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.