Week 39: The last week!

I can recall almost exactly when the screaming started. It began the night before, and I’m sure the whole street could hear. It was at around 9:30pm, in the 78^th minute of the Arsenal vs Barcelona Champions League quarter final: my yells of joy, as Van Persie scored a goal of exquisite precision and power, would have awoken the neighbours, I’m sure. 

More shouts of excitement followed after another Arsenal goal that would win them the game, beating one of the world’s best footballing teams. What a moment.

Shortly before full-time I heard Jas make what I thought were encouraging football-related noises. Looking in her direction, I realised she was on all fours on the floor and moaning in agony. 

“What’s up?”
“My belly is sore.”
“Oh. Is it labour?”
“No, it doesn’t feel like labour.”

I went over and gave her back a rub (thankfully in full view of the exciting final stages of the game).

Jas: “How much longer to go in the game?”
“Eight minutes.”
“Okay. Can you help me get to bed after the game? I’m finding it hard to move.” Such a marvellously considerate wife I have.

I was awoken at 1am. “The pain is worse.”
“Oh. More intense?”
“It hurts more, about every ten minutes.”
“Sounds like labour...?”
“No, it doesn’t feel like labour.”

It was labour. 

I spent the next few hours pumping up and filling a birth pool in our living room, as well as intermittently holding Jas’ hand; she was slightly pre-occupied as well with ever-intensifying primal surges. Once I had the pool water temperature right, Jas slipped into the water for some pain relief, followed by myself shortly after to provide what little support I could as the natural forces overcame her. 

Two midwives and our doula were ever present with their fantastic assistance and encouragement. Jas and I were in the little pool for many hours, in which Jas slowly became exhausted with effort while I basically had a long bath. 

Eventually, a little boy was born in our home to the cheering of our assistants. It was a beautiful moment, easily eclipsing the excitement of the night before.  

Welcome, Zane.

The next chapter: Raising Zane

Week 38

Read the manual

There are some great parenthood books out there, and friends & family have been kind enough to give us some of them. One is called “The Baby Owner’s Manual”, and written like something you’d find in the glove box of a car, with marvellously mechanical chapters on “Home Installation” and “General Maintenance”. I think my favourite chapter could be “Activating Sleep Mode”.

On the topic of manuals, Sunday was “Manual Day” for me: I’d tasked myself with assembling the various contraptions we had accumulated for the bump, and working out how they worked. It made me realise that the bulk of the world’s engineers and designers are probably employed making devices for little people, all packaged with little manuals, as they are all a little challenging to get together. Our baby carrier, bottle steriliser and baby monitor all came in a confusing multitude of pieces; successfully putting them together provided the same satisfaction that I had after erecting three Ikea cupboards in our bedroom, without having any pieces left over.

There was another item I had to address: the breast pump. I took the box out of the cupboard, and looked at the device that looked something like a dwarf Dr Who dalek that’d had lip enhancement surgery. I recalled a story of a chap who was curious about his wife’s breast pump, and secretly tried it on himself. He received two shocks: (1) the sensation of his nipples being ripped off and (2) having his wife unexpectedly walk in on him.

I put the box back in the cupboard.

Week 37

Escape

Jas and the bub both want out now.

He’s trying to get out, but hasn’t quite worked it out yet. His downward pressure on Jas’ pelvis is palpable, most notably to Jas, of course. Looking at the belly profile, the bulge has shifted noticeably lower, almost kind of drooping, as though he is stretching his legs out and to try reach the floor from within, attempting escape the lazy way. I can just see him as a little person in his cot trying to get out by squeezing his legs through the slats, and wondering why he can’t get any further.

Jas’ manoeuvrability has declined considerably. Getting dressed is a time consuming effort, a major project, something that almost requires a small scaffolding team to complete. Putting shoes on is the most challenging, often requiring my assistance. When she does it herself it looks a bit like a Buddha doing yoga.

Hilariously, she has started to “beep, beep, beep” when she is reversing, warning me of the long load coming my way. One night she sat down at the dinner table, moved her seat as close to the table she could, looked at her distant meal, and then at the bulbous bump filling the expanse between her and her plate. “I am further from the table every time I have dinner!”

She still looks gorgeous though.

Week 36

My wife the penguin

We went out for a Friday Nepalese meal. Walking home it was cold – very cold – and the little one was competing with the curry for space and causing considerable discomfort for Jas. And she had to pee. Jas was torn between struggling to walk normally (well, “normal” for 36 weeks pregnant), and rushing home to a warm toilet: the result was a brisk, modified waddle, with short steps, her torso bobbing from side to side, her arms lightly flapping; she was wearing a dark jacket and a white beanie, and had there been a few snow drifts about, it would have looked as though I was walking hand-in-flipper with an Emperor Penguin. 

Sore fingers

I’m getting quite good at massaging. I think. I try to help out with Jas’ back discomfort as much as I can, and a 10 minute rub often helps...but – alas – I can’t do much more than 10 minutes. It’s tough on the hands, and my finger muscles don’t seem to be developing any strength. What do professional masseuses do? Are there any finger fitness classes out there? For a potentially long labour, with hours of massage ahead of me, I’m going to have to come up with a cunning plan. I wonder if I can get a special attachment for the electric hand mixer...

