an intending father

yes yes

2008-06-18T10:43:00.002+12:00

Yes yes, you've probably guessed
there's a new baby on the way.
Due one day in February
Near the beginning of the month
Maybe a boy this time, or a girl
We're excited very much.

A sudden nostalgia.

2006-05-20T15:21:00.000+12:00

As Zap was being born I had a sudden nostalgia that I wouldn’t get to play with her ever again through Sicily’s stomach. That thrill of seeing movement in response to my touch and voice was going to be over.

Bridget's hands

2006-05-20T15:14:00.000+12:00

Because they are worthy of their own post and I don't want to embarrass her by make grand claims about her abilities and because, so they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, so this is my tribute to our Midwife.

On the origin, meaning and uses of the name ZAP

2006-05-20T15:09:00.000+12:00

Some people have asked where the name Zap came from. After thinking about it a while I came to the conclusion that’s not the right question. A better question might be, what does the name Zap relate to?

The name Zap came to me, as I said, while we were sick. As I held Zap in my arms, after she had feed and been clothed, Bridget asked me what we were going to call her so I said Zap. Of course not for a real name but, unlike my dream, when Zap was born it wasn’t obvious what her name would be. It took us a month but we eventually fixed her name but in the meantime she has been Zap.

I got to thinking about why ‘Zap’ and the first thing that came to mind is of a game, one of the few D & D games I’ve played. I never got into gaming as a teenager. In fact, at school I don’t recall anyone being involved in games, and even if I had got involved in gaming it would have been deemed as against the religion and heavily censored.

I do, however, like playing computer games and so inevitably I played a couple of D & D games that T. use to bring over when we lived in the same neighbourhood in Dunedin. One game I particularly enjoyed was Dungeon Siege (which T. would no doubt point out is not proper D&D). In the game, one of the early spells for the nature mage (if you develop one of those characters) is Zap. While they generally use healing spells they do get caught in melee and combat and sometimes need an offensive spell like Zap. The thing with the Zap spell is that, as simple as it is, it gets more powerful as yr character does.

Several days after I made that connection I also realised it was that spell I had used when I was first learning to play the game, all my party was knocked unconscious except my nature mage and T. was watching me play. It was the story I had used at his funeral.
I quote that part here:
----------------------------

Most of you will be aware that T. liked to play computer games, particularly Dungeons and Dragons whereby a small band of adventurers with various skills and abilities set out on a mission to rid the world of evil, much like the story of the Lord of the rings.

I had never played these games until I met T. One of the first games of this nature I played was a game he had lent me. He came over to visit when I was in the early stages of this game. At that stage I had two fighters and one healer in my party. As he watched over my shoulder, occasionally muttering things about my playing, I got myself into a perilous position. I was deep in a dungeon, and due to inexperience my two fighters had been knocked unconscious and my healer was about to go the same way while all around were monsters both terrible and deadly. I was about to give up and go back to a saved game from earlier when T. said “Don’t do that.”

I pointed out that my situation was hopeless but he would have none of this. Apparently it was unheroic to give up like that. T. then proceeded to talk me through this situation. I remember it well because I thought the situation was hopeless and had to place all my trust in T. guiding me through this. Within half ‘n hour T. had not only helped me get my fighters up and all the monsters defeated but he had also lifted my understanding of the game from a base ignorant level to one more sophisticated and competent.
-----------------------------------

This is an interesting connection I think, considering Sicily was quite likely pregnant while I spoke those words at his funeral. So that’s my association with the name Zap. The original idea though, as with most original ideas, appeared out of nothing.

As to Zap’s “proper name” it is:

Lorenza Joy LeDuc.

The LeDuc comes from Zap’s maternal grandmother. The Joy is Zap’s auntie and great-aunties middle name.

Lorenza was part of a list and was actually a name we had carried for while during the pregnancy, it sort of hung round but without much conviction. It refers to the laurel tree.

Zap sticks out her head

2006-05-20T14:52:00.000+12:00

Tuesday 04/04/06

At 00:40 Sharon arrived as a second midwife to take notes, which was great as we had Bridget’s full attention. By that stage the epidural had worn off again and Sicily was trying to find I comfortable position. By 1 o’clock she was starting to push.

The pushing went on. I stood by Sicily’s head feeding her ice chips between pushes. By 1:45 Sharon notes, “we can almost see a peep with contractions.”

Throughout the pushing part. which looked like incredibly hard work, I stood by Sicily’s head and feed her ice cubes. After the intensity of breathing together at home the pushing made me feel slightly redundant. I, even at the time, suspected part of it was my own tiredness, exhaustion and the labouring kicks.

There was one particular pushing contraction that is still clear. After a long session of pushing, Sicily who is all grim determination, sweat and something else again, lets out a short sharp and single, “Fuck” to which Bridget replied “fair enough”.

By 2:10 the head remained visible and at 2:12 Zaps head was birthed. She had a headful of dark hair like I had dreamed and posted to this blog.

There’s this story, T. told me it once sitting round his fireplace, probably after a breather, talking stuff, not so much a story as a folklore, that the first sound a baby makes contains all the names of G_d.

When Zap stuck her head out she started to talk. Not cry or anything but talk. I swear it was the most unearthly sound I had ever heard. If ever the name of G_d was spoken I swear I heard it then. A minute later she was born, caught by Sunita. By 2:30 Zap had latched on and was feeding. Strange. Strange experience.

being vigilent

2006-05-20T14:42:00.000+12:00

As I stated earlier, when I got up on Sunday morning and realised I had slept through Sicily’s waters broking I had felt guilty, and the story of the disciples sleeping, after Christ had asked them to watch over Him while He prayed, flashed through my mind.

When we left to go to the Hospital I grabbed a couple of books figuring that if Sicily slept with the Epidural I would have something to read while I waited with her. I grabbed Thomas Mann’s ‘The Magic Mountain’ which I had been reading and I also grabbed a little Pocket addition of the Gospel According to Mark (KJV) to check the story of the disciples sleeping. Now I have several versions of the bible from simple Good News editions to more scholarly Hebrew and Greek editions with a line by line translation to English under the original text. But for some reason I grabbed this little book not even sure if the story is in Mark or one of the other gospels. Sure enough I found the story in Chapter 14.

