The First Time Father

I'm here! (Or There. Or Somewhere, anyway)

So where have we been, The First Born, Dr M and I?

Well, I've been lazy. But that's only half the story. The other half works better as an excuse, and also has the distinct advantage of being true.

We've been moving house. Which, in itself, might excuse a temporary hiatus, but certianly not as long as four weeks. Except if one moves country at the same time, which is precisely what we have just done.

It is not at all strange for people to move flat, or house, or town or city when they have an addition to the family, for all sorts of reasons. Bigger house. Bigger garden. Fresh air. Better schools. Move closer to family. Move further away from family.

In our case, we've moved closer to Dr M's family. The fact tht this is further away from my family is, of course, unconnected. In fact, the move was not prompted by The First Born's arrival. It had been on the cards for some time, and actually was delayed for a bit when M became pregnant.

Anyway, in practical terms, this meant that I was apart from the other two for a fortnight after they left, tending to bits and pieces in London, like clearing up the flat, fleeing from various creditors (and conversely, pursuing various debtors), and so on and so forth.

It was strange, being able to do fairly much as I pleased after they left. No need to wake up when he demands that we wake up, sleep when we have the chance to, no call to constantly operate with eyes in the back of my head and a spare pair of hands at all times (which makes me sound like a mutant.)

But I missed him. Terribly. I missed the fact that he had just finally started to smile and laugh at me, rather than at the ceiling, the spot about four inches above and to the right of my head, the postman, or indeed anyone else other than me.

I missed the fact that he had began to babble, loudly, verbosely, indiscriminately.

I actually missed trying to keep him entertained at four in the morning when I would rather be doing other things, like sleeping (fear not, this only happened once. Dr M does the night shift, because she has to feed him. I tend to do the early morning shift, because I am half capable of hauling myself out of bed before noon.)

I was also a tad apprehensive; suppose he didn't remember me when we met up again? Paranoid, I know, but think about it.

Einstein tried to describe his theory of relativity in layman's terms once by comparing the experience of chatting with a beautiful woman to placing one's hand on a hot stove. The former, he suggested, could last for an hour but seem like a minute; the later may not last longer than a minute, but still feel like an hour.

Einstein was a very clever man, and I am sure he was correct (I personally had limited experience of talking to pretty girls, women or anything of the female persuasion before I met Dr M; hot stoves, however, I have painful experience of, thanks to my older sister and a childhood argument). Anyway, my fear was that two weeks, in relative terms, was an awfully long time for TFB. One quarter of his life, to be precise.

In the event, my fears were foundless. They met me at the airport, and within minutes I had almost poked his eye out and he had puked all over me. Business as usual.

I remember reading somewhere once that the onset of incipient neurotic behaviour in small children can be, at least in part, attributed to undue pressure placed upon them, directly or otherwise, by their parents or their parents behaviour. The technical term, I think, is projection. Time to try and reign in my groundless fears, no?

Anyway, all this is neither here nor there. TFB continues to sprout in all directions, although particularly around the cheeks and jowls. When he sits in his little bouncing chair and waves, he looks like a particularly despotic monarch accepting, gracelessly, the adulation of his grateful populace.

Of course, he does have two adoring subjects.

Digression:

Yesterday, the cable guy came round to hook us up (my excuse is that it is the only way I'll get to watch any English language TV ever again. That and MTV.) (That said, why would I want to watch English TV ever again? Big Brother and Dr...no, sorry, Ms Gillian McKie's semi-coprophilial obsessions? And BBC News? [Domestic news, that is, not international. The international output is first rate. The s*** they put on domestically, however...] Essentially, we have cable just for MTV. And the sports channels. The Cricket World Cup starts next week.)

After he left, Dr M popped to the shops, and I plonked myself in front of the screen to sort out the channels. The First Born sat beside me in his throne. After a minute, I had to get up to put on the kettle. Then sort out the laundry. Then do a thousand other things that I had tried to avoid doing.

After about five minutes, I realised the I hadn't heard a peep out of him. So I peer round the corner from the kitchen, expecting to see that he had nodded off.

No. He was glued to the screen, his mouth agape, dribble forming a pool at his feet. Not at all dissimilar to me, actually.

It's probably the first time in my life that I've turned off the television without being told to do so.

