One Week

I get why Hallmark cards are so popular. I get why people believe in God and Angels.

It is difficult to say how this feels. It feels like everything. But to be specific, kt and I saw the water rush out of her and rush out of the beach. It was sucked back and back and up into a mother of a wave. We knew it was coming and so we ran to the highest possible ground and strapped ourselves fast to the nearest tree, lest we were thrown asunder upon impact. It was a little overwhelming, shall we say, when it came. It came fast and big and I drowned twenty times and kept living anyway. And we were both very brave but we were thrown asunder. as I lost my mind a bit through sleep deprivation and excitement. But I found it again, under the tree where i left it.

And you know those Shepherds? The ones who saw the Angels singing in the sky? The ones who were in such awe and amazement that they fell down and cried in the middle of the paddock? Well, I am those Shepherds and my partner kt180 is the Angels from on high. That is how amazing she was giving birth to our boy and how amazing she has been every day and night since then.

i am going to start writing for hallmark for some extra cash.

Baby Born

This is Clement (Clem). Born on Friday the 13th (August).Perfection and Love itself. God picked out an angel especially for us. He is not angelic. He is an actual angel. We are gladder than any words can say. There are not enough medals in the world for my partner.

perhaps the last entry before the baby. perhaps.

We have to go up to the Birth Centre in a minute for an appointment. kt is 38 weeks pregnant which is very very pregnant. There has been a lot of getting ready for the baby and reading about co-sleeping and attachment parenting and sewing of curtains and screen printing them. I'll take photos perhaps, would that be good? They really are pretty. The dads came round for pizza last night and we got my lovely old rabbit doll, whose name is Jemima, and pretended she was the baby coming out the birth canal and doing that great weird turn they do as they slide out. I really needed to see it so using Jemima was great. We also used her to demonstrate how the sling works. I think the baby boy is a bit bigger that Jemima and a lot sturdier, too.

We have the contact lists ready to go. We have clothes and bags and nappies and towels packed.

The other lesbians had a baby boy this week. They are doing well, apparently, and I would like to bake some biscuits to leave on their doorstep (kt's idea really) but we shall see. Every day could be the day. I am excited. Also I had a good cry about the fact that the world will soon change irrevocably soon and would I still get as much attention and love from my girlfriend? She answered "yes" but I think that is only because I was crying. I felt much better about the whole thing and a lot less scared after that cry. Crying is good. I promise to still say that after I have a 4 month old who never stops.

Feeling the pinch

Hi guys,

In case anyone was wondering about the progress I thought I'd blog for a minute while my darling girlfriend finishes making the breast pads she started this afternoon. Home made reusable breast pads from old tshirts and older washers that my mum guv us.

Obviously kt180 is off work now and her whole world has changed. The house is becoming more babyfied every day. There are two changing stations -upstairs and down, and the biggest washing machine you ever saw in the biggest and nicest laundry you ever dreamed of. kt's parents have been round a bit, sewing covers for the change mats, washing windows, painting bits of wall, fixing things, drinking wine, and I even managed to get my old lady round one afternoon this week to get in on some of the action. We sat and folded a mountainous pile of onesies and tiny singlets.

kt is large as a tub and her skin is so stretched across her belly that it aches and stings and reddens and if I forget to send a text message on her behalf and she finds out she stands in the kitchen and yells and yells and yells.

She is 36 and a half weeks pregnant. If she went into labour now, the birth centre would accept her. The baby is head down, has been for some time now, and engaged. Meaning his head is right on the cervix, ready to go go go. It's all a bit bloody amazing and scary and full on and every time I make an entry in my diary now I wonder if I'll have to cancel it at the time.

We went to a lovely, practical birth class at the hospital earlier and I think i mentioned it before and how we met the nice lesbians who were a few weeks ahead of us. They have not had their baby yet. They have stayed a little in contact with us and have burned us a copy of a meditation cd that is really calming and empowering and has put us in a pretty groovy headspace generally for the birth. I do honestly believe it will be ok. Hard, but good.