The reason I had brought this version of Mark originally was for it’s introduction essay by Nick Cave. In the essay Cave talks about the transition from the Old Testament to the New and how he had avoided the New Testament and how the Old spoke to that part of him that “railed and hissed and spat at the world. Evil seemed to live so close to the surface of existence within it, you could smell its mad breath, see the yellow smoke curl from its many pages, hear the blood-curdling moans of despair.”

Then he goes on to state, in a passage I really like,

“But you grow up. You do. You mellow out. Buds of compassion push through the cracks in the black and bitter soil. Your rage ceases to need a name. You no longer find comfort watching a whacked-out God tormenting a wretched humanity as you learn to forgive yourself and the world. That God of Old begins to transmute in your heart, base metals become silver and gold, and you warm to the world.”

All this I read as I sat watching over Sicily while she slept under the epidural (as an interesting aside to this aside, it was over this weekend that the existence of the Gospel of Judas was released to the mainstream media).

The next morning I arrived home first before Sicily and Zap came home from the hospital and there was parcel from S & C in Cambridge UK. Among other things was Nick Caves last album, a double album affair. When Sicily and Zap got home I was playing The Lyre of Orpheus. This became our soundtrack for the first three days after the birth.

The soundtrack was replaced after Linda, Sicily’s mother, dropt off an old german seven-stringed Lyre made out of pear wood. It is the most amazing instrument I have ever played and is both easy to play for the non-musician but is incredibly complex for a musician to play. Now I mesmerise Zap (and Sicily) with it, calmed by the sound of the seven spheres.

Utilising the Facilities

2006-05-20T14:31:00.000+12:00

After one excursion I pushed the buzzer and Bridget came and let me into the Maternity ward. As we walked down the corridor I asked her if I could use the shower in the suite while Sicily slept. Which was fine as long as no one knew.

It was by all accounts an unusual request and it would have been interested to know if they have anything in their policy and procedures about that. None the less I went to have a shower. At first I couldn’t find the light switch and I pulled a cord thinking it might be the switch. Bridget turned up.
“What’s the problem?”
Seems I had pulled an emergency cord. She switched off the alarm and on the lights and then I had a shower. Apparently one of the hospital midwives turned up because the alarm wasn’t switched off properly.

It was a good idea though and in practice proved to be so. I felt much better and much closer to godliness.

The Sikh

2006-05-20T14:28:00.000+12:00

(Bit Proustian but something about the way that Madeleine bread tasted reminded me.)

OK, so I brought a packet of cigarettes and I went out side for a cigarette. Several cigarettes actually. This involved leaving the delivery area through locking red doors (aware that you were going to have to buzz to get back in which requires some inside pushing a button to open the doors). Then you can descend by elevators or stairs. I take the elevator. This time when an elevator appeared I stepped in and found myself sharing it with a Sikh. A doctor, in his forties I’ld guess, he looked like the smoothest most noble operator with his turban covering his Kesh,, I could see his Karra, the golden bracelet on his wrist. I couldn’t see if he had his Kirpan, the small dagger that make up part of the five K,s of those who practice that religion.

The whole Sikh thing intrigues me and I think they have a great religion. I took it as a good sign I saw a Sikh and so would Sicily, she doesn’t know I saw one and she’ll read this and go, “Oh, a Sikh. Cool.”

As I walked outside I found myself thinking back to a period in Dunedin when several of us had engaged what might be a classed a type of urban frontierism. This basically involved drunken late night theoretical dares we would then see if we could put into practice. The best one we pulled off was finding a big old 3 story empty house (in the infamous devils triangle) and taking it over, which we did, and successfully ran a hot water squat for five years. Another one was a group exhibition which we held in the Dunedin Community Gallery. It’s still talked about to this day in certain Council and business owners circles I’m told. And there are probably people in Dunedin who believe we killed animals and put them in jars for the exhibition.

I had gathered together a collection of dead animals, pet rats, aborted puppies, cat’s that died of old age, all preserved in jars of felmeldahyde (along with a variety of paintings, sculptures and short films). I can vouch that none of the animals were killed, let alone killed for the exhibition, but if people came in thinking we had done this I wasn’t gonna convince them otherwise. As we also regularly had musicians playing music on everything from electric bike wheels, to nylon sleeping bags, this turned into a rumour that we were killing animals during the exhibition. Torturing them infact.

One particular incident was a so called heavyweight radio journalist turning up and doing an interview and live on air saying that the exhibition and the Lunatic Fringe Solution (the name the exhibition was held under) were fascists. I’m still not sure how he was classifying us thusly but to say it live on air and to be so missing the point,was a bit too much. I don’t remember what I said, but five minutes after the interview several people showed up claiming they had heard the interview, enjoyed the exhibition, thanks a lot.

It’s a peculiar trait though in New Zealand and I am inclined to think it is done on an international level. That is, to compare someone to Hitler. For example those who, after the Orewa speech referred to Brash as being like Hitler. Now Don Brash is a lot of things but he’s not at all like Hitler (he has an asian wife and is a fifth generation New Zealander). Same with Tamaki. I mean sure, their big march was scary and everything, but for me, the enduring image was of them being stood down by the solitary figure of Georgina Byer who righteously berated them.

Anyway, one of the other stunts we pulled off was having tea and biscuits with Sukhi Turner, then mayor of Dunedin. Can’t remember how we did, but several of us met up with her for a chat in her office. Someone asked her if she believed in true love and this got her talking about, of course, Glen Turner and how there was difficulty when they wanted to get married because she was a Sikh. I asked her something about this and we had an interesting conversation about Sikh militants which I wont go into here.

I liked Sukhi Turner, a good conversationalist, I thought, as I had a cigarette outside, and it was a good thing to see a Sikh. There, my very own little eastern fetish.

time in the waiting room and elsewhere

2006-05-09T13:07:00.000+12:00

By this stage, Sicily’s Linda, Anna and Glennis were in the waiting room. They had brought some burgers from Wisconsin. Mine was BBQ which had a very runny sauce in it, which spilled down the front of me. I realised I felt quite dirty. I hadn’t had a shower in the past three days incase we needed to fill the pool and then for three days before that I was bed bound.

By 21:00 “B.P.s satisfactory. Sicily is resting comfortably now. FH baseline 125-130 bpms. Good accels no decels present. Contras 1-2:10 x 60secs.”

Sicily slept for about two hours before having another epidural top up at 22:15 and went back to sleep.

