Hours of fun. Hours.

I only just discovered that my computer has Photo Booth. I can't believe that I have been missing out on all this fun for so long! Seriously, hours and hours of fun. I am so easily amused.

Towels and smelly boys

Last night Mr Squeak had his bath and didn't notice before he got in it that there were no towels in the bathroom as I had put the used ones in the wash and not got around to putting clean ones out. Don't you just hate when that happens? Not as bad as findng there is no loo paper when you need it, but still rather annoying. I was busy feeding Little Squeak at the time, so when he got out he used the hand towel to dry himself instead of bleating plaintively for me to bring him a clean towel (which is what I would have done). Fair enough I hear you thinking. But I was a little annoyed, as I had just put the hand towel out that day, along with the matching bathmat, so I gave him a bit of a hard time about it cos I like it when the bathroom looks all pretty with matching stuff! (We don't have many visitors so it isn't really about what other people might think, just my control freak nature taking over.) A few minutes later I got in the bath and, instant karma for the nagging wife, I too had forgotten to get myself a towel and had to grovel (and bleat plaintively) to get Mikey to bring me one. He did - with hardly any fuss - which clearly shows that he is a much nicer person than me as I would have tried to get a bit of mileage out of something like that.

Anyway, to the smelly boys part of the story...after using the hand towel to dry himself, he hung it back up on the hand towel rail. Yes, the hand towel that he had just used to dry his ass (admittedly his clean ass but even so)! What was he thinking?! Boys.

Be warned next time you visit us and want to wash and dry your hands.

The other smelly boys part of the story concerns the lovely little baby squeak. He is adorable and mostly smells like a yummy baby (milky and delicious enough to eat), except for his little feet. He can't walk so doesn't really get dirty, and does nothing but lie around on his baby gym, bed or buggy - all of which are quite clean - but he gets smelly toe jam already! God help me when he's a teenager.

The labour story

Well, this time two months ago today Little Squeak was well on his way, I can't believe it, or that it has taken me two months to get this post written! All in all things went well labour wise, I had the natural drug free birth that I wanted and the whole process was only 7 hours - the first couple of which I wasn't completely convinced were even the real thing! It all went something like this...

At 2pm on Tuesday May 16th our car was finally delivered after a two week wait, so to celebrate Mum and I went to the supermarket to do a big shop
(for those of you in NZ believe me here in London the luxury of going to the
supermarket in the car is not to be underestimated!). By the time we
got to the check out at 3.30 I was having the odd cramp that made me
pause for thought slightly, but I had had a few of them the Sunday
before and nothing happened then so I figured it was just more
practice. We got home just before 4pm and I headed off to a pre booked
acupuncture appointment feeling slightly odd! During the treatment the
'cramps' started to happen every 5 minutes, but they weren't that bad
and although I was starting to think that it might be beginning for
real I wasn't convinced. As I was leaving the acupuncturist asked if I wanted him to call Mike or my mum, but I breezily said "no, no I'm fine, I only live up the road", although I think I also apologised for being a bit spaced out, so clearly I should have known something really was up! Little did I know that a mere (in 1st labour terms at least) 6 hours later I would have my baby! I walked the 3 mintues home quite slowly stopping once on the way to focus on a contraction, although I still wasn't calling them that just yet. We let Mike know he should come home and by the time he got back at 5.30 it was all underway.

The next hour and a half are slightly hazy and time passed very squickly, to be honest if you told me it was only 20 minutes I'd believe you. I had a 'show' (a very text book sign of labour starting), had a bath, breathed through the contractions as they got stronger and stronger, and threw up everything I'd eaten that day rather spectacularly (including half a pineapple - said to help bring on labour, perhaps it's true). In between contractions I remember talking quite lucidly on the phone to the midwives at the hospital about when to come in, they kept putting me off and suggested I take some paracetamol (I can't imagine it would have any effect at all), have a bath (already had) and keep walking to keep things moving (could barely walk - it was clearly moving fast!). I kept feeling that things might be going faster than they thought but tried to follow their instructions as I really didn't want to be one of those women who goes in to hospital convinced she's on the way only to be told she's not even 1cm dilated and to go home again! Luckily for me my mum was watching me closely and realised that we should probably go to hospital sooner rather than later, and so we eventually told them we were coming in whether they liked it or not.

The car journey there was pretty awful - I was on all fours in the
back seat with my head in a pile of towels in Mum's lap and my bum
sticking up in the air - must have looked hilarious when we stopped at
the traffic lights!! It was also Mikey's first drive of our newly aquired car - not a trip he'll ever forget.