Week 35

Drinks

I was having a few relaxing ales in a pub with Rob one evening when my phone went off. I’d started to be on high alert now that we were getting to the pointy end of the pregnancy, so I jumped a bit when the phone rang, though partly it was because my trousers had started vibrating. It was indeed Jas, and she was very excitable. “It’s come out!” I nearly fell off my stool. “What? What has?” What had I missed?! “Milk! I’ve got milk!” Now I’m normally one to get more excited about beer than milk, but this was indeed an interesting development. Jas had held a little baby earlier in the day; we’d heard stories about women spontaneously lactating when holding a hungry bub, but Jas’ leaky booby did seem to be pretty clear evidence of this phenomenon. When I ended the call it looked as though Rob was in mild shock after hearing the one-sided conversation...

A simple plan

     

      We needed a birth plan. I thought, no problem:

      

       1. Give birth (Jas)

       2. Open champagne (Richard)

Apparently more detail was required: At home or in hospital? A water birth? What drugs should we Jas have, if any? Should I cut the cord? Apparently you can buy birthing pools for home use. I imagined a spa-sized pool, at home, in our lounge room, in front of the TV...and wistfully thought that if I could find something to generate some bubbles, Saturday night watching football highlights with a beer could become a whole new experience....

We’re always asked “Have you thought of any names?” We have, but we’ve decided not to decide until we see the little one. We figure (and hope) that the choice will be obvious. If he is indeed a “he”, then when we meet him in person he might just look like a Cornelius, a Saffron or a Gustav. (Just joking mum...Cornelius really isn’t on our list.) Maybe we’ll read out a bunch of fancied names and see how the baby responds to each. I think a poo would mean “no”. We heard a very humorous story of a father who - already having a daughter called Heidi – argued with his wife about naming his newborn son Zeek, on the grounds that he wanted to be able to call his kids “Heid & Zeek”. Priceless.

Week 34

To see or not to see

Pregnancy is an experience of many firsts: some expected, some not. This week I saw a cervix. This was definitely in my “not expected” category of firsts. I’d happily accompanied Jas to an appointment that involved a check-up of sorts, and as attendants fussed with equipment, I sat by Jas’ side, held her hand and peered curiously at a blank TV monitor, not really expecting anything to appear on it. Just as I cracked a jolly humorous gag about the TV picking up Sky Sports, a small portion of Jas’ insides appeared on it, an area the size of a nail head filling the whole screen. I was a bit shocked: I’m not a fan of seeing internal body parts, but there on the screen was an internal body part. I’d never imagined what a cervix might look like, but if I had, I don’t think I would have come up with one of those pink spongy things you see in sea-side rock pools. I recalled a midwife describing it as the neck part of a roll-neck sweater, and it seemed pretty accurate actually, especially if the sweater was an incredibly bright pink colour and had no room for a neck (yet). I didn’t particularly want to look at it much but my eyes were unblinkingly transfixed, not quite believing what I was looking at. On the other side of it was our child.

The colour of poop

We went to a breastfeeding class. A two hour class. I wondered what would fill those two hours, thinking that breastfeeding was just a matter of popping a lactating nipple into a baby’s mouth. Surprisingly, there is a right way and many wrong ways of doing it. The class also included an exercise where we were given a doll, pretending it was a baby, and told what to do in a certain circumstances; for example, if the baby was screaming, wouldn’t sleep, and it was 2 am in the morning. For a few moments I felt panic well up, with a vision of me holding a bawling being out in front of me, thinking “Jeez, what do I do!?” This reality was not far away now.

We were also shown some of the signs of a healthy baby, one of which is the colour and consistency of its poo. Lovely. The teacher gave us some pictures of various shades of nappy fillings, none of which looked particularly healthy to me. She apologised for the printer not showing accurately the mustard colour of healthy baby output; I was quite thankful for the lack of vivid colours.

We also attended another antenatal class. TV has brainwashed us into thinking antenatal classes are where couples sit on yoga mats learning how to breathe. Not so. We’ve been breathing for quite some time now, thanks very much, so we’re pretty good at it. Our class started with some fun, with the guys and girls being separated into two groups to bond and get to know each other a bit. Each group had to write down on a large bit of paper things that the group had in common. With the chaps: “Beer?” “Yep.” “Football?” “Yep.” This was easy.

Nursing bras: how nifty are they, eh?!

Week 33

Birth Adventure

I’ve returned to reading about labour again. Now that I’m a little desensitised to the detail, I can appreciate what an amazing physiological feat childbirth is. It’s not just the sheer physical and mental exertion required for an act that barely compares to any other natural act the body performs; the synchronisation of all the different hormones, bodily chemicals, the changing muscles, organs, joints, all co-ordinating delicately with incredible precision to squeeze a little being through the various stages of labour is nothing short of astonishing. The muscles involved are powerful enough to spit the little one out across room, but obviously nature takes things at a more respectful pace. If the whole process was man-made, you’d need a team of air-traffic controllers to coordinate it all. The baby’s passage is a bit like an Indiana Jones film, one of those scenes where Indy is trapped somewhere deep and dark and has to escape through winding tunnels with tests and booby traps on the way, finally leaping out through an opening into the sunlight, all dirty and wet, gushing water following his escape. The baby won’t come out with a hat, though. “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Womb”: in a birthing centre near you.