There are several things that occurred during this sleeping period and I will go into them separately.

the epidural

2006-05-09T12:33:00.000+12:00

When we arrived at the Hospital I parked in a space I shouldn’t have, so after we got Sicily settled in the room, I went back to move the car. I went out the toll bar and it opened without me needing to pay. As it was after five pm I figured it must now be free to park in the hospital grounds so I turned round to go back in. I pushed for a ticket but nothing happened. I pushed and pushed and nothing came out so I gave up and parked on the road. As I walked past the little toll booth I saw a guy in their taking the exiting cars tickets. I walked over to him and asked why I couldn’t get in. He shrugged his shoulders and said it played up sometimes and said he could open it for me but he was charging people to exit. I said I had exited not more than three minutes ago and it was free. He shrugged his shoulders.
“I’m charging people now.”
I shrugged my shoulders as well and left it as it was.

When I got back into the room Sicily was propped up in bed, looking quite pale, and holding the nitrous oxide sucky thing. She was still contracting at a regular stage but it had become harder because Bridget had to hook her up to the CTG machine that monitors both contractions and the heartbeat of the baby and looks like something developed with neither the midwife or the contracting woman in mind. It’s the sort of device that works if the woman is flat on her back.

This made things very difficult for Sicily to deal with her contractions, and by her indifference to the gas, it obviously wasn’t helping. For someone who was using her awareness of her body as a tool to deal with the contractions, disembodiment was a distraction.

The next couple of hours are a blur. I remember Sicily hooked up to the CTG and something about it’s impracticability combined with its somehow inherent functional need made me think it was made in the Soviet (Kruschev era) Union. She couldn’t stay on her side without it falling off and on her back was too uncomfortable. There was strange contusions of arms and leads and shuffling bodies against the white of the hospital bed. Bridget's notes read,

“1900: Sicily is requesting an epidural. We have discussed other pain relief options but she is keen to continue with this option.”

Bridget went and organised the epidural. I’ll admit I didn’t want Sicily to have an epidural, but I believe I didn’t want her to for the same reasons she hadn’t wanted an epidural, until now.

Firstly cos yr screwing with the spine and there’s all sorts of stuff going on with the spine, stuff medical science hasn’t figured out yet.

But Sicily needed to rest. I took a few deep breaths (of the nitrous oxide) and sat down on the chair in the delivery suit (a type of lazy boy on wheels) and realised that Sicily knew what she was doing, and that Bridget would keep the potential of a cascade to c section or forceps at bay (unless deemed necessary). That I had nothing to worry about.

The anaesthetist showed at 19:45.

She asked Sicily a whole lot of questions while Sicily was contracting. Sicily asked me to leave the room. I must admit I would have liked to see an epidural be inserted, just not on Sicily, so I left.

contracting

2006-05-04T17:07:00.000+12:00

Monday the 3rd of April:

After waking and having some breakfast I rang Bridget. Bridget came around at about 9am on the monday morning and did some more assessing. Sicily’s contractions still weren’t consistent and according to Bridget’s notes “Cx is posterior, 75% effaced, 2-3 cms dilated. Contractions currently 1-2:10x60+hrs, intensifying.”

Bridget left and said she would be back later that morning. Things continued how they had been going. I set up the lounge so it was dimly lit and womblike to help ensure the labour didn’t stall. Bridget came back at 12:15pm. Sunita had suggested we give Sicily some I.V. fluids for dehydration which we did and that helped. Sicily realised she hadn’t eaten anything for two days and what she had eaten she had thrown up. We got a couple of protein shakes down her and then I set up the birthing pool.

I had most of the pool set up but it was quite hard going so I decided to have a bit of a rest and read over the instructions. I saw that I had it pretty well under control but then noticed a very strange imperative in the instructions. It told how to set up the frame and the main pool bit then said, “This should take less than five minutes.”
“Why would they state that?” I thought to myself. “Are they trying to undermine my competency?” I asked Bridget.
“I’m so glad you didn’t say manhood then” She replied, and added “It always takes me longer than five minutes.”
I went back and finished off setting up the pool by which time my mother had arrived and she took over boiling the big pots to fill it up.

By this stage Sicily’s contractions were getting more intense so we started breathing together. I really can’t emphasis enough how important a good breathing routine is. It’s worth doing some research on and also well worth practising a good breath.

At about 3pm Sicily had a big vomit and then came back into the lounge and said she had had enough. She was dealing with the contractions fine but was nearly exhausted. She hadn’t slept for two nights and, as a normal side effect of labouring, had vomited any food she ate. We all decided to try the pool and hooked the hose up to fill it the rest of the way with hot water tank hot water. At 4:15pm the pool was 36 degrees, Sicily’s body temperature. Sicily was by now having a very hard time of it, she was managing the contractions extremely well but she was completely exhausted. I was never worried about Sicily’s ability to deal with the pain but was aware that if the labour was long stamina could become an issue, which I stated to Bridget.

Sicily was in the pool for 15 minutes when she requested a transfer to the hospital for an epidermal so she could rest. We had a big discussion about this and in the end decided a internal should be done to check how dilated she was to make sure she wasn’t in the final stages of labour. She wasn’t. She was still only 5 cms dilated. At 4:45pm we began preparing to go to hospital. As I packed a bag for Sicily Bridget asked me if I was disappointed.
“No.” I said, “We had always stated we would start at home and see what happened. Besides, “I added. “I was the one who defined a “normal” birth as one where no one dies.”
Still, I was pretty nervous. I knew epidurals can be used as a respite but I also knew that a large percentage of woman who had epidurals went on to have, if not a C section, at least a forceps delivery, simply because of a snowball, the facts-must-fit-the- theory approach to childbirth, an approach that midwifery as practised by Bridget doesn’t subscribe to. It was this, let’s change-the-facts-to-fit-the-the approach that had given us a due date earlier than the one all the midwives had given us.

At five pm on Monday the 3rd of April we left for Hutt Hospital.

the issue of 18 hours and how it was resolved

2006-05-04T16:56:00.000+12:00

After I got back from my mission my mother rang so I told her Sicily’s waters had broken and she said she would drive down. Then Sunita turned up and went out again to patch the holes in my supply missions. Sicily still hadn’t gone into labour but her cough had developed to quite a degree. In fact she was now wracked by coughing fits that left her eyes watering. I wondered if it was a coughing fit that had broken her waters. Possible.

Dan turned up to pick up Quentin and asked if I got a big pot. I showed him, he agreed it was big.

