Antenatal Adventures: “Will I always have a WHAT?”

The two of us (three, counting our ever-growing unborn son) have been going to antenatal classes for the past couple of weeks. These classes, as well as being informative, reassuring and enjoyable, have been somewhat hilarious. Thanks to the presense of people with, erm, a bit less restraint than us in the vocal department, we have been blessed with some delightful anecdotes with which we shall one day horrify our child.

The midwife and student midwife who have taken our group through these two lessons have been wonderful, telling us the basics about the birth, the pain relief, methods of relaxation, breastfeeding, life with a newborn, exercises, complications and a great deal else, all delivered (pun intended) with a friendly smile and a marvellously calming air of Everything Will Be Fine. That demeanour of cool professionalism has been a breath of fresh air, as has the fact that we were sat in a room with a bunch of other couples going through the ame things that we are, with the same fears and insecurities.

Oh, and the girl next to us who asked how long she'd have “A baggy fanny”, exclaimed “I don't want black nipples!” and yelled “Cameltoe” at one point.

She was amazing. I was most amused by the comment about black nipples, actually, as there was a black girl nearby who, in a delightfully dry tone added “Well my husband hasn't noticed...”

Thankfully the rest of the assembled throng were a little less comedic and seeing that everyone was nervous about what is to come was refreshing. Pregnancy often seems like it's only happening to the two of you, so seeing others in the same boat (a big, sturdy boat full of snacks and people with backache) is a nice wake-up call. We're not alone. It's not just us. That's a hell of a relief.

A lot of the things that are covered in the Antenatal classes may seem like common sense when the midwives go through them with you, but you may not think of them yourself. It's easy to panic, to wonder what the hell you'd do in the event of an emergency, so it's good to know what the options are, how to cope, and what will happen at each stage of labour, the delivery, and afterwards.

I'll not go into the details here, as I am far from qualified to tell you what you need to know. I urge you to go to these classes when your time to do so comes, fellas. Get the time off work. Make the effort to go along. Listen to the experts there, and ask questions. Don't worry of those questions make you sound stupid. They don't. Everyone in this situation wants to know the same things. You're not alone. Remember that. You. Are. Not. Alone.

Just try to ignore the lady asking about her baggy fanny.

Your Daddy and You

Dear Son,

Me again. Your mum is asleep right now and you've been wriggling about in her tummy a bit less than usual today. I think we're arriving at the point where you move around less as there is less room in there now. You're almost ready to make your grand entrance into the world, and we're both massively excited to meet you on the outside of a placenta at last. If I can talk to you, man to man, for a while, I'd appreciate it.

You see, I'm kinda scared, to be honest. I look at our friends who have babies who are growing up into fine young people and I envy them. I want to know what they know. Of course, I will know it, but I'll have to live it first. No matter what advice people give us, no matter what the websites and books tell us, we know that the experience of bringing you into the world and raising you will be unique, because you're the baby involved and nobody else knows you like we will.

However, it's scary, and what I'm trying to say here is that it's okay to be scared sometimes. A little fear is a big step towards understanding that you're working your way through an unfamiliar situation or set of circumstances. Sometimes that work can be very hard indeed, but soon you find that fear will fade if you face it as best you can.

I will no doubt regale you with stories of my adventures before I met your mother, the silly choices I made, the scary things I did, the concerts I performed, seeing my name in print, the friends I had and lost and the new friends I found and much more.

As I cross over from being the child to being the adult and parent myself, I find myself looking at the person I am more and more, and seeing how I can be better for you. A better person for you and your mum. A better dad. Your dad.

I want you to love me and let me make you laugh. I want to play with you and tell you stories, fetch you biscuits and chase monsters out of your room at night.

It will be very hard – through no fault of yours, my son – but every second will be worth it. I want you to be happy, and to grow up to think of your dad fondly, even when I've annoyed you or vice-versa. You see, we're very similar indeed, your daddy and you – we're just different ages. Believe me, the world doesn't make a great deal more sense when you're a grown up.

I want to write more soon for you. There's so much I want to say, but right now I need to go and join your mummy in bed, and lay my hand on the tummy which you are inside while I sleep. I'll dream of you, my son. I'll dream of making you happy and proud, and then I hope I can dream up the courage and strength to make it a reality.