We arrived at the hospital and slowly made our way up to the labour
ward. It was a journey that had to be planned via things I could lean on every 2 minutes for a contaction: hand rails, benches,
waiting room seats, mum. When we got into labour ward they were so busy
there were no free rooms so we had to wait in a corridor waiting area
with nasty metal bus stop style seats. I was still on all fours but eventually some
nice nurse brought me a plastic mat so I wouldn't get sore knees! Once
we were in our delivery room things again are quite hazy and I have no
sense of the time, I think we got into our room at 8pm. Although I had
wanted to try the water birthing pool for pain relief if not delivery,
we couldn't as the birthing pools had been condemned as unsafe - what a shocker (although it did bear out my feelings on first seeing around the hospital which in a way made me feel better as I obviously wasn't just being fussy). So I got up on the bed, which was the last place I thought I'd want to be, and stayed there on all fours holding on to the raised head of the bed each time a contraction came. I also threw up again (the rest of that damn pineapple). The midwife then examined me and found I was already a good 7-8cm or more dilated and things were moving fast, lucky we had made the journey when we did, I really can't imagine coping with that car journey had it been any further on.

The next thing I know the midwife is telling me I can start to 'bear down' with each contraction. I thought she must be mistaken and that it wasn't time for that already, surely l just needed the loo?! It's funny - no matter how many stories you've read or heard about the baby's head coming down making you feel like you need the loo for number two - you still don't believe it when it starts happening and remain convinced that in fact you just need to poo! And well, you do, with no dignity whatsoever and with whoever is in the room with you bearing witness to the event. But it's also true that you don't care at all. And it does mean the baby's head is on its way, which is both a good and slightly scary thing.

A word of warning to those of you who haven't done this - the pushing stage of giving birth is much more intense than I at least had imagined. I knew it would be hard work, but I thought perhaps those TV dramatisations were exaggerating things, or that mainly women had to push so hard because silly doctors had them lying on their backs, and that in a natural focused birth with better positioning surely the contractions would push the baby out if you relaxed and let them do their work. No such luck! Mike was holding my legs to help give me something to push against and he said later that he could only just hold me back there was so much force involved. Would have been quite funny had I actually pushed him over.

The next stage is supposed to be the slow careful delivery of baby's head and then usually a pause, sometimes of several minutes until the next contraction, which then delivers one shoulder then the next followed by the rest of your little baby's body. Only in our case Toby had other ideas...

As his head began to crown -which burns and stings and feels like you really will split in two and makes you wimper like a wounded animal because it hurts too much even to cry - he just thought "what the hell, why wait?" and burst out in a hot, wet, slithery rush all at once. To make matters slightly worse for me he had his hands up by his head and his little elbows sticking out, which resulted in some of the splitting in two that I had felt threatening! Perhaps this could have been avoided, someone recently and I think rather tactlessly pointed out that I tore during this delivery because the midwife was 'obviously terrible' and should have prevented him coming out all at once. But I think Toby just made his entrance as he pleased and there probably wasn't a lot anyone could have done to prevent it. My waters didn't break until he was delivered so it wasn't clearly visible that his hands were by his face until the last minute, which in our case was the last second as he didn't give us any more warning than that! So, although it may have meant more pain for me, he at least got a water birth of a kind as he was cushioned through the birth canal in his own little bag of fluid - we almost had a baby in a bag! Besides, the thought of the midwife putting her hand up there to move his hands away is far, far worse than recovering from a few stitches!

Anyway, at 11.11pm my baby entered this world and the warm wet little bundle that was actually much bigger than I had imagined was placed on my tummy! I repeatedly said as I looked for the evidence, "is it a little boy, is it a little boy?" There clearly wasn't much doubt in my mind by that stage, so I guess sometime during my labour he must have sent me a message. He cried and cried very loudly for what seemed like ages too, until he managed to attach himself to my breast! That, like the pushing thing, shattered my illusions on gentle, natural birth, - we had the lights dimmed right down and it was just Mike and my mum and one midwife with me, and he was brought immediately onto my bare skin - so I guess sometimes they just cry when they're born, it probably is a shock to enter this world no matter how gentle the birth!

The minutes after he was born and started his first feed were truly magical. I can only just remember them in the usual sense of memory, but they registered in a physical, bodily kind of remembering, and I will never, ever forget them. With his unbelieveably soft skin, his strange, animal, wonderful newborn smell and his dark, intense little eyes he seemed so new and so precious it was beyond imagining. Yes it hurts like nothing else but I can honestly say that I hope I am lucky enough to experience it again.

Mr Squeak looking worried...



Waiting for our room ...



Me and my baby



Little Squeak's first feed

An otherwise ordinary day...

He arrived! It is well over a month ago now (in fact nearly two) only I haven't had a minute to post until now. And he was a he, which I didn't know beforehand but now it seems impossible to imagine he could ever have been anything else. He picked an otherwise ordinary day to be born, the 16th of May 2006, but to me this will always be - in that tragically soap opera sounding way - the most incredible day of my life. I can't help it, it's true. Your mum was right (damn it) the birth of a child is the most memorable day and that child, once it arrives, really is the most important thing in your world.

