Off and racing!

Finally I have heard the words I've been waiting for:

"I think my waters broke."

That was at 4am.
The first contraction was at 4.25. We're not sure if there has been a second. It's a little confusing but I'm sure we'll know all about it soon enough.

It's now 5.30 and Girl O' Sea is upstairs listening to some Calm Birth audio tracks and trying to relax.

For me it's time to blow up the birth pool.

I've checked the batteries in the cameras. Good to go.

We'll give it a little while longer before we call the midwives. Not a lot they can do now so best they sleep. We need them to be on top of their game today. I wish we had gone to bed a little bit earlier. 3 hours sleep isn't enough but I am sure we will be surviving on adrenalin today anyway.

Best get on with it.

And we wait

Bubs is now officially late.

The calculation of due dates doesn't seem like an exact science and certainly not one that unborn children tend to take any notice of anyway.

Our various dates were Wednesday, Friday and Saturday just gone so by any measure bubs is now just bludging.

Girl O' Sea is like a cat on a hot tin roof. She can't sit still and consequently dirt doesn't have a chance in our house at the moment. The crumbs have hardly stopped bouncing when the dust pan and brush have been deplored.

I bought her some jigsaw puzzles today so hopefully that will help occupy our mind.

Come on bubs. The sooner you come the saner Mum and Dad will remain.

An engagement party?

Bubs is now engaged.

Apparently that means he/she is now headbutting Girl O' Sea's cervix and not anything to do with a pre-arranged marriage.

Today we are at 38 weeks which technically is full term so as of now the little person is officially just being lazy. Laying around, getting fat and keeping its parents in suspense.

The down side of that for bubs is that its accommodation is getting decidedly less roomy.

Here is a picture of the outside of its lodgings.

Girl O' Sea's regular early morning Braxton Hicks contraction was a bit stronger this morning so take from that what you will. Are things getting close? I can't let myself get too excited yet because it might all take another three weeks yet.

Again, we wait.

Back into it

It has been a long time between posts but it is time to start being a bit more regular. We are at 37 weeks so bubs will be here before we know it.

Girl O' Sea's tummy is a spectacular sight especially when you see a little lump move across it. Those little feet on the inside never seem to stop moving.

We had our birth plan meeting last Sunday. Our team is locked in.

Jan - midwife number 1
Kelly - midwife 2
Ailsa - trainee midwife
Lili - doula
Amber - acupuncturist

Oh and Girl O' Sea and myself will be there as well.

That is going to be a lot of people running around our house. And this is supposed to be more private than at the hospital?

The birth pool has also been delivered and I've tested it for air leaks. It took quite awhile to blow up. I hope bubs doesn't come along in a hurry.

So these were just a few disconnected thoughts. I'll get back in the groove quickly. I want to document everything for bubs.

All is good.

We had the second ultrasound last Friday. Bubs was very squirmy and gave the doc a bit of trouble (What is it with us and ultrasounds?) but eventually he was able to get all of the views required. It was such a relief as he ticked off the potential health problems. No spina bifida. No Downs syndrome. No major congenital heart defects. They have been a prob on Girl O' Sea's side. He/She (I refuse to say it but I will confess that I generally do say he) seems as healthy as we can hope. A great relief.

My favourite bit was a perfect shot of the soles of his/her feet. It was almost like bubs was in the monitor pushing back against the glass. Is it those feet that I feel kicking Girl O' Sea's tummy each night before we go to sleep? Is it too early to start wondering if he/she can kick off both feet? The AFL Draft Camp makes a father think of these things.

So that's 20 weeks down and 20 to go.

A poor correspondent

Yes, I know. I have been seriously neglecting my blogging duties. I blame being a journalism student because I feel that the pressure is on to produce a wonderful bit of writing every time I sit down at the computer and one that extends to four or five hundred words. I intend to fight against these impulses. There is no need for quality, this is the internet!

One of the stated intentions of this blog was to muse upon impending fatherhood but as the fatherhood gets more pending there has been little musing. That will have to change.

So we are in our 16th week and Girl O' Sea is starting to show a little bit. Not enough to be guaranteed a seat on the tram, a moment for which she is desirous, but enough to be noticeable if you look hard enough. For me it is another little part of connecting with the little person. I had no idea what an abstract concept it is for guys in the first few months of pregnancy. The mums-to-be they have definite physiological signs that a baby is growing inside them, and some psychological ones as well, but for us blokes we are sort of operating on trust. We have seen the lines on the stick and we have seen our partners deal with the nausea and the exhaustion but we lack for something tangible to base our belief on. Something we can start loving.

It began for me, as I am sure it does with a lot of blokes, with the ultrasound. What a wonderful gift that is to parents-in-waiting. Those initial moments up the screen when the machine starts to do its job and you feel like you are diving down though a tunnel and then there it is. You can see something but you can't make head nor tail of it. Then the doc points out where the head is and the fact that there is no tail. Yay for evolution. And then there are two arms and two legs. And a brain with two sides reflecting the distinct personalities of its parents. And most special of all, a heart beat. There was a living being that I could start loving.

Unfortunately Girl O' Seas uterus didn't want to play the game on the day. It was contracted and the little person had its head jammed up in one corner. It didn't look comfy but apparently it's not unusual. It meant that we didn't get one of those perfect images of bubs floating in space but that's ok because the sound of that little heart beating away will stay with me forever.

Number 10 - At last

Modern Giant - The Band Has Broken Up (2007)

There have been two occasions in my life when I have heard a song on the radio that I thought was so blindingly good I was compelled to ring the station straight away to find out what it was. Funnily enough I can remember making the first of these calls but cannot remember what the song was. Perhaps it wasn't that good. The second time was The Band Has Broken Up. It was being played on FBI and I am sure I can remember where I was: in The Brown driving out of a carpark in Randwick. Perhaps you would make up a more rock'n'roll locale if we were working with fiction but these are the mundane recollections of my life remember.

Not that long ago I would have mounted a very strong argument against the possibility of what is essentially spoken word poetry ever becoming an important part of my musical life but I had never heard of Adam Gibson. Any man that starts a poem with the line "Midnight Oil, The Hummingbirds, The Clash" is going to grab my attention. The fact that it is backed by a great little rock tune, incidentally produced by Simon Holmes of the aforementioned Hummingbirds, doesn't hurt.

I am a sucker for nostalgia and what Gibbo does in this 4 and a half minutes is tell a story familiar to those of us that were in our 20s in Sydney during the 90s. I can recognise the life I did live, of parties in the inner west where "girls were enticing and pale" and lamentations for all the nights spent watching guitars that I should have spent playing them, and also the life I wanted to live, a life where I actually spoke to the girls at those parties and found out what was at the other end of the plane trips that all of my friends went on.

Most of all I wanted to meet a girl at The Hoey and disappear with her into the Burke St night just like Gibbo's character does at the end. Alas that never happened but who cares because I have had the pleasure of disappearing into the Burke St night with Girl O'Sea and that is all I need.