The highs and lows

Being parents of a new baby is an occupation filled with high points and low points, and as Poppy's grandma noted on Saturday, the younger the child is, the more extreme those points are.

Friday was a low - perhaps one of the lowest yet. K was trying to work on finishing her thesis which is due this Wednesday. I was at work. Poppy, who had been very fussy on Thursday, took things to a new level. She wasn't feeding well. She wasn't napping well. She couldn't be put down anywhere without crying. So instead of working on her paper, K spent all day pacing around the house with Poppy in her arms - about the only thing that would stop her from crying. At one point we were instant-messaging and she was telling me what was going on - under normal circumstances I would have left work to come home and take over. However I was going through a major crisis at work, the loss of a bunch of shared data on a server I was configuring. This was not something I could simply leave, and that made my day much worse. Back at the homestead, K was conscious of the time that was being lost, and with nerves made raw by the incessant crying, she was pretty much done by the time I got home - tired, upset, frustrated and genuinely worried about missing out on getting important studying done.

Now it was my turn. It didn't take long for me to experience the same situation. I started to get genuinely concerned. What could be making her this upset? At one point she cried with such intensity that she stopped breathing for a couple of seconds, that weird moment where babies need to pause before letting out the next scream. I measured her temperature, which was fine, and continued to try to soothe her. None of the tricks worked - changing her diaper, feeding her, rocking her - she was just pissed off with the world. Finally we attempted to do the going-to-bed routine, and amazingly she went to sleep. We were left with ringing ears, raw nerves and some lukewarm pizza, looking at each other with wide eyes wondering "what the f**k just happened?"

The next day, she was perfect. She smiled plenty in the morning, fed well, took long, deep naps and was alert and engaged in her playtime.

On Sunday she was also pretty good, but went through a fussy period in the afternoon and early evening. It was now we decided to check on something suggested by both my mother and one of K's friends: teething. After feeling around inside her mouth, we think there's noticeable bumps on her upper gums. This may be nothing, or it may be an indication that her periods of irritability might be down to sore gums.

The other theory is that she is picking up on the stress level in the household. As K ticks down the final days of her 27-month masters degree program, and works feverishly to finish a 70-page group thesis, the pressure has been building, as has her stress level. Our friends C&C noted that their 8-month-old is always at her worst when either of them is stressed about something.

Finally, the high point. As I was getting ready to leave for work this morning I looked in on Poppy in her bassinet. I could see that she was awake and just chilling out in her swaddle. As I approached her she suddenly noticed me and immediately gave me the biggest full-body smile ever! Smiles are nothing new for her - she's generally a pretty smiley and happy baby - but they are usually pretty random. This was the first time she has ever smiled in direct response to seeing me. WOW! And she's started doing this thing where her whole body convulses like she's trying to laugh when she has the biggest smiles. It's amazing.

So yeah, a high high and low low in the past three days.

Bubbles and sleep

Poppy changes on a daily basis. The latest development is the ability blow bubbles with her saliva. Okay, not exactly crawling, smiling or talking, but makes a nice change from her usual routine of feeding, sleeping and crying.

On Sunday she will be four weeks old and on Tuesday it will be one whole month. What a crazy time it has been so far! It was most interesting to visit friends yesterday who have an 8-week-old. He seems MASSIVE in comparison to her and he has a cry that sounds like an Aprilia 250cc racing motorcycle. Funny to think that she'll be roughly that size in four weeks. What was encouraging to learn is that she gained one whole pound in the last two weeks as she went from 8 to 9 pounds. That would be like an average 160lb adult gaining 20lbs in two weeks!

Finally, since the most common question we get asked is "are you getting any sleep" here's the current answer: yes. She generally has two feeds each night, sometimes one, each taking about one hour from the moment we wake up to the moment we're back to sleep. Since we go to bed around 10 or 11 and wake around 9 that means in theory we're getting something like 7 or 8 hours a night. Many nights it doesn't work out quite so well, either because we go to bed too late, get up to early, she feeds more often or takes longer to get back to sleep. Those are the nights that suck, and we had two in a row this week. The good news is that the pediatrician says we no longer have to wake her for feedings - we can go until she wakes. This is great, since she is capable of sometimes going five hours from the start of one feed to the start of the next which can mean a four-hour block of sleep for us. Two of those in one night would be amazing, and might be just around the corner....

Feed me Seymour

Poppy is now only 2oz shy of her birth weight, and should hit it before her two-week birthday, the standard for making sure babies are getting enough sustinance. Glad those 3am feeds are working!

Photos

We're posting photos to Facebook and also to a public Picasa album. Check it out.

The labor

We found ourselves down at Fisherman's Wharf around 11am. We got a call from our doula as we walked through the Aquatic Park and she gave us a great pep-talk. After that, we stopped at the Hyde Street Pier, somewhere neither of us had been before. As we walked up the pier K said that she was feeling rather damp. A quick dash into the bathroom confirmed not very much. Sometimes when water breaks it happens high up on the bag of water, so the fluid escapes very slowly. Only one thing to do in that case, which is wait.

After seeing the sea lions at Pier 39 we had lunch, a tourist-tastic bread bowl filled with clam chowder. It was now that K was able to confirm that her water had broken and was leaking gradually. We dashed home to wait for contractions to begin. Helped along by the laughter from a Peter Sellers Pink Panther movie, the did just that at around 5pm. Initially they were just 25 minutes apart, but with two at 9 minutes followed by some at 4 minutes we started to move into golden period: waiting for one hour of strong contractions at least 5 minutes apart. Pretty soon though they were at 2-3 minutes apart and were very strong.

I called our doula who was enroute and told her we were thinking of going to the hospital and she should meet us there, but by then she was just a couple of minutes away. Once she arrived she helped K through another few contractions, all very intense, and then we decided to go to the hospital. I was starting to worry that we'd waited too long - this was all going very, very fast.

We left the house at 7:58, with contractions coming so fast that we couldn't get out to the car without another contraction coming. The key was to drive smoothly and safely without going slowly. The grab handle proved to be K's best friend all the way, as she experienced about another 7 contractions in the car.

I dropped K and our doula off at 8:14 and parked in the adjacent lot. When I got back into the OB triage K was starting to get on a monitor. The nurse was rather brusque and too slow for my taste. She was also annoyed that we hadn't called ahead (like we had time....) When she finally got around to checking dilation she discovered it was an amazing 9cm!!! WAAAAHHHH! The nurses kicked into action, calling ahead to find out what delivery room was closest to the elevators. It was clear that we were now very short of time. Mere moments after K's gurney was rolled into the delivery room, our OB Dr. U showed up. In addition to being on call, she was also on-site and we were delighted that she'd be the one to do the delivery. Dr. U was also really excited. K was now starting to get the urge to push which we'd learned that you have to try to not do. However Dr. U surprisingly said that it was okay. Once on the bed, the staff scrambled to get the room prepped and as soon as they were ready they said that it was time. K had hoped to deliver in a squat position but there was no time to get squat bars. She certainly didn't want to be on her back, so she got on her hands and knees to take the pressure off her spine. Turns out that this would be how she stayed. Finally the pushing began, but since the monitors weren't working properly, Dr. U told K that she had to keep going - we didn't know what the baby's heartbeat was doing. We reached a point where normally a woman could stop pushing for a mo, but not this time. With our doula's support, K kept going, and for the first time I left her side to see what was going on. I could see the head! I quickly moved back to K and told her we were close and that she should dig deep. Summoning all her courage and effort, she made one huge push. I stepped around and watched as the baby's head emerged in entirety. One last push and out came the baby's body. "It's a girl" exclaimed Dr. U. The doc suctioned out some fluid whilst K got off her hands and knees. I got to cut the cord and then little Poppy was free to meet her Mum.