I'm not at all a snob about television, but it can't be a good thing for a three month old to fall under its mendacious spell, can it?

Mind you, it is tempting. Free babysitting...

The First Born is 12 weeks old

Normal service

...will soon be restored. Trust me, there is a good reason for this :-)

In the meantime, consider this

I know what I would have done, given the choice. But then, Dr M (quite sensibly) does not allow me to decide very much.

More soon

Food, glorious food

When the first born is hungry, his eyes glaze over, his tongue pops out of his mouth and he begins to smack his lips and make strange sucking sounds. This doesn’t last for very long; after a minute or so, he starts to shout and wave his hands and legs about, demanding immediate attention.

Just like his father.

He does like his food, though. He eats in the morning and he eats in the evening. If he had the physical capacity, I think that he would eat around the clock. In the middle of the night, hunger rouses him from the deepest of sleep. He starts to suck the air in his sleep, growling and flailing his arms about. For a moment or two, one can actually watch an engrossing battle between two seemingly implacable forces: sleep and hunger. Of course hunger wins. He rouses himself, and the rest of the house, then clamps himself, limpet like, to Dr M’s breast until he is satisfied.

Random observation: I rather think this breast feeding wheeze was thought up by some indolent man, eager to avoid night time feed duty*. Not that I am complaining; as observed a couple of posts ago, I remain happily unaware of his nocturnal activities (and long may that last!)

Actually, that is not, strictly speaking, true. A couple of nights ago, he woke up at four in the morning and was determined to play. Usually, I can escape responsibility for any of his actions because he cries briefly, clamps himself to the source of all goodness, and sucks himself into a stupor.

This time, he cried for much longer than usual. Eventually, I roused myself, knowing that only the deaf or a liar could feign sleep in such conditions. Slipping smoothly into ‘new-dad’ role, I offered, insincerely, to take control for a little while.

Dr M accepted. This was not part of the script.

The first born likes his reflection (vanity – again, just like his father. At least, he has something to be vain about…). So I propped myself up in front of the bedroom mirror and allowed him to amuse myself, whilst I idly wondered whether it was possible to sleep standing up (the answer, incidentally, is yes. But please do not try this at home, particularly if you are in charge of a small child – your child will not thank you for this).

Usually, however, I am only vaguely aware of the night time goings-on, which suits me fine.

It is remarkably difficult to leave them all day most days to go to work (or, in the interests of accuracy, I should say go to pretend to work), and I would cheerfully swap the drudgery of the office for all the sleepless nights he could possibly give me.

But I ramble. What does he first born actually do?

He eats. Copiously. Repeatedly.

He sleeps. Not quite in the quantities that one may wish, but…

He farts. The boy could fart for all Africa. You can always tell when he is about to let rip, because he goes red in the face and begins to wriggle his little bottom before…this is particularly fun when he lets loose a corker on a visitor’s lap. The look of shock/surprise/awe is always one to treasure.

He smiles. The most beautiful, engaging, heart-melting toothless smile that one could ever hope to see.

He dances. Honestly. The other night, I found out that he likes ‘Silent Morning’ by Noel (an old electro hit from the late 80s). We rocked to it together for half an hour. The down side to this serendipitous discovery was that he then refused to go to sleep until 1 in the morning. Memo to self: no loud music and dancing late at night. That comes later…

(He dances better than his father, incidentally. He hasn’t quite managed the hand foot co-ordination business yet, but that’s only to be expected. He is only five weeks old, after all. Me, on the other hand…)

He can say the word ‘Daddy’

Ok, the last one isn’t true. And, in any case, what are the odds on his first word being ‘Daddy’? But one can dream…

Dr M took him to Baby Clinic to be weighed last week, and we finally got to find out where all the milk has been going. He is a big baby. A very big baby, actually. I forget the exact numbers but he is longer and heavier than most babies of his age. I feel very proud.

I like playing the part of the proud parent. Before the first born came along, I could never quite understand how new mums and dad could talk about their offspring ad infinitum (or ad nauseum, if small children are not your thing). Now I can bore with the best of them. I have actually caught eyes glazing over a couple of times, whilst I regale my captive audience with tales about bowel movements and night time feeds and the like. Of course I ignored them.