Complex as it sounds, it all just happens. The baby knows exactly what to do, negotiating the twists and turns through a choreography of various positions, as though he’s done it all before. I’ve been reading about the stages of birth, the phases within stages, the steps within phases. The baby instinctively knows it all without the aid of any memory or literature, yet – despite my reading – I still really don’t know what is going to happen. I might as well try to sail a boat from London to Sydney, in the dark, without a map. I know roughly where Sydney is, but the journey in between would be largely at the whim of nature with me just trying to stay afloat and keeping the boat pointing in roughly the right direction. I’ll just do what the midwife tells me. And make tea.

Dancing in the street

Jas has started to struggle a bit with walking. Or should I say cute waddling. The train station is normally a brisk three minute stroll from our house, but now it is a journey worthy of a cut lunch and a thermos of tea. During our weekend walk to the pool, Jas had to stop many times to bend over and stretch her back to ease the discomfort. On our return journey, at one point she stopped, doubled over and then did a bit of a waggle dance to help loosen her back. As she did this, out the corner of my eye I saw a young chap walking directly behind who we hadn’t noticed; he paused slightly at the sudden strange activity directly in front of him, then pretended he hadn’t seen a laden lady shaking her rear, performing something like an ostrich mating dance in the middle of the street, and walked on.

More shopping

It was time for the most difficult part of pregnancy: choosing a pram. We went to Kiddicare, a monster baby store up north. How wild our weekends have become! It had several acres of baby stuff, a daunting array of brand-marketed products. It was interesting to see that most expectant mum’s there had their other halves there as well. This was not lost on the designers of baby gear: these days much of it appeals to men. The car seats, for example: the names of two of the popular brands sounded a bit like a laxative; then there was Recaro, makers of fine sports car seats. Now, would fathers like their offspring plonked in a bright pink or green seat with a name reminiscent of medicine, or a black one made by a company renowned for speed? We got the Recaro.

It was the same with the prams. There was a boggling array of styles, but for me, I wasn’t going to spend a considerable wad of our cash to be seen pushing a transport device that looked like a zimmer frame, a pink chariot or an insect. I wanted one with sports wheels! Low profile! Racing stripes! We found one with all this, and one to which we could attach our Recaro car seat to!! Done deal.

Week 32

Christmas!

We celebrated Christmas day– as we normally did – with family down south. Our aunty and uncle always serve up a mountain of marvellous food for the festive day, and this Christmas was no exception. With all that food there was always leftovers, which everyone normally expected me to vacuum up, even after I might have already had a second (or, er, third) helping. For some inexplicable reason, over the years I had developed a reputation for having a boundless appetite.

Not this year. Jas suddenly became the family hoover: the presence of our unborn child quietly lurking beneath the dining table had the result of still-half-filled dishes of roast potatoes being pushed in Jas’ direction for her to soak up. Maybe he was doing his Jedi mind trick again. Or maybe those dishes were moving by themselves, magnetically levitating towards Jas’ plate...

Classes

We had our first antenatal class at our local hospital. It was quite good and very interesting – the midwife was a great teacher and explained things simple enough for us all to understand, with the aid of very sad and very floppy doll. And it is interesting how the process of pregnancy removes the shyness people might normally have in that situation. Take a group of people without any experience of pregnancy and discuss with them, in intimate detail, the operation of their personal parts and you’re likely to sense some squirming and general modesty. Pregnant couples in the same situation? Nothing is particularly confronting or personal. One of the more outspoken lasses in the class demonstrated this rather graphically when she piped up and asked the midwife: “What would be the position of my baby now? I think his feet are down here because I can feel it kicking my vagina”. Precious.

Week 31

Nuts

There wasn’t much space in there now. There was a time when the little one had an expanse of fluid to play in - to swim about, to bungee on his cord, to throw starfish shapes, to practice his karate kicks. Not now. He was growing, and Jas’ belly was straining with it. It was big and round, and there were no longer any soft or spongy belly bits: it was as tight as a proverbial drum. It was as though Jas had swallowed a massive macadamia nut, and it had lodged – whole – right beneath her belly button. With these space limitations, the blueberry’s movements were limited to constricted wriggling and pushing against Jas’ bones, much to her discomfort.

Being squashed up in there, his movements were becoming more obvious. Stronger. His hiccups were easy to feel now: it was a bit like a frog trying to bound its way out of a bag. His rolls and slides reminded me of how cats gleefully rub against your leg, those long slow rubs that start with their chin pressed against you, then their cheek and their neck sliding against you. Watching Jas’ bump as the baby is writhing about is reminiscent of watching someone’s eyeball move underneath their closed eyelid; it’s a bit spooky. Then there are the other rather violent movements that - rather comically – can have Jas air-borne from the shock of them, and feels rather like a salmon trying to buck its way out of a fishing net.

All this activity was enjoyable for me to experience, but more and more, the pronounced movements kept Jas awake at night. Inconveniently, he felt the need for regular nocturnal wriggling, sometimes violently so, with “WAKE UP, MUM!” type kicks. I was naturally sympathetic to Jas’ stilted sleeps, but then Jas began lying at night so that her belly pressed against my back, and the kicks started waking me up! Clearly this wasn’t on, so I asked Jas to roll over. I was not meaning to be inconsiderate, but there was no point in him waking us both up, eh?

