...ruffles...

Millie has an ear infection that just won’t go away. Emma takes her for her latest check up…

Emma: “the doctor said that we should review it in a couple of weeks, if it hasn’t cleared up then he’ll refer her to the hospital.”

Me: “Right.”

Emma: “He said that they might have to put her under general anaesthetic in order to have a look. I said I didn’t like the idea of that.”

Me: “General anaesthetic? That can’t be right”

Emma: “Well that’s what he said. He said that Millie was quite compliant so it might not be needed.”

Me: “Jesus, general anaesthetic just to have a look at an ear. It’s not that she’s suffering or can’t hear.”

Emma: “Well that’s what he said.”

Me: “But general anaesthetics are dangerous at the best of times, especially on small children, especially on small children with heart conditions.” [Ruffles considers that doctor may be part of grand conspiracy to steal children’s brains whilst under unnecessary anaesthetic.]

Emma: “Well that’s what he said.”

Me, furiously thinking: “I think we should get a second opinion on that, I know I’ll ask Spankee’s GP friend, see if he does this.”

Conversation continues for a few minutes in this vain before drifting into other topics and finally to silence.

Then there’s some more silence

And more.

Emma: “Hmm, maybe it wasn’t a general anaesthetic.”

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Labels: Babies

You have absolute control when naming a baby; the moment you settle on a name you put them on a trajectory that will dictate huge portions of their life. You have no idea what you're letting your offspring in for.

Some naming issues are fairly minor; both Emma and I have younger sisters whose names are products of apparently dyslexic parents - my sister - Annia should have been Anya, whereas Sara is pronounced as in Sarah. Still, at least it's not quite as bad as Kirsty, who had she been born a boy would have been called Devron.

When we told people that we were thinking of Amelia for a girl and Hamish for a boy most people responded with "Oh, Amelia's lovely". One out of two isn't bad. The reason we chose Amelia was because she could be Millie with her friends and Amelia when she's a QC. And it was a classic name that had a certain timelessness about it.

Not all names share this quality; not so long ago we had a temp working with us called Kylie; every time she opened her mouth - which was a lot - my mind harked back to Angry Anderson. No doubt a few Britneys will turn up at work in the next five years or so.

Emma had a girl called Holly-Blue in her class - named after a butterfly. It's a nice enough name, but it presents a challenging naming strategy. The Dobscrubs went with India for their first, which in itself is a very beautiful name - but you can't call your second Bangladesh, nor can you go to the other end of the spectrum and plump for Dave. They went with Elliot, which seems to fit perfectly.

Even middle names are tricky; Millie's is Winifred - after Emma's maternal grandmother - which means she'll have to avoid any of Brian Mawhinney's family when it comes to marriage. Could she live with Millie Winnie Mawhinney?

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing; especially in baby naming. Someone I know has just had a daughter, Mia, which is a very pretty name in itself. The middle name they've chosen is Amora; which they say is Italian for love. Except it's not, it's amore. Even if it was Amora, Mia is Italian for 'Mine' which would make her name "Mine Love" - as in "Is that my cup of tea, dear?", "No, it's mine, love". But it's OK, because Amora isn't Italian for love; it's a sex academy in London - whatever a sex academy is and its dictionary definition is... 'a group of rabbis'.

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Labels: Babies

I don't think I've mentioned this before, but Millie has a heart condition. A small hole which means regular trips to the hospital for a check up. There's no particular reason why I haven't mentioned it; it's not a taboo subject, people have less problems, but people have more. It's not a minor issue; there are six levels of intensity with this sort of thing and Millie's is at least level four. However, it has no effect on our day to day life, so you just get on with it, don't you?

We've been quite lucky, Millie was born in the John Radcliffe in Oxford, it has a world class cardiology unit so when they heard the murmur, they referred her instantly. Quite often hospitals don't even check, a lot of babies have heart murmurs when they're young which simply go away, and most places don't have the resources to chase every case down. The referral lead to a scan, the scan lead to regular appointments with a paediatric cardiologist.

The consultant we see is brilliant; in fact, a little Google reveals he's a pioneer in the field. He was the first heart surgeon in the world to fix a heart defect without the use of major surgery (it's all done with little pipes and tubes). Aside from his obvious cleverness, one of his talents is the ability to communicate clearly, warmly and professionally all at the same time. He's evidently compassionate, but he never steps out of his professional role. Quite simply he tells you what he's looking for, what he's going to do, what he's found and what he foresees in the future based on what he's found. He never promises things he can't deliver.

