 |
chris's diary |
|
chris's diary |
So Jehann is massive now. Her belly is
actually larger than my own, which is a feat in itself. I had a dream about
this, actually. We lived in a place where both the Mother and the Father get big
when a pregnancy is in the offing. It’s only at the last minute that you found
out who was giving birth, and who had wind.
Anyhow - baby preparations are
continuing apace. We have been attending Babycraft lessons, which are taught by
our Midwife. They are designed to tell us all about the technicalities of the
birth, and all the things that can go wrong (yike!) as well as what happens
immediately following the baby’s arrival. I’d like to tell you about two
incidents.
Firstly - a lady was sat next to us who
was not exactly light on her feet. Every time she moved as much as her little
finger she let out a little moan. We felt a bit sorry for her, as she seemed to
be having a difficult pregnancy. Well, the midwife was relating some horror
story or other about a birthing problem, and the solution, which was to
administer an injection. “ohh” said this woman, “whereabouts to you get
the injection?”.
The midwife looked a bit uncomfortable
before revealing that the needle gets inserted “up the fanny”. “Oohhhh”
said the woman, who performed a big display before collapsing on her bloke’s
lap. It was then I looked into his eyes and saw the pain he was suffering going
out with a drama queen.
On a different occasion we were being
taught about the virtues of breast feeding. Now I am a strong supporter of this,
and I’m very keen for our baby to be breast fed for as long as possible. Now
there are a very few bad points to breast feeding - not least the pain the lady
can feel if the baby is not attached properly. A different lady on my right said
“That’s not fair - I wish men had breasts”, to which I replied “Cop a
load of these, love”, whilst gently cupping my own knockers. I looked up and
noticed that the lesson had stopped, and everyone in the room was looking at me
and my tits. I felt so violated.
We completed the course (no certificate
- boo!) and have been spending our free time clearing out all the crap we have
accumulated over the years, in preparation for a whole new load of baby crap to
arrive. With this in mind, we’ve been down to my Uncle Liam’s to gather all
his baby items that used to belong to his son James. Jehann’s also been
gathering stuff from her mates, and for everything else we went to new
parents’ day down at Mothercare.
New parents’ day is where the staff
dress up like soldiers and fairies, and they offer you a bit of a discount on
all their stuff. Under instruction, we bought as much cotton wool as we could
carry, a cupboard full of baby wipes, sundry Motherhood items, and a great three
wheeling pram. The pram was actually our second choice, as the first was too big
to fit in our car. We were the only new parents that I saw taking their
prospective pram for a bit of a drive around the shop, and out to the car park
to see if it fitted in the car. The assistant came with us, of course, and for a
bit of fun when the second pram was in car with the boot shut, I pretended I’d
lost the key. Jehann laughed, but the lady did not.
In the meantime, there’s been all
manner of house sorting out duties - I’ve been down and bought bookcases and
shelves from IKEA, no less. And I’ve been drilling. And I’ve got a smoke
alarm. And a clock that comes on when you clap. Although not complete yet, our
house looks fab. The bad side from all this sorting out is I’m almost certain
that I’ve lost my passport, which is a bit crap.
We’ve also had a bit of excitement,
and Jehann’s had a taste of what’s to come when she went to the hospital to
have a go on their baby monitor. This do-hickey can hear the baby’s heartbeat,
which it draws on a graph. It can also tell how contracted your muscles are.
It’s fab. We go in from time to time when Jehann has not felt many baby kicks.
I keep saying that if she wants kicks, I can give her kicks, but apparently its
not the same. Anyhow, we went in, quite late, and got hooked up. The doctor said
everything was fine, but wanted an ultra sound scan performed the following
morning, just to make sure that everything was as it should be. “Fine”, we
said, making to leave when the Doctor said that Jehann was being admitted.
Crickey! Instead of being reassured, Jehann was now extremely concerned about
the situation. I had to go home and get an overnight bag together, whist Jehann
got herself one of those green tags for around your wrist. I’m not allowed in
the hospital at night. No men are. Apparently there was an incident there some
years ago, so I just dropped all the stuff off and went home.
The next day I turned up bright and
early (about 10.30) to find that Jehann was booked in for a scan a bit later on
that day. She said she didn’t get the best night’s sleep, what with all the
walking wounded moaning the whole night. It’s rare that I’m in a room full
of moaning women. I didn’t much enjoy it, must have been even worse for
Jehann.
Anyhow, we went up for our scan, the
results of which are here. Now since we
don’t want to know the sex of the baby I asked the nurse performing the scan
if she could make sure the equipment didn’t stray round the nether regions.
She said there was nothing to worry about, as everything is so small you can’t
see anything unless you are really looking. I told her that if the baby was a
boy, and took after his old man, there would be no doubts. No-one laughed.
Anyhow - the results of the scan came back, and everything was fine.
Now, we have still not settled on any
names. The thinking is that when the baby arrives we can look at it and see what
name stirs within. So we’ll call the baby “sticky” or
“smells-like-poo” or something. I’ve been looking at the entries received
on our “Name That Baby”
page. There’s a lot of people voting for their own names, although there are a
couple of surprises. Three people have voted for Finbarr, and another three for
Zac. We had two entries for my current favourite “Dude”, but Jehann has
vetoed it. Drat! Please continue with your suggestions.
Now, as we reach the final stages of the
pregnancy, Jehann has been wearing specially designed clothes. She turned down
my offer of a Monk’s smock, and so she has to wear oversized clothes. She thinks
she looks frumpy, but she doesn’t. I tried to resolve the situation by doing
something helpful, so I bought her a pregnancy exercise video - but somehow my
actions were misinterpreted. The video remains unviewed, and is for sale if
anyone is interested.
Finally, here’s two things that we
have been told at various times in the hospital. They pretty much guarantee me
victory in any argument we have until the baby is born. Firstly, what with all
the hormones flowing round Jehann’s body, it’s like she is on her period
“every day of the week”. Secondly, some bloke has discovered that a lady’s
capacity for reasoned thinking declines by 10% during the latter months of
pregnancy. And that’s good Doctoring.