the lost week

Yes, there has been a bit of a break. I wrote a couple of drafts last week that I was going to post but they weren't quite right, not for any writing reason but something else. On Friday we had our 12-14 week scan. I didn't post anything because I had a little gnawing voice in my head based on a story I heard regarding this scan. A couple, so the story goes, went in for their scan and there was no baby.

I can imagine it. The radiologist looking intently at the screen, pushing bottons while sliding the transducer round and then with a frown turning to us and saying,
"There's no baby there."


I had a little paralysis.

I also had, and still have, a small collection of pieces that need writing, or needed writing, so I took, am taking, care of these and those.


We dutifully went to the scan and and as soon as the radiologist started scanning I saw our baby, quite clearly. I saw the little monster in profile. There were arms and they were making complicated movements and then resting the head on one hand in a Rodin pose. It's about 85mm from rump to crown, which meant the technology told us we are 14 weeks pregnant. This puts the due date at about the 25th of March.

Somewhere a week was lost.

Notes from the Waiting Room

Of course the visit with Bridget had more important issues then me having a minor Tony Soprano moment. I was actually involved in some of the serious discussion. One serious issue is the 12-14 week scan called the Nuchal Translucency scan. This is the scan they do to see if the little monster has any serious genetic defects, primarily Downs Syndrome. The way they check is by seeing if the little monster (who has it's back to us apparently) has an enlarged bubble on the back of it's neck. Now all little monsters at this age have one but if it's enlarged it means you have a "chance" that the baby might be developing Downs Syndrome or something else (it may not be either, all they can give you after the scan is a possibility). If there is a high possibility then we can elect to have an amniosomethingarather where they draw a sample of amniotic fluid from Sicily's lair.

The problem is, having taken these tests and presented with, say, a 93% chance of having a D.S. child, what do we do? It's a serious question with very real consequences. Now I worked with D.S. people as a part time job, while I was studying, and I have a fair idea of the level of commitment entailed in caring for someone who is D.S. I also have a certain understanding of what life is like for someone who is D.S.

Neither Sicily or I have a family history of Down Syndrome so our chances are very slim, but this is a "what if?" we can't ignore... at least until the tests come back.

In saying that, we did have one test come back good and well, which was Sicily's blood pressure. This is something that will happen with each visit, Bridget takes Sicily's blood pressure. Once again, such things are uncommon but if Sicily was to have a high blood pressure it could affect the little monster in myriad ways (can I just say here and now that "little monster" is a term of endearment and serves better than using "IT", tho we will get to a discussion of names in due course) including a lack of oxygen for the developing monster.

I asked Bridget about the causes and she stated studies havn't really figured it out but it may have some connection to the Placenta. Apparently it doesn't matter how healthy Sicily is. Also, it can often be related through the paternal side and she asked me if any of my family had high blood pressure during pregnancy. I said I didn't know but that my Mum would know and if there was she would have told me (being a midwife and knowing these things -- we don't and if we did you would have told me right Mum?).

So Sicily got her armed pumped up and everything while we discussed this. Bridget checked her pressure and said "Well done, your blood pressure's excellent."
Sicily sat there with a big smile and said how she felt she had achieved something and I placed my hand on her knee, from where I perched, and said "congratulations" in a husbandly way and we all laughed.

We've decided to have the Nuchal Translucency and I need to make an appointment in the next two weeks to find out what our chances are. I asked Bridget about the scans' affects and she enforced Sunita's statement about unproven affects, tho she seemed to think the issue is really if you are having scans every two weeks or so, rather than every six to 12 weeks. So my... ahem... hysteria in my earlier post wasn't so necessary, yet I still think that example stands as a testament in the argument between us having a home birth and a hospital birth. I'll let you'll guess what my preference is. Meanwhile, the activity of waiting continues. BTW, Sicily's waiting room looks like it's finally getting those extensions put in. But where will everything go?