Sunita got back and made some tea then Bridget turned up. We brought in the birthing pool and then had a discussion about what to do. When a woman's waters break but they don’t go into active labour there is a window of 18 hours before something has to happen. As we were still intent on having a home birth the best option was for Sicily to take oral antibiotics to ensure there was no infection. We also poured through a New Ethical looking for a suitable cough suppressant. Bridget also did a few checks and apart from the cough Sicily’s blood pressure and temp were all good and Zaps heartbeat was a steady as an electrical current. Bridget left saying if she hadn’t heard from us overnight she would come round in the morning. Then Sunita went to get the antibiotics and something for Sicily’s cough from the pharmacy. She came back with the antibiotics and some durotuss regular with Pholcodine in it, which is suppose to be non-drowsy. Eventually we went to bed at about midnight and as soon as we did Sicily had to get up and vomit and then she started to have contractions. Good ones. I started timing them (which actually made me feel incredibly useful) and I still have the times on my cellphone stopwatch. The contractions were between 4 minutes and 13 minutes apart and lasted for about 2 minutes. They were intense but not so intense that we had to use the breathing technique we had worked on. Unfortunately the durotuss had made Sicily “powerfully drowsy” which wasn’t helping the situation, but at least her cough had been suppressed. Most importantly tho, we were in active labour so we didn’t have to worry about infection anymore or going into hospital to get I.V. antibiotics.

At about four in the morning Sicily woke up Sunita to get her to take over the timing contractions and give me a couple of hours sleep. I woke up at 6:30 after about two hours sleep but just before I did I had this very strange sequence of dreams that climaxed in me having to figure out how to generate enough sunlight to melt a little chocolate man who was wrecking havoc on a night time wellington. Somewhere in the dream I also had a conversation with Philip Clairmont about fatherhood on top of bails of hay on trailer being towed by a tractor around Wellington.

strange times in Aglionby

2006-05-04T16:51:00.000+12:00

When I left the house on Sunday, I was aware the baby was going to come soon and I noticed, aside from the state I was in from the evil demon in my stomach mixing bad elixirs out of KFC, that other things were going on. I was feeling, I have to admit, quite tearful and emotional and my normal ability to think logically was tenuous to say the least. I first went to the party hire place and picked up the tea urn, then I went to the Warehouse in Petone and tracked down the big cheap pot made in China. As I did so Bridget rang on the cell phone. We had a quick conversation and she said she would be around early evening to check on Sicily and drop off the birthing pool.

After that I drove to Lower Hutt, passing through Alicetown. I have driven through Alicetown many a time but for some reason, this time as I drove through, I felt like I was seeing Alicetown like I had never seen it before. There was an odd light about and I felt like neither I nor Alicetown existed in time. It was an odd feeling and still retains that oddness in my memory. I figured at the time it was a combination of sleep deprivation, bad stomach elixirs and the straight dope of the baby coming.

Several days after Zap was born I took a book off our shelf called “The Hunt Family - 150 years in New Zealand, 1840-1990” about my maternal side of the family. Charles Hunt, my ancestor came to New Zealand on the Adelaide which left London on the 18th September 1839 and arrived in Pito-one in March 1840. According to the book,
“...the Hunt family moved to Aglionby (pronounced Allenby) now Alicetown.” after the Cornish Row fire in may of 1840.

I did know the family had been active in the Petone settlement and and in setting up the Methodist church but I didn’t know they had settled in Alicetown. Now this is pure speculation and hardly something we can test with litmus paper, but what if, during that period of birthing, these chemicals, this straight dope the body releases in such quantities, have the effect of activating one’s ancestor consciousness and those ancient blood songs begin singing in the brain? All they require is some trigger. Which is what was happening to me as I drove through Alicetown, I was responding, almost atavistically to my ancestors who had also given lived, breathed, died and given birth in that area. Maybe. Interesting thought. Move on.

the big pot

2006-05-04T16:47:00.000+12:00

Sunday the 2nd of April:

I felt much better so resolved to get the rest of the supplies, including some way to heat water for the pool as an alternative to using the hot water tank hot water.

As it was sunday no hire places were open. Eventually I tracked down a guy who ran a party hire place who agreed to open up and hire out a tea urn. I rang Dan and asked him to pick up Quentin so we didn’t have a crotchety old dog underfoot and I asked Dan if he had any big pots, he said he didn’t.

Ten minutes later the phone rang. It was Dan and a conversation something like this occurred.

Dan -- Hey, what did you mean by “big pot”?
LHB -- You know, like a big pot.
Dan -- yeah but like what?
LHB -- A pot that’s big.
Dan -- but what do you mean by big pot?
LHB -- I mean a big pot, you know, a big pot.
Dan -- yeah but what’s a big pot?
LHB -- it’s like a pot and it’s big.

We eventually ascertained that Dan did have a big pot but didn’t, in this context, have a big pot. I rang the warehouse and they did. Made in China. Very cheap. Very big.

Saturday, the day the waters broke

2006-05-04T15:27:00.000+12:00

On Saturday afternoon I summoned some will power to get out of bed and get some supplies as we both felt the birth could come at anytime, yet as we had both been bed bound with respective illness’s, we had no supplies. I did some internet transfers of money before I left home and on leaving the first thing I did was get petrol. I grabbed a paper as well. But the card declined (having worked with Schizophrenics who have such a hard time with Eftpos I am convinced they use the wrong word. It should say ‘mistake’, not ‘declined’). I checked the card at the ATM, it said the money was there but it wasn’t available. I told the bored underpaid teenager I’ld be back and I’ld leave the car there. I walked back home and checked again on the computer and it said everything was right so I walked back to the petrol station and tried again and it said “mistake”. I knew there was enough in there to cover the petrol minus the paper so I did that. Then I drove into Lower Hutt and went to the post shop (it’s a Kiwibank account - one of Jim Andertons decent ideas). I spoke to a young Indian man who got his manager, also a young Indian man - both had wedding rings I noticed - and we went into his little office and he looked up the account on his computer.
“The money’s there” He said, “But you wont be able to access it until Tuesday because of a glitch.”
“Gentlemen,’ I said, “My wife’s probably going to have a baby tonight and I need to get that money out.”
They both kinda jumped to and said, “Right.” in unison and before I knew it they had the cash in my hand.

