Smartarses

Everyone loves a cutting cliché and a juicy generalisation.

The irritating thing about them is the fact that they often prove themselves to be true.

From the moment you start trying to conceive up, right up until your kid is attempting to lure you into a retirement home with a trail of wurther's originals you get bombarded with them.

While ‘just relax, it will happen’ was the runaway champion in the days of TTC, the days and months that follow becoming pregnant bring their own beauty.

‘Just you wait until…’

Who knew that at any given stage of pregnancy, nothing is as big, small, scary, beautiful, endearing, or terrifying as it will be at some later stage. On the basis of this, I calculate that I will should optimal happiness when I keel over and die clutching the part of my chest that houses my lard encased heart.

One of the generalisations I scoffed at in the past was the idea that as an expectant father, I wouldn’t feel any sense of connection, or have a realisation of what was taking shape and going to happen until certain milestones were reached, ultrasounds, heartbeats, and kicks to name a few.

I wasn’t having any of this idea, along with ET, I had worked and pushed for two years to get to this point, and that in itself was evidence that I was more advanced than the average father-to-be.

I'd know better.

I was wrong.

It’s hard to believe in something you can’t see or feel the evidence of. It’s hard to put into perspective, and prepare yourself mentally for, something you find hard to believe. It’s hard to put your hand on a belly and feel no movement and be 100% satisfied that everything is as it should be, and is leading to how it will be.

As time passes the evidence starts to build. Ultrasounds initially show pictures of things that look like beans, and later show grainy images that are baby shaped. Like a couple of oranges in a sock.

You hear a heartbeat, and things change a little. Things become a little clearer in your mind, more believable.

The lucky ones eventually start to feel movements. Not a feeling like anything you recognise, you could never say with any certainty that it was a foot, or hand, or forehead. Still, a feeling nonetheless, a physical touch.

But now, I look through the 3D ultrasound pictures over and over and I see the fleshy palms of little hands. I see upper arms that I bet I could ring my own thumb and forefinger around. I see lips being pushed and probed by long fingers in the same way they will be when the baby is lying in its snot green room.

I see lids covering a child’s eyes that will soon open and look back at my stupid face gawking back at theirs.

Looking at these pictures has catapulted me as if I've reached some secret level in a computer game, from where I previously thought I believed and I connected, to a place that’s a little scary. I believe more than I ever did, I’m more excited than I ever was, but I’m now aware of how much I still can’t yet believe, and how much more excitement there will be.

I’m a relatively bright person, I can do my job reasonably well, I can stutter through a foreign language, and I can understand the 3 boxes I have to fill in on my tax forms. I can drive a car, mow a lawn, and sometimes make my wife happy.

I know I can do these now because I’ve done them all before, but I don’t recall the first time I attempted any of them going particularly smoothly.

It’s hit me that this is another ‘first’, probably the first ‘first’ I’ve had in years. I don’t know what to expect and trying to think about it too much makes my brain react the way it does with mathematics. I strain and fail to wrap all the elements of the puzzle within my poor brain’s reach, and everything remains unresolved.

In the end, I suppose I just have to do what everyone says.

Just wait until.

Smartarses.

Snot and a wave

The saga rumbles on.

Slowly and unsurely the baby’s room is taking some shape. That makes it sounds far more intricate than it really is, the reality being that it just needs some bloody painting.

So Saturday morning that’s what I did, or attempted to do at least. By the time lunchtime had come around I had managed to scald myself on the radiator and roll paint onto the blinds.

Neither of which I particularly advise or encourage, but I’m going to put those mishaps in the battle scar category.

One more coat and the kid will have its own room decorated in a colour that can only be described as along the lines of something you’d find in a used tissue. Paint companies find ‘sea green’ a preferable term to ‘snot’ though.

That afternoon we went for a 3D/4D ultrasound. Getting to have another gawk at the kidlet is enough to put a smile on anyone’s paint spattered face.

The technology is simply fantastic. The views and insights into what the child is up to in its own little bedwomb world are amazing.

We saw clear images of full cheeks, lips, nose, eyes and ears. We were able to see the child leaning into the placenta on one side like a pillow. We watched it put one hand into its mouth and play with its ear with the other. Sucking, kicking, and stretching for us while we peeked in on it.

More than once the baby spread its bizarrely long fingers open wide, raised its hands, and gave us the biggest wave from inside its own hidden little world.

I’ll probably be able to stop looking at these sometime soon.

Maybe.

One sick prick

The letter has been on the kitchen table for weeks.

It tells us that in 3 weeks or so, vaccinations will begin at our general practice for the H1N1 virus.

The 'Swine flu', or delightfully accusatory 'Mexican flu' as they call it here, has been fodder for breaking news headlines in the UK and Ireland for months.

Not so much here in Holland.

The level of awareness is high, and the practical everyday precautions are promoted and supported. People are encouraged to stay home if they feel ill, which to be honest isn’t exactly a foreign concept to the Dutch anyway.

Even with all this taken into account, the Dutch are rolling out their first wave of vaccinations to the public in November, starting with their target or ‘at risk’ groups. As a woman past 13 weeks of pregnancy, ET is in this group.

Which poses the inevitable dilemma, to get the vaccination, or not.

It’s hard to separate the facts and reality from the flashing yellow headlines that do more to scare than inform.

Our scanning every story of another death attributed to the virus is annexed with searching for the term ‘underlying medical condition’. More often than not, it’s been there.

The vaccine is simply untested in any significant quantity for its effect on the unborn. If I’m wrong and there is something somewhere, anywhere that says otherwise we’ll gladly read it.

In one of the most densely populated countries in the world, there is a very good chance that we have been exposed to the virus in some shape or form already.

ET is healthy. Irritatingly so if you must know, with her perfectly smug blood pressure readings et al. In other words, no ‘underlying medical condition’ annex here.

Those who are informed in, and involved with the care and support for pregnancy and pregnant women, yet not connected or motivated via association or financial gain, have not promoted the receiving of the vaccine. Midwives have spoken frankly about the pro and cons of both options, pointing out that in the worst case scenario where ET would catch the virus; she would most likely be no more affected than any other winter flu.

More interestingly, of all the women in her antenatal class, all of whom who have been given the same letter and possibility to receive the vaccine, none of them are taking it. Not one.

All this helps to support our initial reaction, to not receive the vaccination, but of course it’s not that black and white.

What if she doesn’t take it and something happens? What if she does take it and something happens?

We still see the flashing yellow breaking news stories, so we still don’t know what is for the best, and the letter is still on the kitchen table.



Any constructive or informed opinion is welcomed.