Xbox4NappyRash

Was Madonna Dutch?

2009-12-21T13:02:00.002Z

There are going to be a couple of interesting hurdles to navigate in bringing a child into this very below sea-level of worlds that is Holland.

The language itself doesn’t bother me, learning how to say ‘go ask your mother’ in Dutch should save most of my blushes, while proclaiming ignorance of what is being said will spare the remainder.

The food may even turn out to be an interesting experiment; the Dutch are a giant race, every single one of them directly descended from Gulliver. What better way is there to settle the nature versus nurture argument than by feeding the child of two vertically challenged individuals Dutch food and see if we grow a six-footer? I’ll see it as a challenge.

The traditions are different, but we can adjust. While the rest of the world’s children are preparing for Santa Claus this week, the great Dutch gift giver has been and gone since early December.

Sinterklaas is an elderly Bishop who sails into Holland on a barge from Spain, helped by a crew of black slaves, all named Piet. He fills the kid’s shoes with presents and quickly buggers off again after a few songs have been sung. If the kids don’t behave during the year, the bishop then kidnaps them and takes them away on his barge. We can probably come to see this child trafficking by the clergy as perfectly acceptable, we are Irish after all.

There is one thing I will truly struggle with. One thing that grates at the back of my brain, one thing that send shivers down my spine, one thing that makes me want to read another Tiger Woods story for a pleasant distraction, and that is what Dutch children call their fathers:

‘Papa’.

I have no desire to live in Walnut Grove, nor to be addressed like an aging Smurf, and certainly not to be brow beaten by a teenage Madonna.

I can be a lot of things, within a conservative and low achieving margin, but ‘Papa’ can’t be one of them.

Time to move.

Antsy

2009-12-15T11:20:00.001Z

It’s getting hard to sit still. It’s getting harder still to not be still in any constructive form.

Half a disassembled wardrobe is blocking the upstairs hall, and half a tonne of IKEA’s cardboard excrement is lying outside our back door, waiting to be cut up and properly discarded. The Christmas decorations are still in the attic and my poor car could pass for an army vehicle it’s so in need of a wash.

We are close enough to be all but ready, and far enough away to be thoroughly unprepared.

I am full of great ideas though, I’ve calculated that with all the bandages and cotton wool left over from the kraampakket, we can insulate the attic. If some lazy bugger would move the Christmas decorations first.

The kraampakket has caused me to suffer an expectant father confidence blow too, it turns out the blue dinosaur in the kraampakket isn’t a blue dinosaur, it’s a blue dragon. Fire breathing et al.

How could I confuse those? This child is in for a rough time with someone who can’t tell Barney from Hannah Montana.

This was the tip of a realisation iceberg. My naivety being my Titanic, and I’m already up to my shriveling Di Caprios in icy waters.

The poor kid is screwed for entertainment.

I can’t do funny voices, other than my default one, I don’t have an imagination, not one whose manifestation into reality wouldn’t land me jail and Mena Suvari in hospital , and I’ve decided children don’t actually like me.

That last I have no proof of, but my boss doesn’t like me and that must mean something.

If I’m going to survive this, this child is going to need low expectations.

And maybe box cutters.

The kraampakket

2009-12-10T14:11:00.001Z

We knew it was due to arrive.

Every pregnant woman in Holland gets a package from the health insurance companies as she approaches her due date. The package should contain everything needed for a home birth, lots of items for after birth care, and a few other bits and bobs. This is known as the 'kraampakket'

Ours arrived yesterday.

ET sat at the kitchen table as I removed the tape and started to unpack the contents of the box.

With every item I removed she turned a whiter shade of pale. It seems they are fully expecting her to bleed to death, or at the very least be guided through the birth by hungry wolves.

Pack after pack of bandages. Box after box of gauze compresses. Mattress covers, bags of cotton wool, pads, protectors, and plasters.

By the time I pulled out the bottle of 70% proof swabbing alcohol I was shaking with laughter and ETs jaw was resting on her belly.

The contents of the box were like something Florence Nightingale would be concealing beneath her petticoat.

It seems that our insurance company don’t think ET will be going into labour, she’ll be going into first world war trenches.

Clearly, the hope is we never have to use any of this, and if we don’t we can use the umbilical cord clamps to keep our Doritos fresh. I’m not sure what we will do with the baby sling they included, which could easily accommodate a large sow, a 7lb baby would be lost for a fortnight in it.

It wasn’t all doom n'gloom and nightmare inspiring paraphernalia though. Right at the bottom, underneath the hacksaw and incontinence pads, was a fluffy blue dinosaur.

Altogether now, awwww.

9 weeks, 6 days.

Horizontal stripes

2009-12-08T11:33:00.001Z

It is remarkably small.

Tiny.

