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 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!

Week 14

A little scare: we had to rush Jas to hospital to check that all was ok. A nurse promptly came in with a device that detected the heartbeat of the foetus...there was a tense period of total quiet as she moved it about Jas’ belly, and then suddenly a thumping little heartbeat filled the room. It was pumping so fast! It was an incredibly re-assuring sound. 

With a number of hospital trips in the last few weeks, we were getting to know the place well. We’ll be able to running guided tours of the maternity ward before long...

Jas was continually getting aches and cramps with her growing body and baby, but one day she had experienced a new, enjoyable sensation: bubbles. It was her first feeling of our little one and she was overjoyed. It was great news, though I thought: first it was two fingers at the ultrasound, now blowing raspberries.