Sic Transit Gloria Seami

 Hi Dreamwidth/LJ. It has been a while....

Most of my online presence these days resides on WordPress these days, where I blog about parenting and our son Hector. Please feel free to have a look and/or follow if you like. If it's not your thing I understand completely.

It can be found at www.Dadinating.WordPress.com. If/when there is more going on in my life I'll start discussing it too.

Chris is beautiful. Sprocket is also beautiful, but he's not quite whole yet, so there is 1.9 of them.

On Wednesday, should he be born, he would be considered at term, so maybe I should start calling them my beautiful 2. This is the one time in life when a person can be singular and plural at the same time. The mind boggles.

Chris has been slowed. It's that extra .9 of a person doing it. She is warm, soft and rotund. Sometimes when I hold her I get the very strong impression that I'm holding the baby too. Sometimes he takes the time to remind me of that very fact. Sometimes I wonder if he's trying to hold me too. I hope he knows he is loved.

I am both terrified and impatient to meet him. To be able to hold him myself, so he can demand I return him to his mother ASAP.

It's still all to come....

And i'm sure i'll keep doing more of this style of posting before it does.

So...

I'm not sure if things are going really quickly or dragging just at the moment. I've been on uni holidays, so I've had a relative surplus of free time. I've spent the free time fixing things around the house, working extra shifts where I can and generally trying not to think about teaching. I've also read a book or 2 and played a lot of The Sims 3....

This sense of time struck me last week when I was talking to a colleague in the library who I hadn't seen for a while. She asked how Chris was. I told her where we were at and how things were going. She remarked that pregnancy seems to take ages, and it felt like the baby should already be here. I guess for a work colleague I see only once a week or so, it must seem that way. Mum also always guesses we're about 4 weeks ahead of where we actually are. So it's an odd place to be in right now. Chris is about 6.5 months along. There's 10 weeks or so left till the early due date, or 12 or so weeks till the later one (yay for ambiguous scans!). So basically by the end of my next series of teaching rounds I'll come home, and the baby will be 1 or 2 weeks away. Scary shit.

So is it dragging or is it flying past? I actually can't say..... It seems to be doing both at the same time. Maybe it's the uni holidays making time feel like it's running a little slower, for me at least. There just seems to be less of a sense of urgency about things at the moment. I'm sure this sense is all the stronger for mstakenidentity as the one going through the physical changes. Sprocket's growing. A lot. He's also dancing around a lot. While I know that mstakenidentity takes joy in both these facts, I understand it's making life less than comfortable, which probably contributes to making time drag. Oh, and then there's the lack of sleep from discomfort and bathroom visits that she gets as a special bonus. When she finishes work in a month or so, things will probably slow right down for her....

We've also done most of the running around for baby preparations. Or at least I think we have. Maybe. Kinda.... We'll find out in a couple of months I suppose, but we're no longer hunting for lots of things. We've got things for Sprocket to sleep in, things for Sprocket to wear, things to catch Sprocket's poo, things to transport and carry Sprocket places, things to wrap Sprocket up in, things to clean Sprocket up, spares of most things for when Sprocket covers whatever he's wearing in vomit and so on and so on.... So there's less urgency about that side of things.

So yes, I suppose there's a lull in activity for us. Not so much for Sprocket himself though. He's going bananas. And I imagine in the next few weeks mstakenidentity will start to feel like this whole pregnancy thing has gone on long enough.....

We start some classes soon. July 26th is our first session, then they happen weekly after that for 3 weeks. Appointments with midwives are getting more frequent. I have a feeling time will start to speed up again really soon...

On Friday afternoon, at about 2:40pm I was in school, just logging into the library PCs to check on stuff when I got a phone call from Chris. She explained she was in emergency at the Royal Women's and wanted me to get there ASAP.

I flew out the door, and I mean flew. I had no idea I could get my shit together so fast.... Fortunately my placement school is Uni High. It's literally on the same block as the hospital. I was there in 15 minutes. Chris was in pain. She was really concerned that she was about to miscarry, but the initial assessment by nurses/midwives at the hospital had shown that she wasn't. She was okay. Sprocket's heart was still beating normally, but they needed to find out what the source of the pain was.

I sat with her. Assured her things would be fine. Asked her if things were getting worse/better, and generally did my best to make myself useful as some hours passed by. The passing of time isn't anyone's fault. Chris had been seen and assessed quickly. There were women coming in in labour fairly regularly and taking priority.

We got into the ED at about 4pm or so, and chris got a bed. She described the pain as cramps across her lower back, and there was also pain in her tummy. It came and went, and felt crampy. Chris' first thought had been "Oh crap, it's contractions", but examinations had show otherwise.