Balled up it would fit in my tightened fist, which I couldn’t even dare to do, for the baby Jesus would surely weep and governments would fall if that kind of violence were to be perpetrated against such fabric innocence.

Opened up, it fits onto the palm of my hand. The short sleeves not even long enough to hang over the sides.

It looks warm, it feels warm, but it is just so small. How can it ever be enough to protect a human torso to the extent that fingers stay warm, shoulders feel snug with a dozing head flopped against them, and a pot belly remains unbothered by draft.

It is the cause of comically disproportionate indecision . What to do with such a thing?

Should we throw open the double doors of the wardrobe, to hang it from the rail, sliding it from the left, to the centre, to the right before sliding it back again? The space below it seemingly vertigo inducing, a long way down for such a small thing.

Should we feed it into the cavernous jaws of the dresser drawer, laying it flat on the lined tongue of the huge beast before pushing its jaws shut around it? Opening and closing it twice more to make sure it’s still there, still ok in the dark, before taking it out to place it on the palm of my hand again.

Try once more, this time absurdly folding it to puff out its chest, and sliding it into the corner where it can at least keep an eye out for danger.

It is not easy to leave the room. It is not easy to put it to rest, such a small thing, the striped sweater with an anxious magnetism.

Next month

2009-12-04T12:02:00.000Z

Maybe it was because of the electricity bill, or the insurance perhaps, I’m not sure.

Either way, I was standing in the middle of the room trying to work out what the date was. Had we reached the 14th of November yet? or was it the 21st already?

ET looked at me as if I had grown the two extra heads to go with my chins.

It was the 3rd of December.

December. It’s December.

If this kid decides to come early, say, two weeks early which is still considered full term, it will be here next month.

Next month.

I need to renew my blood pressure prescription.

Infancy insolvency

2009-12-01T12:55:00.002Z

‘I’d like a cake please.’

‘Ok sir, that’ll be €100. When would you like it?’

‘Well, the wedding is on…’

‘Oh, wait, I’m sorry, it’s a wedding cake, then that will be €850.’

Same story the world over, businesses squeezing multiple times the value of something out of poor Paddy Soap because it’s for a ‘special’ occasion.

It seems that opportunistic bastardism is in full swing in the world of baby supplies too.

Leaving aside the large items like a buggy, crib, furniture etc, babies don’t need a whole lot. To be kept warm is just about enough. This, we humans achieve by making sure the child is wearing a few scraps of cloth, and is perhaps wrapped in a few larger scraps of cloth.

A few metres of cotton, cut into a few different shapes, with the occasional bunny rabbit printed on.

Simple enough.

How on earth can less than one square metre of a cotton sheet and blanket be peddled to the public for €60? You need at least two of course, and that is at least two for the crib, and the pram, and the Moses basket.

So, to put the kid to bed we are looking at €360 and a futile hope that bedding doesn’t need to be changed more than once a day. If you don’t want to wash and dry them every bloody day you can throw a grand out the window and pawn the cat , just so the kid can catch a few Zs.

If you want avoid fumigating the house on a weekly basis you may also want to clean the child. One option is to buy back the pawned cat and train it to lick the child clean, just don’t mention that you want it for baby licking or the price will quadruple.

The other option is to do it yourself. Clean it, not lick it, I mean.

This of course means mo’money. Those delightful flannel hooded things which are basically regular towels with the hems sewn by epileptics are going for €40 a pop. Why does a facecloth cost 99 cents unless you buy it in a baby store where you have to pay €20 for a pack of 3?

When did flannel become pricier than a human kidney on the black market?

I’m not even going to start on the obscenity that is baby clothing. Socks that couldn’t hide a malteser, a hat similar akin to a golf ball warmer, and mittens that are heresy to practicality. Paying €15 for mittens for a baby that is hardly going to be driving a bloody snow plough makes my face ache.

For its first Christmas next year, this kid is getting an invoice.

Back to school

2009-11-28T18:17:00.002Z

This week was ‘partner week’ at ET’s pregnancy course.

I was ready to ‘hoo-hoo-hoo’ and ‘hee-hee-hee’ with the best of them, but my self motivation was proven to be wasted when we walked through the door of the terraced house that is home to the course.

‘Tea?, or coffee?’

‘Er, no thanks.’

We hung up our coats and headed into the classroom, which was home to one of the more surreal visions I've had the pleasure to experience.

In the middle of the converted sitting room was a hospital trolley bed, on top of which was a spread of biscuits and cookies, tea and coffee.

It seems partner evening was to mostly consist of the ladies proving they that they had one, and that the gigantic swelling under their shirts wasn’t as a result of an unhinged decision to shove a rolled up cardigan up there, or from using a unisex cubicle at work.

Niceties out of the way, the instructor (who I can only assume was qualified to give the course due to being born in the not too distant past herself) began her class.

With pictures of innards, and talk of growing foetuses, she eventually worked her way up to repeated mentions of runaway turds and vaginas being snipped.