Submerged

So what was it like in the womb? The little one could apparently hear and see and the uterus is almost transparent and filled with salty fluid. Like a little ocean. Was it like being suspended underwater, in the sea, near the shore, at night, near party boats, with the muffled noises of music, surf, and fish farts, with random flashes of light from the bobbing boats?

I googled “what is it like in the womb”. Apparently bright light can enter the uterus, and it is supposedly quite noisy “in there”, being awash with the noise of Jas’ blood and digesting food making their way about. Loud noises potentially can surprise him so much that he pees! Note to self: don’t shout so loud when Arsenal score.

Week 30

Ten weeks to go! I’m quite looking forward to meeting the little person, to look into his eyes rather than prod his head/back/butt through Jas’ straining skin. We started asking ourselves questions more regularly: What will we have? What will the baby look like? What will he grow up to be? A sportsperson? An linguist? A truck-driver? How long should we breastfeed? I mean, how long should Jas breastfeed? Should we discipline our child with the wooden spoon like our parents did?  

Jas: “What do you think about circumcision?” Ask a man what he thinks about surgically removing a portion of a penis, and he is unlikely going to be able to think clearly about the pros and cons. I crossed my legs, winced a little, and said, “Er, not much....” If we have a little man popping out, I’m going to have to provide a more eloquent answer. What are the pros and cons? Does circumcision affect the baby at all? What do people do these days? What do hospitals do with all those foreskins? And do the Peruvians bury it with the placenta? *

We liked to think that the little one was responding to his external surroundings. When I spoke near the belly, internal prodding would begin, as though he wanted to get out and find where my voice was coming from. It was the same when other familiar voices spoke nearby: there would be renewed wriggling when he heard well-known tones. One day on the train Jas and bub were quietly sitting, until a baby on the train starting screaming. Immediately, blueberry started wriggling about, as if in response to the crying baby, as if he could sense another little one near and wanted to get out and help. Or play!

*Week 24

Week 29

Flying

One great thing about pregnancy: flying. On Easyjet, the Airline of Unallocated Seats (or AnUS), being pregnant avoids the mad scramble onto the plane to try and get seats together! On our weekend trip to Berlin, Jas flashed her bump at check-in, and out came the red carpet to the front seats on the plane. Marvellous. Unfortunately it didn’t assist in getting the plane off the ground in time, nor did it get us free tea. But we were up front, with leg room!

On the way back to London we also managed to get priority boarding but not after all the passengers had to sit outside the gate, on the hard floor, in a hallway, for hours, while passport officers sat waiting for the go-ahead to start letting us into the gate, where there were seats. After some time of sitting on the hallway floor, I asked the kindly officers if I could have a chair for the pregnant wife, and they immediately let Jas and I through, into the gate. Lovely chaps. We then had 100 seats to ourselves!

Doctors Orders?

Jas had been making more regular visits to her chiropractor to assist with back discomfort associated with carrying the bundle of joy that filled her belly and strained her body. He regularly advised Jas on exercises to do, and what not to do, to keep herself in shape. One day Jas told me that she was told to no longer to do any kind of twisting actions, “like vacuuming”, and that she wasn’t to bend over and pick up anything, “like emptying the dishwasher”. I sensed a disturbing trend. I demanded signed instructions from the chiropractor in future.

Week 28

Copycat

We might have a blogging baby on our hands. Jas was typing on the computer, and she noticed that at one point, when she typed, our blueberry tapped. She stopped and looked at her bump, and he stopped tapping. Imagination? She pressed a few keys and stopped; he tapped again and stopped. Type, type, tap, tap. Recently, he seemed to be responding to certain noises and certain voices, but now he seemed to be joining in on what was going on the outside!

The Shopping List

We have so much to buy. Our little three-kilo person will need much of what we already have but in a tiny version. A little bed, little sheets, little clothes, a little bath. I’m also told we need a “Grobag”; I thought this was something you grow tomato seedlings in, but apparently it is a little sleeping bag for fresh-borns. Most mammals are able to walk within a few hours of childbirth; humans take a year to get around to getting on their feet, requiring their parents to obtain a little transport device or a sling to get them about. Most mammals are lucky in that they can clean their young with the aid of a large, sticky tongue; we humans require wipes, buds, cotton wool, lotions, oils, nappies, bibs and a changing table. Even though we’ll (hopefully) be self sufficient in the new-born feeding department, we’ll still need maternity pads, nipple cream, bottles, bottle sterilisers, and a milking machine breast pump. And maybe some cabbage - apparently a cabbage leaf lining the bra helps with painful breastfeeding boobs; it’ll also be handy if we come across a starving goat. What’s more, most of this equipment will need to be able to withstand copious quantities of pee, poo and puke. Do they make Teflon bibs yet?

Week 27

Islands

It’s not really a bump any more. It’s more like a boulder. It is quite obvious to all that Jas is pregnant now, even when swaddled in the winter layers that are now needed in London. And with the boulder getting heavier, we try to visit the pool once a week so Jas can get some relief from constantly supporting the weight of our large blueberry. When floating in the pool, with most of her body submerged, Jas actually looks a little like a small treeless atoll in the water; a small, steep-sided atoll with a delicate little crater at the top of it.