It was 8:53pm.

Laying the foundations for labor

We're home, and doing our best to keep friends and family in the loop, so it's been an afternoon of uploading, tagging and updating. Meanwhile Poppy eats and sleeps.

To tell the labor story properly, it is worth considering how things had gone in the previous few days. On Friday there had been 13 hours of irregular and light contractions that turned out to be false labor. Saturday turned into a bit of a bummer since we had to accept that fact, and face up to the idea that we could be waiting until 12 days past the due date and end up with an induction.

On Sunday morning we gave ourselves a little pep-talk. We looked at some posts on the Berkeley Parents Network which seemed to indicate that an induction doesn't equal a c-section, and then we talked about the positives of an induction (scheduling a time when our OB would be on-call, doing it during the day as opposed to late at night etc.) Finally we started making plans to DO STUFF. First up, a day playing tourist at Fisherman's Wharf. Then on Tuesday, the Australian Pink Floyd show in Oakland. I would plan on working with my band on our album and K would start working with her team on their final project in their Masters program.

With all this in mind we headed to Fishermans Wharf, determined to make the best of things. It was there that things took a rather interesting turn...

She's here!

The Raspberry is now Poppy. Born tonight at 8:53pm, 20 minutes after arriving at the hospital, 20", 7lbs 14oz of healthy girl with a 9 and a 10 on her APGAR tests.

Her full name is Poppiano McRae Nelson-Smith.

Pics to follow...

Welcome to labor, now go away

From 9am yesterday, it was contraction after contraction. This is it, we thought! Nothing too strong, and nothing too regular, but anything from 2 to 25 minutes apart, and from 10 to 40 seconds in duration. We packed our bags, made sure to eat plain, soft foods and waited for things to ramp up.

As we approached 10pm, it was clear that nothing dramatic would happen anytime soon. Following our doula's advice, we decided to try to slow things down a little so that we could get a good night's sleep. Hopefully things would get more intense in the morning. A small glass of dark beer and an early night seemed like a good idea.

What happened instead is that the moment K's head hit the pillow, the contractions stopped, and here we are in the middle of the next day waiting for them to start up again.

This is seriously frustrating. For two weeks we've been told that "it could happen at any moment". And then when it does, it actually doesn't.

Looking for clues

The latest news is that there is no real news. The last visit to the doc on Thursday showed 2.5-3cm dilation, so a slight change over the previous week. Our OB is the on-call doc today, Friday and Sunday, so we were hoping it would happen on one of those three days because she is such a lovely person and we'd be delighted to have her run the show. With that in mind we began to deploy some natural induction methods yesterday (if you don't know what this means, Google it, you'll figure it out...)

Today we woke to find ourselves still waiting, so natural induction continues, with K going for another vigorous walk around the hill and eating licorice. Of note is that she thinks she's feeling that natural burst of energy that is very often a sign that labor is just around the corner. Her friend told her that that is how things went for her: itchy feet (figuratively), a walk, then weariness. Then BAM, labor.

As if the waiting isn't frutrating enough, our friend E mentioned that her friend who has a due date one day after ours had her baby yesterday, with virtually no warning signs to indicate it was gonna happen. Damn! They totally beat us to the punch. C'mon Raspberry, pack your bags, time to move to your new room....

Package tracking

Well this is an interesting situation. We've been told that "it can happen anytime now". Suddenly, the birth isn't a future thing, it's a "now" thing.

Pretend you've bought something really cool from Amazon.com. You've received the UPS tracking number. You've waited a few days, and now the tracking says the package is "out for delivery". You know that by the end of the day, you'll have the package. But it doesn't make it any easier waiting for the man or woman in brown to show up at your door with the really cool thing you've been desperately waiting for.

Although K & I both have major projects that need completion prior to the birth, I'm still chomping at the bit. Patience grasshopper....

Dilation

16 days before the due date.

Dilation: 2cm

75% effaced.

Like father like son or daughter: would rather be early and wait around than be late and stressed out about being late.

Pack the bags!

School friends

K was back in class for her masters program on Wednesday evening. During their break her cohort-mates, the 12 or so people she is going through the program with, surprised her with a shower. The results were astonishing. The theme they came up with "Your Favorite Books From Childhood", and as a result we now have this:

Pretty cool, don't you think? Each one of these books means something to one of her classmates. Talk about crowdsourcing!

There was also the ubiquitous "diaper cake". This one wasn't one of those off-the-shelf jobs - this was made from scratch. Not only were there an awful lot of diapers, there were some onesies, some toys and hidden in the middle, a sippy-cup!

I've never seen anything like this. It was quite astounding. They're a terrific bunch of people, and anytime that K has a study group or a get-together with them at our place I always enjoy their company - but it's clear that the tight relationship they all have with each other, after over two years working together in the same program, is pretty special.

Anyway, I look forward to being able to express my gratitude to them in person, but if any come across this posting, MANY, MANY THANKS!

Picture

Our good friend Maite, in addition to being one of the nicest people in the world, is an amazing photographer, and she did a photo shoot with K a couple of months ago to try to capture her fabulous and temporary pregnant state. Every pregnant woman needs at least one superb belly shot, and here's K's:


If anyone else is looking for a superb photographer we highly recommend Maite. She's at maitex@yahoo.com or 415.637.5995

We're next

When you're expecting a baby, there's always others who are expecting in the intervening nine months. For us, there were at least four births we were looking towards as markers.

The first was in late March and then there were two in July.

This evening, number four happened. Our good friends and former neighbors had a due date 20 days before ours, and have just welcomed a baby boy 10 days ahead of schedule.

It's a vivid reminder that the countdown is definitely on, and we're pleased to say that there's only a few things we still *have* to get done. One is choose a pediatrician (we have interviews on Tuesday), another is to get the carseat installed (tomorrow) and the third is to arrange pet-sitting for our parrot. Everything else can be considered "non-essential". This is a good thing, because less than three weeks from now it could be us updating our Facebook status with the words "Gush, Here We Go!"

Party!

We hosted our "Pre-Birthday Party" on Saturday. Determined to not have a "shower", this was our opportunity to celebrate the imminent arrival of the baby with our friends and family.

For once, San Francisco weather truly cooperated, with no fog, temperatures in the mid-70s and no wind. We hired a local street musician named Jesse Morris who plays Johnny Cash covers, and cooked sausages and provided homemade condiments like balsamic mayo and curry ketchup.
We had a great time, and it seems like everyone else did too. It was also really nice to have a few kids there too - my 19-month-old niece, our friends' 6-month-old boy and we were really pleased to meet my co-worker's 6-week-old son for the first time.

It gave us a chance to stop and look around at the world into which we're bringing this baby. All these great people will be support for us and role models for the kid and on both counts we're rather lucky.

A real life indication that we're close

When your pregnant wife starts growing out of some of her maternity clothes....

Rollercoaster Sunday

We set aside last Sunday to do more work on the nursery, collate clothes and generally cross things off the big ol' list. For K this meant figuring out exactly what we had received in hand-me-downs, and for me it meant hammers, powertools and making holes in the walls and ceiling.