That was the moment I couldn’t decide whether I was happier that didn’t have a vagina or that I hadn’t had one of the jam biscuits on offer.

I was sorely tempted to ask how would I be able to tell which was the turd and which was the baby if they both arrived at the same time, but I held my uninspired tongue.

When she was rounding up she handed out a sheet which she claimed would be vital to us men when the time came. Despite a distinct absence of ‘hoos’ and ‘hees’ in the class, I was delighted that I might actually learn something, so I snatched my copy and began to translate.

It seems that the Dutch have a very longwinded multi-bullet-pointed way of saying ‘Don’t freak the fuck out’.

That handout won't be going on the fridge door.

Minutes later, it was goodbye turd talk, goodbye bizarrely placed and utilised hospital trolley, and goodbye an hour of my life never to be seen again.

I left with one more question than I had arrived with, what DO you Americans do for the months on end you spend at Lamaze classes?

Bungee

2009-11-23T12:08:00.002Z

Call the cops, we’ve been burgled.

The lowest of life forms have been creeping into our house, maybe when we’ve been out, maybe while we were asleep. They’ve been sneaking into our kitchen, our bedroom, any room where they can sniff out what they want.

They find them, they take them, and they leave.

Somewhere here in South Holland they stash their loot, somewhere there is a hidey hole or concealed shoebox containing the spoils of their thievery, their ill gotten treasure, the torn out pages of our calendars.

Ordinarily the loss of a month or two wouldn’t concern me much, but now that the pixies and elves of time long stolen are up to their games, we are left with only 12 weeks until D day.

Out of nowhere, we are in week 28, and the weeks that pass are only gathering pace. It seems like only yesterday that ET was flat on her back, vagwinking at strangers at a rate of knots.

How can we only have 12 weeks left?

In two weeks we will be back home, a couple of weeks after that is Christmas, surprisingly followed by New Year. When that passes it will leave us 6 weeks from playing ‘amniotic attack’ with various soft furnishings.

To compound the realisation that we are closing in on end game, it’s come to our attention that ET is one abrupt elevator stop from having the kid’s head dangling out for all the world to see.

The midwife today confirmed that the kid is head down, in the bungee position, ready to leap from the pelvic bridge, through carnal canyon, and out into the world below.

I hope its not expecting too much when it gets here.

No pain, no name

2009-11-17T11:35:00.004Z

It’s been a big few days in the world of a very little person.

On the beautifully apt Friday the 13th last, ET received the H1N1 vaccination.

A sore arm and plenty of normal movement activity later and everything is hunky dory. There have been no convulsions, no legs have fallen off, no hair has fallen out, and no-one has fallen into a coma, so I am delighted to announce that I don’t think the vaccination is a collective governmental syndicate plan to annihilate several generations of the human race.

So, unless kiddo turns up with three ears or knuckles for knees, everyone can just shut up.

The belly dweller has a completed room to call their own. Aside from the fact the crib won’t turn up until next year, the room is ready, bar the inevitable shouting and assault with leftover IKEA pieces.

Everyone loves a child who can perform on cue, and after a little training, the prenatal parasite learned a new trick on Sunday. Little Fitz now knows how to cause its mother no insignificant amount of physical pain, and scare the living shit out of its father.

Aww, cute.

For added effect it has perfected doing this in the dead of night, just to keep us on our toes. Luckily, the midwife is less bothered by the whole event, and we carry on as normal.

Perhaps the most significant development of the last few days is that possibly, perhaps, maybe, the kid has a name. Four baby name books containing a combined total of over forty five thousand names have proven utterly worthless, yet somehow one name has wafted under our noses and we’re not at each other’s throats over it. The signs are good.

Until we see the scrunched up face resembling a melted plastic bag make its appearance we just don’t know for sure, so therefore I openly invite all boy & girl name suggestions.

I do, of course, reserve the right to mock. Severly.

Stubbing toes on both left feet

2009-11-13T10:11:00.001Z

The car seat on the floor has been talking to me.

A chatty bugger too, so he is. Unsurprisingly most of our conversations revolve around the transportation of its future inhabitant.

I’m not best pleased with the tone it takes either – ‘you’ll drop me you know’, ‘you’ll whack the baby’s head against the door frame walking through’, or ‘you’ll tip the baby out putting me in the car’.

I firmly responded, and confidently assured him that none of those things would happen, but in the back of my mind all the while wagging my finger at a talking inanimate object, I knew he had a point.

I break stuff, especially new stuff. My phone and iPod both ended up skidding across car parks within their first week. I catch new trouser pockets in door handles, get paint on new window blinds, and scuff my new shoes.

What if I scuff the baby?

I can’t fetch coffee for workmates without scalding myself on the return, or having to lick someone else’s espresso from the hair on my arms.