In Woolworths I started to feel decidedly wobbly. I got the supplies we needed and went through the check out. As I went to pay I realised I didn’t have my wallet. Another underpaid teenager looked blankly at me over my food. I walked back to the car hoping and sure enough it was there. I walked back to the check out and the girl pointed vaguely to another check out where my stuff was. I got it, got in the car and drove home.

Later that night I couldn’t sleep and found myself trying to recall everything I knew about the birthing process. To my horror I found I couldn’t remember anything. Indeed I couldn’t even recall if meconium was a pregnancy term or whether it was a nut flavoured ice cream (it seemed perfectly logical that if it were a nut, meconium would come from South America). Eventually I got up, checked the meconium thing and went off course it’s the first poo, he black one, and then watched another DVD. After I had watched Hotel Rwanda, I went to bed and fell asleep. Sicily got up and couldn’t sleep, her waters broke at 7 am on the 2nd. I woke up at about 8 and sicily was lying on the couch awake with a towel wrapped around.

I knew what this meant and felt terrible for sleeping through it. I was suddenly reminded of the gospel story where the three disciples slept when Christ asked them to watch while He prayed.

We rang the pager and left a message for Bridget. I rang Sunita who said she would drive down from Hawkes Bay. She also reminded us that once the waters were broken there was no protection for the baby. Which means none of the normal procedures for bringing on active labour.

There wasn’t much else to do. Sicily wasn’t in labour.

some films for the bedridden

2006-05-04T15:22:00.000+12:00

As an aside to this, while bed bound, Sicily and I watched several DVDs. ‘Garden State” which I recommend and so would Sicily. It was written and directed by Zach Braf, ‘that guy from Scrubs’. We watched ‘The Aviator’ which wasn’t too bad, mainly because for once Di Caprio didn’t do that crying whining bit done to it’s worse in ‘The Basketball Diaries’ where he de-hipsterfies Jim ‘I’ll be a good boy mama’ Carroll. It was good to see for one reason, which was a conspiracy theory I had come across that Onassis kidnapped Hughs which made no bloody sense to me, and still doesn’t, except now I know who Howard Hughs is. We watched Kinsey which was an interesting story but did nothing for the biopic genre. We watched ‘Startup Dot Come’ which was morbidly fascinating and I was so fascinated I watched in again. We started to watch Hotel Rwanda on Saturday but Sicily didn’t want to watch it. She was getting twinges. That evening she feel asleep but I couldn’t. I got up and watched Hotel Rwanda until 3 am sunday morning. I guess I would recommend the film but based as it is on recent factual events it’s quite depressing. One bunch of people hack another bunch to pieces with machetes because they identify themselves by different words. Millions are killed.

by way of a prelude

2006-05-04T15:02:00.000+12:00

“...for stories, as histories, must be past, and the further past, one might say, the better for them as stories and for the storyteller, that conjurer who murmurs in past tenses. But the problem with our story, as also with many people nowadays and, indeed, not the least with those who tell stories, is this: it is much older than its years, its datedness is not to be measured in days, nor the burden of age weighing upon it to be counted by orbits around the sun; in a word, it does not actually owe its pastness to time -- an assertion that is itself intended as a passing reference, an allusion, to the problematic and uniquely double nature of that mysterious element.”
---- Thomas Mann
‘The Magic Mountain’

I imagine everyone has a lead in. A period leading up that is full of signs and wonders. It has been discussed widely that many chemicals are released during pregnancy, and especially with birth, and I’m happy to testify that they all work and make for an intense experience. Point of fact is I’ve never experienced consciousness in a state like I did in the week leading up to, during, and after the birth of Zap. It was straight dope.

Partly I blame Daniel Campion for this state of consciousness.

On Wednesday the 29th of march I travelled to Masterton with Dan as he was delivering one of his paintings to a buyer. I went with him, partly for a drive and partly to see off a painting I had much admired of two horses called Night Becomes. As a tangent on the painting I had visited Mr Campion in his studio as he was painting the outside parts of the panels and he roped me into painting the black panel. Which I did but painted in the right hand bottom underside “LHB waz hair”. Dan painted over it, grumbling.

Having dropt off the painting, to a thoroughly nice guy, we went to leave Masterton when Dan decided to get some KFC. I went along with him and got a burger. Now I havn’t eaten KFC since this time three years ago when I went into Gore after milking with James and neither of us could be bothered to cook tea so we got some of that stuff.

As I ate this burger it tasted like something bad. I had caught a glimpse of teenagers working in KFC as we went through the drivethrew. As I ate my burger and tasted how wrong it tasted I soundly realised getting underpaid teenagers to cook your chicken is probably a bad idea. At the same time this made me reflect on the work of the Unite! union under the leadership of Matt McCarten. They had recently made some news with the high school students going on strike and blocking off Queen St. Interestingly Unite! won their negations with Restaurant Brands, the company that runs most of the major fast food joints here and in Australia. At the same time I was aware of the protests in France of the new youth employment bill and that millions of students and Unions members had taken to the streets. It looked like the French were having a few good old ‘Night of the Barricades’ like they had in ‘68 and 1936 and 1871 and 1848 and 1830 &c...

That night, Wednesday night, I was struck by a terrible nausea and vomited at 40 minute episodes throughout the night. By morning I was devastated and felt like I had been hit by a truck. Friday I was still bed bound and couldn’t eat solids.

As all of this went on Sicily also was bed bound with a bad cold. At this point I told our unborn child that if she came when we were both sick I would call her Zap and she would have to wait until she’s 18 to change her name by deed poll.

Friday the 31st was the due date all the midwives had put forward (and I really do think pregnancy is a midwives gig). Both Sicily and I were still bed bound with DVDs and the paper. I noticed in it a picture of the French situation. A young student is on the ground being set upon by another bunch of youths who all seem to be of North African decent. The same set who were supposedly behind the riots where all the cars got set on fire.

One interesting thing is that all the youths are dressed in urban gear influence by American street wear. Further these “hooded youths” stole cell phones and cameras while beating up the protesters. Interesting state of affairs. The new face of the grand old French tradition of the night of the barricades, perhaps.