The Waiting Room

On Wednesday night we had our second appointment with our midwife. These appointments take place at the Birthworks clinic in Petone, which is at the back of a midwife’s property and is a small kinda hut/cabin structure. Everything is warm wood and coloured cloth. We wait in a small waiting room, but not for long, and Bridget turns up. We go into the office and, in what I now imagine will be the routine, Bridget sits at the chair at the desk, Sicily sits in the chair at the end of the desk facing Bridget and I sit on the single bed that is a bit too high for my feet to comfortably be on the ground and too far away from the wall for me to lean back. So I perch.

After the usual hellos &c... Bridget and Sicily start talking about things, generally to do with how Sicily is feeling, what changes she is noticing and, possibly because of the day at work I had, combined with not having had any dinner yet, aided by the general, shall we say, fema-centric conversation, I found my thoughts drifting. Occasionally I would zoom back in on the conversation and then waft out again.

Sicily was asking about why her lower back had been really sore and Bridget started to describe how her Uterus was starting to sit up due to it growing rather dramatically in size -- all the while using her fist to describe this movement and how, quite possibly, Sicily’s uterus had been exerting pressure on her lower back. Now, ashamedly, I don’t know that much about the inside of our bodies. I easily slip into the perception of having bodies without organs. Sure, I know about livers and kidneys and stuff but it’s a little abstract. Not to say I don’t know my body as such (and remember the conversation wasn't about my body) but when Bridget starting mapping Sicily’s insides with her fist and I tried to fit that map over the reality something got a little cross wired and the room started to spin.

Now I don’t know much about panic attacks, I’ve heard about them and seen them in action but I don’t know them. However, I swear that for the 30 seconds or so it took to right the cross wires in my brain, I thought I was going to have a panic attack. Of course I righted the situation and I did so by moving toward marvel. Marvelling at the development of our baby’s waiting room. A marvelous waiting room inside Sicily's body. So maybe I’ll sing this song for our baby as it does it’s thing in there:

I am a patient boy
I wait, I wait, I wait, I wait
My time is like water down a drain
Everybody's moving,
Everything is moving
Please don't leave me to remain
In the waiting room
I don't want the news
I'm not a part of it
I don't want the news
I have no use for it
Sitting outside of town
Everybody's always down
Because... they can't get up
But I don't sit idly by
I'm planning a big surprise
I'm gonna fight for what I want to be
I won't make the same mistakes
Because I know how much time that wastes
Function is the key
In the waiting room

(Fuguzi-Waiting room)

Clawhammers and Corporate Taxis

This morning driving to work I was almost side swiped by a Corporate Taxi, who squeezed past me, half in my lane and half on the roadside next to the gutter. That he did it with speed and was so unpredictable made me swear out loud, causing Quentin to sit up in the boot and look at me in the rear view mirror while making a Marge Simpson disapproving sound.

I managed to catch up with the corporate taxi and I slowed, as I pulled along side, stared at him, I then wound down my window. Before I could say anything traffic in my lane slowed me down and he looked at me, before speeding off, and shook his head as if my safety were inconsequential compared to his need to get to the airport (I guess) and pick up his corporate John.

Now while I may well have been righteously pissed about his driving I wasn’t going to follow him until he stopt and then take him out with a claw hammer or some piece of heavy metal. Not like Toma Lauaki did to the truck driver or, sometime later, the similar incident when another truck driver, a Paul Molner, was threatened by an enraged driver.

As I carried on driving I got to reflecting about how I would have reacted if our child had been in the car. Pudney and Cottrell talk about the sense of Protector a father assumes and probably, to some degrees, is chemical programmed to be. They write:

“Your baby has the right to know that you (the father) are prepared to be a strong guardian and make the world a safe place for him/her.”

So it’s interesting to know that Lauaki claims the truck driver (in his truck) nearly forced his car off the road, his car carrying his wife and two of his children. Likewise, the other case, the man who threatened to attack Mr Molner accused him of “endangering his baby’s life”.