Unfortunately the day rapidly deteriorated into something dark and depressing. It came to light that we really didn't have much "stuff". Sure, there were a few clothes, and to be fair we have a lovely crib thanks to some friends, but beyond that we were a bit short, especially in the 0-3 months area. Making things worse was the fact that our "not a shower" party was still one week away, and although we weren't "asking" for gifts, we know that some people will bring them, so it's not like we could go out and instantly buy what we needed in case other people had already got something but not crossed it off the registry. But the big question became "what if the baby arrives this week?" The answer: we're f**ked. Our desire to reduce our carbon footprint by not buying needlessly or asking others to do the same was biting us in the ass. Here we were, vulnerable and rather depressed, without a "proper" shower planned (and therefore no guaranteed pipeline of stuff), and without stuff because we had been relying on getting hand-me-downs. We try to be good to the environment and not impose on our family and friends to spend money on us, and it appeared to have simply made us unprepared.

The right thing to do is often not the easy thing to do. When you're expecting a baby, easy is usually favoured over right. We could see why it was that people spent money, held showers, bought new things and did everything we were trying to avoid. At that point we felt that we'd picked the wrong path.

Time for a call to our closest friends, C&C, who have been great support throughout, thanks to being only six months ahead of us in babyland. They had said all along that they have a bunch of stuff for us, so I suggested that today might be a good day to get that rolling. They agreed, but said they wanted to grab a few things for us that they've found invaluable that aren't on our registry.

We carried on working away whilst we waited for them to stop by, and in the process discovered that the awesome vinyl owls that we're putting above the changing table and crib have gone missing. Another blow, because we can't put up shelves and pictures until we know where the owls are going to be. Grrr!

Next job was to make a big batch of Manhattan Clam Chowder that would be frozen so we could use it once the baby arrives. Once we got back with 24 large clams figuratively in hand, C&C called to say they were coming over. Moments later they were bringing in BAGS AND BAGS of stuff. There were gender neutral clothes, leftover newborn diapers, a carrying case for diaper changing stuff, toys and more, all used, and all ready for the next family, us. And in the next bag was a huge collection of things they had bought for us that afternoon, none of it critical by itself, but together it seemed like some kind of magical Baby Starter Kit. There was a hairbrush, a water thermometer, a changing table pad, pacifiers, butt paste and much more. We were completely floored. The icing on the cake was a massive list that C had put together based on her experience of what stuff you need, along with a bunch of lovely, lovely checkmarks next to a lot of things.

As the day drew to a close, with a huge pot of clam chowder cooling on the stove, we reflected on what we had achieved in the room, but more importantly on how friends really came through for us. To go from feeling alone, unprepared and poor decision-makers in the morning, to having such a show of support from dear, dear friends in the evening made for quite a day.

We still have a lot to do and a lot to get, but we're over a hump. I think back to a Beatles song that was playing on our iPod whilst we were hanging curtains that afternoon: "you get by with a little help from your friends..."

33 weeks in

Been quiet lately hasn't it? Well, we're getting ready for a bunch of stuff: a newborn parenting class, finishing up the nursery, a breast feeding class, a party that isn't a shower that we've called the "Pre-Birthday Party", and a couple of prenatal sessions with our doula.

But since we finished the nursery, K has been very busy with her masters program and I've been working towards recording my band's second album, a time-consuming endeavor that needs to be complete before the baby arrives.

It's like some kind of calm before a very big storm.

With Great Thanks...

My turn.

N. and I are really lucky. Around us, is a remarkable group of friends and family who have gone before us in the Great Pregnancy and Parenting Adventure. They have been generous with their support, advice and lessons-learned. I mean that sincerely. One hears horror stories of unwanted and scary advice but our experience has been the opposite; that those near and dear to us, have offered wisdom and input that was thoughtful, respectful, and important. We are constantly reminded of this, even through the small interactions like hanging out with folks, quick conversations or emails, and passing remarks. We are eternally grateful.

I could honestly go on and on and on sharing the comments, resources, advice and stories that we have been privy to. I won't. But I could.

There are other sources, of course: great bloggers sharing experiences, technical resources, medical professionals, birthing and parenting experts, and many other sources of information that have gotten us to the point that we are at today (wow 32+ weeks!!!). And I am sure that we will continue to gleam insight these sources, as well as (or especially from) friends and family, long after D-Day when the real Adventure begins.

Yet, this is the point where we have asked goofy questions, shared irrelevant concerns, and confused the hell out of people. We have taken on board the awesome stories from our friends and family, ehem, even when they are totally not relevant to our situation (multiple births, third kid, health concerns, super-sporty mom, foreign deliveries...you name it!). The result has been some pretty entertaining moments when asking questions of the professionals and of you. So I offer up my thanks again; because this has be a great opportunity to step back and learn even more about ourselves and this journey. And to laugh at ourselves. Well - to laugh at me.

The nursery

Well, now we've got a place to put the kid. I dedicated the whole weekend to painting the nursery, and I have to say that for a rookie painter like me it came out rather well. K seems rather happy too and there's a sense of excitement in the air every time we go into the room. If all goes according to plan, in just 9 weeks this room will have an occupant!

The color scheme was chosen for its gender-neutrality, and was inspired by the great Gulf Oil colour schemes on Le Mans sportscar racers over the years.

Here's some pictures of the painting process.

One of the cars in question poses after the blue stripe has been filled in:

My friend C helps out with the very difficult freehand brown pinstriping:

The finished article:


There is of course still work to be done: we've got some vinyl owl decals to put above the crib and changing table, as well as some shelves to go up. We also got an excellent owl mobile from some close friends that we need to hang above the crib.

Ice ice baby

Our steadfast refusal to do the two-day San Francisco-rich-white-person-extravaganza-type birth class found us at the door of the crunchy non-profit Birthways in Berkeley on Sunday for a three hour class called "Comfort Measures in Labor". Being the kind of people we are, we were ridiculously, comedically early, so had a chance for some one-on-one (err, two-on-one I suppose) time with the instructor, a doula named Stacia Biltekoff. The space was a modest room in a commercial building, outfitted with comfy chairs, birthing balls and lots of framed arty pictures of fabulously pregnant women. It felt comfortable, low-key and non-profit, which made us both quite happy.

We had also been expecting something like our various friends who had done the spendy birthing boot-camp classes had found, in which there's 20 couples all fighting for attention - so we were very surprised when Stacia said there were just three couples. One didn't even show up, so it was just her, us and another couple. This was great, especially as she was so friendly and knowledgeable. We started off with the crazy positions and moved through acupressure, hypnotherapy and breathing before ending up with the final part of the class.

We were each given a towel into which was dumped a pile of ice cubes. We were told to pick up the ice and hold onto it. Okay. This is cold. Owww. This is starting to hurt. Err, can I put it down now? No, I shouldn't, no-one else has. I wonder if I'm doing permanent damage here? Owww. I mean, seriously, this is fucking painful. Is this a test of endurance? Will she eventually tell us to stop? What if she doesn't? What if it really is a competition to maybe show the dads that the mums have better pain tolerance? "Stop" she says. Phew! We had held the ice for one minute. Ooooooh, now I get it. That was a contraction. I see where this is going.

Next up, same again, but look into your partner's eyes for the whole time. Okay, this is a bit easier. Third time, spend 30 seconds focused on the pain, then 30 seconds focused on your partner. Hmmm, even easier. So distraction works well.

Now the two dads were done with the ice, woohoo! We would now implement the comfort measures we'd learned whilst our partners held onto the ice. Stacia set up three stations: one with a birthing ball next to a table, one with a couch, and one with cushions on the floor. We had to do each station, doing our best to keep our wives' minds off the pain of the ice. By golly it worked well. K was really pleased with how the massage, the positions, the talking and the holding made such a big difference.

