31 December 2010… and so on.

The new government is dropping or cutting back a number of benefits for parents. This is apparently a bad time to have a baby as far as government support goes. The big obvious ones I've noticed (that impact me) are:

• completely stopping the Health in Pregnancy Grant (a one-off £190 paid after 26 weeks)
• completely stopping Child Trust Funds (a savings account for your child they can use then hit 18)

On top of that, the Child Benefit (a weekly payment regardless of income) appears to also be cutting back, but I can't find anything which says definitively for whom it's being cut back and when. Either some people won't be able to get it at all, or they'll get it and have it taxed at 100%. The BBC seems to imply that the changes won't start til 2013. Does anyone know for sure? I don't want to get a benefit and find out a year later I have to pay it all back.

The annoying thing is that this is the first I've heard of most of these. Reading the booklet I keep thinking "wow, that's a great and really civilised idea! That'd definitely help." Which makes it all the worse with them being cut.

Now come the part I hope does not digress into a political rant…

It strikes me as odd that the government seems to be targeting its cuts in areas meant to ensure healthy and prosperous generations to come. So, in ensuring that the next generation is not saddled with debt, we're stripping from them both the things they need to get a good start in life and the tools they need to manage things for themselves. I just don't see how this isn't we-pay-now and they-pay-later. I'd much rather it be one or the other, not both. I'd much rather the next generation be in debt, but have the skills to pay it off. Or, more altruistically I'd much rather if I had to go through the whole cutbacks and austerity thing, that I'd be comfortable knowing the next generation would at least get off to a good start and a fair fighting chance of it when it came their turn.

Plus, to top it off, I may not be able to get paternity leave either. I'd have to be employed with my company for 6 months before taking it. The kidlet is due at the end of July. My company is downsizing and I have about a 50% chance of being made redundant by March. So I'd have to have a new job in place and started by the end of this month in order to be able to take my fortnight of leave. This, of course, is not helping.