Big issue

Naturally Jas was becoming more and more conscious of her size. She looked gorgeous pregnant, but she was finding it hard to feel gorgeous at times moving the increasing weight about. Out walking at lunchtime one day, Jas passed a woman who was trying to sell “Big Issue” magazines in the street. As Jas approached, the lady looked Jas up and down and cried out “Big Issue for a big lady?!” Big issue indeed! The sales pitch didn’t help Jas’ delicate self-esteem: Jas gave the lady a withering look that probably curled the pages of her magazines, and she had to restrain herself from taking the magazines from the lady and forcefully inserting them elsewhere.

On the subject of reading material, it’s not uncommon for commuters on crowded trains to peer sidelong at their neighbours book or newspaper if they’ve nothing to read themselves. I often snigger to myself at what others might think if they peered over my shoulder and viewed content of some of the books I’ve been reading lately; on the subject of labour and childbirth, I’d love to see the looks on faces that spotted section titles like “Stirrups During Delivery”, “Enemas” and “Shaving the Pubic Area”.

Week 26

I’ve gone off the pregnancy reading a bit. Well, the pregnancy parts are fine, but it was just when I started reading about end of the pregnancy - the birth! - that I felt like skipping to the chapters to when the little person has left his womb without a view and everything has been cleaned up. I knew that child birth is very tough and not something you’d video and show on family film nights; I knew that the little one comes out all misshapen and covered in cheesy stuff, but there were other details I was blissfully unaware of. The physiology of it all is incredible but the fact is that it’s not just cheesy stuff and placenta that accompanies the child on its short uncomfortable journey to meet us. I won’t go into details. I think I’ll actually try and forget some of the details and leave them to the midwife when the time comes. Like many things in life, the most rewarding experiences are associated with difficult and uncomfortable moments; a bit like eating prawns, to enjoy the delicious little morsels you have the effort of shelling and of cleaning up a sticky mess.

For those expectant folk who are completely comfortable with the whole childbirth process and the by-products of it, a (very) alternative cookbook I was perusing provided a recipe for “Placenta Pate”, which included garlic and bacon. Oh, yum.

Baby smells

I wondered if I could hear our blueberry, perhaps with some swishing or hiccupping noises. Placing my ear on the bump, I heard...nothing at all. But I could smell him! Amazingly, at that point, Jas’ belly smelt like baby. He was somehow propagating that unmistakable pleasant milky odour to the outside world.

We visited friends for lunch, and Jonty – their delightful spoodle (Cocker Spaniel/poodle cross) - did something similar to me: he approached the bump, curious, and had a lingering sniff. He looked like he could definitely sense something, perhaps he smelt the baby smell, or perhaps could detect much more. (Or perhaps Jas spilt some of the delicious lunch onto her top; her belly was getting very good at catching bits that didn’t make their intended destination!) Interestingly, Jonty was very cautious, and didn’t jump up and sit on Jas’ belly and say hello as he commonly did. Respect to the bump. Jonty then moved over to me, leapt up and unceremoniously planted himself in my lap.

Week 25

The pregnancy literature typically marks each month of pregnancy with what can be expected in the mum & baby: together with the aches, cramps and growth spurts there has always been “continued absent-mindedness”, which Jas has marvellously shown on numerous occasions. However, in month seven we can apparently expect “increasing absent-mindedness”, which I found mildly disturbing...and Jas gave an excellent reason for me to find it mildly disturbing the same day that I read it. I came home from work – before Jas did - to find a candle in our bedroom burning away; Jas had lit it in the morning – 11 hours previously – and duly forgotten about it. I began to wonder how our house was going to last the full term! Our thoughts of having a home birth might be limited to a marquee with a camp fire in the garden beside our blackened abode. Perhaps I should start to child-proof the house now and hide all the matches...

Humorously, I did the same thing the next day. Ha ha. We had a few candles lit in the bathroom in the evening...Jas found one of them burning early the next morning. Naturally, I was just making Jas feel better about her absent-minded incident. 

If I might be so bold, I’m getting quite knowledgeable with this pregnancy business. When Jas was telling me about a colleague of hers who had given birth by caesarean (“through the sun-roof” as my father-in-law beautifully describes it), I asked if the incision was vertical or horizontal. Jas looked at me as though she was about to ask the being who had just entered my body to kindly leave, but instead asked “Why?” Well, apparently it matters for future births – it’s better to go horizontal than vertical.

I’d also started diagnosing Jas’ ailments. When she complained of a brand new kind of cramp, I promptly indicated that it was probably Braxton Hicks contractions. She looked at me questioningly (really, I think she needs to spend less time baby shopping!), and I explained that it was a temporary tightening of the uterine muscles, getting practice for the heavy duty contractions that will be squeezing our little one into the world.

    

Anyway, enough of the medical malarkey. We’ve been playing with our little one. Jas’ bump has quickly become as round and tight as Roseanne Barr’s fitness ball during a workout, and occasionally she pops it out to play with when we’re bored. Our little one seems to respond to a spot of belly rubbing or poking, and wriggles about to our touch. Maybe we’re just annoying him and he’s trying to get more comfortable! Whichever it is, it’s entertainment for us... 