Now no-one is saying that holding ice is as painful as a contraction, but regardless of the intensity of pain, the exercises showed us how important these comfort measures will be during labor. It was an extremely interesting psychological experiment, and even though we'll have a doula helping us along, I'm pleased I learned these important lessons.

A quick summary

Things have been pretty quiet for the most part lately. We're in the calm before the storm, with the room ready for painting, and no classes to attend for a little bit. Here's some things that have been going on:

• My colleague at work had her baby on Friday. All went very well. Clicking off all the "other" births before ours is kind of fun. Our former neighbours are next, sometime in late August, then it's our turn!
• We picked a doula, and we're all excited about it. She has a terrific amount of experience (over 100 births, plus two of her own) and she has a lovely calm and caring personality that will be a huge asset.
• K's heartburn continues to be THE major unpleasantness of being pregnant for her, but on the advice of her OB, she's now taking an acid reducer (Pepcid) in addition to Tums antacids. This has already helped a little bit, and hopefully it will make for better sleep between now and the birth.
• The baby got its first taste of motorcycle racing on Sunday (as a spectator of course) - there is NO doubt that the sound of MotoGP racebikes was heard in the womb, and much activity was felt by K each time the bikes were on track! We feel that this is much more important than playing Mozart or Beethoven to the baby....
• A close friend of ours who is an awesome photographer did a little photoshoot yesterday of K and the bump. I joined the shoot at the end to get the classic "hands on the bump" shot. Looking forward to seeing the end product.
  

Registry

When we got married, it was a surprise wedding, so there was no registry. We got a few gifts, but nothing like the virtual house remodel that many couples get. Nonetheless, we went out and created a registry with the plan to include the link to the list in the thank you cards, because some people were plain annoyed that we didn't have a registry (I also hankered after some new dinnerware!) However, we lagged on sending out the thank yous, to the point where it was close enough to the time we'd have a baby registry that we just combined the two.

We absolutely refused to engage in the trad shower, with its awful games and general lack of blokes. To celebrate the arrival of this baby, we would like our male friends around as well as the laydeez, so we're throwing a Pre-Birthday Party for the baby. Despite our best efforts, we've caved in to the idea that we'll be accepting gifts. This is simply too expensive a gig to go it alone.

We've found that this about balancing a number of competing pressures: trying to avoid accumulating stuff; not wanting to impose on our friends and family and their finances; making sure we have what we need without putting ourselves in the poorhouse; and understanding that some people simply *want* to buy us stuff and we should make that process as easy as possible.

So the registry is complete, and the major item on there is the stroller. We set it up for people to contribute to it, as opposed to having one person drop that amount of money. "What about reducing your carbon footprint?" you may ask. Good point. It comes down to this: carseats are like motorcycle helmets - if you drop it, it's basically no good anymore because you have no idea whether the shock absorption properties have been compromised or not. Neither K nor I would ride in a helmet that had been dropped. So although we've been offered carseats by other people, we've decided that we're going to buy a new one. Once that's on the cards, you might as well buy the whole "travel system" that includes the seat, the base and the stroller that the seat latches onto. It is true that we could take the Greco stroller that my mother has offered us, and buy a Greco seat and base, but for basically double that cost we would have a brand-new travel system, one that we had selected. In this case, we tried out a whole bunch and found the Chicco system to be significantly better. It also was ranked MUCH higher in Consumer Reports' survey of carseats, measuring an 88% against the Greco's 75% (the difference coming in the usability area).

More on owls

I would be lying if I said this post was anything except an extremely tenuous link to the topic at hand, that of bringing a baby into the world. However, in a near-babylike move, I nearly peed myself laughing after watching this bit of standup from British comedian Ross Noble. Here's the connection: he's talking about owls... and owls are the theme we've selected for our soon-to-be offspring.

Like I said: tenuous. But funny.



And just for fun, one more:

Stuff is arriving

Yes, stuff. Despite our attempts to make the arrival of this new human being as carbon-neutral as possible, we still need "things". Luckily, most of these "things" have been lent or given to us, including lots and lots and lots of clothing. My mother gave us a rather groovy colourful baby chair with toys on it that originally belonged to my niece. We've temporarily loaned it to our friends C&C for their 3-month-old, who absolutely loves it. Don't get too attached, toots...

The big focus last week was on The Dresser / Changing Table Situation. We were determined to find a used one on Craigslist, but faced a challenge which C told me was "like trapping badgers" e.g. bloody difficult, because they get snapped up so quickly. However through sheer persistency on the part of K (and the loan of a minivan from C), we got one for the rather reasonable price of $125. Here it is in its recently-arrived and not-yet-put-back-together glory:


The other piece of stuff that arrived was the breast pump, this one being the cutting edge new "hands-free" device from Medela. This will be extremely important because K will be involved in writing her thesis for her masters through to December, so having hands free whilst pumping can be seen as a distinct advantage. It has to be said that with the hot weather lately, K has been suffering a bit with swollen feet and ankles, which has made her feel generally "big". In fact she described herself as feeling like a "cow", which I did my best to refute because she didn't look that way, but how she feels is how she feels and it's hard to change sometimes. This feeling was not helped by this picture on the box of the breast pump:

Yes, I know they're trying to demonstrate how this product is ideal for the busy professional woman, but they clearly didn't take into account the self-esteem of the pregnant woman - let's not forget that most buyers of this product are going to be currently pregnant at the time of purchase and probably nervous about the prospect of breastfeeding. Talk about presenting a harsh reality. I'm sure most mothers who have been through this think this is no big deal, but I can tell you that a picture like that is intimidating to a woman who is pregnant with her first child.

What are we going to do-ula

We've made a bold decision. We're going to have a doula for the birth. If you don't know what that is, it's basically a woman who supports the parents through the birth process but who does not engage in any medical activity. So she will help the couple decide when to go to the hospital, provide massages, suggest positions, talk the mum through the contractions, help the couple make decisions about interventions, make sure everyone is getting enough water and nourishment and generally be a calm, steady hand at the wheel of the good ship Labor.

Given our goal of making the birth as natural as possible, having a doula has statistically shown to increase the mother's chances of avoiding pain medication, and more importantly decreases the chances of a C-section by more than 30%.

Another reason for K to want a doula is because she wants to take some of the pressure off me. I appreciate her concern, and agree that it will make my job a lot easier, allowing me to focus much more on being emotional support for her, instead of trying to remember a whole bunch of things that are not second-nature.

We had originally not even considered it because we felt the costs would be too high (we had a figure of between $1500 and $2500 in our heads). After a little research on my part, I found that although you can spend that much, there are many experienced doulas who charge as little as $600, even in the Bay Area.

So I started trying to compile a shortlist of doulas to talk to. Holy cow there's a lot of them! To make things easier I only looked at doulas with websites. Then I went searching for reviews on Yelp, parenting forums and other Bay Area parenting resources like the Birthways website. I ended up with a list of ten, from which we picked three to talk to. That's where we stand right now. We've talked to two, once of whom is coming for an interview on Sunday.

A Special Day

Happy Ten-Year Anniversary, dear N! I love you dearly and consider myself an extremely lucky woman to have you in my life. Thank you for all you have taught me, the ways you love me, and the many laughs and tears we have shared together.

I look forward to the next chapter together...

Buy shares in Glaxo

Here is the chart for Glaxo Smithkline share price for the last 3 1/2 months. Their share price has climbed consistently.

They make TUMS antacid tablets.

Here's the results of K's latest trip to Walgreens:


Coincidence? I think not.

Pregnancy = heartburn, at least in our house, and K has it bad, poor girl.