I’m not saying I condone these acts, I’m just saying... interesting.

Why I am already showing signs of being a clever father

Like I said previously, one task I took on board was finding a midwife. As soon as possible I had rung round and secured us an appointment with Bridget. Of course that didn’t mean she was going to be our midwife, we needed to meet her to confirm that.

We met with Bridget around the 15th of August and chatted about various things relating to pregnancy &c... Bridget suggested we meet up with a few other midwives and decide who we wanted. However, she informed us, she normally only takes four births a month and already had three booked in for April. In one of those communication moments that, I guess, signify spousal understanding, Sicily and I gave each other a look and then told Bridget we had “talked about it” and we would like her to be our midwife. Good and done.

Perhaps if I hadn’t taken that task on myself and taken it on with such grim determination, we might be in a similar position to Gendy Thomson (Dom. Post Sept. 10 2005). This poor woman is 14 weeks pregnant, has already had two miscarriages and still can’t find a midwife in the Wellington region. The anxiety can’t be doing the baby much good. At least our child can rest assured in the knowledge that it’s clever intending father did what he intended to do and found a midwife.

horse piddels and Schapelle Corby

Back to our regular programming, which involves me constantly trying to get up to speed with the story. This inciting incident happened on the 8th of August, a Monday. It also reached over to the Tuesday as well. (as a side note, once I figure things out more I'll start having links for things.)

I got home from work and Sicily complained of having quite strong stomach cramps that had gradually gotten worse over the afternoon. Now it seems to me that woman are forever having stomach cramps, so I rubbed her back and made her a nice soothing tea then got out my home made radiology equipment (amazing what you can do with home computers these days) to take a closer look. Sicily was none too keen on that and still wouldn't let me even when I appealed to her anthropological side by reminding her of the P.N.G. tribe where the husband does midwife duties.

At this stage we had only made an appointment with Bridget and as such did not have a midwife, so I made Sicily ring Sunita. By the time we got hold of her it was nearing ten at night. Sicily talked to her then handed the phone to me.
"Take her to the Hospital now." Was what she said.
"Now?" I said.
"Now." she said. I kinda like it that Sunita, who is the youngest, is suddenly able to order us around.
"Why now?"
"Because she might be having an ectopic pregnancy" (which is where the little monster gets stuck in the tunnel leading to the lair) Sunita said, demonstrating perfectly why she can order us around now. So we got into the car and went to the hospital only to discover we didn't know where it was and the map wasn't in the car. It took us a half hour to find the hospital. We checked in with the check in and then got a primary assessment with a nurse who said it sounded like a urinary infection and that someone would be with us shortly. Meanwhile Sicily had to pee in a cup and then drink it. Actually that doesn't sound right, Sicily had to pee in a cup so they could test it. At two in the morning I went up to reception and said we were leaving as we both had work that day. The receptionist quickly looked through our notes and asked us not to leave until we had talked to a nurse and she promptly called over a nurse who said,
"No." and "You need to be checked it could be ectopic and life threatening."
Within ten minutes a doctor lead us into a room and started to check Sicily out. The urine sample had come back clean so he did a blood test and said he'ld be back in half to an hour. Sicily and I settled in for the long wait but at least we were in our own room and Sicily could lie down. The previous weekend we had watched part two of "Through my Eyes" the story of Lindy Chamberlain and the dingo &c...