I can’t cook rice without it turning into porridge and I don’t think I’ve ever poured myself a drink in my entire life without spilling some.

What if I scald the baby, or spill it, or end up having to lick something off it?

I’m not worried about day to day stuff, I can wipe my own arse and I haven’t starved myself to death yet so I’m almost certain I can manage the same with an 8 pounder, it’s my inherent clumsiness that raises concern.

I’m surprisingly awkward for a short person.

Tripping, stumbling, catching, cutting, and pinching myself are all common events when I have a bag or a cup in my hand, but social services generally don’t bother themselves when I trap a mug in a door hinge, or spill tea on the telly.

It’s the poor underdeveloped and unsupported cranium of the human being harvested in ET’s gut they may be more concerned about.

Can you get crash helmets for babies?

King & Queen of the dump

2009-11-09T20:05:00.009Z

We planned it in advance.

Three months of researching, testing, comparing, doubting, pricing, and pondering - right up until we decided to make our move.

A decision which came just 24 hours before we carried out our Saturday morning attack.

Motivational music was the order of the day on our way there, nerves were evident, but we were focussed.

Bulbous drops of rain began to fall quicker on the windscreen as I turned the key in the car park, the engine falling quiet. In silence for one last moment we stared at our nemesis looming large before us.

Fighting the urge to start the car and just go home again, with fear in our throats, we readied ourselves one last time.

‘You ready for this?’

‘Yes, you?’

‘Yes’

‘Go!’

As fast as a heavily pregnant woman with short legs can move first thing on a weekend morning, we bolted across the car park, towards the neon sign, and through the doors. There was no turning back now. We had to go through with it, the only question now remaining was would we succeed.

Would the forces of workshy customer service spring into action, enabling their forcefield of inverted invisibility, which renders the attention of its bearer unobtainable to the mere mortal?

Would the drawbridge of ‘that is not possible’ be pulled up before we crossed the moat into the courtyard of successful transactions?

Would the conveniently reusable sword of language barrier be wielded about our heads, forcing a retreat?

We couldn’t let it happen, not now, we’d come too far. This was too important.

‘Pardon, spreek je een beitje engels?’ I asked

‘Ja’ she said.

The store blinds flapped, the lights flickered, and the other customers protectively covered their pregnant bellies as I took the deepest of breaths before closing my eyes and continuing....’wewouldlikethemutsysliderwithraincoverandthesafe-to-go-carseatand adapterset(inkakiplease)andforgoodmeasurewewouldliketoorderthatcribupthereinmilkwhitewithmatchingmattress,heresourmoney,heresouraddress,thankyouverymuchgoodbye’

And exhale.

With that, we had defeated the intimidating beast that was the ‘Baby-Dump’ shop. With that, we had purchased a stroller.

It may have paid more for it than Gwen Stefani did for hers, but the accomplishment was symbolic.

Back to the car I carried the padded baby chair under my arm, like the severed head of an enemy king. The car park tarmac passed under our tired feet like the grass of a battlefield falls away from beneath those of happy warriors, the ford focus awaiting our victorious return like a faithful stallion.

The rain lashed down hard as we drove away from the grey industrial estate, and I can’t be certain, but as we accelerated up the exit for the A4, I’m sure I heard a ripple of applause sending us on our way.

25

2009-11-05T20:52:00.001Z

The wife squatter turned twenty five weeks old yesterday.

By all accounts, it now weighs just short of 2lbs, or just under a kilo for those of you who are, well, Dutch.

All the wee bugger’s organs are present and correct. I now have a fully qualified donor match! It’s kind of like having your own vegetable patch.

I do jest of course, something I seemingly must explicitly express for those among us who’ve had transplants of their own of a humourous variety.

Anyway, all the baby’s bits and pieces are in place, its skin doesn’t look like greaseproof paper anymore, and it even has wee tooth buds forming in its gums. Hopefully it’s listening to me whispering at it in the dead of night to come out biting when it does arrive.

All junior needs to do now, is grow. Sit back on its mother’s bladder with its feet up on her spleen, gorge itself on amniotic fluid, and just grow. Grow, grow, and grow some more.

You have the hard part done kiddo, now you just got to do what comes naturally to those unfortunate genes of yours, get chubby.

After 25 weeks, take off the boil, and simmer for 15 more.

Absolutely flabulous

2009-11-02T12:31:00.004Z

It’s a boy.

If you ‘carry low’, that is. It’s a girl if you carry high. That’s what they say isn’t it?

What is it if you carry low and high depending on the day of the week?

This kid just won’t sit still. From an upright position last week, it seems to have started to nosedive in an attempt to take up a more horizontal position. All of which is resulting in a distortion of ET’s belly.

With the placenta behind the baby, all movements are being felt more pronounced, and even seen. On a couple of occasions ET’s gut looked like the cranium of a bald man who’d fallen head first down the stairs.