Obligatory poncy, (allegedly) highbrow digression: The political theorist Hannah Arendt liked the idea of birth and new beginnings. ‘Birth (she wrote) means the arrival of a new being that would, or could, say or do things no one had said or done before. The appearance of such a being might move others to speak and act in new ways as well’ (Italics mine).

If I can laugh at my son’s farts, then I haven’t been moved to act in a new way myself. Not yet, anyway. There’s hope for all of us yet.

The first born is six weeks old.

*This is a joke, obviously. Breast is best. Particularly if you lack access to potable water or adequate sanitation. And if you eat healthily and look after yourself. And only up until a point. It isn’t healthy to breastfeed a ten year old, whatever you may think. But that is a matter for another time and another place…

Life after Birth - The first fortnight

I haven’t updated my blog for about…oohh, two weeks. How remiss of me. Can’t imagine why I’ve been so slack.

Oh. I remember. I have a two-week-old son. That might have something to do with it.

In truth, the arrival of the First-Born has very little to do with it. I’ve been floating on a cloud of euphoria for much of the last fortnight. I can sit and hold him, or lie beside him in bed and watch him, all day, easily. The outside world and the distractions that it offers are, fairly much, irrelevant.

It has been a remarkably steep learning curve, the last fortnight. Everything from when Dr M went into labour late in the evening of 14.12 up until now. And it continues. And will continue for the foreseeable future. It is fun. It is demanding. It is changing my life in ways that I wont realise for quite some time yet.

A few highlights from the last couple of weeks:

• The most appropriate treatment for the incorrigible chauvinist would be for him to watch a woman, preferably his wife or partner, go through the agonies of labour and childbirth. If he is still able to consider women as the weaker sex after this, then he should be tied to a lamppost and shot; clearly, he is not fit for anything else.

• I will talk about my experience of labour another time. Suffice it to say that I have never felt so absolutely, totally, completely useless in my life. I set the bar for uselessness pretty high, so this is something of an achievement. It’s not entirely a bad thing, though. I’ll talk about that another time.

• Remember that I said that I have a blood phobia? Well, it’s gone. Gone forever. Dr M lost a bit of blood during the birth (I think she did this just to spite me, but there you go); not enough to place her in any danger, but enough for her to be taken into hospital for the night, as a precaution. Which meant that after the excitement and exhilaration and the pure, unrefined joy of the arrival, I had to go back home and clean up the bedroom. Boy, it wasn’t a pretty sight.

• He’s a big lad. A very big lad. This has its advantages. He is easy to carry, and not at all fragile. I spent most of the morning after walking up and down the ward in the hospital, cradling him in my arms as M rested, glaring at other fathers as they did the same (‘My son’s bigger than your son, nyeh nyeh nyeh-nyeh, nyeh’).

• God, I am childish. And competitive. The worst possible combination.

• Everyone asks whether we were able to sleep well. My stock answer was yes, surprisingly well. He only wakes up twice a night and settles down immediately afterwards.

• This was my stock answer until Dr M took me aside and informed me that I only wake up twice a night. The first born, on the other hand, woke up quite a few more times. After this conversation, I stopped answering the question.

• On our first night home, Mother and Child went to bed early. I cracked open a bottle of Wine, put Coltrane on the stereo and settled down to read a book. I felt good with myself. This parenting lark wasn’t so difficult after all. Then he started crying…

• Changing a bigger baby is somewhat easier than changing a small baby. They are not so fragile, for one thing.

• Even so, the first time I changed his nappy, I managed to put it on back to front. Not my fault, though. The things (nappies, that is) don’t come with an instruction manual. (Not that I would have read it in any case, but it’s the principle that matters.)

• Talking about changing nappies, Wet Wipes are proof that God exists and that He loves us.

• I had forgotten quite how much I hated the smell of sour milk

• But, when your child pukes it up, you forget again very quickly. In fact, you forget to change your clothes when he throws up all over you. So, if I smell a little…ripe in the near future, you know exactly why.

• We have formed a close, dependent relationship with our washing machine and dryer. I really don’t think we could survive without them.

• Our son is gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. I know that every parent says this, but really…

• Everyone says that he looks like me. I don’t quite see this (see above; I do not usually fit in the same sentence as the word ‘gorgeous’), but I won’t argue.

• Someone said that he has his mother’s eyebrows. She pointed out that that would mean that they visit the same beautician.