He also told us that if a Health Visitor came round to lock the doors, close the windows and 'crawl around the house like a leopard on the prowl'. The man is a genius.

Each appointment follows pretty much the same process. Being as good as he is, he always has a foreign student doctor with him. On Tuesday we had Dr Woo - so close to being a time traveller, yet so far, shame. Our doctor does his bit, allows the student to examine Millie then asks a couple of questions about what they've found. The student examines, agrees that they can hear the thrill. Then the doctor asks for a diagnosis.

At this point you see the student's mind racing; is it a trick question? Surely he wouldn't be asking if there was nothing wrong? Or would he? This conundrum is mixed with the underlying ambition of the doctor; I mean, they don't get into the job to examine people with nothing wrong with them. They're praying for something big. Like an eager private in a war zone; for all the peacekeeping rhetoric, they just want to blow the bloody commie to hell.

The good doctor finally pushes for an answer; "so what would you diagnose doctor?" and the student goes for broke with a wildly inaccurate and totally over the top; something like... "immediate open heart surgery?".

No. He says blankly. And corrects them; stop looking for excuses to cut people open, look at the patient, she's growing, she's pink, she's healthy. Send her home and book another appointment for the next check-up. Which is all terribly disappointing for the student who's already sharpening her scalpel.

On Monday he told us that Millie didn't need to come back for a year. We are happy.

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Labels: Babies

There’s this horrible concept of ‘being deep’. People in reality TV shows claim to be ‘deep’ or that they ‘like to get deep’ sometimes. This is assumed to mean that they like to get a little conceptual and think about what things truly mean.

I’m coming to the conclusion that people are built in layers. When babies are born the hospital people do an APGAR test; it’s actually done twice, the first time most babies score at least 8 out of 10, and for the second test they’re expected to get a cracking 10 out of 10. It’s basically an assessment of skin colour, number of legs, heads etc. It’s the only thing you can truly assess, it’s the only layer they have.

This is pretty much all there is to a baby. They feed on liquid and liquid comes out the other end. It’s a simply little ecosystem. Then a cold might come along; they sneeze and snot comes out; this is laid on top of the liquid-in-liquid-out concept. Then they become more aware of their surroundings and react to things around them. Then they recognise people they know, or will make different noises to indicate tiredness over nappy or feeding. This evolves until speech eventually comes along. When they start feeding on solids, carrot goes in; orange things come out, but the viscosity changes depending on their milk intake, or there may be variations resulting from sickness. It gets harder to isolate why things are happening.

Millie has started teething and she has a cold and a bit of conjunctivitis; because she’s at that age, its winter, she’s at nursery and in contact with other babies. She can wake up, but we don’t know for sure why, it could be nappy, cold, food, conjunctivitis, teeth. So she now has Medicied to help her sleep, eye drops for the conjunctivitis, CalGel for her teeth, Sudacreme for her nappy, and albus oil for her cold. It’s another layer on top of everything else she’s developed over the last six months.

As things progress, more layers will be added – biological, sociological, economic, psychological, physiological and so forth. Which all leads to the conclusion that TV reality contestants do have the capability of being ‘deep’; going back through the layers that they’ve built over the years. The ultimate conclusion of this soul-mining of course, is to find that they’re a bag of bones which is full of shit.

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Labels: Babies

Millie is 10 weeks old, so here are 10 things I've learnt about parenting.