Now that whole dingo got my baby things is very interesting, esp. regarding my own family and that at a similiar time my younger bro had died. I also find it interesting in light of an essay I once wrote about Australian cinema. I may post the whole essay on the blog as a seperate entry. The discussion of the Lindy Chamberlain case and it's cultural impact lead me to compare it to the recent case of Schapelle Corby. This lead to the great Corby debte of '05. Sicily argued that compared to some political prisoners in some countries Corby has it "cushy". While I agreed that yes the sentiment was true, the use of the word cushy was unfair to what it must be like to be in a South East Asian jail on drug charges. Seeing as we both have our Mars in Gemini (which is both a true and imaginary classification - like Borges' 'certain Chinese encylopedia' in which animals are classed according to (a) belong to the Emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) sucking pigs, (e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the present classification, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable, (k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, (l) et cetera, (m) having just broken the water pitcher, (n) that from a long way off look like flies' ) the debate over the use of this word got quite heated. I'm not going into any analysis here of the debate, or it's subtlties or unconscious meanings. People are welcome to put their own analysis of it in the comments section if they wish to.

The Doctor came back said the blood test was all clear and that we needed to come back in for a scan in radiology just to make sure and that we should ring in the morning to make an appointment.. We got home and went to bed at about four thirty five and then I was up at eight to ring work for both of us and make the appointment. The appointment was for the following day, the Wednesday at eleven and Sicily was to drink a litre of water over two hours before hand and not go to the toilet.

Poor Sicily, she did so well but was mighty uncomfortable, pregnant woman go to the toilet a lot, it seems to be one of those things. We arrived at radiology and the woman lubed Sicily up then started to run a scan.
"There's the fetus and it's in the womb but I'm having some trouble seeing it. Could you please go to the toilet for exactly 20 seconds."
Back for another look, no 20 more seconds released please. Finally she could see it and so could I. Sicily couldn't see it but all those years of staring at the wall making out shapes pays off. Just like Leonardo said it would. It was about 17 mm and there was a head and this slug kinda body and a flashing pulsing heart.

Later on I talked to Sunita about the scans and she said that studies show they don't do any harm but they also don't show if they do. Basically, they should be avoided as much as possible. Now here's the rub, we are discussing where to have this baby. So far our experience of Hospitals is that they don't inform you they just do what they think. If Sicily was having an ectopic pregnancy on the Monday then we would have really known about it by Wednesday morning when we had the scan. As she was comfortable enough in her body to be able to go to the toilet for 20 seconds would certainly suggest there was nothing wrong with her and that we didn't need the scan. Instead we subjected our 7 week old and peanut sized little tyke to a medical procedure that research is ignorant of regarding long term effects.

... and the baby starvers

The other thing today was that I heard the words of Jock Barnes in my ears. Some time ago I read “Never A White Flag” the memoirs of the Watersiders Union leader.

I had to travel up to The Swamp for a Union meeting to vote on ratification's to the contract, including a pay increase and a few other odds and ends. It was interesting experience and the fact that it was rejected unanimously was both satisfying and hardly surprising. I imagined how it must have felt back in ‘51 when up to ten thousand Workers rejected management's offers as one body. Because we rejected this first offer, as a Union Delegate, I’ll have to travel back up and enter into negotiations with management. Unfortunately Union movements are still growing after being decimated by the last National Govt.

I am doubtful that the next offer will be accepted by the Union and there are certain issues that could split the members because the Mental Health Trust I work for has branches in P.N. and Wellington. As we have to cover our own shifts and travel to P.N. for the meetings we will always be outnumbered by the P.N. members. This has all sorts of implications that I wont go into here but will be obvious to those who understand any Union decision is based on a 50% majority.

It’s also possible that it could lead to strikes. This in turn got me thinking about the strike of ‘51. That lasted for 151 days.

When I read Barne’s Memoirs I noticed he used a phrase often about the Govt., the Ship Owners and all those who had forced the lockout, he referred to them as “Babystarvers.” The way he used the phrase made me think that it was a term which must have been part of the dialectics among the Union movement and the the strikers. I was intrigued by the phrase, as up 'til now I have been using the phrase "false-bottomed" to describe managment. Now, with a baby of the way, I feel like reclaiming that phrase "baby-starvers". As our negotiations start in earnest, that phrase sits in my pocket like a small sharp flick knife and I wonder if we will need to use it. I can well imagine jubbery chins of management quivering if I were to pull it out. There's something very sharp about it.