• I quite like paternity leave. I don’t miss work (surprise, surprise!). Or Television. Or the Xmas sales. For the first time in living memory, I do not know what the Xmas number one was. And I don’t care.

• Everyone says that I’ll miss the time and luxury of leisurely reading the Sunday Papers. Well, as it happens, I did get round to reading them. And I realised that I couldn’t give a monkey’s about anything in them. Miss them, I won’t.

• We’ve kept things relatively low key. Seen very few people.

• As of this morning, Dr M and the First Born are yet to leave the flat. Don’t blame them. The weather was awful until a couple of days ago.

• Which makes me the de facto Foreign Minister for the household. I go out, I negotiate with shopkeepers and officialdom whilst the Mother and Child rest in our little enclave.

• Or, one could describe me as the archetypal hunter-gatherer, seeking and acquiring on behalf of the new family.

• I’m not sure which I prefer, Foreign Minister or Hunter-Gatherer Alpha Male type. I’m clearly not of Alpha-Male stock, so I feel a bit of a fraud, masquerading as such. Never mind

• Did I say that his is gorgeous? Adorable?

• It was difficult settling on a name. How does one name perfection? Clearly, however, we could not continue with Lieutenantjohnmcclane. Too much of a mouthful. So, after debate, arm-twisting and blackmail, we settled on…The First Born. Or TFB for short.

• Talking about names, I discovered that midwives propagate the most horrendous perfidy; the ultimate blackmail tool for mothers to use against fathers if they can’t agree on a name. As it happens, Dr M didn’t use this on me; but I still think it is my duty to alert all prospective fathers to this treachery.
• But not today.

• My mother and my mother-in-law have both been, in their individual ways, wonderful. I cannot thank either of them enough.

I’m going to go now. The First Born is stirring, and he probably needs a nappy change.

I don’t usually dedicate my ramblings – it’s just a blog after all, let’s not get ideas above our station? – but I will with this one, to three people.

To my friend AB, who, from the perspective of the father of a two year old, thinks that I will no longer have the time or energy to keep this up. I intend to prove you wrong, friend.

To the late Cyril Connelly, who memorably opined once that ‘there is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall.’ What a horrid thing to say. I feel duty bound to spend the rest of my life trying to disprove this.

And to our son, The First Born. Welcome to the world.

The first day of the rest of our lives.

15.12.06

9.22pm

9lb 7oz (4.272kg in real money)

Child beautiful

Mother relaxed

Father? I cannot find the words to describe my state of mind.

Let's just say that it feels so beautiful inside.

More later.

Week 42 - Waiting

The boy likes to keep everyone waiting, it seems. Bloody Prima Donna

12 days he has kept us waiting. 12 interminably long days and nights. People have actually stopped phoning to ask if he has arrived yet, and have taken to sending accusatory texts and emails, suggesting that we have neglected to inform them officially of the arrival of the first born. As if.

All is well, it must be said. He is still bouncing about, using his mother’s bladder as a trampoline. We had the standard post-natal appointment with M’s consultant last week (the first time, incidentally, that we’ve met a doctor all through the pregnancy – interesting!) The doctor was reassuringly relaxed. From tomorrow, M will go into the hospital every other day for a routine scan, just to make sure that mother and child (is he a child yet?) are doing well. They won’t begin to discuss an induced birth for another week or so. And they do say that a late baby is a healthy baby.

I suspect the lad has figured that he is on to a good thing where he is; food and drink (after a fashion) on tap, warm place to sleep, etc. The stuff he’ll spend the rest of his life trying to secure.

At work, my colleagues have stopped asking whether he has turned up yet and instead proffer suggestions about what we could do to hurry things along.

I’ve kept a list. Raspberry Tea, Castor Oil, long walks, Pineapples, Epsom Salts, a spicy Curry, Red Wine. All of the above are supposed to help. Oh, and sex. How could I forget that? Everyone delights in suggesting the last one. Even the midwife had a laugh at my expense suggesting that. I embarrass easily, it seems. Anyway, it’s nice to know that I still have a use…

Now that I think of it, the last three suggestions sound like the stuff one would do to conceive a child, rather than hurry him along into the world. A nice fun way of book marking the pregnancy?