At some stage I went on line to look for a bit of information on the French situation and as the net operates I came across this article.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=21820

It’s weird how having a baby can so easily be used as propaganda for something that at it’s core is grossly sublime. One of the last things Sicily and I did while she was still pregnant was attend the multi ethnic day in Lower Hutt. At some point a man gave me a rolled poster of the Treaty of Waitangi which I tapped Sicily on the belly with and Zap leapt to life. While sick in bed I had read the Hutt News and there was a reporter claiming that at the Ethnic day muslims were not visibly present. Which struck me as odd when it was a ethnicity day not a religious day. I guess that’s the difference; the hooded youths are described elsewhere as Muslim youths but the French student is never described as Catholic (which I would presume him to be, in that french anticlerical way). This reminded me of the time Sicily and I were invited into the Dunedin Mosque by members of the Otago University Islamic society. I talked with several of the young men and found them to be patient, thoughtful and gentle. It was working for them. At one stage I apologised to one of the young men for the crusades.
“What crusades?” He asked politely.
This was August 2001.
Shortly after that Sicily and I along with T. attended a public meeting in the Student Union in response to the Towers coming down. I don’t recall much of it except the president of the University Islamic society, one of the ernest young men I had chatted with, did a short speech which he ended by saying “God have mercy on us all.” and it was said with the most powerful pathos. It made me realise that the symbolic issue is, as it has always been, how to resolve the crescent with the cross.

When our child was born and we were all juiced up on oxytocin we had to fill in forms saying whether Zap is a European New Zealander or what? Such statistics can then get picked up to say New Zealanders of European descent need to have 6.8 children each to reproduce the workforce to be able to allow them to retire. Yet on average they have 2.5, and Immigrant families breed more, enabling fearmongerers to spark off that fear in unassuming citizens. I recall a passage by Jung:

“Since everybody is blindly convinced that he is nothing more than his extremely unassuming and insignificant conscious self, which performs its duties decently and earns a moderate living, nobody is aware that his whole rationalistically organised conglomeration we call a state or a nation is driven on by seemingly impersonal, invisible but terrifying power which nobody and nothing can check. This ghastly power is mostly explained as fear of the neighbouring nation, which is supposed to be possessed by a malevolent fiend. Since nobody is capable of recognising just where and how much he himself is possessed and unconscious, he simply projects his own condition upon his neighbour, and thus it becomes a sacred duty to have the biggest guns and the most poisonous gas. The worst of it is that he is quite right. All one’s neighbours are in the grip of some uncontrolled and uncontrollable fear, just like oneself. In lunatic asylums it is a well-known fact that patients are far more dangerous when suffering from fear than when moved by rage or hatred.”

The point of this story, and maybe not that absurd, is that if KFC paid better wages the world might not be so crook.

Our filius solis et lunae is an anima media natura

2006-01-25T10:08:00.000+13:00

This is just one of those, "Did-you-know?" posts. We are at about 30 weeks now, and according to a study by H.P. Roffwarg et al, published in 'Science" (1966) called 'Ontogenetic development of the human sleep-dream cycle', the authors claim that at 30 weeks a baby spends it's entire sleeping time in REM sleep. The authors of the study think this helps develop the nervous system. This means the little monster goes straight into dreaming when it's asleep. What sort of dreams does a little monster have?

Johannes Fabricius writes, "With it's well developed brain and fully developed sensory apparatus, the fetus, at this stage, is submerged in a state of primal or prenatal 'consciousness' governed by dreams of a collective and archetypal nature. Alternating between dreaming sleep and waking dreaming, the fetal psyche may be described as an undifferentiated unity between conscious and unconscious states of mind." (Alchemy: the Medieval Alchemists and their Royal Art.)

Capitalism's gift to our child: a pacifier

2006-01-23T13:05:00.000+13:00

As I mentioned, the little monster is doing nothing but growing now, and so room for frolicking is getting to be prime realty; so much so that the said frolicking is quite visible from the outside. It’s like watching one of those inflatable castles at the carnival when it’s full of kids in their socks bouncing off every surface. Sometimes I think this puts a bit of a strain on Sicily and I have found a way to make the little monster quieten down. I simply lean in close, so my lips are almost touching Sicily’s belly, and I say:
“Listen kiddo, time to start thinking about a career. It’s a competitive job market out there.”

the gap inside the space

2006-01-18T10:23:00.000+13:00

Xmas and all that, it's been a while since I've said anything here. We are in the third trimester now and all the baby seems to be doing is growing. There's billions of neurons firing apparently and from experience there's plenty of movement. Sicily is tired and hungry and a bit Demeter-like all at the same time it seems these days.

I must admit I found the second trimester quite percolating. Like I was getting diffused. It was the rapidly dawning sense of responsibility - I guess. Now it's dawned on me and that's reflected in a certain level of being organised for this baby to come. Now we're getting to the stage of waiting for the show to begin.

Dream

2006-01-18T10:21:00.000+13:00

The other morning I had a dream that Sicily and I were taking our seats in an auditorium/theater.

inside activities

2005-12-14T12:06:00.000+13:00

There’s something in there, I can see it moving. And Sicily is right, if you poke her stomach the little monster does a dance.

It’s an incredibly hard thing to describe but holding my hand over Sicily’s stomach and feeling the little baby kick around is quite an experience. The other night there was a complete circus going on in there. Trapeze artists, dancing elephants, clowns with funny shoes and I swear, when I put my ear to the womb, it sounded like a brass band was playing and children were screaming with delight.

Maybe it’s a guy thing but sometimes I am amazed at how calm Sicily seems with all that ruckus inside her. This is the same person who doesn’t want to be in the same room with a weta incase it jumps on her, yet seems completely nonplussed to have something inside her feeding off her and rolling around. Sure it’s natural but so is a weta. Mind you, a weta isn’t as much fun to play with as trying to tickle the feet of our baby when it kicks against the walls.

bit of a pome

2005-12-02T08:56:00.000+13:00

You opened like a red rose
Flower, my daughter, in the
Womb of your mother, where love,
Or a spirit like it, feeds
You in there, little monster,
Sea monster, hammerhead shark,
Butting my hand through the wall,
keeping your mother awake
At night, laughing and rubbing
Her belly like a seeress,
And you are her scrying ball.
Our blazing stone in the dark.

That shya's bin sniffin' round

2005-11-16T15:57:00.000+13:00

This morning I had a dream that the little monster had been birthed and Sicily was in bed in a white room holding our little baby girl. We both fussed over her. She had a full head of dark hair, the same colour as Sicily's. Sicily and I run through the list of names for girls we had worked out and one of them clicked and their was our daughter and in my dream, looking at her, I started to cry. Which woke me up and there were tears on my cheeks.