1. Parenting gurus give their advice like they're stating scientific fact. If it were scientific fact then it would have the same effect on every baby in the same way. You can't know that blowing in the baby's face means they're more likely to be a concert pianist without years of evidence. If the book was written in 2004, it's all guesswork.
2. If you're concerned about something, ask yourself whether they'll be like it when they're sixteen. For example, if they're not lifting their heads up by six weeks, question whether its likely to be a factor in sixteen years time. On the other hand, if their leg falls off, worry.
3. Birthing plans are a nonsense. You have no choice about how the baby is coming out.
4. Your life doesn't change as a result of having a baby. This is your life, a continuation of what you had before, with new influences and factors to consider. If you're life is so heavily locked into a particular routine, so hardened that you can't move away from it, you're either very sad, or you're OCD.
5. People who know the mother best, think the baby looks like the mum, those who know the dad best thinks the baby looks like the dad. Agree, whatever the view.
6. Baby poo smells great, at least your baby's poo smells great. A baby has a minimal vocabulary, so they communicate their well-being through poo. A big smelly one is great to see.
7. It is easier to agree with people that you're not getting any sleep and nappies are a nightmare than to explain that it's all going really well, you're sleeping fine and you're enjoying it.
8. Doctors are always right. If your philosophy is that if a doctor gives you bad news then they're right, but if it's good then they're telling you a bunch of lies, you'll quickly end up in a puddle of your own paranoia. You have to make a simplifying assumption that what you're hearing is the truth and that a vast-majority of doctors have the same values and objectives as you.
9. Phases don't last long. If you can remember a time when she went through a phase of finding it difficult to settle after a bottle; it was probably last night.
10. Don't think about the future. The future may hold Neo-Nazi boyfriends, piercings and heroin. Today they don't, tomorrow they may do. As the great Gaulish chief says, Vitalstatistix says, 'Tomorrow never comes'.

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Labels: Babies

I needed some t-shirts, not that this is something you generally needed to know, but it is the reason we went shopping. There hasn't been many tears as a result of losing a stone and a half down the gym in the last year, but there has been a shedload of sweat. My endeavours coupled with particularly unsympathetic washing detergent, has trashed many good and worthy t-shirts. The favourable weather in these parts meant that they needed replacing.

It wasn't the first time we'd gone out with Millie, but due to the heat it was pretty much the first time she could easily be seen in public from her pushchair. As we walked along people (women mostly) would turn and look, nudge their friends and saying 'Ooh look tiny baby'. As she's still pretty small, Millie looks like a brand new born baby, but she has the slightly more controlled demeanour of a six week old, where there for short periods at least, she coos sweetly looking like the most perfect baby in the world... which she is, of course.

When she did cry I took her out of the pram and carried her on my shoulder (a sure fire winner, although I do worry it only stops her crying because it restricts her breathing). As we walked along I began to sense particularly ethereal, barely audible, 'aahhs' from people. Women would tried to catch my eye, but I'm not best at engaging with strangers so I became increasingly conscious of my surrounds. it was like a rather cutesy version of the Blair Witch Project, where you could just about hear voices in the middle distance without ever actually working out which direction they came from.

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Labels: Babies

In China, people will tell you, women will give birth in the middle of a paddy field, sling the baby on their back and carry on working. In Britain the support received is somewhat more thorough. Once pregnant, the mother is assigned a community midwife. This is not necessarily the person who will actually deliver your baby, Emma had three additional midwives during her labour, plus a number of others who appeared and disappeared, and doctors, and anaesthetists, and other people. Then there's the post natal midwives who look after mother and baby. Once out of hospital you resume a brief relationship with the community midwife before being handed over to a health visitor.

The health visitor is part nurse, part social worker. A woman with no portfolio; which is probably why she's so keen to create one. The role is less than clear, she seems to have an array of surgeries, groups and meetings, none of which require pre-booking or an appointment, none of which is compulsory. From speaking to others, they're aim is to be as prescriptive and reactive as possible, scaring and stressing out new mothers at every opportunity. The advice they give is always retrospective and generally inconsistent. Emma's health visitor is full of nervous energy, when she first came over we told her that Millie was pretty much sleeping through the night. "EXCELLENT ARE YOU CALM PEOPLE BECAUSE GENERALLY CALM PEOPLE HAVE CALM BABIES ITS GODD TO BE CALM ISN'T IT, I LIKE CALMNESS, IT'S GOOD, BEING CALM, THAT IS". We were calm people until she walked through the door.

She wanted Emma to attend her post-natal classes held at a surgery a couple of miles away. This is despite the fact Emma already goes to a post-natal group and couldn't drive because of the caesarean. The reason given, breathlessly, was that the children that go are the ones Millie will be going to school with. I've just checked the calendar and Millie is 5 weeks old... school doesn't start for another 1,800 days. Feeling that she should at least try to attend, Emma spent the week trying to work out the logistics. She couldn't do it and had to tell the health visitor at the following week's meeting, the health worker, completely contradicting herself, replied "Oh no, I hadn't expected you to come".