Chris was seen by a doctor at around 6pm. Unfortunately she was unable to give an immediate diagnosis. Some blood tests were ordered chris had some physical examinations while the doctor poked around for any physical signs of distress downstairs. But nothing came of any of the tests they ran. Time was flying, and Chris remained a mystery... We started playing "Word With Friends" on my phone to pass the time.

After 3 different tests/examinations, an Obstetrician finally arrived at about 8:45. Poked around, inspected Chris and quickly concluded she was suffering from "Pelvic Instability". Her diagnosis didn't involve anything invasive and took about 30 seconds. Of course, without the preliminary work done by the other doctor, it's quite possible the specialist would have still done physical exams and ordered blood tests.... But it looked as though it took 30 seconds for this doctor to tell what was wrong after we'd waited around for 6.5 hours to see her. But them's the breaks on a Friday night I suppose.

Pelvic instability occurs in some women during pregnancy as the ligaments/tendons/whatever that hold together the bones of the "Pelvic Girdle" loosen to make way for childbirth. In some women they loosen more than necessary, and cause lower back pain as the bones drift apart and put more pressure on other muscles.

So Chris is seeing a physiotherapist today. She may have to wear a belt or something, or do exercises to strengthen the supporting muscles in the area.

So that's the down....


The up can be summed up in 1 sentence:

Yesterday I felt my son kick.

Reality melted at that moment. The world froze and faded to black in my mind. I looked around the room like it was on a movie screen. Like it was a cardboard theatre set and had ceased to be real-life. My other senses numbed for a time, and the only thing that was real was the feel of Chris under my hand, and the warmth of her skin.

And just as the world was starting to fade back in.... he kicked again.

mstakenidentity hit 20 weeks over the weekend. For perspective that means there is less time left in the "pregnancy schedule" than has now passed. October 8 looms large in our lives. We found out sprocket is a boy last week. We also found out many more facts about our son that are much more important. He has 2 arms and 2 legs, there are 5 digits on each of his hands and feet. He has a properly formed stomach and bladder. 2 kidneys. A heart that isn't leaking and is pumping fluid like it us supposed to. A tiny tiny brain that is taking shape. He also has a nose.

Time is flying by. Chris is showing more every day. She looks beautiful. She's tired a lot. She's hungry frequently. She can feel sprocket fluttering about, before the outside world gets the chance to.

I find it hard to concentrate on other things in life right now.... Uni is boring. School is challenging, but even it still seems like a petty distraction from the real business of living at the moment. In 3 weeks semester is over. I'm going to put the cot together. And the bassinet. We're going to get the carpets at the house cleaned, and the study will start to convert to a nursery.

The hardest thing about all this is that in August I'm doing a teaching placement in the country. I think I can still make all the birthing classes. I worry about not being around for those 4 weeks. I worry about what I might miss. I worry that we made the wrong decision several weeks ago when I confirmed my commitment to the rural placement program.... But just because the short term is pressing, the long term doesn't disappear. The experience will be invaluable, and may effect our future profoundly.

So yes. It looms large. Larger with each passing day. I remain excited, overjoyed and terrified. And, from what they say, the real challenges are yet to come.

Last time I posted about this I went over a range of feelings the ever more impending Sprocket has stirred deep within me. And now, about 1 month on, the feelings have not subsided, they have not normalised and they have not reduced in depth or intensity. In fact the opposite is true.

Conditions have altered a bit. Chris is now definitely showing. The nausea seems to have settled down (touch wood) and in general things are more in a routine. But that haze of anxiety and euphoria continue to envelope my world. I can't just describe it as 'anticipation' - doesn't do it justice.... I'm never not thinking about sprocket. I imagine that's the way it goes from here on in.

We are accumulating things. A fair few of them. Many of them we've now owned for some time. A pram. A Cot. A bundle of cloth nappies. A bath. A High Chair. It's sitting behind me as I type this starkly glaring at me. The pile is silently judging my capacity and readiness to take on what is to come. I'LL SHOW YOU PILE OF STUFF! MARK MY WORDS!

Another odd thing of note, just a bizarre observation really... pregnant bellies are harder than I thought. Of course that makes sense, but it actually surprises me for some reason.

I am trying to take care of Chris through this time. I actually find myself more in love with her each passing day. Her back is sometimes sore. She gets tired. She has odd eating habits. But that's part of how it works I suppose. It'll get worse before it gets better...

I get to see Sprocket on Monday. Monday will be good. We can even get a DVD of the scan.....

Week 2 - using the Derby Extra blade.