Touching this massive protruding lump is nothing short of freaky.

What I hope is the child’s head seems to push right out, almost grapefruit sized in feeling. With a wee push back, the kid takes the hint and shuffles back into another less Sigourney Weaver-esque position.

Incidentally, if it’s not his or her head, and happens to be their backside, then it’s immediately Atkins for kiddo upon its arrival. How will we ever be able to trot around town with a baby with a muffin top?

Skinny jeans from baby GAP wouldn’t make it over its thighs, junior Jimmy Choo’s would pinch its chubby ankles, and muscle tops just wouldn’t cut it with baby-man boobs.

As part of the birth plan we’ll have a pediatric personal trainer on hand to work on the flab and Baby Botox injections will be readied in case junior emerges with chicken lips. All this alongside a stylist prepared to pluck or shave or highlight or curl as needs be, while hair colour will be adjusted to compliment the bedding.

Only the best looking baby can be allowed to take up residence in a room, the unventilated painting of which seems to have caused me to sneeze ‘milk-white’ and hallucinate doorbells.

I need a lie down.

Smartarses

2009-10-28T15:44:00.000Z

Everyone loves a cutting cliché and a juicy generalisation.

The irritating thing about them is the fact that they often prove themselves to be true.

From the moment you start trying to conceive up, right up until your kid is attempting to lure you into a retirement home with a trail of wurther's originals you get bombarded with them.

While ‘just relax, it will happen’ was the runaway champion in the days of TTC, the days and months that follow becoming pregnant bring their own beauty.

‘Just you wait until…’

Who knew that at any given stage of pregnancy, nothing is as big, small, scary, beautiful, endearing, or terrifying as it will be at some later stage. On the basis of this, I calculate that I will should optimal happiness when I keel over and die clutching the part of my chest that houses my lard encased heart.

One of the generalisations I scoffed at in the past was the idea that as an expectant father, I wouldn’t feel any sense of connection, or have a realisation of what was taking shape and going to happen until certain milestones were reached, ultrasounds, heartbeats, and kicks to name a few.

I wasn’t having any of this idea, along with ET, I had worked and pushed for two years to get to this point, and that in itself was evidence that I was more advanced than the average father-to-be.

I'd know better.

I was wrong.

It’s hard to believe in something you can’t see or feel the evidence of. It’s hard to put into perspective, and prepare yourself mentally for, something you find hard to believe. It’s hard to put your hand on a belly and feel no movement and be 100% satisfied that everything is as it should be, and is leading to how it will be.

As time passes the evidence starts to build. Ultrasounds initially show pictures of things that look like beans, and later show grainy images that are baby shaped. Like a couple of oranges in a sock.

You hear a heartbeat, and things change a little. Things become a little clearer in your mind, more believable.

The lucky ones eventually start to feel movements. Not a feeling like anything you recognise, you could never say with any certainty that it was a foot, or hand, or forehead. Still, a feeling nonetheless, a physical touch.

But now, I look through the 3D ultrasound pictures over and over and I see the fleshy palms of little hands. I see upper arms that I bet I could ring my own thumb and forefinger around. I see lips being pushed and probed by long fingers in the same way they will be when the baby is lying in its snot green room.

I see lids covering a child’s eyes that will soon open and look back at my stupid face gawking back at theirs.

Looking at these pictures has catapulted me as if I've reached some secret level in a computer game, from where I previously thought I believed and I connected, to a place that’s a little scary. I believe more than I ever did, I’m more excited than I ever was, but I’m now aware of how much I still can’t yet believe, and how much more excitement there will be.

I’m a relatively bright person, I can do my job reasonably well, I can stutter through a foreign language, and I can understand the 3 boxes I have to fill in on my tax forms. I can drive a car, mow a lawn, and sometimes make my wife happy.

I know I can do these now because I’ve done them all before, but I don’t recall the first time I attempted any of them going particularly smoothly.

It’s hit me that this is another ‘first’, probably the first ‘first’ I’ve had in years. I don’t know what to expect and trying to think about it too much makes my brain react the way it does with mathematics. I strain and fail to wrap all the elements of the puzzle within my poor brain’s reach, and everything remains unresolved.

In the end, I suppose I just have to do what everyone says.

Just wait until.

Smartarses.

Snot and a wave

2009-10-26T06:02:00.003Z

The saga rumbles on.

Slowly and unsurely the baby’s room is taking some shape. That makes it sounds far more intricate than it really is, the reality being that it just needs some bloody painting.

So Saturday morning that’s what I did, or attempted to do at least. By the time lunchtime had come around I had managed to scald myself on the radiator and roll paint onto the blinds.

Neither of which I particularly advise or encourage, but I’m going to put those mishaps in the battle scar category.

One more coat and the kid will have its own room decorated in a colour that can only be described as along the lines of something you’d find in a used tissue. Paint companies find ‘sea green’ a preferable term to ‘snot’ though.

