Information overload

With only two days until the start of winter, we think Tom is showing the beginnings of his first cold - sniffs, snuffles, grumps, etc.

Well, 'tis the season after all - and I have little doubt that both his Mum and his Dad will have their own annual affliction soon enough. But to see this tiny little person exhibiting such symptoms makes me realise just how much I care for him - and just how much I worry when things go wrong, or do not go as expected.

Granted, some things warrant a certain amount of concern ... and one would be a terrible parent if one did not proverbially spoil oneself when one's baby passes out and requires a ride in an ambulance.

However, parenthood presents you with a whole host of new things to worry about - particularly in the current information age, when opinions and advice are so plentiful. Gone are the days when the only conflicting advice that new parents needed to balance out was that provided by alternate grandmothers (and that was merely a political process more than anything else!) Now, with the advent of the web, you can have 'helpful hints' and 'expert advice' delivered directly to your doorsteps, both virtual and physical. The resultant, often self-contradictory, questions can keep you awake into the wee hours:

• Is he getting enough food?
• Is he putting on too much weight?
• Why won't he sleep longer?
• Why isn't he more playful?
• Should I torture him with more 'tummy time'?
• Should he be holding his head up at this age?
• etc.

While I'm certain that we will cease worrying so much about the minutiae of the boy's wellbeing as he grows older (... Did you hear that noise? It sounded very much like my mother, my in-laws and every other parent who has ever been all saying 'HA!' at the same time ...), this demonstrates to me - more so than anything in my professional life - the importance of information literacy and filtering skills.

The internet is a big ol' data repository, containing equal quantities of valuable insights, considered reflection, subjective opinion, and mindless rubbish. Learning to sift through all this and emerge with useful knowledge (along with one's sanity intact) is a useful trick when foraging for information - and a crucial survival skill for impressionable, panic-stricken new parents!

This is a public service announcement ...

The serialised approach I adopted to tell the story of Tom's arrival was useful for me, as it allowed me to revisit each stage of this momentous journey, and deal with the key changes/challenges individually.

But since I've now covered the ground from phone call to fatherhood, I'm going to return to a normal journal-keeping behaviour, i.e.: random comments and observations, of varying word length, as they occur to me.

What does this mean to you, the reader? Well, probably nothing - but I will no longer be titling my posts 'Part 1, Part 2' etc.

We now return you to your scheduled programming ...

Part 6: Fatherhood

So, what’s it like being a father?

Now that I come to answer this question, I really appreciate the fact that serialising the story of Tom’s birth, from receiving the phone call to meeting the boy, has taken me over two months to complete – and furnished me with the benefit of hindsight.

During my first five days as a dad-with-wife-and-child-in-hospital, awash with floaty idealism and sleep-deprived levels of dopamine, I would have described it (indeed, I did describe it) in near-religious terms. It was glorious, life-changing, a miracle of nature. it was heart-wrenching to have to leave the hospital of an evening, and each morning – after very little sleep, but still more than poor Julie – I would be back there as soon as possible to spend more time with my family*.

During the next five days, as a dad-with-wife-and-child-at-home, awash with harsh pessimism, and sleep-deprived levels of impatience, I would have described it (once I stopped crying and sobbing) as the hardest bloody thing I had ever done in my life, why WHY did nobody tell us it was going to be this bad and this hard and what’s that rash on his face, is it contagious, why is he breathing like that, oh hell is he alright, why won’t he feed, what’s wrong with him, why can’t we do this, what’s wrong with us, ring the hospital – perhaps they can tell us whether he’s choking to death or whether this freakish breathing is normal, while you’ve got them on the phone maybe we should discuss their returns policy, what can we hire/buy to settle him – with a bit of work and a lot of money we can probably replicate the hospital environment completely, right down to the nurses-on-call, and then he’ll be fine, how many nappies can this kid go through in one day, that’s it – our lives as we knew them are over.

Now, having come through both of those necessary stages of the roller-coaster and survived largely intact, I can afford a bit of balanced** realism.

As you get to know your child, you also discover your own abilities as parents – and you simultaneously realise that while he has needs, you have the means to meet them. The confidence afforded by this realisation takes some time to obtain, but it’s what makes all the difference between panic and sanity.

A baby may be a complex system internally, but his responses are fairly straight-forward:

‘Listen, Dad - I have six basic needs: food, cleanliness, sleep, shelter, love and entertainment. Meet these, and we’ll get along fine. Fail to meet these, and I’ll cry. What? Can I modulate my cry so that you know which one I require? No, I bloody can’t! Well, I don’t care if you could write a best-seller based on such a theory – I don’t have the vocal range yet, okay? Well, why don’t you just make something up, then?’