The little one also likes to play. With balls. During one of Jas’ pilates lessons she was lying side down with a small ball under the belly. As soon as the ball came in contact with the belly, little “Beckham in a bag” started kicking vigorously at the ball. Was this coincidence? Jas rolled onto the other side for the same exercise...as soon as the ball touched the other side of his dome, he thumped the ball again! If he was reaching the other side with his foot, maybe he was practicing his overhead kick. Maybe we have a future Arsenal player in the making. It’d be the most likely way I'd get a season ticket!

Week 24

Manners

In the early hyperemesis days, Jas had a bad train trip to work, where she was forced to stand when she was unwell, and then had promptly passed out. Since then I’d become more aware of pregnant passengers in search of a seat on my daily commute. One day I looked up from my book to see a young lass moving down the carriage with a cargo that looked like it would be delivered before we arrived at London Blackfriars. I stood up so quickly – without thinking - that it was as though I had just sat on something very pointy. She was grateful for the seat, and I hoped Jas would have pregnancy-aware chaps on her train, however unlikely that may be.

On another occasion I was again about to leap out of my seat at the sight of a slightly protruding undercarriage moving towards me, when I checked myself and thought, “Is she or isn’t she...pregnant?” Predicament: Do I stay seated and risk being rude and inconsiderate, or stand up with the chance of being offensive?  

Interruptions

The little mans’ movements is something amazing and entertaining for me, something I can tap into when I want to. But Jas feels it all the time - little jiggles or slides at any time of the day or night. It’s something I find hard to imagine, having something living inside you that can interrupt anything you are doing, wherever you might be doing it, without warning. The closest sensation I could think of was the day after a bad curry. It would be distracting, say, in a meeting at work, or performing something important or precise. I could imagine female laser eye surgeons being unable to work during advanced pregnancy! I heard an exclamation from our bathroom one evening: kicks during a toilet visit. I guess it could help things along.

Research

We’d started doing a lot of online searching for the growing list baby of essentials we had to buy. Well, ok, Jas had...I was just viewing the odd thing of interest, a potential bargain, that she’d found. One day she emailed me a link of an item to have a look at while I was at work. I replied: “Ok, will look at this at home. Checking out breast pump websites at work will probably raise eyebrows.”

And those breast pumps – have you seen them!? They look like something from Dr Who, not something you’d have suctioned against your tender bits. I was certainly glad I didn’t view the sites at work, with the images showing the “operational side” of the devices, and phrases like: “Change your pumping rhythm any time you wish. Relax and enjoy the experience...”

We began to learn that we had certain post-birthing practices to consider. “What shall we do with the placenta?” I asked one day. Jas looked at me as though I’d just told her I fancied having a pet lizard. I told her that different cultures have certain rituals: fathers in Peru bury the placenta in a far-off location so it doesn’t become “jealous” of the attention paid to the baby; some Philippinos bury it with a book to increase the intelligence of the child; I’d heard of some families freezing it to cook as part of a roast for a special occasion (“Afterbirth or gravy, nan?”); in the UK, most hospitals actually sell it to cosmetic companies. Jas said: “Let’s leave it to the hospital to recycle”. Those L’Oreal advertisements won’t ever look the same...

Week 23

Parenthood practice

I think our child was assuming control of my wife, making her do things to prepare me for fatherhood: Jas had been sick; she peed all the time; she woke me up through the night; she needed constant feeding; she needed help getting her shoes on; she cried, without obvious reason, wetting my good shirts with her tears. He was in there, maybe doing a Jedi mind trick with his little fingers, periodically having Jas do something out of the ordinary, unexpected, out of her control, just when I might be getting on top of it all. 

Lightning

Up until this point our babies’ movements could have been kicks, punches, tumbles, cartwheels, hiccups or somersaults. Now, he had no place in the uterus to do much of this, as he got plumper and the tummy tighter. And so I started seeing his movement, not just feeling it. And for once, it was something I experienced before Jas! It first happened on the south side of the mound, on the far side of the dome, where Jas could no longer view. I was amazed when I first saw it. I began to peer motionless at the tight belly skin, unblinking, until a little limb, foot or hand would jab visibly outwards. It was like watching for lightning bolts in a big storm, seeing a force of nature suddenly show itself in momentary flashes. “Did you see that one! That was a big one!” And then suddenly Jas could see, as if he knew he was being watched, and the skin around the navel – further north - begun to bubble. We were highly entertained. We don’t need a TV anymore.

Recycling

Sometimes you learn something that you’re not quite sure that you wanted to learn. Up until recently I had been blissfully unaware that our bub would have a need to pee – inside the womb - despite the fact that we all obviously do this once we’re on the outside. I’d just naively thought of our foetus as something like blowing a balloon up, with stuff flowing in through a little tube, making it grow, nothing coming out. But no; our little one actually drinks the amniotic fluid in which he is suspended...and then, when he has processed it, puts it right back. 

Taking this snippet of information - reluctantly - to the next logical step, I thought: “What about...number two’s?” Thankfully, most of what he “eats”, he uses, and the rest is saved until just after birth. After I googled “baby’s first poop”, I joyfully discovered that a new borns’ first bowel movement is quite a memorable one. Hm, I can’t wait.