M, unlike me, is relatively untroubled about the delay. Instead, she floats about on a cloud of serenity. When I ask her how she can remain so relaxed, she reminds me that a majority of first time mothers have the baby after their due date (someone paid attention during the ante natal classes, clearly). She is also convinced, for some reason, that the hospital dates were a bit off and that her due date should have been this weekend. And then, she suggests that the lad might turn up on my birthday.

I’m not too sure about the last. I’d rather have my birthday all to myself, thank you very much.

The problem is that I am possessive. Very possessive. When I was a kid, I used to search all visitors, adults and children, when they left our house to make sure they weren’t taking my toys away with them. My birthday is one of the few things that is mine and mine alone, and I am not entirely sure that I want to share it.

Mind you, my birthday is the day before my mother’s, so maybe there is some strange synchrony in my household when it comes to birthdates.

But he would be a nice birthday present, no?

(I like to think that I was the best birthday present my mother ever received. Of course, it might have been the exact opposite; my sister likes to point out that I put my mother in hospital on her birthday. Not a very charitable thing to say, I think.)

So we wait.

I’m not very good at waiting. I become irritable, I start to fidget and find unwholesome uses for the time on my hands. Which, of course, is of no use for either M or Lieutenantjohnmcclane.

I can’t even pretend to be preparing for life after birth; this would be trying to prepare for a complete unknown. In any case, I’ve always been a last minute kind of guy, so trying to prepare for life after birth would be contrary to long held principles of procrastination and postponement (why do today what you can do tomorrow, etc…)

I had the option of starting my paternity leave at the beginning of last week, but decided against it. If I were at home all day every day, I’d just get under Dr M’s feet and make both of us nervous.

Not that I’ve done anything at work for at least a week, mind. It’s impossible to concentrate on anything. (I assume that my boss isn’t reading this. If she is, I may be out of a job).

So we continue to wait. Because there isn’t anything else to do.

I’m 35 today. M is 12 days overdue.

Week 39 - Anything to avoid hospital food

Opting for a home birth has its advantages. For one thing, you avoid the disappointment of realising that the hospital journey is nothing like what one sees in the movies. One doesn’t pile into the car, drive on the wrong side of the road, dash into the hospital reception shouting and screaming and jabbering in uncontrollable excitement. I have this on good authority. I suspect that this discovery is as traumatising as finding out about the tooth fairy.

You don’t have to deal with hospital food. Years ago, I went to visit an ill friend in hospital. He was unable to eat, and had pushed his food to one side. I was hungry, so after I polished off the grapes I had bought for him, I turned to the discarded lunch. Big mistake. The aftermath, I leave to your imagination. I can tell you that it wasn’t pretty.

You don’t have to worry about sharing a ward with other women, other women’s visitors, other women’s crying babies. Sometimes, privacy is a very good thing.

You do not need to get into a fight with the hospital administrators about transporting the new born back home afterwards. It is illegal, it seems, to take the baby out of the hospital without a car seat to strap the wee one in safely. Even if, as my friend AB found out, you live 200 yards from the hospital and intend to walk home.

But there are disadvantages too.

Although the midwifery service was supportive – very supportive, I should say – they did make it clear that they would have to do an assessment first.

I was convinced that this was to make sure that we were, as the lawyers say, fit and proper people. Dr M didn’t believe this. She assumed it was merely an administrative procedure.

As if. Of course, I have the advantage (or disadvantage) of doing countless home visits over the years in my old job as an Education Social Worker. And I know that each visit, no matter how innocuously couched, was little more than an excuse to snoop and pry into the client’s private family life. It is necessary; not at all nice, but necessary.

So, for me It made sense that they would want to ‘suss us out. It really wouldn’t do, for example, if the midwifes arrived for the birth and found that Dr M intended to give birth in a candlelit room, bare except for the animal entrails nailed to the wall and a pentagram chalked on the floor (‘This’, Dr M declared. ‘This is my birthing space.’)

Not that I have anything against Satanists, and I am sure the NHS haven’t either. But there are bound to be Health and Safety issues to deal with. And forms to fill in triplicate.

In the event, the assessment was a relatively painless affair. The midwife who came along for the visit was a no-nonsense Aussie types who had probably seen it all and done it all. The kind of lass you’d like to have your back in a barroom brawl.

She asked to see the main bedroom, where the deed will take place.

She went through a lengthy list of does and don’ts, which she made us sign. I have agreed, apparently, to help the midwives carry their equipment when they arrive. They don’t understand that I am not designed for heavy lifting. But never mind.