To me, this election, in many ways has come to that. While certain leaders make a great show of kissing babies, how many of them have a falsebottom? And how many of these political leaders have a baby starving agenda in those false bottoms? At present, along with negotiations I am involved in, there are many others all across the spectrum of Unions, indeed we already are starting to see lock outs and strikes (for example the striking at Southward Engineering in Lower Hutt after 13 workers were suspended. I imagine, if National get in, these fledgling Unions will once again be forced deep underground.

The main problem as I see it is that we don’t need tax cuts we need better wages. We’re having a baby and it’s due date is 1st of April. Funnily enough it's the same date Labour’s “Working for the Family” scheme kick in.

The babies

I’ve been trying to reflect back so far with my blogs. Nearly finished the first Trimester (there’s three of those) and a lot happens in that sort of time (three months). My precious few blogs thus far have been filler. Maybe I will be forever behind the now, chasing the present experience like a shadow.

But for this one the present is worth leaving our past narrative (there is a seven week story worth telling -- in due course) to look at today, in the course of this mysteriously simple working.

At eleven weeks our little watery stone has fingernails.
It swallows and kicks. It’s major organs -- liver, kidneys, intestines, brain (brain) and lungs -- all function and apparently the spine can be seen (tho I haven't seen it).

The e-mails we get sent out, that Sicily signed us up to, says:

“That's quite impressive for someone who's only the size of a lipstick case. That will change soon; within the next few weeks, your featherweight child should double in size. You may notice your clothes getting tighter”

Which kinda bums me out because I don’t clothes shop too well. Of course I know that really refers to the pregnant mothers but it’s known for intending fathers to also gain weight. Gordon Churchill talks about the anthropological and scientific concept of the Couvade syndrome. Ultimately it is the intending father’s sympathetic experience of the mother’s pregnancy that has definite physiological and psychological manifestations. The science meaning refers to studies of pregnant lab rats and how the male rat acts, which comes to mimicking symptoms and all sorts of weird changes in their chemicals.

In Anthropological terms he talks about certain tribes where the fathers do certain ritualistic actions involving things like solitude and fasts in preparation for the birth of their child. In one tribe in PNG the father is shown how to deliver the first child by a female midwife and from then on in, every birth after, the father acts as the midwife.

Between her, me and the baby; a midwife

The thing with pregnancy is that I have suddenly stepped into a matriarchal culture. I don’t mean that in a negative sense. I mean it in the sense that I have stepped into a woman’s world. It has a somewhat unnerving aspect to it. Being the people we are, we have been getting all the books we can and most of them seldom mention the Father and what he should be doing. I’m aware of and have read Gordon Churchill’s book, which was great but about the American experience which differs considerably from the New Zealand experience.

The first thing we needed to do was find a mid wife. So we rang Sunita, Sicily’s sister who is a midwife practising in Hawkes Bay. She didn’t know anyone but nonetheless passed on all sorts of midwifery voodoo, like telling us how pregnant we were. Then we got a phone call soon after from Sicily’s Ma. I think she had felt a disturbance in the force and was ringing to check why we were disturbing it. Sicily told her the disturbance had come from discovering there was a monster in a lair and that lair was inside Sicily’s tummy. I put my mouth on it and whispered “What’s going on in there?”.

No reply tho Sicily laughed. The ears come later. Now that Linda knew I had to ring my Mother and that’s the second midwife. Now my Mother was very excited about the news as she had been teased somewhat mercilessly by her sisters that she would only be a Grandmother to dogs.
“excellent.” she said. “Good work, excellent.” She said.
“Yes well, I do what I can.” I said, beaming under light of parental praise. The problem was she kept oscillating between being an excited Grandmama and a good pragmatic midwife with over thirty years experience.
“She’ll be finding she’s got tender breasts.” She said after consulting her midwifery voodoo charts. There were various other comments along that line and I realised I was in a matriarchal world that was soon to be full of talks of tender breasts (mmmm.... tender breasts of Sicily.... oops, this is public right?), varicose vulvas, spotting and so forth.

