Six weeks

To celebrate Alice reaching the grand old age of six weeks, here are:

Six Things I Wish I'd Packed In My Hospital Bag:
1) more sanitary pads (oh so many more)
2) more baby clothes (babies be MESSY)
3) more towels (hospital towels are tiny and unforgivingly WHITE)
4) nice teabags (like on the Heart of Gold in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the hospital vending machine produced a liquid almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea)
5) lip balm (actually I had this but it was VITAL during labour so worth emphasising)
6) strong liquor (ok I wouldn't have been allowed it but Rescue Remedy just wasn't cutting it when it came to dulling the sheer shock of delivering a baby)

and I wish I'd left out:
1) books (couldn't concentrate)
2) carefully chosen 'birth' CDs (music last thing on mind during labour)

Six Pieces of Advice:
1) don't bother 'getting as much rest as you can before the baby arrives' - it's not like we can store up sleep like water in a camel's hump
2) don't buy any toys for the baby - he or she will be drowning in them from other people and won't appreciate them for months yet anyway
3) stock up your freezer with meals that require no further preparation, or ensure people bring you food - cooking will be the last thing you feel like doing
4) don't read baby 'bibles' etc if you can possibly stop yourself
5) go with the baby's flow at all times
6) ignore everyone else's advice, including the above :)

Six Things I Know About Alice:
1) she cries most between 7am - 10am (when I want to get washed and eat breakfast) and 7pm - 10pm (when I want to eat dinner and go to bed)
2) her favourite things to look at are bright lights and people's faces, in that order
3) she prefers hip hop and classical to indie
4) she finds her own hiccups quite entertaining
5) she will cry herself into a frenzy before admitting she's tired and just going to sleep
6) every day she will do something that makes me realise I don't know her at all

-

Six day wonder

We had a baby! Alice Elizabeth was born on 14 December at 6.25 am, weighing a petite 4lb 13oz and making us fall head over heels in love the instant we saw her.

Birth or chocolate?

It seems that even my subconscious can't yet process the idea of labour without cloaking it in metaphor: I'm sure that my dream last night was to do with my anxiety about the birth, but if it were a film I don't think many audiences would appreciate the symbolism.

In the dream I found myself in front of a vending machine, faced with the decision of what snack to purchase. I stood there for what felt like hours, unable to choose, mainly because everything on offer was in some way verboten to pregnanters because it contained peanuts or whatever. Finally I selected a bag of M&Ms which were really a mixture of acid drops and chocolate raisins. Then I found that I couldn't read the price properly, and when I deciphered it had to scrabble around for enough change as it was much more expensive than I'd thought; next I couldn't see the code I had to enter because it was hidden at the bottom of the cabinet, and each time I bent down to memorise it I'd forgotten it again by the time I straightened up to the keypad. (By this time an angry queue was forming behind me.) When the packet finally emerged it was disappointingly small and unappetising, and I was mortified by the whole experience.

OK, so maybe the symbolism isn't that opaque after all...

Weeks: 20+1

Couvade

I am fascinated that sympathetic pregnancy exists, and that it has such a poetic sounding name. I will not be very impressed if my husband does take to his bed during or after the birth though.

From Wikipedia:

The term Couvade is derived from the early French word (Couver "to hatch") and custom where the father, during or immediately after the birth of a child, takes to bed, complains of having labour pains, and is accorded the treatment usually shown women during pregnancy or after childbirth.

It is thought that couvade is a way to minimize sexual differences in the pregnancy and birthing experience. The couvade may also be a way to establish the father's role in the child's life and to give balance to the gender roles. An earlier theory suggests that the couvade was evidence of male envy. Couvade is more common where sex roles are flexible and female power and status high.

Western medicine has tended to see the couvade as a medical syndrome or pathology. Defined medically, couvade is another term for Sympathetic pregnancy.



Weeks: 19+2