This child we have called Tobias, he's known as Toby, but we thought he might like a more grown up name at some stage later. I hope he likes his name. Choosing it for him was difficult, among the first of so very many decisions we will have to make, and have already made on his behalf, just hoping we've made the right one.

So now I am one of those Mummy things, and life will never be the same again. It's funny, I thought I was all cool with this and past the first month hormonal stuff, but as I sit here writing this I have tears pouring down my cheeks. I guess I don't get much time to actually think about him, his birth and his first month, as I am mostly so busy caring for him. But when I do stop and think about it I am still totally overwhelmed. How on earth did I make another person?! It astonishes me that the whole process actually works and out of two cells comes a whole new person, totally perfect with so much potential. Now we just have to learn how to bring out all that potential and not totally screw the little man up too much with all our good intentions. I just hope we do right by him.

Toby if you ever read this... I'll do my absolute best.


On day one - he seemed pleased to be here!

Nice needles

What a bad blogger I am, no posts for ages and ages now. I keep looking at my blog and thinking I should write something, but nothing is happening.

Nothing nothing nothing.

Well, a few little things have happened (my mum arrived from New Zealand to help with the baby - that is pretty cool!), but I am still pregnant (so there is no baby yet which is not so cool), and quite frankly I've had enough already. I actually still have one week to go officially, so can't even really get justifiably impatient, but impatient I am all the same. I can't even complain and say that I am too heavy, hot, uncomfortable, tired and whatever other things women complain about at this stage because the slightly irritating truth is that I feel fine! I felt worse a month ago but now seem to have a renewed sense of energy and vigour, and people tell me I'm 'blooming' and never looked better. But I don't care - I still want it out! I have been having acupuncture which I think has helped immeasurably with the nausea and tiredness etc that I felt a month ago, so now I just have to convince the acupuncturist to go to work with those inducing labour points, only I don't think he's allowed to do that until I reach the deadline. Damn responsible health practitioners.

Acupuncture is great though - I'd never had it before and am now a total convert. There is a point he uses to calm the mind which is just above the bridge of your nose between the eyebrows, and when he puts the needle in I swear my eyes glaze over and I can barely speak for the next half hour I am so relaxed - it's great!

We are in the year of the Fire Dog in the Chinese horoscope so I had decided if our little firedog baby had come yesterday - which was the 13th of the month AND a full moon - that it might have been a werebaby! That would have been very exciting, but no such luck.

Can't think of any other auspicious dates in the next few days/weeks to get excited about... perhaps that's for the best though as I'll only end up disappointed when it picks an otherwise totally ordinary day to be born.

Anyway back to my waiting now.

Waiting, waiting, waiting...

It haunts me

This Pachelbel thing is becoming a joke. I had to ring up about my National Insurance (tax) number the other day and was astonished by new levels of inefficiency in Government departments, and also by their fondness for Pachelbel's Canon. I had to ring three different numbers before getting through to the department I needed (although was assured each time that the next one REALLY would be it) and each time I was put on hold. You guessed it - my hold music was Pachelbel's Canon in D. Every time! Weirdly it seemed to start at the same point each time too. Note that these were three different phone numbers, they couldn't transfer me within departments - oh no! All user pays numbers too, no free call 0800 Inland Revenue here.

Anyway, as much as I love the Canon in D, the best bit of all came right at the end when I did get through to the department I needed. They informed me that yes I did have an allocated a National Isurance number and that my NI number card had been sent out to me in February (my interview to get it was last August so you can see why I was wondering where it had got to). Where did they send it I wondered, as it certainly hadn't arrived at our current address. In their great wisdom and efficiency they had sent it to my previous address - from 1994!!!Yes that's 1994, not 2004. TWELVE years ago! Interesting really. The guy I spoke to couldn't give me a reason for this decision, especially given that I had provided my current address at the interview. He also was unable to give me my NI number over the phone (well you know, I could be anyone and live anywhere), so I now have to make an appointment at the NI office (think of your local unemployment office only times 10 in unpleasantness as our local branch is in Soho) and request a replacement NI card. Because they sent mine to somewhere I hadn't lived in 12 years.

I just wonder how many repeats of Pachelbel's Canon I'll hear while on hold trying to make my new appointment.

Somehow redeemed

I wanted to be tricksy and put an audio link for Pachelbel's Canon in D into my blog so people who thought they didn't know the piece would be able to listen to it - realising that they probably did know it - and therefore appreciate why I at least found the yoga chanting thing so funny. Unfortunately my searching for a good audio version to link to confirmed that in some ways it definitely is ruined forever, I found so many ghastly versions I can't tell you - they put the yoga chanting to shame - and they really do deserve links of their own but there were just too many.

BUT then I found this and somehow in a perverse way it seemed to make it all ok! The dude just looks like he is having so much fun. I was mesmerised and had to watch the whole 5 minutes in all its fantastic awfulness.