Much better. Sharper and finer blade that meant I got a better shave with less irritation both because didn't have to run the blade over my face so many times, and also because a sharper blade requires less force to slide across your skin, so there's less 'pulling' on hairs and the top layer of skin. This was even true in the dreaded under-chin zone (the worst bit by a mile to shave properly).

It isn't quite a smooth shave down there though. That part of the face is where the grain of beard hair seems to change a billion times in a relatively small area. So I don't quite know if/how it's possible to get that bit done well at all. We shall see what happens in time.

Nonetheless, sharper does appear to be better for my face. So we'll see how the next blade (Astra) goes. It's apparently sharper still.

So, Chris is now 15 weeks along this apparently 40 or so week journey. It's both going fast and slow at the same time. It's joyous, exciting confronting, terrifying and at times heart-wrenching all at once.

There are a bunch of guide-books out there for dads to be. I've been avoiding them mostly because they will say things like "So, you've gotten her pregnant, well no more strip-clubs for you then!", or "Time to give up on restoring that Holden out the back" or some such crap.

So here's my attempt to use words to give an honest appraisal of the experience so far:

It's hard. It's kind of bewildering and it can feel like you're blundering around in a haze that's a mix of anxiety and euphoria. You have no idea what's going on most of the time, and all you know is that the person you care about most in the world is on a journey you can never truly understand.

But, truth be told, your partner's probably not got that much more of an idea of what's going on than you do. They're just in the unfortunate position of having to deal with all the changes from the inside while you run off to get chocolate milk, open doors, carry things and try your darndest to make yourself useful because you know you can't really bring them any real relief from what they're going through.

That's the hardest bit. Feeling useless. Knowing that if there's pain, you can't relieve it. You can't even comprehend it. You're a passenger on this ride. She is too when you think about it, but at least she's sitting in front seat.

In my heart of hearts, I'm loving it. Granted, I'm am a slightly insane paternal cluck-monster. It is a beautiful thing, nonetheless. In spite of the vomiting, in spite of the pains, in spite of the tears it's beautiful. It's beautiful the way you watch your partners abdomen with a kind of bizarre impatience as you wait for it to "pop". It's beautiful when you see the 12 week old foetus dance around inside your partner as it tries to get comfortable. Seeing a picture so clear that you can make out a tiny brain forming, a brain that will one day have all the capacities and complexities of yours, probably to a greater degree. It's beautiful taking the time to think about what it is and what it means. It's beautiful hearing the excitement in the voices of future grandparents. And it's beautiful standing awe-struck by your partner and what she and her body are working on.

Anyway I'm out of words. Words stop working in the face of experiences that are too massive. I wish dad was here sometimes. But he isn't. So I give him the news in my dreams.

So this year has begun in earnest. It's already my week 3 of uni, and on Thursday I get to go out to Uni High and student teach it up. There's a lot of reading. So much reading. And so much of it is EXACTLY THE SAME.....

But still. I'm acheiving one concrete thing. I'm walking into uni every day (3 days a week so far), and walking home again. That equates to about 9km each uni day, so I'm happy with that. I want to keep it up when rounds start so that I'm also walking to uni high... That means on a normal week, 36km of walking. That's a pretty tidy sum. More when block placements start up after anzac day.

Assessment insanity begins in about 2 weeks.

But it has not begun yet.


I knew it was going to be like this....

Oh, the garden still exists. And there are more tomatoes coming. My seeds I put in the propagation tray have sprouted, and need to be transplanted (job for Wednesday evening I think!).

Other aspects of life roll on as they do.... There's no shortage of things going on. It's tiring, but I like it.

Today was a simple planting day, or so I thought....

Update

We ate our first tomato today - a single cherry tomato on one of the bushes that was ripe. It was good! That is all. Otherwise things aren't dead.... I think I can see some eggplants and capsicums starting, and we're definitely about to get butter beans round 2.... Basil seeds are definitely not dead too, which is nice. Next phase: Rosemary....

Today

I planted out root vegetables today using our propagation tray mostly. Planted beetroot, parsnip, turnip, kholrabi and Sweedes. All supposed to be pretty hardy - should make good replacements for summer crops. Beetroot were direct to the pot they'll live in, the rest were in propagation trays. I also emptied the bottom layer of the work farm, always a fun job. But the beetroot seeds are going to find themselves in probably the richest soil we've ever put together....

Next

Not much really. Maintenence period. I've planted everything I want to plant this month, the idea is that will see us through to winter with winter vegetables. Unless I get inspired again... Of course if any of the sowing fails there'll be more to do in Feb, but I've got lots of spare seeds. Need more dirt, I've got some plans for rocket and other lettuce varieties in vertical growing bag things, but I need more dirt to do it.... Dirt dirt dirt.... yay!