Generally speaking Millie's is doing really well. She's alert, she's contented and sleeps well. We're in the rare position of actually enjoying having a new born baby (as opposed to coping with the culture shock on no sleep). What's more, Emma's feeling pretty good after the caesarean and is recovering well. The only issue is that having thrived in the first week, Millie's been losing a bit of weight, this is obviously something that needs reversing. After each weigh-in the health visitor presents a different pearl of wisdom. Looked at in one perspective, Milie has lost 3 ounces in a week, from another she's gained 5.5 in four weeks (or 5% of her birthweight). Not perfect, but not yet a crisis. When her weight did drop a little, the health worker said Emma shouldn't 'go home and cry about it'. She wasn't planning to, but it did get her pondering whether there was actually something serious going on, something to cry about.

If Emma was to take it all on board she would be eating six times a day, doing nothing and waking up Millie in the middle of the night to feed. Given that waking Millie up for a feed is a fool's errand (she just lolls around utterly uninterested) the net result of taking this advice on board will be to make Emma bloated, lethargic and tired. This, along with the fact it is Emma who has to visit the clinic, it makes the term 'health visitor' something of an anomaly.

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Labels: Babies

Some pearls of wisdom from the Midwife of Doom -

DOOOOM! - Her ex-husband once designed an educational leaflet about teenage pregnancy, when he presented his ethnically diverse designs they told him to take the Asian faces off because had only been one unplanned Asian teenage pregnancy in the Cardiff area in 40 years.

DOOOOM! - When she had a baby in Cardiff, she was moved to a ward for 'mature mothers'; she was 28, the average age of a Cardiff mother is 18.

DOOOOM! - Oxford has a terrible heroin problem.

DOOOOM! - If there'd been no intervention during Emma's labour she would simply laboured for days and then died,

DOOOOM! - and so would Millie

DOOOOM! - Level 7 at the John Radcliffe Hospital is where they take all the still born and deformed babies and the babies that have resulted in a maternal death.

DOOOOM! - In this country there area round 7 maternal deaths a year.

DOOOOM! - Maternal death is the biggest killer of young women in the world.

DOOOOM! - A popular celebrity London hospital is not popular with the truly posh because there maternal death rate is 'off the chart'... mainly because 80% of their births are 'too posh to push' caesarian births (national average 23%).