We did also have a scan about a week ago and the radiologist wasn't "100% sure" but thought "It's a girl".
Of course we would be just as happy with a boy. A few people have mentioned from the start it's gonna be a girl.
Nonetheless, the whole time I have been writing this blog, I've been conscious of resisting the gender slide toward talking about the baby as a "her" and I deliberately let through that "her", sniffed up by a certain keen-eyed reader.

post script to my mojo disappearance

2005-11-14T10:53:00.000+13:00

I actually wrote the post about my mojo and giving up cigarettes three weeks ago. I decided not to post it then because giving up cigarettes is quite a private affair and in the early days, particularly the first three, things feel like they can go either way. Not saying I thought I would fail (or still will) but if I did fail I didn't want it broadcasted on the web.

The problem with giving up cigarettes is how it has affected my writing. I have been reluctant to write because the one time I would reward myself with a cigarette was after I had written something I liked. Most other cigarettes were smoked because I needed them (being addicted), or because it was routine (like a cigarette with coffee). But when I write there's something about going outside and having a cigarette after you have written something you are pleased with. Likewise, there's something about having a cigarette when you are stuck on a sentence and you need to cogitate. There's also something about having a cigarette after you have been writing for a while and need a break, heck, there's just something about cigarettes.....

Why oh why did I give up?

..........

yeah I know, cos it's bad for me, but also, I don't want our child to see me smoking, or to smell stale tobacco when I hold her. I'm not saying I have given up because of the child, but rather, becoming a father is one of those events that provides the impetus to give up.

.....

see, right here, I'm thinking, 'now how can I conclude this post?'
I know, I'll have a cigarette and think about it....

where has my mojo gone?

2005-11-14T10:52:00.000+13:00

I’ve worked to deadlines before and they have never really bothered me. I don’t always observe them but I do use them as a mark. Often I have been lackadaisical because I know I can wrangle the deadline to a later date, I know I can get a weeks extension.

Now I feel like I have another deadline far more serious and far more urgent than any I have previously had. Now, the one time I want a certain date for the deadline, is the one time a certain date will not be pinned down. I feel like I have so much to finish before I become a father and all this tenseness and wondering and uncertainty has, over the last month or so, made my mojo disappear. I haven’t even been able to write.

Therefore, I have done the only thing I can think of to make matters more difficult.

I have given up cigarettes.

Further thoughts on hospital versus home birth

2005-11-14T10:49:00.000+13:00

A while back we met with Bridget at the hospital delivery suits to have a look at them as an option for the birth. Unfortunately there are only the two options here; hospital or home.

The hospital rooms were quite large and had a separate screened-off bathroom with a toilet and shower/bath. The bath was a decent size. We also saw a birthing pool which they have available. The rooms had some post natal resuscitation equipment and various policy and procedures laminated and stuck to the wall. Apparently the rooms had only been painted six years ago but they hadnt aged well and there was the distinct feeling of 80s institutionalize.

It is an unfortunate fact that in this area there is no inbetween. I have suggested to Sicily that we make the decision democratically. Because there are only the two of us with voting rights (although we listen to all the advisors, we do!) I have suggested that my vote counts for 30% and Sicilys vote counts for 50% and their is amargin of 20% for the baby to throw its lot in. Thus, if Sicily has half a mind to have a home birth and I fully want a home birth then that tallies to a vote of 30% plus 25% from sicily, which gives us a majority of 55%.

Naturally enough, the babys vote of 20% could swing things either way, and Bridget agrees that we might well make up our mind on the day.

the Stork

2005-10-27T09:28:00.000+13:00

Most of us know or have a fair understanding of where babies have come from but most of us have forgotten, that as well as all that cell division and other mechanical stuff, the rest of the baby is delivered by a Stork. It sounds stupid yet everyone knows this story and I imagine that if I say to our child, when it asks as a two or three year old where it came from, “A stork put you in mama’s tummy”, I should get a response something like “what’s a stork?” and when I say a type of bird, everything will make sense.

Which is the truth in one sense. After all, something animates those dividing cells. It is, in the words of Dylan Thomas, “The fuse that through the green fuse drives the flower.” When I say the stork delivered the baby it is dealing, not with the mechanics of a baby developing, with the emerging soul of a new person. Something creates the personality and uniqueness of our developing child and, to me at least, it makes sense that the soul is brought about by the interaction of two forces, namely the material development of the child, the intermingling of mine and sicily’s X’s and Y’s, and the previous mentioned force that activates it, which we may label as Spirit, or Life Force or even the Orgones of our little monster.

Let us say that what the stork brings is the interaction between these two forces that produces the flower. In Ancient Egypt the Stork was the symbol of the BA, the two words (BA and STORK and everything they signify) are phonetically similar. The BA was (and still is) the individual unique soul of a human. Indeed the BA is represented as a human with a stork head.

Furthermore, the hebrew word for stork, Hasidah, also means ‘kind mother’. This is an idea the Greeks also talked about in their myth of Gerana. So the story goes, Gerana pissed of Hera (or vice versa)and Hera turned Gerana into a Stork. From then on Gerana, as Stork, wanted one thing, her son Mopsos, but the people didn’t want the Stork to take the child and a war erupted. Aside from all the war and stuff this is another basis for the symbolism of a stork carrying a baby. Interestingly this image transformed from the stork taking a baby to a Stork delivering a baby.

a suitcase of baby clothes

2005-10-20T10:40:00.000+13:00

To follow on with the analogy, a bit of a swell turned up recently. In saying a bit of a swell I should elaborate and say that a suitcase was given to us (a very nice suitcase it is too) of baby clothes from Sicily’s family. When I say baby clothes I mean baby clothes.

Sicily and I were looking through the clothes and as we did I found myself with a rising sense of, not panic, not anxiety, not fear, but maybe it is best described as, a growing sense of reality. Yes, let’s call it a reality buzz.

Are babies really that small?

We are, of course, very appreciative of the nice suitcase and it’s clothes but I experienced, to continue the previous analogy, the sudden sense, that one gets when surfing, commonly referred to as “caught on the inside”. What this means is that you are inside the point between the shore and where the waves break. What this means is a whole lot of paddling and duck diving (where you duck yr surfboard under the breaking wave) to get out the back of the waves again. Which in itself is not to bad, but it gets bad if a set of waves comes through, which it did, the new swell being set off by this suitcase (and a very good suitcase it is as well) full of appreciated baby clothes.