I am so looking forward to meeting you.

Love,
     Dad

We Could Never Be Ready Enough

Our son's arrival is getting ever closer, but are we ready? Not quite. We're getting there, but with such a momentous occasion, can you ever be ready enough? Bg things have happened in recent weeks which will make life so much better for our new family, and it feels like pieces are slotting together at a pleasant enough rate.

However, we are keeping in mind the fact that, no matter how much we plan and prepare, we'll forget something. That's how it goes. We could buy all of the baby stuff in the world and still not have the right things, depending on the individual wants and needs of our own sproglet. Such is life.

Good things have been happening though, and while they have made me feel way older than I am, they are for the best. Myself and my lady have now given up the semi-glamourous city lifestyle we had lived for the past two and a half years, left our “Professional couple” flat and have become homeowners.

In the past two weeks we (well, mostly me as I'd rather knacker myself up than my heavily pregnant lady) have been emptying boxes, arranging the house, buying and building furniture and discussing what next at great length.

The nursery is about to come to fruition, with a bedroom being planned to be repainted and modified in the coming couple of weeks, baby furniture on its way and space having to be found for the stuff we haven't unpacked yet which is still in there.

It's been chaos for weeks, but as everyone and their mothers seems to want to tell us at great length, the chaos won't stop ever again. This is it. Our lives as we knew them are over, and now we need to get ready for the next chapter. Despite the endless horror stories of delivery, sleepless nights and luminous poo, we're looking forward to our baby's arrival.

Are we ready? Not quite, but thankfully, neither is he just yet. Phew.

Scary Times At An Evacuated Hospital

I had a text message from my girl yesterday while she was working at home and I was at my dayjob. She told me she had been having pains and to be warned that we may have to go to hospital. As I work two minutes' walk away from where we currently live, I rushed home at the first available opportunity to check on her. She was in a lot of pain and was feeling sick, but had talked to NHS direct and a midwife and was apparently going through a normal part of the third trimester.

If the pain persisted or got worse, we were to go to hospital and get it checked out. I kissed her and hugged her and returned to work, only to get a phone call half an hour later from her, very distraught, as the pain had indeed increased. I rushed home again, and good friends of ours jumped in with an offer of a lift to hospital.

While our friends were on their way with the car (as we don't currently have one), we hurriedly got ready for a hospital visit, even going so far as to take the birthing bag we had already assembled for just such emergencies (birthing bags are a great idea folks – look them up and what you should take for when it happens to you – they're essential). Soon we were whisked away to the hospital we have chosen to be our son's birthplace to get my lady and our wriggling offspring checked out.

Upon arrival at the hospital, we discovered a bizarre welcome party – about two hundred people rammed up against each other outside the hospital entrance. A fire alarm had been triggered, and everyone was waiting for the all-clear to be sounded. Thankfully, there were medical staff on hand who were very helpful in rushing us and our precious cargo through the crowd and into the building so we could head to Antenatal Triage and have my lady tested to see if she was in labour.

The hospital was deserted, and me being a fan of horror movies, my thoughts turned to Halloween II and Resident Evil. It was more than creepy, and our rushed footsteps matched our thunderous heartbeats in volume as we went deeper into its labyrinthine corridors.

As we made our way to triage, we both prayed that we weren't about to meet our son just yet, as there's two months to go! Once we were seen by a doctor and a nurse, tests began. We held hands tightly and I tried to reassure my lady through her pain and the waves of sickness, and we both waited with concern for the doctor's findings.

Thankfully, those findings were that my girl is suffering from Braxton-Hicks, i.e. practice contractions. Baby is still where he should be and there are no signs of him attempting to make an entrance just yet. This is most reassuring, as his premature arrival is one of our biggest fears. It's too early. Too much is going on. It's not time yet. There is so much still to prepare.

We are most grateful to the doctor and the nurse who tended to us, and hope it's a good long while before we have to see them for the real thing. On the upside, it meant that we knew roughly how long it would take to get to hospital and to where we needed to be when the time does come. Since this happened, my girl has still been very unwell, with sickness and discomfort, but we are told this will pass. I'm glad all is relatively well, but am approaching the coming weeks and months with caution. I'm not afraid to admit that I am scared. I want it known. I want people to know how much I care. I want all to be well. Yesterday was scary, but necessary.