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Labels: Babies

Thursday 4.00pm - Emma and I arrive at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford for her scheduled induction.
4.45pm - With the delivery suite heaving nothing is happening. The midwife comes in to explain she will begin the process as soon as the delivery suite is clear.
6.00pm - Midwife explains that the delivery suite is still busy. We should go for a walk and come back at 8pm. We go an buy some chocolate from the nearby garage and watch some football in the park opposite the hospital.
8.00pm - Back at the hospital maternity suite is still busy. Shift changes, new midwife tells us she doesn't think anything will happen tonight.
9.30 - I go home.
Friday 5.00am - Emma sends a text to say that they are starting the induction. There's not likely to be any action for another six hours.
8.45am - I arrive, Emma asleep, nothing happening.
8.45am-6.00pm - A continuous cycle of blood pressure tests, monitoring the baby's heart and telling us that the delivery suite is still busy.
6.00pm - Finally the delivery suite is ready, we pack all our stuff and head down.
6.45 - Midwife applies second dose of gel to get some progress. Emma immediately starts to feel uncomfortable.
6.45-1.00am Saturday: During the next six hours discomfort increases, we walk up and down the corridor, slowly. Eventually Emma can only lie on the bed breathing slowly to 'ride' the contractions.
1.00am - Midwife attempts to break Emma's waters, she can't so she calls in the doctor, he's more brutal and 'thinks' he's done it.
2.00am Emma is permanently laid out on her side strapped to a heart monitor. Midwife suggests that it may be wise to introduce an epidural.
3.00am - Anaesthetist arrives to apply the epidural and the pain begins to subside. A drip is put in Emma's hand; this is designed to increase the contractions to progress the labour.
3.00am-5.00am - Emma continues to have contractions, continues to lie on the bed.
5.30am - Baby's heartbeat begins to drop, two more midwives appear. Emma takes a puff of Ventolin; an inhaler often used by hayfever and asthma sufferers. The baby's heartbeat starts to steady. The dose being administered by the drip is reduced and a heart monitor is attached to the top of the babies head so they can get an accurate reading.
5.40am - Doctor appears and suggests that a caesarian section may be the only option. As the baby's heartbeat is steady, there's no hurry, so we wait.
7.30am - Emma is exhausted, we decide to go for the caesarian. There's one other woman in the queue (they've done 5 c-sections during that shift alone). A new shift is on in about an hour. We'll wait.
8.30am - After phoning home I come back in the delivery suite. The baby's heart beat has dropped and then falls off the chart. More midwives appear, and doctors. They decide to open a second operating theatre rather than wait. The wires and tubes are unplugged and Emma is wheeled out the door. I'm on my own packing our bags and waiting for a porter.
9.00am - A midwife appears, baby is OK, she begins packing up the room.
9.30am - The porter arrives and escorts me into the theatre, Emma is waiting, happy and relaxed. everyone introduces themselves. They are friendly and chatty. Joking about how it's like Holby City. The anaesthetist turns the blips on the heart monitoring machine, to make it 'sound more authentic'.
9.47am - After a few tugs and shunts Amelia Winifred, Millie, is born... the team shout 'IT'S A BOY!.. no, hang on... IT'S A GIRL!".
10.00am - Emma is sewn up, photos are taken and everyone is brilliant. I'm escorted back to the delivery room to take the bags to the Observation Ward where Emma and Millie will stay for the next day or so.
10.15am - Emma is back, looking great and beyond happy. Millie is quiet and contented trying to have a feed. She's not doing too badly for a half-hour old baby.
10.15am-12.30pm Text messages are sent, phone calls are made, Emma's mum and my mum arrive then they have to go because Emma can't have visitors. Emma suggests I go to the football.
12.45pm - Emma's sister texts wanting to visit. After lots of umming and erring we decided to ask her to bring my season ticket so i can go to the game.
2.00pm - Emma's sister arrives and I go to the football.
3.05pm - I arrive just after kick-off on the way I hit something and take my wing mirror off. I might be tired. Oxford need to win to stay in the football league, Leyton Orient, their opponents, need to win to go up. It's a sell out and the atmosphere like a bear pit. There are people sitting on the fence at the open end of the ground and people standing in the aisles of the stand.
3.07pm - Orient are fluid and quick, Oxford huff and puff. After a swift exchange of passes Lee Steele, former Oxford striker, hits the post for Orient. Steele is brilliant throughout; it's clear he'll have a say in the outcome of the day one way or another.
3.14pm - Against the run of play Eric Saban, Oxford striker, scuffs a shot into the corner, 1-0, Oxford are staying up.
3.17pm - Orient attack, a cross from the right to the back post is headed back towards goal. Oxford's goalie can't keep the ball from going over the line. 1-1, Oxford are going down.
4.03pm - Orient striker, Gary Alexander, chips in for 1-2, now Oxford really are going down.
4.05pm - Oxford scramble an equaliser, 2-2, another and we'll be staying up.
4.40pm - Chris Wilmott lashes out waiting for a free and is sent off.
4.50pm - With both teams appearing to play with 5 up front, Lee Steele, a menace throughout the game slots home Orient's third. The Orient bench streak onto the pitch. Their 4,000 fans go ballistic.
4.52pm - Final whistle; Oxford 2 Leyton Orient 3; Oxford are relegated to the Conference and Orient are promoted. I walk out of the ground, I'm not interested in watching the Orient celebrations. Certainly not interested in the lap of honour some Oxford fans think their players deserve.
5.00pm - Nobby phones and rants about the referee and linesman. Some of it I agree with, some I don't. At the end of the day, crap football probably deserves crap refereeing.
5.00pm-5.40pm - Drive home. Listening to the radio the commentators are saying that fans need time to 'collect their thoughts' and 'reflect on what's happened'. It's like someone has died. Given my day, this is all a bit bemusing. Nobby comes on the phone-in repeating his views about the referee. He's cut off moments before he gives a shout out to Millie so they can interview the Oxford manager.
5.45pm - Get home. Watch telly. Have bath. Watch more telly.
8.00pm - Phone for a curry, not sure I really want it, but I should eat. It'll be 25 minutes. Catch opening scene of Friends, fall asleep.
8.40pm - Wake up, realise that I'm fifteen minutes late for collecting my curry. Go and get it. Eat it. Watch some of Match of the Day. Fall asleep. Wake up as Match of the Day finishes. Go to bed.