Crying has survived evolution as an all-purpose signal that a need is going unmet. It has done so because its reaction on a parent is tremendous – there is nothing you wouldn’t drop (except the baby, of course) to give your screaming child what it needs***.

This reaction – for me, at least – was hellish at the beginning. Tom’s cry reached deep down into my genetic constitution and flipped levers I never knew existed. I couldn’t even think clearly enough to remember those basic needs.

Julie seemed to snap out of this reaction quicker than I did (but she had plenty of other problems to deal with, the poor mammal), but eventually I came around, too. A baby might be highly demanding, but the reality is that the solutions are all fairly easy and straightforward – if hugely time-consuming; but what better way to consume your time****?

Don’t get me wrong – I’m by no means immune to Tom’s screams. Just yesterday, I was ready to put my head through a wall due to a total and utter lack of understanding of his needs. And this is where they get tricky on you: just when you think you know what you’re doing, the little blighters go and change their routines!

As the weeks pass, the difficulty of meeting needs is softened further by the gradual development of their responses and interactions: following you with their eyes, a smile, a coo, a laugh, etc. It blows me away to look back over the past nine weeks and see how much Tom has changed. He’s developing so quickly, it won’t be long before we see him as ‘a boy’ rather than ‘a baby’.

In short, being a father is a hundred times harder than I expected – but a thousand times more rewarding. I thoroughly recommend it.

* ‘My family’ has become my favourite phrase, and I now find any excuse to use it. After Julie and I were engaged, I relished in referring to ‘my fiancée’ – but that soon sounded pretentious. After we wed, I loved saying ‘my wife’ – but the proliferation of colleagues and associates using the gender-neutral reference ‘my partner’ left me feeling old-fashioned. But everyone has a family, and this one’s mine, so I’m going to espouse proud paternity as much as I bloody-well want, okay?

** This is a bit of a fib. There’s nothing ‘balanced’ about my emotional responses to the boy – I love him, I love him, I love him. He has already filled me up with a completely irrational set of emotional responses: I laugh and coo when he vomits, I congratulate his efforts when he poops, I take hundreds of photos of him every day and inflict them on my friends, family and colleagues. Leave me alone – I’m just being a dad!

*** I’m hoping that I toughen up on this before Tom’s old enough to realise that he’s got me around his finger. I really don’t want to be one of ‘those’ parents you see in the supermarket, blackmailed into buying disposable/edible rubbish by breath-holding and temper-tantrums.

**** Well, off the top of my head there’s reading, writing, eating, sleeping, watching TV, catching up with friends or seeing a film. Just kidding, Tom. Really.

Part 5: The boy

So, here he was. Thomas Andrew had finally arrived. After nine months of apprehension, and nine hours of exasperation, we were finally parents.

There’s nothing like looking at a newborn baby to make you feel old, fat and hairy. Everything about them is so small and clean, pure and perfect.

Tiny little fingers.

Impossibly cute toes.

Eyes, ears, mouth and nose which were all models-in-miniature of either Julie’s or my own.

Huge whopping great genitals.

No, no, no – I’m not being crass, nor am I trying to brag about my boy’s endowment. It’s a medical fact that both boys and girls are born with enlargements in that particular region. It’s a hormonal thing, honestly. (However, I must admit to being tempted to quote Homer Simpson: ‘It’s a boy … and WHAT a boy!’)

It must be said that we were both very impressed with how much time we had to bond with our baby. As mentioned previously, he was given to Julie as soon as he was delivered. In fact, she actually CAUGHT HIM as he was on his way out, and LIFTED HIM UP to her own chest … with a bit of help, of course – but how impressive is that? How much does that shatter your preconceptions of how maternity wards operate?

We expected a significantly colder, more clinical approach: ‘Congratulations folks – here’s your baby. Have a quick look and a cuddle, and we’ll bundle him off for tests and examinations. You can wander down the hall soon and look at him through the big window. Oh no, we hardly ever mix them up any more.’ etc.

But instead we had a good half hour to bond with him, at which stage we briefly handed him over to the obstetrician (who had been busying himself with removing other things from inside Julie, and thankfully mopped up before handling Tom) for a few quick tests and a weigh-in right there in the room, and then he was given straight back to us. A few handshakes, thankyous and goodbyes later, and we were left alone. ALONE! A family! With a baby to raise!

Not quite knowing how to cope with the enormity of the situation, we immediately rang our parents. Despite the fact that they all utterly refused to take Tom off our hands and let us regain our youth, we nevertheless invited them to come and meet their grandson.

By the time the new grandparents left (and we once again found ourselves alone as a family) it was well after midnight, and so the midwifery staff informed us that we would be spending the night in the birthing suite. Under normal circumstances we would have been shipped out to a room in the maternity ward, but the lateness of the hour – along with the unseasonably high number of births currently underway at the hospital meant that this would have to wait until the morning.