Funny that such a large swell could be set off by such tiny clothes. Are newborns really that little?

Anyway, thanks for the clothes, and the dose of reality they brought. Probably just what I needed.

time and pregnancy

2005-10-12T10:40:00.000+13:00

It is like we have reached an arc in the pregnancy. Somewhere around here it is the second trimester, but, apart from the extensions taking place with Sicily, not much seems to have changed. Indeed, it’s like a lull. I think those waves started by the first trimester are now normal and I keep waiting for a bigger swell, that I have heard forecasted, to turn up. Yet Sicily seems to be maintaining an even keel. Those extremes one hears about in the first trimester didn’t show that much. There was minimal vomiting (tho admittedly a lot of seasickness) and a reasonable about of tiredness. And the baby skipped a week.

Partly because not much seems to be happening I find my concentration lagging. It’s a sort of ‘this is going to take forever’ consciousness. Kinda like sitting in a 2ft Lyall Bay line up wondering when that swell is going to show, or when that winds going to turn (because the forecast said it would).

One change that has occurred is that I am now reading to the baby and Sicily. Our latest book is the Essential Baxter, edited by John Weir. In light of this whole ‘what is time and pregnancy’ lull, here’s an excerpt from ‘Poem by the Clock Tower, Sumner.”

Where is the white stone that shall transmute
Our average day to gold?
The green lane that leads to the wishing well
The secret house the fertile wilderness
Where grief and memory are reconciled.
Angels of fire and ice guard well that garden.

Cosmobiological thoughts

2005-10-03T11:24:00.000+13:00

By now, readers may have guessed that this whole missing week has given me some difficulty. The other day I was talking to a friend who has two teenage kids and he said, much like the midwives, babies arn’t a predictable science. I replied “no, but astrology is.”

Benjamin Walker writes:

“Why a child is born at one time and not another is a mystery, but it has been suggested that cosmobiological factors play a decisive part in it. To start with, conception itself appears to be linked with cosmic and planetary influences and these may well determine the child’s exit from the womb nine months later.” (Encyclopedia of Esoteric Man, Routledge, Kegan and Paul:1977)

While a change of a week doesn’t make too much difference, the most noticeable change is the position of the moon in the natal chart. My mother has often remarked that a full moon is a hectic time to be a midwife and while she may patiently listen to my esoteric ramblings she wouldn’t go out a buy a box of it.

Now the moon has often been called “the great midwife” and with this change in due date the moon has changed and so has, shall we say, the potential structure of our child’s subconscious.

The two charts show the difference. The bottom one being the newer due date.
(For some reason, perhaps some ghost in the machine, the charts I want keep going warped and arn't the ones I downloaded. So I give up, if you want to see the charts just google "free birth chart" and then fill in appropriate details. Or, likewise, get a piece of paper a compass a protracter a Ephemeris, then on the piece of paper draw a circle, divide that into twelve houses of 36 degrees each and so forth and so on....) (I have left what ever chart for whoever it is up here. The chart here is not the right one I simply leave it here so those who may never have seen a astrological chart know what one looks like.)
One interesting change is that the new birth date places the moon in my Sun sign of Aquarius. Also with the change there is a five pointed upright Star formed from five of the planets.

this stage of the game

2005-10-03T10:05:00.000+13:00

OK, now we don’t really know exactly what week we are but there are still things that, in general, are happening to the little monster.

The baby is growing hair. Not just on it’s head but all over it’s body, a fine hair called “Lanugo” which should disappear later on in the pregnancy. So I suspect we have some sort of wolfy-bearded
Hermit-like character sitting in it’s vessel of primordial dreams.

Sicily’s hair’s doing quite fine too and my own beard is doing alright as well, but that has more to do with having lent out my clippers.

Regarding the baby having Downs Syndrome, happy to report that it’s not that. Or at least happy to report no report as Bridget was going to ring us if there was any possibility/probability (if you were trying out for the All blacks would you rather be a Probable or a Possible...? hmmm... makes you think....) and we haven't heard from her.

Most interesting of all is that Sicily has a puku. It’s noticable, and Sicily tells me that if she pokes her belly the baby does a little dance.

yes well hmmm...

If you poke me I do a little dance as well so we try not to encourage that.

scientifico-mysterio babio processio

2005-10-02T11:12:00.000+13:00

I’ve experienced that kind of feeling, maybe others know it, of entering a waiting room wondering if yr appointment was for this week or last.

This baby thing is not a science, but still needs a scientific understanding. A friend recently told me about the birth of her son who was a month overdue, apparently. When he was born he looked the doctor in the eye and the doctor remarked “He’s been around.”

Several people I told about the missing week asked me what could cause it (interestingly enough all without kids) and because I like to bluff my answers and appear knowledgeable I said something about the perfect vessel and the secret fire that speeds up the process. I also followed that up with a few samples of stories I have thus far collected, including the one above, and then concluded by citing one of the several midwives with ‘it’s just babies’.

But maybe it’s not just babies but a miniature allegory of revolution. I was reading a Zamayatin essay and he states:

“The law of revolution is red, fiery, deadly; but this death means the birth of a new life, a new star. And the law of entropy is cold, ice blue, like the icy interplanetary infinities.”

Which is similar to the way the country is currently showing it’s colours as the special votes are counted and how that balance between Red and blue has gone (which is probably a good reason to go Green).

It’s interesting if one thinks about colour combinations. At the moment our little monster is probably seeing red and black. The Red being light filtering through the blackness. Which leads to the question of when does a child become conscious of the sky? I also like the question at what age children learn to use the word “and”, which facilitates placing things together, or making connections.

With this whole missing week thing, I think the way to read it is that science has shown us a mystery.

Good enough for me.

the lost week

2005-09-27T18:45:00.000+12:00

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

2005-09-16T15:33:00.000+12:00

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

2005-09-16T11:38:00.000+12:00

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

2005-09-13T21:17:00.000+12:00

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

2005-09-11T11:28:00.000+12:00

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

2005-09-09T09:51:00.000+12:00

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

2005-09-08T22:46:00.000+12:00

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

2005-09-08T22:11:00.000+12:00

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

2005-09-06T20:02:00.000+12:00

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

2005-09-05T20:59:00.000+12:00

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

2005-09-04T13:36:00.000+12:00

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).