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Labels: Babies, Football

Still nothing. There was progress on Sunday when Emma experienced something inelegant that signalled something was happening. Ater that, nothing, nada, nowt. This movement eased the midwife’s mania for an internal prod, she was more interested in what Emma was wearing. The girls at yesterdays baby class coffee morning agreed that she shouldn’t be pushed into anything she wasn’t comfortable with, so the waiting game continues. This advice may change at today’s baby class coffee morning. Or next Wednesdays.

This advice could be from The Maker himself in comparison to Emma’s mum’s imparted wisdom this week. On Friday, 24 hours before the due date, she scared Emma silly by declaring with some vigour that the cat had Feline Leukaemia (prompting me to ask, with more vigour, ‘exactly how many years of veterinary training have you done?’). This was followed up yesterday with her saying that our new baby monitor was very neat… a baby monitor that is, in fact, my iPod.

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Labels: Babies

Today is supposed to be The Day, although all is quiet so far. Admittedly I'm sitting blogging this with headphones on listening to my first mix created on Ableton Live; which may be available as a download in enormous file-o-vision soon. I s'pose Emma could be upstairs rolling around in agony; but I doubt it. I'll go check in a bit, if I've got the time.

The midwife seems very keen to get the baby out before the bank holiday; maybe she has plans. She seemed a little disappointed that Emma's bump is not yet hard (and therefore ripe). Her solution, it seems, is to threaten bigger, more intrusive and rustier implements, all in the hope that Emma will be able to reach a pact with the baby and get pushin'

The baby is relatively (though not unhealthily) small which means it won't grow to the size of a small teenager as the days tick by, its also perfectly positioned for exit so there's nothing to worry about. it's not usual to go 10 days over.

The baby group had seven bumps, we have news that two have popped. The first to arrive was the last due; four and a half weeks early. At some point I will get onto the baby group's obsession with coffee mornings, but in the meantime, I go to the football, we wait.

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Labels: Babies

The house has never been more sorted out. You can walk in straight lines from a to b. There are no piles of washing, extraneous cables, cobwebs or rogue pasta swirls crunching under foot on the kitchen floor. We are ready to receive a baby.

The last remaining room to be sorted out was the cupboard under the stairs. We got everything out, had arguments about the difference between what things are worth and what they cost (old dresses are not worth £300, they cost £300, they are only worth £300 if someone is prepared to pay £300 for them) and threw away 38 bottles of booze (mostly free wine they give away with at the Chinese takeaway). The kitchen was a mess of ironing boards, laptop bags, paint pots and videos which had things like “Dirty Dancing – do not erase” written on the side.

At this point Emma announced that she was having an ‘unusual twinge’. I pleaded for her to not go into labour because a) there was junk everywhere and b) giving birth in the cupboard under the stairs would present a raft of unique problems not considered at the ante natal class.

“It’ll be fine”, she said, “Jesus was born in a stable”.

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Labels: Babies

Although I like the idea of community hospitals and community shops; I'm not really a community person. I don't find myself on committees campaigning for new flower beds to be placed in the middle of the road or saving historic wheelbarrows (used by some dead bloke during the war). I guess I'm the kind of person that's destroying communities, I live in my own bubble of friends and family and shop at Tesco. My non-community milieu is probably the reason I have little need for community centres.

The uncomfortable plastic chairs and scuffed magnolia paint job was exactly what I expected, but probably not for the spiritual contemplation that was to be our ante natal class. I wasn't sure what to expect to be honest (which didn't help given that the first session was to write down what we expected). My only reference point was the midwife who made thinly veiled comments about how National Childbirth Trust classes would be more appropriate for people of our, ahem, background. This made me think that we might end up spending hours discussing homeopathic remedies and chi... on a Saturday morning.

The session opened with a bit of getting to know you. Whilst the girls compared twinges, the men made lame jokes about football, pints and pies; posturing whilst sounding each other out.. I can't remember who broke the deadlock of actually admitting we did care and that we weren't there under duress, but when it happened we all loosened up.

Thankfully, it wasn't all beanbags and scented candles, the class was pretty straightforward; we had lots pictures of wombs and foetuses in that 'Joy of Sex' 1970's line drawing style and simply worked through the birthing process. Some people were able to quote the parts of the womb in Latin and support their arguments with a rich supply of statistics and research papers, some (me) looked blankly and cracked jokes.