A Filling And A Realisation

I had my first ever filling on Friday, which is quite an achievement considering I'm 33 and consume vast quantities of carbonated soft drinks. It was a weird experience, doing something so normal that I've never needed to have done before, but it made me realise something else entirely. While my lady's baby bump continues to grow in size and our son continues to kick and wriggle and make his presence felt, we are becoming the people he will remember when he looks back at his childhood in years to come.

To him, I will always have had this filling. To him, his mummy's hair will have always been the length it is now, and not the oceans of long black tresses that greeted me when I met her for the first time. He will remember the people we are starting to become now. Both myself and my lady are dressing a little more conservative than we once did, with our days as denizens of the alternative clubbing scene and its associated fashions giving way to a somewhat more subdued (but still suitably 'us') style of attire.

To our son, we will have always written for magazines and had books out, I will always have been a grumpy sci-fi and comic geek who harps on about how good things used to be, and his mummy will always have been a columnist for a top crafting publication. My collection of vintage genre VHS tapes will become the antiques that he will have no interest in but will accept as part of what dad likes. To him, I will have always been balding.

Our whole lives up to now will become the strange netherworld that is the Pre-Child era we find so odd about our own parents. I find that very strange, but also exciting.

You see, with such a momentous occasion hurtling towards us as such an alarming speed, I am finding this final stage of my child-free life winding down in a most pleasant fashion. Big things are taking place around me and involving me that will help to define the person that my son will know me as. All I hope over everything else is that I can be a good dad for him and hope that he loves me. I worry. I'm a parent now. That's what we do, isn't it?

Getting Ready For Baby

The two of us are becoming ever more excited about the arrival of our son, which is now only a few months away. Preparations are well underway for his grand entrance, but we do have an added level of stress on top of the pregnancy. We need a new home. We're currently in a professional apartment block which doesn't take kindly to babies, and thus we are in the midst of searching for a new home, which will see us make the move into relative suburbia.

This is rather unnerving to me, as I've always wanted to live in the city and have been having a wonderful time doing so. The sudden shift to a place of less convenience is going to be a big change for me, but it is one that I await with a mixture of pleasure and excitement as well as trepidation.

Last night it really hit home how urgent our search is right now, when my lady was showing me just how visible our son's kicks now are. Her tummy now clearly pulses when he kicks, like a metronome ticking down the minutes until he's in our arms. I have been feeling galvanised into action, and we have been throwing junk out and looking for houses and viewing houses and making plans galore.

While I am very much aware that I will get no sleep once he's here (thanks to dozens upon dozens of people telling me so. I GET THE PICTURE, OKAY?), I really could do with a lie down. Getting ready for baby is more than just making sure there are nappies and talcum powder in massive quantities – it's also a case of mentally preparing yourself to take care of a small creature who has no experience of anything whatsoever in the world.

It won't have heard your jokes before, it won't have seen every episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation before, it won't have heard you sing karaoke or have suffered your cooking. Yet. Getting ready to look after a small person who is essentially a blank canvas is one of the biggest challenges I'm facing right now. I'm looking forward to it all, but I'm scared too. See, kids? Grown-ups get scared too.

The People You Won't Meet

Dear son of mine,

Something that has occurred to me is that there are some wonderful people who you will sadly never be able to meet. My late aunty and my three late grandparents come to mind, as they were big influences on me and shaped the person I would become.

Not as much as my own mum and dad have (or Grandma D and Grandad M to you), but without the presence of those other people in my life I would have grown up very differently, and possibly without some very positive traits.

These are people I miss greatly, and people that I have lots of happy memories of which I will share with you once you are old enough to understand that they are no longer with us. I learned some very powerful things from these people, lessons which have stuck with me for years and which I hope will stay with me for the rest of my life.

My aunty, for example, taught me about keeping going no matter what life throws at you. Right up until she died, she was good humoured, strong and caring.

No doubt by the time you are literate enough to read this and take it in, I will have already told you many stories of her and my grandparents. It's important for them to be remembered, as they helped me become me, and thus shaped who you are too.

Love,
     Daddy