Week 22

Note: Rather than clumsily writing “he/she” or “it”, from now on I’m going to refer to our banana-sized bub as “he”. I’ve always thought of him as he (Jas has never been quite sure either way), and I’ve had what I’m sure is a prophetic dream about “him”, when I took him mowing. If I’m wrong, I’m sure our little girl won’t mind the little Arsenal beanie, and will find a use for the football... 

Since I felt our little one move last week, Jas was always alerting me to when he was dancing about so I could try to experience it. But it seemed as though the little thing would stop wriggling as soon as my hand touched Jas’ belly. It was quite uncanny. Jas thought I had a calming influence and my touch was somehow relaxing the blueberry. Nice idea, but if this was true, I sincerely hoped that it would carry through to babyhood when I could merely lay my hand on the head of our bawling bub and lull it to sleep. I’m sure bacon will fly before that happens.

One evening I felt loads of bumps. Like a frog in a sock. The little one was kicking like crazy, as though there was half a football team in there. Sometimes I pictured him floating about, like someone in a space station, playfully tumbling about in the weightlessness, pushing himself off the walls as he bumped about, perhaps like a zero gravity bouncy castle (wouldn’t that be fun!!).   

At five months, the pregnancy literature abandons its fruity comparisons. Now, apparently Jas’ uterus was the size of a basketball.  Jas’ belly really was expanding quickly: as she entered a room, her bump came through the door quite some time before the rest of her. The “linea alba” had also appeared, a line straight down the belly that looked as though someone had drawn on Jas with a brown pencil. Funnily, it wasn’t quite a straight line - as though someone had drawn on Jas with a brown pencil, with their eyes closed.

As I climbed into bed one night, in the dark, some time after Jas - as happened often with Jas getting tired early now - I noticed that my side of the bed had decidedly shrunken. There seemed to be a tall wall of pillows that had encroached on my mattress real estate, with my sleeping wife somewhere on the other side. Had I done something wrong, perhaps? Not unlikely. It took me a while to get to sleep, with my limited snoozing area and with my mind seeking possible reasons for the curious new construction that loomed in the dark. The reason was: lying down with a pregnant belly often didn’t really provide much relief; at times, support was needed to take the weight of the growing little person...thus, a few of the dozen ornamental pillows we had were actually put to practical use.

Week 21

As the belly gets bigger

Jas: “It’s official. I cannot see my feet anymore.” Being a bloke, I was obviously not able to experience much of how pregnancy affects the body. On this occasion I (kind of) could, so I stood behind Jas, put my head on her shoulder – as though she had grown another head - and peered down through her now-impressive cleavage, and searched for something with toes on the end of them. “Wow. You’re right. That big round bit is in the way!”

Pregnant bellies are like hand magnets. Bulbous body parts rarely attract attention in public, but when there’s a baby encased within them, different story. It’s as though touching the bump brings good luck, Buddha-like. The problem is, sometimes this attention is uninvited, as Jas realised one evening out, when a waitress couldn’t resist touching Jas’ belly. Jas looked as though the waitress had spilled a tray of drinks on her, rather than a friendly frontal fondle.

First movements!

Jas was starting to become used to regular internal jabbing. Rather than jumping in her seat, she’d started to calmly respond to the punches and kicks with an “Ooh, hello”, as though the little one had awoken and was looking up for a little attention. During some (very) early mornings, Jas had started waking me - rather abruptly - when the baby started moving about, by grabbing my hand and quickly pulling it to place it on the source of wriggling, in the hope I would experience some contact with our bub, even though I was very happily and deeply asleep, and even though my arm really couldn’t bend in three places. But then the wriggling would stop! Frustration – at being awoken and missing out on the baby aerobics. However, one morning I was finally rewarded by the slightly spooky yet amazing sensation of foetal movement, like something stretching, or trying to half-heartedly push itself out through Jas’ skin. It was quite a moment.

Big bits

We visited Nan and showed her the scans from week 12. Her first reaction was: “Its head’s big!” Nan is always delightfully direct. It did indeed have an inordinately large head, no doubt to contain the burgeoning intelligence it had inherited from its parents. Nan was also amazed to see a picture of an unborn child. Her first sight of a fresh baby was when she was fifteen and her twin brothers were born: when the first came out, the midwife thrust him into nans’ arms and told her to hold it, still covered in fluid.

Jas went for another scan, in the hope our delightfully obedient child would cooperate with Ms Ultrasound. He did! I wasn’t there, and mum gratefully went in my place. He/she posed for some lovely profile shots, to which Ms Ultrasound pointed out – somewhat inevitably – that he/she had “quite a nose”. If our child had a prominent proboscis at age minus 5 months, things weren’t looking up for our first born having a cute little button between its blue eyes.

Pram shopping

I didn’t think there was a form of shopping that was more frustrating than shoe shopping with ones’ wife. There is. The array of options available for prams/buggies/strollers/perambulators/baby transport devices is overwhelming. The permutations of weight, number of wheels, suspension, collapsibility, age range, braking systems, materials, seating style, seating angle, seating switch-ability, storage, shade covers, rain covers, storage covers, wipe-ability (!), drink holders, add-ons, add-ins, and of course price, was too much to absorb in one Oxford Street outing. At one point our lawn mower seemed like a marvellous option. In our third baby department store for the day, during a pram dismantling demonstration – which looked a bit like a shop assistant having a disagreement with a sleepy Transformer - I began drifting off to a happy place, and started to think where the nearest pub might be.

