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 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.