Now both Sunita and my Mother have agreed to be at the birth but we still needed a midwife. I decided it would be my job.
“I’ll find us a midwife, after all I found a full wife I should be able to find a mid one.”

I rang all the midwives in the phonebook and left messages. A woman from Birthworks rang back, obviously a senior midwife to tell us she would pass us on to one of their midwives.
“But first,” She said over the phone “I will tell you a little about our philosophy...” and she proceeded to give me a run down.
“I don’t mean to be rude but can I interrupt you?” I interrupted.
“Sure” she said.
“My mother is a midwife, I know what you’re saying.”
This excited her and she decided she would take us. Unfortunately she was away in February and didn’t want to risk it. Later that night Bridget rang. Sicily answered and they talked and we had an appointment for a couple of weeks time. Mission successful, I had found a midwife.

the unplanned planned

In the beginning there was two blue lines...
Actually, not true, in the beginning was an agreement.
“well, we could try...” We said shaking hands and making eye contact.

That actual "trying" was just going to be a “practice”. We thought we would have a good solid six months trying (which, after five years of worrying about contraception sounded quite liberating) but no, from what we can deduce, it happened on the first “practice run”. And people said smoking that stuff would make me impotent.

Of course this was made so much more potent by figuring out that conception took place on the 8th of July. The day before, on the 7th, we had left town to go to the funeral of a close friend who had died early that morning. That night we heard about the bombs in London while staying in a motel room in Kaikoura.

So it’s been one initiation after the other.

I understand why they sell pregnancy tests in packs of two. The first one was on Friday night. It had two blue lines. Sicily looked at me.
“Two blue lines seems a bit arbitrary.” I said. “Who decided two blue lines means yr pregnant?” I asked.
“Better do another one just to make sure.” Sicily said and she did, the next morning.

That had two blue lines as well.

By the 31st of July we took the fateful step and decided to believe that two blue lines was a truthful signifier and signified we were pregnant. Not only pregnant but already due, April the first 2006.

Here's something I didn't realise. To work out how pregnant you are you go by the first day of yr last period.

by way of an explanation

I’ve decided to keep a Blog, as they call it. We’re gonna have a baby and that kinda freaks me out, tho I am more excited then I am scared. Because there are friends and relatives scattered around who might like to keep updated on it, it seems a blog well might be the best medium to do that. I have no plans for how this blog will unfold, or how often I will put stuff here but it will be regular.

A “blog” is a strange thing. An online journal. A web log. I have kept a journal for 11 years and have a big boxful of Warwick 2B5 hardcover, lined, exercise books. They are one of my art forms that require no audience, an expression of madness as Freud would put it (That’s why I’m not that keen on him and prefer Jung). A blog is a journal on line with a weird fragmentary audience, a private public. I feel like I am setting up shop in a mall where people are inside but they are outside my shop.

We are ten weeks pregnant. Or at least Sicily is pregnant and I’m “expecting”. As a matter of fact I am not an “expecting Father”. I am an “Intending Father”. A wise man once wrote “Disappointment is the child of expectation, not intention”. See I have to make this up as I go along. With pregnancy I have no script or ritual so I am making up my own. Sicily has a script, it’s her body and there are definite physical things taking place. So this blog serves as a means to put words on page of my experiences, intentions and discoveries of becoming a father.

AS it stands, this is a new medium for me and will take awhile to figure out what I'm doing (hmm... bit like becoming a father). Anyways, thanks to Tom for helping me, his blog can be read by clicking on the link (and his work with TPK is a fine, fine reason to NOT vote national this election).