The downside to not knowing

Pretty much everyone has said that they think it's great we haven't found out the gender of this baby. And they're right - it is great, and we are awesome for doing things this way. That's right, we rule. And we doubly rule because we're not revealing name choices. So thanks to everyone for telling us how awesome we are, but we already knew it.

However, I've discovered a downside, and as K pretended to listen to me last night as she fell asleep I outlined the problem. For the sake of explaining this, we're going to have to use imaginary names in place of the spectacularly terrific real names we've picked, so I'll use grandparent names instead (that would be my grandparents, not the baby's grandparents).

As it stands right now, there are two outcomes. The first is that we will have a little boy named, err, Norman. The existence of Norman right now is just as real as the existence of the other outcome (Eileen). We can imagine what Norman and Eileen might be like, how they will look, how they will behave, what their personality will be like as they grow into fully-functioning citizens of the world. So we (or maybe I) have created in our minds these two people, whether we like it or not, and the fact we've picked names makes them both more real than if we hadn't. You just can't help but think of the future when you have a kid on the way.

Problem is, the moment the baby is born and the gender reveals itself, one of those two outcomes ceases to exist. I fear that this will be a loss of sorts. Will I be too overcome with joy at the birth of Norman to mourn the loss of Eileen (or vice versa)? How will this resolve itself? Will the presence of one completely eliminate the previously possible existence of the other in a way that I'll be unable to feel loss for something that never even existed?

I would like to hear from other parents who also refused to find out the gender. Maybe I'm just overthinking this and being generally weird.

Birth class via TV - the story so far

As I mentioned back here, we're skipping the traditional two-day $400 birth classes in favour of a more comprehensive, independent approach which includes some "a la carte" classes as well as books, DVDs and videos.

The story so far....

We lined up two videos from the library and a few DVDs from Netflix. First up was "The Joy of Natural Childbirth". This magnificent tranche of 80s documentary was hosted by Lorenzo Lamas (who K could have sworn was actually gay) and his wife. They and their 80s celebrity friends (including John Ritter, Kenny Rogers, Jane Seymour and the Famous Amos bloke) talk about their birthing experiences and then Lorenzo and his Mrs. show a bunch of exercises and techniques. Interspersed is footage of a "real" Lamaze class hosted by a woman with MASSIVE hair and lip gloss that is blindingly reflective. Finally, the Lamas' friends have their baby and actual footage of that birth closes out the film.

Yes, it was old. Yes, it was HILARIOUS. Yes, some of the content was actually wrong. And yes, many of the interviewees ended up not having a natural birth at all. However, there was one section in the middle where good ole Lorenzo highlights how important it is for partners to keep the mum as relaxed as possible. That was my main takeaway from this, although the refresher on the three stages of labor and the three phases of the first stage was useful, since it is a couple of months since we attended the class at Alta Bates.

Last night we watched "Laugh and Learn About Childbirth". This 2007 DVD (which Netflix warned had a "long wait", which was actually a couple of days) is an actual Lamaze class, hosted by an RN, lactation consultant and certified Lamaze instructor named Sheri Bayles. She's a little bit annoying, but she's clearly incredibly experienced, a great communicator and I'll begrudgingly admit she's pretty funny. The DVD is also endorsed by numerous Hollywood celebs with fake boobs, as you can see from the website, although it looks like the information is appropriate for women with real boobs too...

We learned A LOT. Stuff I didn't know included the six preliminary signs of labor, the three actual signs of labor, what to do when the water breaks, the new way of pushing (called "labouring down", as opposed to the older "directed pushing") along with a whole host of little tidbits of info (e.g. don't start timing contractions until she's having trouble talking through them).

All was going swimmingly until the section on cord blood banking, at which point the DVD turned into an infomercial for a company called Viacord. It was initially subtle, but by the end of the section it was blatant. We started wondering whether we'd been duped, taken advantage of, or whether this was just a practical way that she was able to get funding for this film. We decided that it didn't undermine the other info, but that we would simply ignore the blood banking section. It was a good reminder that EVERY birthing class comes with its own baggage, be it philosophical or financial.

We're now waiting for disc two, which covers medication, interventions, caesarians and the other stuff that we want to avoid but should know about. We also have another older VHS movie from the library called "Having Your Baby", which appears to be along the lines of last night's DVD in terms of content, only from the same time period as the Lorenzo Lamas video. The lip gloss should give it away...

Baby vs. Mexican food

This is a picture of a carnitas super burrito from El Farolito Taqueria on 24th Street. As you can see, El Farolito don't mess around when it comes to sizing their slabs.

Why is this important? Because this week (finally) the baby weighs more than an El Farolito burrito. Another massive milestone...

"Babymoon"

K and I had a chance to get away for the weekend on what we termed the "babymoon". It was a great weekend up in tranquil Mendocino. We had some good food, stayed in a delightful bed and breakfast, did a little walking and generally enjoyed each other's company, free from daily obligations.
It seems like this is a common thing - I've heard of a number of expectant parents taking a weekend off from the pressure of getting ready for a baby's arrival. It was really nice...

New toy

Baby has its first toy (well, the first toy we've bought specifically for it). We had brunch with our friends who have a charming little 6-month-old boy (who was born something like 8 weeks early, yikes!) in Rockridge on Sunday. Rockridge is home to a pretty cool baby-stuff store named Rockridge Kids. So after brunch we all went in there so our friends could point out what we should and shouldn't buy. They didn't bank of K's magnetic attraction to anything owl-related, so when she spotted this cute little burrowing owl hand puppet it was as good as sold.

This is our parrot Ozzie getting to know the owl. He was a little scared of it, even though he really shouldn't be. For what it's worth, burrowing owls are absolutely fascinating birds. The fact they don't live in trees is amazing (they take over vacant prairie dog burrows). They are also without a doubt some of the coolest looking birds too maybe because they have such silly long legs.

Buying the first toy was an unexpectedly exciting moment. Everything up until now has been about providing necessities for the baby. Here was our first moment of thinking about giving some joy to them. Happiness is the difference between being alive and living.

Classes - the decision

"We have to decide on birth classes" I was told by K on Sunday. Fair enough, it's something we've been dragging our feet on. She went to work researching the options whilst I tried to clear four years of crap out of the filing cabinet. When she was done we both sat down, looked over the snazzy spreadsheet she had created.... and got progressively more depressed. We realized we're in an awkward spot. We don't fit into the "natural childbirth"-type classes because we're dead-set on being in the hospital, and don't fit into the classes that will think nothing of assuming that the woman plans on having an epidural. As a result, nothing seemed to fit with our philosophy if for no other reason than each class seemed to be locked into one way of doing things.

What made things even worse is that they were extremely expensive, and we started to feel that they were aimed at rich entitled white San Francisco women. I will be the first to admit that we are both white and live in SF, but we are certainly not rich and hopefully not entitled. As a result, the idea of dropping $400 on this seemed like a joke, especially as we had taken two 3-hour classes already at a hospital in Berkeley that cost us $0. What was it about these classes at places with flowery names like "Natural Resources", "Day One" and "The Tulip Grove" that made them so much better than what we had already done? I could smell the BS, and the words "maternity-industrial-complex" came to mind. By the way, tulips are flowers and a grove is a stand of trees, so there's no such thing as tulip grove - one more reason that things just don't sit right about these places.

Adding to the misery was the fact that none of them included the childcare class (those were extra money), which was something I was very interested in doing. I have no idea how to look after a baby, so learning a thing or two in this area might prove useful when the baby has projectile pooped all over my vomit-stained t-shirt at 3am whilst crying at a volume that would make Motorhead cringe.