The only thing we bought were tea cakes for the train trip home.   

The Clothing Crunch

As the boobs and belly grow in pregnancy, there is the sudden issue of diminished wardrobe options as clothes become too small. The process of a female dressing typically involves a great deal of decision making, trying to pick from a huge array of clothes a combination that enhances her curves. In the second trimester, dressing involves a great deal of searching through a huge array of clothes for something that will actually encase her curves. Pants no longer come all the way up; tops no longer come down.

But is this just a female issue? Ooooh, no. What begins as an innocent “Can I borrow an old T-shirt to sleep in?” swiftly escalates into free-for-all clothing poaching. I should have read the signs, when my old shorts went missing. Then, when Jas told me over the phone that my tracksuit pants were “really comfortable”, I went briefly silent as realisation dawned. “You mean my favourite striped ones with the fleecy lining?” “Yes, they’re nice and snuffy”, she said cheerfully, as though nothing was wrong. An old T-shirt was fine, but my favourite trackies? Feebly, I said: “But they’re mine.” I might as well have been standing alone on a beach and kindly asking the tide if it could stay out until further notice. My small wardrobe had melded into Jas’, and I was then in the unusual position of encouraging Jas to go clothes shopping. It was probably all an elaborate ploy.

Expectant men: lock up your cupboards!

Week 20 – Boy or girl?

Movement

“My bellybutton looks funny.”

Pre-pregnancy, a comment like this from Jas would have resulted in me looking sideways at her and saying something like, “What are you talking about?” Now, nothing Jas says is particularly unusual. Now, she could have indicated in passing that she was growing a sixth toe. “Oh yeah? Give us a look,” I would say. I took a look at the aforementioned navel. It did seem different: while the outside had moved with the expanding belly, the button bit seemed to have stayed put, some distance inside. Overall it had a slight megaphone shape to it, as though I would be able to hear words of wisdom from our soon-to-be first-born. I put my ear to it: no words, just faint gurgling. 

To those who wouldn’t know Jas was pregnant, it might seem as though she was talking to herself; that she was starting to go a wee bit senile. Not so: from time to time, she just had a few things to say to the blueberry, often when he/she was on the move. One day, from another room, I heard her exclaim: “I know you’re in there!” I looked around wondering what it was I could be doing wrong, but then realised that – thankfully – Jas wasn’t talking to me.

Jas’ sanity might also be questioned by strangers who saw her jump in her seat on the train. She’d be sitting quietly, perhaps reading a book, and then suddenly spasm as though her seat had suddenly grown a few pervy fingers and pinched her firmly on her derriere. Her jolts were responses to the little one moving about; what were once pleasant, bubbly sensations caused by his wriggling had become strong little stabs, as though he was practicing Bruce Lee moves and trying to escape. His kicks always caught Jas by surprise.

More name searching. We had a formative list of names we might fancy. But there were others I found in our baby books that would definitely not make the cut: in the top five would be “Ikea” (!), a girl’s name from Sweden. Whatever we have, I don’t want to have to assemble it!

20 week scan

Technically, we were half way. I was looking forward to seeing the little one in ultrasound action, to see how it had progressed, to see how big it was, to get another nice little profile picture to pop on the fridge. But once the scanner started sliding over Jas’ greased-up bump, we realised it wasn’t interested in showing off or being helpful to the ultrasound lady. He just showed us his butt. No matter how much the scanner slipped and probed above him, all we saw was his back and his butt. Ms Ultrasound even tilted the bed, rolled Jas from side to side, asked us to go for a walk, to jiggle about a bit (Jas, not me), in order to encourage a re-arrangement in foetal position. No luck. It was like he was hanging on to the sides refusing to budge. Jas could have done cartwheels, but - as though he was in one of those big clear spongy balls you could roll down hills in - he’d resolutely maintain his antisocial posture. The only picture we were going to get this day was of two stubborn little bottom cheeks.

What we did see was its internals. It was great. We could see clearly see a beautifully curved spine, kidneys, and a heart bidoomping away. We could even see the individual chambers of the heart, and – when Ms Ultrasound added colour to the screen – the (blue) incoming blood and (red) outgoing blood. Amazing stuff. I wondered if one day it would be possible to attach little screens with inbuilt ultrasound scanners to pregnant bellies so dads-to-be could watch their little ones being “Bruce Lee in a bag”, in the comfort of their own home. Ok, so maybe it’s a bit shallow and wouldn’t be so comfortable for the mum-to-be, but it would certainly beat a fish tank, eh?

We’d spent weeks trying to decide whether or not to find out the baby’s sex at the scan. Essentially it came down to whether we wanted it to be a surprise on birth-day, or whether we could go out and get it a Spiderman jumpsuit and an Arsenal beanie. Eventually, we came to a final, resolute, irrevocable decision: we’d ask Ms Ultrasound to write the sex on a piece of paper and – without us looking - put it in an envelope so we could decide later. Genius! (I thought of it). But at the scan, Ms Ultrasound said she couldn’t do that for some strange NHS-policy reason. So...on the spot we said: “Ok, we want to know.” 

So, without further ado, I can announce to the world that, without a shred of doubt, our child will be: a boy...or girl. Its little butt was in the way, wasn’t it? No undercarriage was sighted!