She then asked for a cup of tea.

Neither Dr M nor I drink tea. We both drink copious amounts of coffee (or rather, I do. M went off coffee completely when she became pregnant, and instead started craving Wagamama flat noodles. That, however, is another story altogether).

We did have some herbal infusions (y’know, Dandelion and Raspberry, that tree-hugging hippy sort of stuff), and I offered her one.

Her lip curled into an ugly snarl. Midwives, it seems, don’t drink anything other than milky Earl Grey.

She had a spare bag about her person, so we were able to rescue the situation. But she warned us severely before she left of the consequences if we didn’t have the right kind of tea when they arrived. Something about downing tools.

Anyway…

I started by writing about the advantages about home births. Of course, for every Ying there must be a Yang.  For every To, a Fro. And for every advantage, there must be a disadvantage lurking just around the corner…

The first is preparation. One has to prepare for childbirth at home. It doesn’t just happen on the front lawn, sadly. That’s fair enough. Problem is, preparation isn’t one of my strong points. In fact, it’s one of my weakest (down there with all the other points of mine). I couldn’t arrange the proverbial piss-up in a brewery.

So when our tea-drinking Aussie left us the list of things needed for the happy event, my eyes glazed over. Fortunately, M has organisational skills for both of us put together, so I put her in charge.

The list included a few things that made sense (waterproof sheets, old towels), a couple of things that required a bit of lateral thinking (a torch – that had me stumped for a bit; camera and batteries – more about that another time), and then some things that made no sense at all.

Like the strong plastic bin liners.

Anything that involves a black bin liner is an automatic disadvantage for me. Black bin bags mean cleaning. And I don’t do cleaning, being the chauvinist boor that I am.

Even so, it took me a little time to cop on to what exactly I would be cleaning up after. And then I started to seriously consider the benefits of a hospital birth, where they have people to do that sort of thing. Supportive husband be damned, I can’t cope with this stuff.

Problems with cleaning up after the birth:

I can’t ask M to oblige, as I usually do. Not this time. Labour takes a lot out of you, apparently,

I have a blood phobia. (M doesn’t believe this, incidentally. One of us is in for a rather nasty surprise when she does go into labour)

I can’t get my sisters or my mother to do it, as I did before I met M.

This is going to be awkward.

Alternative disposal methods: In 1998, the TV Chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, prepared Pate of placenta for the family of a new-born, which they all eagerly tucked into. With Shallots, I believe.

I mentioned this to M in passing. She went a lurid shade of green. Understandable. I HATE Shallots.

Anyway, the point is that I am going to have to deal with the clean up. And I am not quite sure how. Does anyone know where one can hire people to do this sort of thing?

Tomorrow is M’s due date.

Yes, it's still Week 37

Thanks for pointing it out. I could never count properly. Week 38 starts on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, I think I'm gonna start posting more frequently. Less of this essay length, rambling introspective stuff. I probably won't have the time or the energy to ramble at length, soon, anyway.

Week 38 - 'Buddy, can you spare £180k?'

According to some wonk with too much time on his hands, the cost of raising a child up until the age of 18 comes to around £180k. Somewhat more if you choose to educate your child privately. Significantly more, presumably, if your child picks up an expensive, unhealthy habit. Like under-aged driving. Or Stage School.

Scary stuff. The thought that this much money will pass through my hands seems improbable. The fact that I won’t get to spend it all on myself is probably a blessing, though. I’d just squander it on books and CDs and strangely impractical gadgetry.

Sometimes, I think that the cost of bringing up a child is the guilty secret of parenthood, the one that no one tells you about until its too late to do anything about it, like start saving earlier, or getting a pet instead. Lets face it, veteran parents tell you everything else about bringing up a child: that they eat all day and scream all night; that they ruin your sex life and your social life; that when they grow older you become an honorary driver without benefit of uniform or salary or respect. But they never tell you that the wee nippers cost a bomb.

Or perhaps not. A friend of mine with a small child keeps on referring to changing nappies, and preparing myself for this. He mentioned this a lot, so much so that I began to wonder if he had a coprophilial fixation. Then I found out about the cost of disposable nappies.