That afternoon we went for a 3D/4D ultrasound. Getting to have another gawk at the kidlet is enough to put a smile on anyone’s paint spattered face.

The technology is simply fantastic. The views and insights into what the child is up to in its own little bedwomb world are amazing.

We saw clear images of full cheeks, lips, nose, eyes and ears. We were able to see the child leaning into the placenta on one side like a pillow. We watched it put one hand into its mouth and play with its ear with the other. Sucking, kicking, and stretching for us while we peeked in on it.

More than once the baby spread its bizarrely long fingers open wide, raised its hands, and gave us the biggest wave from inside its own hidden little world.

I’ll probably be able to stop looking at these sometime soon.

Maybe.

One sick prick

2009-10-22T06:53:00.000+01:00

The letter has been on the kitchen table for weeks.

It tells us that in 3 weeks or so, vaccinations will begin at our general practice for the H1N1 virus.

The 'Swine flu', or delightfully accusatory 'Mexican flu' as they call it here, has been fodder for breaking news headlines in the UK and Ireland for months.

Not so much here in Holland.

The level of awareness is high, and the practical everyday precautions are promoted and supported. People are encouraged to stay home if they feel ill, which to be honest isn’t exactly a foreign concept to the Dutch anyway.

Even with all this taken into account, the Dutch are rolling out their first wave of vaccinations to the public in November, starting with their target or ‘at risk’ groups. As a woman past 13 weeks of pregnancy, ET is in this group.

Which poses the inevitable dilemma, to get the vaccination, or not.

It’s hard to separate the facts and reality from the flashing yellow headlines that do more to scare than inform.

Our scanning every story of another death attributed to the virus is annexed with searching for the term ‘underlying medical condition’. More often than not, it’s been there.

The vaccine is simply untested in any significant quantity for its effect on the unborn. If I’m wrong and there is something somewhere, anywhere that says otherwise we’ll gladly read it.

In one of the most densely populated countries in the world, there is a very good chance that we have been exposed to the virus in some shape or form already.

ET is healthy. Irritatingly so if you must know, with her perfectly smug blood pressure readings et al. In other words, no ‘underlying medical condition’ annex here.

Those who are informed in, and involved with the care and support for pregnancy and pregnant women, yet not connected or motivated via association or financial gain, have not promoted the receiving of the vaccine. Midwives have spoken frankly about the pro and cons of both options, pointing out that in the worst case scenario where ET would catch the virus; she would most likely be no more affected than any other winter flu.

More interestingly, of all the women in her antenatal class, all of whom who have been given the same letter and possibility to receive the vaccine, none of them are taking it. Not one.

All this helps to support our initial reaction, to not receive the vaccination, but of course it’s not that black and white.

What if she doesn’t take it and something happens? What if she does take it and something happens?

We still see the flashing yellow breaking news stories, so we still don’t know what is for the best, and the letter is still on the kitchen table.

Any constructive or informed opinion is welcomed.

Kid Rock

2009-10-19T21:23:00.003+01:00

Kidlet is now the proud owner of a pair of headphones.

I say 'proud' without being absolutely certain, but I'm taking its stoic silence as a sign of quiet pride.

I've decided that I can't let its host and mother rot its developing brain with whatever jingle separates episodes of 'girls of the playboy mansion', and so I'm piping in the tunes.

Whatsit's remaining life in the womb will be like strolling around Tesco or hanging around a petrol station forecourt, without knowing it, it will be subliminally educated in the sounds of Nina Simone, Jeff Buckley, The Beatles, Christie Hennessey et al.

And maybe some others who are actually, well, alive.

The headphones themselves are big comfortable belly spanning padded things, which if they are actually over the baby's ears, it means we have one hideously odd shaped child on the way. In reality, there is probably one earphone on the kids forehead, and another sending Chrissie Hynde vibrations right up its arse.

It's a secret hope of mine that ET falls asleep with them stretched across the bump so I can draw a face on her gut with permanent marker.

I'm choosing to ignore the blatant possibility of the opposite being true, but due to the way it kicked up a storm 30 seconds into the opening beats of James Morrison live in concert last night, I'm of the firm belief that the kid likes a bit of music.

That's what I'm using to justify spending more on the baby's headphones than I did on its new wardrobe. A fact which is much more indicative of the quality of the wardrobe than the headphones.

Anyway, all suggestions for decent (i.e. not Canadian) tunes for the bellydweller will be greatly appreciated.

Rock on.

Vag 101

2009-10-14T19:24:00.008+01:00

To celebrate being 22 weeks up the duff and having a very attractive foetus, ET has wandered off into the night and gone to her first class.

Taking into account the very real possibility of a translation error we are hoping it’s an antenatal class she's gone to and not motor maintenance or HTML for beginners.