So, as anyone who knows us won't be surprised to learn, we're doing things differently. We believe that we should approach this like students of any subject should: thinking critically. We will expose ourselves to many approaches to the topic and utilize the tools at our fingertips. To that end, we've put together our own birthing and childcare curriculum. This is going to include DVDs and videos from Netflix and the SF public library; books; the fact we've already done two free birthing classes; and some a la carte classes at a place called Birthways in Berkeley that cover pain management in labor, breastfeeding and childcare (total cost of the three classes is $140 for what amounts to 10 hours of education). This all seems so much better than being tied down to the opinions and dogma of one birth educator who you're paying extortionate amounts of money to.

Fascinating stuff

We've been following the poll on this blog to see what gender everyone thinks the baby will be, and this prompted me to look up what the actual ratio of boys to girls is in the US. Turns out the average is 1049 boys born for every 1000 girls. I wonder if this is built in to our genes through evolution? Men historically die earlier, and during the period when evolution played the biggest role in human development (e.g. when mortality directly influenced conception the most) I can imagine this would be even more of a factor. Death from hunting accidents, scouting and territorial disagreements would be more likely back then than they would be in modern-day San Francisco for example.

So I found that figure in this 2006 study. There's a bunch of other really interesting info in there too. For example:

• Since 1990, Tuesday has been the day with the most births in the US, outnumbering Sunday by nearly 2 to 1. In 2006, that day switched to Wednesday. Sunday births have the lowest C-section rates.
• Since 1990, the percentage of mothers who gain either too little or too much weight during pregnancy has increased from 24% up to 32%. I find this to be a disturbing trend and am not sure why it is happening.
• 22% of births are as a result of an induction
• Breech rates are double in women aged 40 compared to women aged 20 (8% to 4%)
• Contrary to the data presented in The Business of Being Born, the presence of midwives at vaginal births has steadily increased since 1991 and is now almost double at 11%. This is not attributable to any increase in home birth rates (which have stayed steady at about 0.6% of all births).
• C-section rate nationwide stands at 31%
• Pre-term births have increased more than 36% since the early 1980s (!!!!)
• The use of forceps or vacuum extraction has halved since 1990.

There's a bunch more stuff in there including info on birth weight, apgar scores and congenital defects.

20 months from now...

We hung out with two 17-month-old kids this weekend: my niece (who I like to playfully call "The Beast" mainly because she isn't) and the fabulously red-headed daughter of friends-of-friends. Seems like that's a pretty kick-ass age.

They walk (for the most part, unless confronted with any kind of step, even if it is just a two-inch micro-step between hallway and kitchen).

They also kind of talk. The Beast seemed quite enamoured with our parrot, which she kept pointing at and saying "bah", presumably for "bird". Excellent effort, toots. Red was also rather vocal, having figured out "Dada" was the correct word for her dad. The Beast on the other hand seems to correlate "Dada" with "man" which my sister and brother-in-law report is uncomfortable for everyone involved!

They listen - you tell them to do (or not do) something and for the most part they will follow instructions.

They also want to touch everything. Red was strangely drawn to my friend's Resident Evil 4 XBox video game box, with its dark images of zombies on the cover. Odd. Meanwhile The Beast has figured out how to call Dada (the real one, not just any man) on her mom's cellphone. She even goes to far as to dig the phone out of my sister's bag.

One other cool thing is that they eat real food. Since K and I are such foodies, we're looking forward to shaping our child's dietary preferences (or at least trying to). The Beast likes vegetables in pasta, despite everyone's best attempts to get her to eat pieces of choc-chip muffin.

Finally, and maybe best of all, they smile and laugh. It was hilarious to pretend to eat one of our parrot's almonds, with the attendant "nom-nom" sound, and have The Beast burst into peals of laughter each time.

We only have to wait 20 months for this sweet-spot of child development. Why, that's just around the corner...

The clear out

I already posted about how we spent a lot of time clearing out the "nursery" over the weekend, but wanted to add a couple of things:

1. The chain of events to clear the room is mind-boggling. Each task requires about four others in order to actually happen. For example, to paint the walls, we needed to get rid of the bookcases. To do that, we needed to box up the books that were contained therein. To do that we had to figure out what was staying and what was going. We also needed to find boxes, which was remarkably difficult. The best suggestion was to go to Beverages & More, which turned out to be the worst because those bastards wanted to charge $1 per box. What is wrong with people? This is San Fran-bloody-cisco, we're supposed to be the best recyclers in the country. In the end we built our own boxes out of the one big box that our new bedroom dresser came in.

2. We managed to kerb a bunch of our furniture, but the futon really required an official Craigslist post and an appointment (mainly because I couldn't be arsed to haul it down the 20 front steps to the sidewalk). So up went the post, "Free Futon in Great Condition". Now, in the past with "free" ads I've put on CL, I've been heavily screwed around. This time I vowed would be different - the thing is free so if you want it, it's on my terms. First call was from a lady who lived an hour away. My resolve immediately crumbled and I agreed to hold it for an hour. In the meantime, I had seven more calls, all from people who could pick it up NOW, dammit. Said lady ends up taking two hours to arrive, and when she does, she is by herself. So after all this I STILL have to haul the thing down to the sidewalk. This was after she attemped to park her beaten up old minivan on the sidewalk by hopping the 6 inch kerb, perpendicular to the street. She nearly took out the front wall of the house. The icing on the cake was that when we finally were ready to shove this bed in her van, THERE WAS ALREADY ANOTHER FUTON IN THERE! "It's okay, I'll put it on the roof" she says. You bloody-well will not, because when someone stops suddenly in front of you on the Bay Bridge, you're going to send my old futon flying through their back window into their kids' heads. Eventually we were able to get both beds in the minivan, which was quite amazing, and K and I were one step closer to an empty soon-to-be-nursery. Who knew that giving things away for free can be such a headache.

The gendered "debate" - an update

N just reported to me that he also had a baby dream last night. The baby was a girl.

Nesting and planning

It's a big busy weekend. On Friday I rented a U-Haul and picked up a rocking chair we bought through Craigslist, and some furniture for our bedroom that will allow us to liberate some storage space that we need in order to clear out the baby's room. The rocking chair was quite the bargain: all hardwood for just $40.

Meanwhile, we continue to work on the room. What had been a spare room / office / music room / library needs to cease being all those things so those functions need to move elsewhere. First up, box up all our books and put them in the basement. When the time comes that we end up buying a house, we'll have more space and the books can come out again. With the books gone, the bookcases could go out on the curb, where they were picked up by someone in less than 45 minutes. You have to love San Francisco sometimes!

The music room aspect is less of an issue. Since I don't teach guitar anymore I really just needed to move one guitar. The rest found new homes, either elsewhere in the house or in my band's studio. A crate of guitar "bits" went in the basement, as did some empty cases.

The spare room simply ceases. As our friends C&C found before their baby was born, trying to retain spare room functionality means you're putting your occasional guests ahead of your own child which is ridiculous. If people want to visit, they'll need to find somewhere else to stay. That means we can sell (or give away) our futon.

Finally, the office functionality will be in flux for a while. The contents of our desk will go in a storage unit that we no longer use thanks to the new furniture from Friday's pickup. The desk itself goes into the basement and will go to the child when they're old enough. After that, it is simply a case of relocating a few other bits and pieces, and then the room will be ready for painting. Not bad, considering that we have 17 weeks to go.