This chance turn of events meant that I could kip out on the floor, affording me an opportunity to spend Night One with my family – an experience I would have missed had Julie been relocated into a shared room (as she was, the following morning).

Night One subsequently taught both of us three important facts about our boy:

1. He had poo like a radioactive by-product.

2. He had a scream that cut through the night like a chainsaw.

3. He had us by the heartstrings, completely and utterly.

Part 4: The arrival

When we last saw our brave heroine, she was contracting and writhing and screaming and cursing – and swearing to all gods both heathen and holy that she would never do this again.

She had also asked the midwife on several occasions whether she could start pushing – a request that was continuously denied since a) her cervix had not yet fully dilated, and b) the baby had wriggled his way around to the posterior position, which is not optimal for delivery. It was due to this second factor that Julie had – three or four hours into labour – been administered with a small dose of pethidine, which would hopefully relax things just enough for the bub to reposition himself ready for launch. Around 9 pm the midwife told us that this seemed to have finally occurred – and since Julie’s cervix was now roughly the width of a grapefruit*, we were also informed that the pushing could now begin.

All sorts of things started happening at this stage, which I will probably not be able to fully digest without years of therapy – or at least, until I have completed writing my script for the B-grade horror film ‘It Came From Out Of My Wife’. I studied this stuff in my undergraduate degree, and have a fairly good understanding of what goes on down there – but until it is happening to your beloved, you cannot possibly grasp the enormity of the situation. Thanks to the policy of inclusiveness our midwife** had towards the father’s role in childbirth, I was a participant-observer in the whole show.

And so, about an hour-and-a-half later – after much pushing, screaming, twisting, kicking, bearing-down, crowning, bleeding and stretching – we finally met our son.

As soon as he was delivered, he was placed on Julie’s chest for a cuddle and a scream, and we got to share our first few moments together as a family. The obstetrician then handed me some scissors and offered me a lengthy piece of calamari, which I thanked him for but declined, since I had eaten not long ago. Once my misapprehension had been pointed out, I cut the umbilical cord and symbolically set the next generation loose on the world.

* It is often difficult for men to fully appreciate what happens to a woman during childbirth, so allow me to share this analogy: To allow for passage of the baby, the cervix stretches to 10 cm, or 100 mm. It is normally about 2-3 mm wide. This is about the same size as the urethra. So guys, imagine ‘things’ stretching to the point that you could wee baseballs.

** … and the hospital in general, it must be said. Mitcham Private has a fantastic attitude to childbirth and fathers. I really appreciated the fact that they included me in everything, and never once treated me as excess baggage.

Part 3: Labour

Modern birthing suites – at least, those at our hospital of choice – are remarkable. Years of shonky hospital dramatisations had led us to expect a dank, sterile room reminiscent of – if not identical to – an operating theatre. But the reality is more like a 4-star hotel room, complete with mini-bar, comfy couches, TV and stereo.

Granted, not many hotels have nitrous oxide on-tap, handy ‘Jesus bars’ near the toilet/shower/bed, a cupboard full of forceps and a hard-wearing, washable floor covering. But nevertheless, I’ve paid good money to stay in worse rooms – and I know some kinky folk who would pay a premium for the extra oddities.

And so it was into such comfort that we were led upon our arrival at Mitcham Private around 3:30-ish. Julie’s contractions had been rapidly increasing in intensity and frequency during the drive from home, and were now at the point where sitting down and grimacing was about her only option.

We had experienced what we had – foolishly, in hindsight – considered to be several ‘false alarms’ in the preceding weeks. Contractions of a kind would start up and fall into a regular pattern, and we would very excitedly begin noting down the regularity and the intensity (‘mild’, ‘uncomfortable’, ‘a bit sore’, etc). These were, of course, merely Braxton-Hicks contractions. Now that Julie was experiencing the real deal, the descriptors most commonly used were ‘agonising’, ‘f---ing painful’ and ‘AAAAGGGGHHHHHHH’.

I will never experience the pain of labour, and for that I’m thankful. At the risk of receiving a serious beating from all my female friends and relatives, it was painful enough watching my beloved experience it.

To Julie’s credit, she bore the agony with a strength I shall admire for years to come. There’s no way to say that without sounding condescending, but there you have it. She demonstrated a goddess-like pain threshold, and has my undying respect.

But after five or six unspeakable hours, with nothing more than a constant supply of nitrous to smooth the worst edges, she was forced to face a new challenge. The pushing had begun.

Part 2: The journey

The usual 30-minute train/drive commute took me a little under an hour, thanks to arriving at the station at precisely the wrong time of day and waiting 20 minutes for the next train – predictably stopping-all-stations, rather than limited-express.