I went to the supermarket last week and started to hunt, as one does, for the odds and ends that we needed at home but couldn’t remember off head (I go through the same process every time: I go shopping, I wander through the aisles, lost like one of the tribes of Israel. I pay; I go home, I remember all the things I was supposed to purchase. I vow to make a list the next time I go to the supermarket. I forget to make the list. I repeat steps 1-6 ad nauseum).

Anyway, entirely by chance, I stumble across shelves of disposable nappies. Since I was there, I decided to familiarise myself with the product - it’s going to play an important part of my life in the immediate future after all.

As I turned the packs around, trying to make sense of choice phrases like ‘elasticised leg bands’ and ‘absorbency ratios’, the number 8 circled around my head, like a vulture waiting to pounce. My friend, the fellow with the Freudian obsession with all matters relating to the toilet, had mentioned that one needed to change a baby’s nappy as many as eight times a day.

I normally like the number Eight. It’s my favourite (after 7, of course). But today, it gave me the creeps. A sense of foreboding. A feeling of impending doom. I couldn’t figure out why. Then the penny dropped.

If the first born needed his nappy changed eight times a day, and if a pack of 24 nappies cost whatever it did, and if he was expected to remain in nappies until somewhere after his second birthday (boys take longer than girls to stay ‘dry’, apparently)…you do the maths. Suffice it to say that I had to have a good sit down after this discovery, that stopping the lad from sh*tting all over the house will probably bankrupt us.

Of course, I could always adopt the system used in parts of Asia, the so-called ‘Chinese Trousers’ system. I saw a pair of them in the newspaper last weekend, illustrating an article about potty training. They are hilarious. I wonder if they make them in adult size…or I could become ecologically sound and go with ‘recyclable’ terry nappies. (Funny that: when I was a kid, they never talked about them being environmentally friendly. They were just simply the vaguely inconvenient way of protecting your furniture from your child, or possibly vice versa. But anyway…)

But I digress, as I always do. What I was saying is that I doubt if anything can prepare one for the vast financial commitment that comes with having a child. But why should one? I mean, people don’t consider their children to be investments, do they? People have kids for all sorts of complex reasons (or occasionally, simple ones, like not being able to find the contraception at the right time). Either way, you shower love and affection and everything you have upon your child or children because they are the most important thing in your life. Not because they are another item on a balance sheet. So maybe I should stop fretting about the cost, and instead stop spending money on fripperies that I don’t need. That makes more sense.

On to other things.

M finally called my bluff with the policeman’s helmet thing. We saw one (a policeman with a helmet, that is) the other day, and I tried to coerce her into making use of the facility, as always. She said that she would if I asked him for her. Of course I chickened out.

There are other uses for a pregnant mother, though. I just remembered the urban myth that if a mother breaks her waters in Harrods, she gets free shopping privileges for life. Or maybe it’s Selfridges. Or Harvey Nicks. Whatever. It doesn’t matter. I just want the free shopping.

Meanwhile, my sister in law had a baby girl two Sundays ago. The good news is that both mother and baby are doing well. The better news is that the baby was NOT called Lieutenantjohnmcclane. There’s still hope yet.

M is due in 15 days. Time to start getting nervous, perhaps? We’ll see.

Week 34 - Breathe In...Out

I haven’t said a lot about our antenatal classes, largely because there really hasn’t been much to say. We’ve had three so far, and I can’t say that I’ve been terribly impressed.

It’s not that they haven’t been effective in their main objective, to educate the untutored about the complexities of childbirth. I think the problem is that they have been so…I don’t know, perhaps lacking in the vitality and excitement that you associate with having a baby.

The first class covered the normal progression of labour. We talked about the dilation of the cervix, at which point the mother should present herself at the hospital, and the procedure that will be followed up until the successful delivery of the first born (all the parents in our class are first timers like us).

The second explored what happens when birthing goes wrong (sorry for being facetious; I’m still addicted to those wretched ‘When zoo animals turn bad’ or ‘the world’s greatest police chases...5’ type programmes on television), and gave us a lot of, hopefully, useless information about forceps deliver, induced labour and a strange suction arrangement called the Ventose cap (the less said about that, the better)

(Oh, when I say hopefully useless information, I do not mean that the information was useless: I mean that I hope that we won’t have any use for the information.)

After this class, we got to watch an ancient video showing different modes of childbirth. The film started off with a home birth. I watched keenly through my fingers, then made my excuses and left.