The other thing that came up over the weekend was a discussion of childcare and schools. San Francisco is a notoriously difficult place to raise children. Childcare is insanely expensive ($1600 per month or more), and the public school system places kids by a lottery system. This means your child could end up in a school in a challenging neighborhood. This is in itself wouldn't be a bad thing, but scared (and predominantly white) families don't like this idea and break their backs to put their kids in private schools. As a result, the only kids in public schools are those from low-income families, a situation which tends to make for troubled learning environments where a teacher's first priority is simply maintaining peace in the classroom. This is a self-perpetuating situation. As long as kids from higher-income families go elsewhere, the schools will continue to be undesirable for those very families.

A trip outside SF to visit friends who are themselves expecting a baby took us to a town where these problems don't exist. Schools are better and childcare is at least 50% cheaper. House prices are not ridiculous like in SF and the town has all the charm and amenities that a young family could want. It begs the question: how much are families willing to sacrifice to continue living in San Francisco? And in the end, what are you actually losing if you leave?

"The Business of Being Born"

Last night we watched Ricki Lake's documentary "The Business of Being Born". It has stirred up quite a lot of controversy for its very pro-home/natural birth and anti-hospital/intervention stance.

Basically, the movie talks about how the modern hospital birth is a bad thing. It points out that it is in a hospital's best interest to get the baby out as quickly as possible, and with that goal in mind they make decisions that are not the right ones for the mother. Most significantly they tend to rush into intervention options such as drugs and induction, both of which increase the chances of a Caesarean-section. A C-section is quick, easy and easily billable to the insurance companies. One interviewee in the movie noted that C-section rates spiked at 4pm and 10pm, and hypothesized that this was due to doctors either wanting to get home for dinner or for bed.

We agree with all of this, and my friend Eric, who has two kids, pointed out a very clear cycle that mothers must try to avoid in a hospital delivery:

• Labour is not progressing "fast" enough e.g. cheaply enough for the hospital
  
• Doctor prescribes pitocin (a drug that induces labour contractions)
• Pitocin creates unusually strong contractions
• Strong contractions require pain management
• Pain management (epidural) slows down labour
• More pitocin required
• More drugs, more pitocin, stronger contractions all lead to putting the baby in distress
• C-section

He noted that any interventions (e.g. drugs) set in action a course of events that make it difficult to predict and increase risk - 70% of inductions end in a C-section. Once you're at the hospital, you're on their timeline, and although you can decline any intervention, all it takes is for them to say "the baby is starting to get in distress, we should do XYZ" and the parents will do what they say. The movie made the same point.

However, where the movie's opinion and ours diverge is with the conclusion that the only "real" option is a home birth. Taking Eric's advice and the advice of birthing professionals, it seems that the way around this is to not go to the hospital until you're absolutely ready. This means one full hour of strong contractions, five minutes apart. Then you call the doc. Only then do you go in. By that time, you're well on the way before the hospital timer even starts ticking.

Home birth is simply not what we want. We can weigh the possibility of a "normal" birth going into the progression above in a hospital, versus a home birth going wrong to the point of needing immediate emergency medical attention, and it's clear that the downsides of one (a birth that yields a healthy baby and mother, but does so in an unideal way) far outweigh the other (complete maternal haemmorhage in less than five minutes). Nope, we'll stick with the hospital, but we'll try to be disciplined about when we go in and how we stand up for ourselves against intervention when we get there.

You would think that a movie that primarily deals with the well-being of women and their babies would be lauded by feminist commentators, but that has certainly not been the case. Check out this article from Salon.com's Rebecca Traister, who regularly writes on women's issues. She takes major issue with how the movie portrays a "best" way to deliver, somehow denigrating any birth that doesn't fit that mould. Traister points to a terrific New York Times article that profiles the midwife most prominently featured in the movie, expressing the same concerns about the home birth approach that we have. Traister asks why giving birth should be "a contest about who feels better about themselves or more at one with their bodies", and suggests "not buying into the idea that birthing choices become your earliest parenting gold star or your scarlet letters of birthing shame." Her conclusion is that "all the bellowing [presumably pointing to this movie as an example of such bellowing] on either side only work to make women feel underqualified for motherhood right from the start." That certainly sounds like the words of a feminist, and I'll be the first to agree with her.

The Gender Dream

Folks are quite opinionated regarding predictions of a new child. There are all kinds of gender predictor tools and methodologies, mind you. The best predictor is the old ultrasound (and even that isn't 100%). But N and I have chosen to not find out the gender of our child 'cause well, it really does not matter to us. (Not to mention the fact that we really aren't interesting in the marketing of baby gender items as either pink or blue!)

With that being said, it is exciting to think about who our child will be and a healthy part of that is their gender.

And apparently, lots of other folks near and far to us, are also excited to think about...and predict...the gender of this little sprog. Some dear friends have predicted a boy using the Chinese Gender Chart. She has never been wrong using this method, but anecdotal evidence doesn't support the predictive tool as any more than accurate than guessing (i.e. 50/50 chance of getting it right).

Both families have weighed in - probably using the "wishful thinking" method. N's side is predicting a boy and mine a girl. This is likely due to the fact that there are already boys on my side and a girl on N's side. They like to mix it up.

A classmate predicted a girl based on the way I am carrying (high) and other cohort-mates have weighed in with a similar female call.

My co-workers are heavily leaning girl, as well.

And then there is the "mom dream method". Last night, I had just such a gender dream; the one that shows the gender of the baby to come. Some say that if I dream it is a girl, then it will be a girl and others say if I dream it is a girl, it will be a boy. I dreamt of a little girl, but you can take your pick of how to predict using that information.

Either way, we will be thrilled, of course. And know that you will too. We have added a new poll for your guesses. And please do guess away.

Naming

Here is an awesome website: The Baby Name Wizard

[edit - just noticed that Eric suggested this site in comment to yesterday's post, after I published this post - great minds think alike, it seems!]

It's the online version of the book of the same name, written by a woman named Laura Wittenberg. She has done a huge amount of research, in somewhat of an academic way, to track baby names. There are three key areas of the site:

• Name Mapper, which shows name trends over time tracked on a map of the US. You can rearrange the table based upon population density, income, political affiliation or state profile, so it's easy to find out where a name is popular. For example, you may not want a name that is popular in the South, you might want to avoid a name that is most popular in your own state or you might prefer names that are favoured in states that vote democrat.
  
• Name Voyager, which tracks overall trends of a name over time. It will plot multiple names and goes all the way back to the 1880s. A handy tool to see whether a name is fading from prominence or had its day at some point in the past.
• Namipedia, which is the usual meaning, derivation and alternate forms portal. There is an additional feature here though that allows you to do an advanced search based upon criteria such as syllables, whether the name is a fad, whether it is from Jewish or Muslim cultures or about 15 other choices. Quite useful if you're totally stuck.
  

Although it's extremely interesting, it hasn't really helped us that much, except to kick one girl name to the kerb that turned out to be far more popular than we thought. Most of the names on our lists haven't featured in the SSA top 1000 ever, so can't be tracked on the Baby Name Wizard site. Those that can are all ranked at least 200 or lower, so fall into the category of "statistically irrelevent". But for parents who are looking at a number of conventional names, this would be highly useful.

A big day

Yesterday turned out to be quite a big day. We decided to go to Laguna Seca down near Monterey to watch the Grand-Am sportscar races. This event is usually lightly-attended so we expected a relaxed, relatively cheap day at the racetrack. It would be good practice for when we go to the much more chaotic motorcycle Grand Prix race in July - K would see what it is like to be pregnant at the races.


This is exactly how it all worked out. It was a lovely day, and we exposed the baby to the sounds of racing cars. Get used to it, kid! When my mother was pregnant with me, she had gone to see the Cork International Rally with my dad, which like any spectating at a rally event involves hiking out into the forest to catch the cars race through the stages. This might have been instrumental in making me into such a petrolhead, so K and I are trying the same method for this baby.