People I know who have done these classes have talked about the friends they've made through it. Personally I was wary of being enveloped in a little clique of baby bores. It's nothing like that, thankfully, it's a good group that's happy to have a laugh at what is a whole world of goop and poo. Maybe I am a bit of a community person after all.

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Labels: Babies

Emma’s grandma offered us a plethora of parenting advice yesterday, my favourites were:

‘Of course, you get no joy from your first’ (number of children she had? One)

‘Well, in my day Family Allowance was a Crown a week, nowadays they get POUNDS!’

The latter comment sparked a(nother) diatribe about the state of the social welfare system. Apparently people now get their benefits delivered 'to their door' (these people being all lazy good-for-nothings). When asked if she went to the Post Office to collect her pension she replied “Oh no dear, I get it paid straight into the bank”.

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Labels: Babies

I haven't really talked much about the baby and its impending arrival in April. I remember reading that Norman Cook asked his label boss to drop him should he produce an album of peans to his son and I'm acutely aware I could fall into the same trap. I'm paranoid of talking incessantly about 'precious gifts' and 'special times'. In truth, six months in, the whole pregnancy has been rather uneventful. Emma is slowly changing shape (though still in her own clothes she'd want me to point out), and I have sung more songs to her belly than anyone else's (December: Christmas carols, January: Beatles, February: I'm thinking Yardie ragga). Otherwise, you tell people, then you wait a bit, then the baby turns up.

Sort of. As the year turns, our thoughts are becoming crystalised on getting ready. Once you enter the baby economy, you realise the baby business is big business. Put 'baby' in front of a product name and you can mark it up by about 10 times. Take this baby bath from Bloomin' Marvellous. According to the blurb, it puts the baby into a position that simulates the baby in the womb thus providing a sense of safety and blah. In essence it's a bucket; 99p from B&Q, £18.99 from Blooming Marvellous.

We're also booked onto ante-natal classes; albeit several months late. We're going with the National Childbirth Trust classes rather than NHS. This was recommended by the mid-wife who viewed our uber-middle class house as a sign that we shouldn't be pitched in with the teenage mothers on the NHS class (lesson one: how to tell your headmaster you'll be missing next Tuesday's double French). Apparently you should be booked on after three months, we left it until 6 months so now we're on an overflow class at the end of March. I'd like to go in with no pre-conceptions; but try as I might I can't.

Most recently we had a tour around the hospital. Well, nearly. We went last week with Vicki (due March), arriving at 6pm and then waiting nearly an hour to be told that the hospital had sent out leaflets all over the county saying that the tour was every Thursday (it's actually Wednesday). An hour in a maternity ward gave us ample opportunity to observe the many freaks and dweebs who are populating the country (says the man who, from an outsiders point of view, looked to have fathered two children with two women without any apparent problem to either party). Watching the enormously pregnant fourteen year old waddle out the door to have a cigarette makes you realise how lucky you are. Still, this is not as surprising as hearing from one of the people complaining to the big boss of the maternity ward about the tour mix-up that "It's disgusting, there are heavily pregnant women here".

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Having put the test in her “urine flow” as the instructions so quaintly put it, we waited four minutes. I flicked through teletext whilst keeping an eye on the clock, rounding it up to the next minute to be certain.

We shook hands, turned the stick over and it was positive. Within the next hour both sets of parents, Emma’s sister and best friend were all on the phone asking about the holiday we’d just got back from. Emma bit her lip and kept a straight face. She spent the rest of the day reassuring herself that she was “having a baby” by imitating what it'll be like to stroke the cat when it sits on her tummy eight months from now. We order the Rough Guide to Pregnancy (and a copy of Bloc Party’s remix album for good luck); the Rough Guide served us well in Cuba and Vegas and Toronto and Boston and Florence and Dubrovnik and New York. It's rubbish, of course. We decided the next step was to get everything confirmed and checked out with the doctor. We also decided we need plans for money, the house and who we told and when. Then we got on with today's life.

That was the end of August, we'd just got back from Havana, we'd sat for nearly 36 hours in a terminal full of cigar smoke where the rain was coming in through the light fittings. Unbeknown to us, Emma was 5 weeks pregnant; it would have been safer if she'd injected MRSA bug in her eyeballs.