I had rung Julie several times on the way to engage in exactly the kind of mobile phone conversations I regularly ridicule as inane and unnecessary, ie: ‘I’m at the station’, ‘I’m on the train’, ‘I just passed Glenferrie’, ‘I’m getting into the car now’, etc. With each successive phone call, I could hear the initial enthusiasm and excitement leaving her voice, as the pain and anxiety of labour crept in.

By the time I got home (around 3 pm), the intensity of Julie’s contractions had increased significantly – to the point that she could not talk during one. Thanks to good planning (or over-enthusiasm), our bags had been packed months ago, so all that was left to do was feed the cat and hit the road.

We had been forewarned by our midwife that bucket seats afforded the most uncomfortable position possible for a labouring woman, so with some trepidation I helped Julie into the back seat of our car. Since the same midwife had cheerfully told us about the corrosive powers of amniotic fluid, we had earlier laid down a good covering of tarps and towels to protect the upholstery from any water-breaking mishaps. (Laugh and scorn all you want – I consider it a fairly subdued compromise, compared to the ‘trailer lined with sawdust’ option discussed at our antenatal class.)

My performance during the drive to hospital was another of those great fears I had harboured during the pregnancy. Would I crack under the pressure? Would the Gods of Urban Congestion and Peak-Hour Rushes conspire to make our son truly a back-seat baby? Would I remember to pack the calming, floaty meditation CDs preselected for the trip – as opposed to the less appropriate collection of 60s/70s rock and 90s/00s big-beat usually on high-rotation in my* car?

As it turned out, all these highly important aspects of the father’s role in labour went incredibly smoothly. The traffic was light, the tunes were soothing and within 20 minutes we arrived at the hospital. I really relaxed at this stage. Julie did not.

* ‘My car’ is a phrase that no longer exists in our household, as the newer, more-reliable Ford Falcon has now become the vehicle du jour for baby-related activities (ie: everything), while the older, more … umm … ‘characteristic’ Toyota Corona has become Dad’s runabout to the station on cold/wet mornings. I subsequently apologise in advance to my manager and workmates for all missed meetings and late arrivals.

Part 1: The phone call

Well - almost a month after the events, I've finally had a chance to start jotting down my thoughts about the arrival of my son. I'll post these as I wrote them - in a serialised fashion.

‘Honey, it’s me. I think my waters just broke!’

For the past nine months, I have worried that the phone call beginning with those words would trigger off a mad panic in me, rendering me completely useless at a time that Julie would need me to be at my most level-headed. I was pleasantly surprised to prove myself utterly wrong.

I received the call in question on March 1 – just a little after 2 pm. I had just returned from lunch, and had resigned myself to the fact that Julie was destined to spend yet another day heavily pregnant. We had passed our calculated due date three days prior (and the ultrasound estimate nine days earlier), and had made a tentative booking to induce labour the following weekend.

Neither of us was really keen on the idea of an induced labour; in addition to the rumours that the experience is much more painful (completely unprovable, and probably utterly irrational), a primitive sense of pride made us feel that such medical intervention would be ‘cheating’.

But as it turned out, we weren’t going to need the appointment.

This was it.

It had begun.

We were finally going to be parents.

All that remained was a hell of a lot of hard work for my beloved.

On the other side

Well, Tom has now arrived and our lives have been suitably turned upside down! Its been an amazing couple of weeks, and I intend to jot down many of my thoughts ... once I catch up on sleep, that is ;)

March 1, 2007

Wow. That's about all I can manage at the moment. This is so special and wonderful and awe-inspiring, it deserves a brand new blog. Introducing ...

The waiting game

Well, they say that 'due dates' are nothing more than a private joke shared amongst obstetricians and mid-wives ... but personally, I fail to see the funny side.

Hurry up!

Honestly, I'm going out of mind with anxious anticipation. Its like been on the run, knowing that you're going to be caught soon - its a case of when, rather than if. Its terrible!

Oh ... and apparently your Mum's not having the best time of it either. ;)

HURRY UP!!

Week 39 ...

... officially begins this weekend. Eeek!

The 'final week'. I can't believe we're here already. There's no way its been 32 weeks since we were first alerted to your presence. It seems like nothing has really happened over that time, but when I think about it I realise that we've actually been constantly, insanely, busy preparing for your arrival.

And so here we are - your room is ready, the cupboard is well-stocked with nappies, the bathroom with baby wipes and the freezer with lasagna. Your Mum is on maternity leave (enjoying it a bit too much for my liking) and my work is on notice that - at any moment now - I'll be running out the door to begin the biggest adventure of my life.

Any moment now ...

The year of change ...

Happy new year! This is going to be a big one for you - and for us, I guess! We kicked it off with a style of New Year's Eve which I'm sure is going to become the norm for the next few years: a quiet night-in. Oh, how the mighty have fallen ... ;)