So that was "big thing #1".

"Big thing #2" was the fact that we decided to spend the two-hour drive down (and back) going through our list of names. We had about 50 for each gender, so we came up with a rating system and talked our way down the list. It was great fun, and at the end of it we had about ten names for each. Next step would be to cross check them on the Social Security website to make sure they're not too popular (we really don't want our child to have a popular name), and then we can start to sit with the names for a while.

Finally, as we sat on the couch last night, the baby was once again active and K once again tried to have me feel the movement. So far I hadn't been able to feel anything. Last night I did. It was very small, but it was there. What a moment! My first physical connection with my child! Wow. That was "big thing #3".

The logo

It's 2009 - branding matters. Ask any marketing person. In fact you can ask my co-worker who is both in marketing and pregnant, she'll tell you...

So in addition to deciding on a colour scheme for the baby (light blue and orange), we have a logo. Well, we have a guideline at least. We decided a long time ago that this baby's "theme" would be owls. We think it will be cool to have lots of owl-related things surrounding the little one. This is because owls are cute, because we like birds in general (raptors and parrots in particular), because we have a real bird living with us, because there's loads of super-cool owl decals that we want to put on the walls and because owls are cute.

So here's the inspiration:

101 uses for the bump

Well, here's just one use. Ozzie the parrot has found himself a new perch:

More rock

According to the expectant father book I'm reading (called "The Expectant Father" oddly enough) the baby is now very much capable of hearing sounds from the outside world. These start off as low-frequencies and as the baby develops it picks up higher and higher frequencies.

It therefore seemed like a good time to get our hands on one of the Rockabye CDs. These awesome CDs feature lullaby versions of rock songs. Each album focuses on one specific band which range from the awful (The Eagles) to the heavy (Metallica) to classic rock (AC/DC) to modern (Coldplay) to stuff which is trippy enough to pass as potential lullaby music in the first place (I'm looking at you Pink Floyd). K was the first one to pull the trigger with the Led Zeppelin disc, but I won't be far behind, because I want our baby to be exposed to Tool as soon as possible, albeit sans lyrics - the kid can wait a few more years before hearing a band telling junkies to go f*** themselves!

Kick punch

The baby is stirring. Yesterday K reported that the movement she'd been feeling had transitioned from being small pops and squirming to full on kicks. I consider this to be kind of awesome.

I played a show with my band Heathrow last night, and K came out. Apparently the baby can now react to external noises, so she figured hearing Dad rock out would be a good thing for it. Who am I to argue...?

The second labor pain workshop

Tuesday night we went back to Alta Bates for the second labor pain workshop. This one focused on medications and was the main reason we wanted to do these classes. We were looking for any reason to *not* go for a natural childbirth.

The class was taught by an obstetric anaesthesiologist who works at Alta Bates. We knew up front that he would be "pro" medication, since that's his job, and of course he's going to feel it is safe. Our concerns were mainly around the phenomenon of "epidural fever", the ability to deliver in non-lying-down positions, and the risks associated with narcotic pain meds.

Although we got plenty of chance to ask questions, we walked away feeling as though the risks had been glossed over. He portrayed epidural fever as "a slight elevation in body temperature" which is contrary to what K had heard from an acquaintance, whose temperature had gone so high that the baby had literally had to be vacuumed out with a special tool.

We did have one question answered though, which is "is there enough compelling evidence to dissuade us from pursuing natural childbirth" and the answer was an unequivocal "NO".

18-week ultrasound

Yesterday was our second big ultrasound and the baby got a very thorough examination. The good news is that everything looks great. There were no obvious spinal issues (spina bifida, which is an opening in the spinal column would be the biggest worry at this point), and the brain, heart, kidneys and bladder all looked good. The baby's size was within normal range, and all fingers and toes were present and correct. Physical abnormalities such as club foot and cleft palate were also not present. All in all, a great success.

On the "host" side of things, K was very reassured to find out that her cervix was nice and long, which banished any fears of premature birth caused by an "incompetent cervix". This worry had stayed with her since the bleeding issues of the first trimester, so she was really, really happy to get this great news.

And now for some snapshots!

Breathe

We went to the first of two Labor Pain Management classes at Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley on Tuesday night. Some people might think this is a bit early for all that, but it will help us decide what do in terms of the birth plan, and that in itself will inform what kind of birthing class we go to. You need to know different stuff if you're doing a natural birth versus one with an epidural.

After a fraught drive over in which I was grumpy about the traffic, followed by a rushed and unpleasant burrito, the class started. The instructor was great - she'd been an OB nurse for 30-something years and clearly had seen and done it all. We learned about the phases of labor and breathing exercises to cope with each. I'm sure we'll go over it all again in the real birthing class, but it was nice to start thinking about. Our real area of interest is with next week's class in which an anaesthesiologist will talk about medication options. For example, not many people know that there are FIVE types of epidural! Crazy...

Where beer and pregnancy converge

That's scandalous! Beer and pregnancy never converge! Yes they do actually. We're brewing a very special beer that will be ready right around the time the baby arrives. Beers that take that long to age are usually what the beeristi call "high gravity" which is a euphamism for "they will get you very drunk very quickly". In our case, we've gone for a Belgian Dubbel. It took so much malt, we needed to use a colander instead of the usual cheesecloth bag.

This idea came from K's co-worker who did a sobriety-busting Imperial IPA. She noted that for the first half hour after the baby arrives, you've got free rein to drink booze, so they wanted something very special for that, rather than your typical Cook's "champagne" or if you're my brother at the arrival of our niece last year, a tallboy of Budweiser.

All caught up

I think I've managed to capture the significant points of the process so far. Since the grand announcement in mid-March, a few additional notable things have happened:

• K is now "showing" - this is very exciting indeed, and the transition to maternity clothing is nearly complete (although a "belly band" allows existing wardrobe to stay in the rotation a bit longer).
  
• People have given us stuff. So far, we've been given clothes and a crib. We are not too proud to accept stuff, in fact we positively embrace the concept. Baby stuff is used for such a short period of time, and generally stays in pretty good condition, so if we can cut down on consumption (something we strive for everyday anyway) then that's a good thing. We'd rather spend money on things like a 529 account for the kid's college education, or saving for a downpayment on a house.
• K has had a cold for the last ten days. Since cold medication is not allowed for the pregnant laydeez, she's having difficulty getting rid of it. The weakened immune system that comes with pregnancy also doesn't help. So the best she can do is fill a bowl with boiling water and menthol or peppermint and breathe in the steam with a towel over her head.
• We've booked two evening classes that cover pain management. They're free from Alta Bates hospital in Berkeley. Hopefully they'll help guide us as to what kind of birth to go for. Right now, a natural, non-anaesthetized birth in a hospital is the front-runner.
• Names are being discussed, but won't be shared with anyone. Although the biggest issue is the last name since neither of us changed that when we got hitched last year.
• We had brunch with some good friends who have a 3-month-old. They gave us loads of amazing advice, but we learned that it is easy to get overwhelmed when those who have gone through the process try to share info with you.
• Our friends C&C had their baby, a lovely little girl. Everything went smoothly and they're well into the rhythm of looking after a newborn now. She was born at 3am on a Sunday, and we swung by to give them a little support at 5am. All was quiet and serene and they were seemed to be a mixture of overjoyed, content, exhausted and bemused. It was a really interesting process to be a part of and a kind of preview too.
  

That's it! From this point forwards, posts will be "as they happen" as opposed to retrospective.