What do they actually teach at these things? I’ve only ever seen what the occasional sitcom has to offer and that usually ends in one of the characters being horrified at the thought of what lies ahead.

I hope she doesn’t come back horrified.

I hope she’ll learn all kinds of wonderful things like how to push a human out of herself, how to not need stitches, and how to behave like a lady at all times during labour.

I hope she comes back able to huff and puff and blow the house down like they do on the telly, with a whole new vocabulary of purposeful ‘uuh-uuh-uuuuuhs’ and ‘aah-aah-aaaaahs’.

I hope she comes back with a healthy glow and a perineum that could strangle a small woodland animal.

I hope she comes back with a set of lady muscles that could beat me in an arm wrestle.

Most of all, I just hope she finds the bloody place.

Bubbles & the superhero

2009-10-12T06:08:00.004+01:00

It first happened just over a week ago.

She had already been feeling movements for a couple of weeks, squirmy, twisting feelings. They have become more and more frequent, and following a pattern.

Last weekend she called me downstairs to announce that she had felt the baby move again, but this time, from the outside. I stood there with my hand pressed to the spot for God only knows how long, only to be left kick-less.

The following night we tried again, ET lay in bed announcing every time she felt something and I’d swiftly grab my pound of flesh.

Still nothing.

I decided that if the mountain wouldn’t kick for Mohammed, then Mohammed would jiggle and poke the mountain, while shouting rude names at it.

It worked.

With my palm flat on ET’s lower belly there came what I can only describe as a bubble rising to the surface. It wasn’t a pointed kick or jab, just a soft rounded mass coming close to the area of skin on skin.

Our first high five.

‘Well, hello kid.’ It does me well to imagine you come when I swear at you.

Throughout last week the movements have continued, and increased. Quiet during the day at work, and lively in the evening when ET gets home. She is not overly impressed with the idea that the kid only seems to get jiggy when it is at home with me wobbling, poking, and roaring at it.

Twenty and a half weeks was quite early to feel a first movement from the outside, but the midwife has explained why.

It seems the placenta is not between baby and belly, but rather behind the baby, leaving the belly dweller‘s movements one less obstacle to be felt through.

How cool is it that my child is wearing its placenta like a cape, not an apron?

With a look that would get it community service and a suspended sentence if it were to try it 20 years from now, kidlet is living out its days as a wee naked uterine superhero.

You'll take someone's eye out with that

2009-10-08T06:04:00.002+01:00

Even though it would undoubtedly make 'him' quite famous, or 'her' Jerry Springer famous, not to mention us filthy rich, I have to quell a myth.

That is not, I repeat not, an enormous penis posing for the cameras on the ultrasound picture.

Genitalia fatter than our arms is not a family characteristic. A fact which allows the female members to breathe a sigh of relief. And walk in straight lines.

That is not to say that there is, or isn't, a normal sized one tucked away in there somewhere, curled up just waiting to be a source of shame and embarrassment for the child, and probable hilarity for everyone else.

Meanwhile, back on the ranch, yesterday marked 21 weeks.

It's been a week in which we laid 20% of a floor, we chose a colour I previously never knew existed, and we finally brought home a drawer that the baby could sleep in, if it were able to assemble flat-pack furniture.

Under the heading of 'you couldn't make it up', ET's pregnancy brain made her adamant that somewhere in the house we have chocolate covered Doritos.

We don't. Thankfully.

Bumps on tour

2009-10-06T06:11:00.000+01:00

Holidays. Who doesn’t love them?

Weeks filled with parading around in flip-flops, swigging orange Bacardi Breezers, donning airport sunglasses, dodging sexually transmitted diseases, and publicly showcasing your questionable fashion sense.

That was how they went in the past, at least. Not anymore.

Now you are wallowing in maturity and impending fatherhood, filled with responsible notions and a sense of familial protection. In other words, you’re screwed.

It starts on the way to the airport. Or to the train station. Or bus station, rik-shaw rank, swinging-vine terminal, or whatever your chosen mode of transport happens to be.

Your lady friend is visibly ‘with child’ so there is no way on Lucifer’s lush planet that she can be seen carrying anything heavier than lip balm or a mobile phone in your presence. That leaves you lugging three suitcases up escalators, on and off two wheeled trolleys, and heaving their slippery-from-your-own-sweat masses up onto the check-in belt.

Should she even look in the direction of a suitcase handle, you will be struck down by the evil eye of public shame.

When you arrive on the other end, you must repeat the same physical abuse lest you become the recipient of ‘foreigner scorn’. That’s worse than normal scorn because it’s scorn with an accent, tan, and good teeth.

You then proceed to spend 7 hours of each day searching for the nearest acceptable bathroom, followed by 3 hours standing outside it, holding bags filled with maternity bras and trying desperately not to look like someone who should be reported to shopping centre security.