Telling people has been a long process; it's hard, we've waited for the conversation to come around, we've stopped other conversations mid-flow, we've tried being direct, we've tried being cryptic, we've even told people straight away to avoid "spoiling a perfectly good night out". We've tried telling people face to face, by email, by telephone. In groups, one to one. Over Thai food, Italian and good old fashioned English pub grub. We had to delay telling the people who we knew couldn't keep a secret until we'd told the people who could. Eventually we got everyone; not always how we wanted to, but we did it.

The technicalities; 20 weeks gone, due 22nd April, Sex: unknown (we both thought we'd spotted some boy-like elements on the scan, but it turns out it's the umbilical cord - like a bad joke, but true). We've had 2 scans and everything is going dandy. Emma's in excellent shape. She's developed a multi-dimensional sense of smell and sleeps a lot. But she hasn't been sick. There's already a wardrobe full of maternity wear from Isabella Oliver and La Redoute, not that any of it is needed at the moment. Her initial concerns that she'd lose her shape have been replaced with the realisation it offers a whole new set of shopping opportunities.

Me? Well, apparently I'm instantly more attractive to woman, my evident virility releases chemicals that make me a more appealing catch. Apparently, I'm more likely to spread my seed (done it once, can do it again, see?). The truth is more prosaic, we're hurrying along a few outstanding jobs, we're getting a bigger car, we've got a baby bank account. And then we wait; we wait for the baby to grow. I go to football, we've got tickets for Depeche Mode 2 weeks before the due date, we carry on doing what we're doing. To quote my dad; "You need to be ready because nothing can prepare you". And nothing can, so I won't be ready, I'll just be there waiting for it to leap on me. I can't wait.

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“Hello”
“Hello, it’s Vic, the eagle has landed”

Emma sent me a text at 11am on Friday; ‘do you want pizza with the Dobscrubs tonight?’ I said yes, joking it was, after all their last night of freedom before the baby arrived.

We went for somewhere with a bit of class; so Pizza Express it was. We generally ignored Vicki’s assertion that ‘things were happening’, after all, you’d expect things to happen after nine months wouldn’t you?

Nobody has a second choice with Pizza Express. Nobody diverts from their standard order. With me, it’s always a Fiorentina never anything else. Perversely Nobby is rather odd (now now, let me finish)*; he has either a Sloppy Giuseppe or American Hot, from which he idiosyncratically removes the chillies as he eats. We try to guess his choice, it’s a ‘thing’ we do. He chose American Hot, adding an air of excitement by keeping his decision concealed until he ordered, we ‘Ooh’ed’ when he did. This coincided with the waiter getting a cramp and buckling up. He thought we were Ooh-ing his pain, so he reassured us he was OK. We looked perplexed.

As we talked Vicki idly picked the discarded chillies from Nobby’s plate. Someone may have commented that this would speed things up. At the end of the night we paid and left. The Dobscrub’s gave us a lift home; we said our goodbyes as normal.

Last Saturday I said to Vicstah, ‘we’ll see you on the other side’ something I said to my sister a few days before she had Sophie. The reaction was the same; a nervous “Oh I’m sure we’ll see you before that” followed by the rapid arrangement of another night out. Last night I chose to go for a simple goodbye. It was 10.30pm.

The phone rang on Saturday morning at 11.30, it was Vic, the eagle had landed. The commencement of labour I assumed, we’d seen them 13 hours ago. Although, on reflection, the eagle thing would have been a particularly crap analogy for labour, and Vic has a linguistics degree. It was only when she took me through the timetable of the night (things started happening at midnight, the midwife called at 3am, in the hospital by 5, the baby arrived at 10.50.) that it became clear she’d actually popped.

“The baby’s arrived!?” I said

Emma pulled the phone off me. It’s a little girl, don’t know how heavy, name unconfirmed. How was the labour? “I swore at Nobby”, to which the riposte should have been, ‘well obviously, now how was the labour’. How are you feeling now? “A little sore” – I should coco. Is she beautiful? “I don’t know Nobby’s been cuddling her”. Which I suppose is fair enough, Vic’s had her for the last 9 months, Nobby deserves his chance.

*Enter alternative joke: - ‘or oddly Nobby is rather perverse’

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