(M stayed on a few minutes longer to watch the caesarean section. For some odd reason, they decided to show far more than you would get to see if you were the mother, the birthing partner or indeed anyone other than an obstetrics surgeon. When I stuck my head in the room to check on M, she looked green, and asked to leave immediately. I dread to think what the film about forceps delivery looked like. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.)

The third class focused on important issues like…parking at the hospital. And the paperwork that will need to be filled out. And registering the baby. And securing a National Health Service number for the baby. And stuff that, I think, had been included in a leaflet we were given during the first class. You can tell that by this point, I was really excited about everything. Gripping stuff. Hanging on to every word.

Again, don’t get me wrong. The information was, on the whole, useful. But aside from the first class, which was led by an enthusiastic and (possibly unconnected fact) newly qualified midwife, the whole process was so dreary. Sort of like ticking a box to confirm that, pursuant to regulation 297 of the Healthcare Reform Act (amendment) 2009, all expectant mothers (and fathers, where they choose to participate in the birthing experience) have had communicated to them all essential features of…you get my point.

There wasn’t much in the classes that felt alive, responsive to the needs of the nervous, apprehensive parents to be. Nothing that one couldn’t learn in a short booklet, that is. It just seemed like a chore. One poor woman started to have kittens in the last class, thinking about tearing and an episiotomy. The midwife was brusquely matter of fact in her response: ‘you’re a first time mother; you’re probably going to tear.’

Factually, she was correct. Also (allegedly) it helps to think about it as you would a cut in a less sensitive part of the body. AND an episiotomy is done under anaesthetic. But I’m sure that the poor woman would have felt a little better if the midwife had been a little more responsive. Never mind…

Dr M, with her sceptical researcher hat on, suggested that the classes seemed to be geared more towards what the hospital would like parents to do to ensure they can get their jobs done efficiently, and with a minimum of inconvenience to themselves. (I paraphrase somewhat.) And for once, I actually agree with her. It was very much a ‘we will do this and this, and you (the mother) will lie back and co-operate with us’ style of didactic tuition.

A part of me sympathises with this. Birthing children is a delicate, sometimes dangerous job. And in order to do it properly, you want to get your prospective patients thinking the same was as you as early as possible.  That way, you avoid tears and recriminations in the labour ward.

(Actually, you will get those anyway, but for different reasons.)

Even so, I think it’s a shame that the process was, on the whole, so mechanical. That said, if I didn’t like it, I could always go private, couldn’t I? Maybe I should stop whinging and instead be grateful for the fact that there was something on offer. Lord knows, there are many parts of the world where they would be grateful for what I have just described so disparagingly.

There was an interesting article in the New Yorker a few weeks back about the evolution of the child-birthing process. In typically circumambulatory way (and yes, I see the irony in this sentence too!), the article http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/061009fa_fact argues that, as doctors and hospitals have become more proficient in the art of birthing healthy babies, sacrifices have been made in connection with ensuring the optimum experience for the mother. Hospitals are more efficient and effective, but paradoxically have become less capable of responding to the needs of individual mothers. Which is a bit of a shame, I suppose.

Again, I suppose, one could go private if one doesn’t like it. However, I think it is fascinating that the percentage of caesarean sections performed in private hospitals (in London) is significantly higher than in public hospitals. And you pay lots for the privilege, too.

Maybe that is what mothers want.

Last post, I said that I was disappointed that I didn’t get to do breathing exercises at antenatal class. This, you will be pleased to know, has now been rectified.

Dr M has been attending a yoga class for some time. Last week, they had a class for mothers and fathers.

You can imagine the scene. Serene, confident women. Bewildered, somewhat bemused men. Soft lighting. No footwear (thank God, I did remember to pick my socks carefully). Some quiet reflection and meditation before we started (I fell asleep – and I am not poking fun. It was that effective). And then an hour and a half of stretching, massaging and deep breathing.

I quite enjoyed it, actually. It was a rather interesting experience . So I won’t make fun of it.

Incidentally, the midwife at the antenatal class said that they don’t teach birthing exercises any more because there is no demand them. Everyone wants an epidural or medical management of the pain process. I find this just as interesting. Maybe the hospitals do know something that we don’t.

M stops work at the end of next week. The day draws closer…

‘Til next time.