When you are finally out of the accusing glare of mall pervert-cam, you get your holiday reward.

You are free to walk the streets hand in hand with her of swelled belly fame, and nothing quite beats that.

Granted, it’s not a Piña Colada, inflatable donkey or a sombrero you are dragging behind you, but it is your entire family. Your whole family wrapped up in amniotic and uterine goodness. Safe and cosy inside a bump, drawing sheepish half smiles from the people you catch looking from face, to bump, to face.

Orange Breezers always tasted like piss anyway.

Spread those legs, baby

2009-10-02T13:16:00.007+01:00

I learned something today.

I discovered that if there’s ever a good time to yank out one of your wife’s rogue subterranean hairs, right before she sees her unborn baby is it. She just can’t stay mad.

With the gel squirted over her belly like something from cheap German porn, the tech fired up the ultrasound.

Boom. There it was, kidlet in full high definition with a heartbeat in stereo. It was big sized, baby shaped, and swinging its arms akin to an overweight drunken uncle fighting with the best man at a wedding.

It was stunning to see a real big baby in there, not just a shape.

The tech went about her business, zooming in on the brain, heart & other organs, legs and spine. It took two sessions for her to see all she wanted to check, with everything looking and measuring just perfectly.

There was one single negative point in the whole thing though, it appears that we, two shortarses, are having a shortarse baby.

Screw you Darwin.

It’s not easy to see what the ultrasounds show when zoomed in, we spent 2 minutes cooing at our baby’s cute face which we thought was staring right at the screen only to be told we were actually ‘ooohing’ and ‘aaahing’ over its kidneys.

Bloody cute kidneys though.

Then came the money shot, the declaration of pink or blue, the choosing of a flavour, boy or girl.

The tech peered between the baby’s legs long enough to make Gary Glitter uncomfortable before passing on the good news.

After years of people knowing far too much about this wee thing even before it existed, it can stay as secret good news, for now at least.

Half way home

2009-09-30T23:58:00.001+01:00

We are half way home.

Hopefully, with a little luck we are hurtling safely over the Atlantic about now, and not bobbing about in it, clinging to a KLM catering trolley and waving up at CNN helicopters.

That would make for a very dramatic movie of week, but for a lousy birthday.

Today I turn 32, and that just makes me realise how miserable the last few years have really been. 30 and 31 had nothing to offer beyond disappointment and doubt.

Now all that is turned on its head, and this birthday is the first full of expectation and excitement since those in the days of single digits and Knight Rider.

Unsurprisingly, the scut in the gut is upstaging me again. Today ET turns 20 weeks, a point we couldn't even imagine one year ago. From here the weeks are counting down instead of counting up.

I can't wait for Friday for another good look at the kidlet, to have a look at who is squirming around inside ET, at who has been shoving their arse into her bladder and making my holiday a continuous search for the nearest bathroom.

A happy birthday indeed, 20 weeks.

We are half way home.

Fast forward

2009-09-25T06:03:00.003+01:00

In one week everything will change.

Next Friday we have an ultrasound scheduled. It will be a check on the health and development of the baby of course, but I'm not worried about that.

I'm excited to the point of involuntary urination because in one week we will find out the baby's gender. In one week we'll know if he is a she, or if she is a he, or if it is a what-the-fuck.

In a week we will be having a 'son', or a 'daughter'.

I'm not one for wanting holidays to end, but I just want to fast forward the next seven days.

In a week, a name we are nowhere near to chosing will come from a list half as long as it is today.

ET has her own body to give form to what is happening, physical changes that she can point to on a daily basis that reassure and remind her along the way. For me, things that apply flesh to the bones of what's happening have been few and far between, usually the glimpse of or sound of a heartbeat. For me, knowing the gender is a big one.

In seven days I will know one new small fact. One that will affect how I approach everything from then onwards, until I reach my own, most probably undignified and cardiac related, end.

A little girl, or a little boy. Anyone care to predict?

Timezones

2009-09-21T10:40:00.003+01:00

It’s 10am. Or 4am. I’m not so sure anymore.

The gut is waking up.

The television is on and some over enthusiastic Chinese man is trying to convince me to pick up the phone and buy something that I can’t possibly live without at 4:30am. It seems dead of the night TV is the same on both sides of the Atlantic.

The gut has just hopped up from the bed thanks to a leg cramp.

ET’s belly made two significant ‘pops’ at 12 and 16 weeks, and it seems that now, at almost 19, it has popped a little more.

We can’t be certain if it is just rumbling intestines or not, but she has been feeling flutters and movements. Very noticeable when cycling, and settling when she has eaten.

The gut has just announced she thinks it’s awake. Not a bad way to start a holiday.

So that’s all three of us with our European body clocks, wide awake in Montreal at 5am.

Any Montreal Monday morning suggestions for me and the mutating mammy?