Archive for January, 2005
What a strange experience.
Last night was spent in the hospital, ‘rooming in’. In the special care unit there’s a big room called the family room where we had to spend the night with junior to see how we got on. I think we got on just fine. He’s still a little reluctant to feed but with the proper encouragement he managed to get through them all.
His fabulous progress has meant that he’ll more than likely get out this afternoon, meaning that I’ll be off work for the next two weeks for more of the same sleep depravation fun.
The family room was a little like a hotel room, even down to the little shelf with a kettle and some tea-bags. It gave the whole thing a surreal ‘role-playing’ feel to it, as if things could still be called off at any moment and they’d put him back where he came from.
There’s only a single bed in the family room, and dads don’t get breakfast - only mums. Should really be called the ‘Mum and baby’ room with Dad presumably off earning money or doing some other distant dad-like thing.
A midwife assured us that it’s very different in Australia where they have double beds and are very encouraging about the whole family unit thing. So there you go.
Personally, I slept like a baby (apart from feeding times, obviously) but the missus didn’t get many winks at all and ended up rather zombie-like. My dream of a shift-system seems a little harder to operate than I’d previously imagined.
Anyways, little baby will be home at last this afternoon. The car-seat has been fitted in preparation, and his bottles are neatly arranged in the specially cleared cupboard in the kitchen. Wish us luck.
January 19th, 2005
Dammit, I just can’t decide wether Big Brother is cheap exploitative colosseum-tv, or wether it’s a work of genius.
There’s plenty of cheap exploitative reality telly out there that’s quite easy to spot, no matter how detached from true reality it is. Big Brother always seemed a little more inventive and worthwhile.
But then it’ll do something that seems cheap and nasty and I come over all anti-Big Brother.
I really genuinely felt sorry for John McCririck in his last few days in the house. Mostly this was because you imagine him going home afterwards, seeing what a horrendous man he is on tapes of the programme and then crying for days. I also feel sorry for him because he’ll be written about unfavourably in the press and by bloggers like me long after. All this because he probably couldn’t fully realise what he was getting into.
I’m pretty sure I couldn’t take that level of critical scrutiny. It’d drive me insane.
Still on the subject of John McCririck, I remember that as a child he ran off without giving me an autograph during a day out to Ayr race-track.
Still, I’m not bitter about it. It hasn’t affected me in any way.
I’ll get over it. I will.
In other news, Junior is feeding so well that he is free of plastic tubes. We may be required to ‘room-in’ at the hospital tomorrow night, which is when you’re locked in a room* with the baby and expected to look after the little tyke for 24 hours without panicking or falling apart. That should be fun.
* - well… not actually locked in.
January 18th, 2005
It’s weird becoming a Dad.
In the build up to the birth you go through alternating phases of excitement and fear. Excitement because you think of how cool it’s going to be, and fear because you know your life is going to change completely and you’re going to be totally responsible for a new wee life.
After the birth it’s a sense of weird, happy relief. It’s relief because there’s an overwhelming sense that your life has indeed changed, and it’s changed for the better.
Last night though it hit me for the first time while we were sitting in the hospital just what had happened. The fear came back.
It was something like 9pm, and I was struggling to summon up the energy to go to the toilet. It occured to me that I was totally unfit to be a Dad (unfit in the physical sense).
This Dad lark is gonna take way more energy than I have. That’s gonna mean eating properly and stuff. This Dad lark is going to mean a complete change of lifestyle. That suddenly became very real and scary.
The fear has passed again for now. Junior’s still in the hospital until maybe next week so the full impact of things won’t reach reality for a few more days.
Expect bad quality writing from a tired mind.
January 17th, 2005
I used to be of the opinion that women who claim they have a higher tolerance for pain because they have to endure childbirth are talking rubbish. It’s not that men’s tolerance is any higher or lower, it’s just that they don’t have wombs. I thought it was that simple.
Witnessing a labour has changed my opinion. Hats off to my missus, there’s no way in hell I’d have done that. No way Jose.
If you’re pregnant, you might want to stop reading here.
Firstly, hats off to me too for bravely not passing out. I felt like it, and had to check where the nearest chair was a couple of times, but the weird echoey tunnel feeling of a girly swoon passed and I remained bravely on my own two feet for the duration, (apart from the short period when i sat on the floor outside).
I have to say though, that laughing gas should be available down the pub. That stuff looks amazing. My missus had a rather extreme reaction to say the least. Her sides were splitting with laughter, and she was shouting at the top if her voice, “I’m pished!! Wow! Labour is cool! Seriously! Morgans and diet coke please!!”
It was at the point that she started singing ‘Oh Flower of Scotland’ at full blast that we thought that she had perhaps had enough. It wasn’t until foam was coming out of her mouth and she had me by the throat that the gas was wrenched from her vice-like grip.
The upshot of this was that she was left without her favourite pain control and the laughing stopped as suddenly as it had began. Sobered up in seconds, and no hangover. Fantastic. Brewers of the world, I hope you’re reading this, I think you should get some top scientists on the case.
Forty-five minutes worth of failed attempts at an epidural were, bizarrely, the most uncomfortable part of the process to watch.
According to my missus though, it really is surprising how quickly you forget the pain once you see junior’s face, and it is definitely worth going through to end up with that result.
January 12th, 2005
Hello dear readers. Last week (Wednesday) I became a Dad :).
The missus went into labour and a few incredibly painful hours later we were the proud Mum and Dad of a beautiful baby son.
Both are doing fine, although still up at the hospital right now and should be home in about a week. The bad news is that he looks spookily like a miniature version of me. The good news is that at least he doesn’t have my nose.
Needless to say Mummy has had a big grin on her face for a while now, as do the newly promoted grannies and grandpas.
I’ll blog more later, but I just wanted to put this in to kickstart this poor neglected website again. It’s been a difficult pregnancy fraught with scary complications but everything is back on an even keel and it’s safe to start blogging again without fear of placing a hex on things. It’s weird that the things that would make the best blog posts can’t really be blogged.
Blogging should pick up slowly since I’ll be sleep deprived for a while, I’m sure. I’m also trying to put together a new site design using the latest whizzy web technology that’ll knock your socks off and turn the blog-design world on its head. Probably.
Right. I’m off to change some nappies. He’s the cutest baby on the whole ward. Seriously. He is.
January 11th, 2005