On Monday night we paid a woman $180 to pinch my girlfriend. We went to another birth method class, wanting a calm birth-type hippy experience to put in the "tool bag" and the woman pinched her, hard, several times on the inner thigh for, like, a minute and a half, and then two minutes at a time, telling her to "meet the pain with your breath, breathe all the way in, in, in, take what you need, and nowww breathe it out and downnnn, washhhhh it alllll the wayyyyy downnnnnn, dowwnnnnnn, keeep going, it's stilllll there, washhhhhh it downnnnnn, ok it's passing and it's gone.' kt was so frikken angry, that woman is lucky she did not get screamed at and head butted. It was a total rort, looking back on it, but at the time you just sort of went along with it, thinking about how big of a deal the birth of your first baby was going to be and how you needed this heads up and any damn help you could possibly get.

But it was a big fat rort and we paid $180 to look at a very interesting book with good birth canal images and get kt well and truly pinched.

I am secretly very nervous about coping with watching her in pain because I have this nerve thing in my bum cheeks which goes psycho buzzy like electric pulses whenever I see her in pain or think about someone cutting open a vein or getting a needle or something painful. And I might just totally freak out and not be able to be with the fact that she is really, really hurting. That is a bit of a fear, but also I have been known to be very brave in the past so praps I will be again.

nearly there

A lot of folks say they can't see the baby in this picture but they are blind. This scan was taken on monday (34 weeks). We learned that the placenta has moved away from the cervix (the car is no longer parked in front of the garage, as someone said. Lucky we hand-painted that sign on the door: NO PARKING DAY OR NIGHT-PLEASE. IN USE 24 HOURS. BABY DUE ANY DAY). So Bless the Universe, kt can try for a vaginal birth. She is starting to feel scared and I do not blame her. Although I feel it will go very well, I know I would be swooning with nerves at this point. In fact, I had a little swoon the other night. We were eating dinner in bed and suddenly kt jmped up in pain and started leaning on the cot and swaying. The room tipped right up like a rolling boat and then straight back down again. I looked at her, said "breathe", and kept shovelling food into my gob, thinking it might be the last time I eat for a while and I was gonna need it. I am like a dog that way. Each meal could be the last for a while...and now that instict has multiplied a million-fold. Needless to say, my girlfriend did not go into labour and I have had several meals since then.

I don't want to bleat on about it because it's kind of obvious, we're having a baby, we're worried about money. Today is kt180's last day of work. She is very happy-scared about that.She is far more articulate than that about it. I am really hoping to hit the big time very soon because the financial reality is becoming a bit of an issue. But we will not be stopped. never ever. See the last several years of our life if you want proof.

check yez later. baby could come any day now. He already weighs 2.8kg which is more that the books say by about 600g. excited.

33 and a half weeks

It's been a very busy time. Part of the process for me has been getting money together so that my Mrs can leave work and we don't go to the poor house. We are really hoping that she gets a few weeks off before the kid comes. Every shop assistant and passer-by seems to feel that they owe it to kt180 to tell her that she could go any day now, that she has a big baby and that she could be having twins. Yeah...they know. In any case we're putting the birth centre on speed dial.

There are some brown discharge stories but I don't wanna say anything about kt that's too private. (ha!)

All is well.

Rock and Roll

uluru by dayDear Blog,

We spent Saturday night at a birth class. There were 5 pregnancies there, 5 partners and one Grandmother-to-be. Of the 5 partners, two were women. Of the two women, I was one. It was very odd when the midwife said at the beginning "OK, men on one side and women on the other." She quickly realised her mathematical and political error and amended most of the rest of the night to referring to the "partner" and not the "man" .

In the video, we saw German women in labour, clutching ropes and husbands. They looked like they were in a lot of pain. I have been very proud of my darling and her very big belly. (It really is big. This photo is two weeks old. It has got bigger). I still am proud, but Jesus, i was a bit worried about her for a bit there. I did that thing, watching the panting, crying germans, when you giggle a lot because you are so terrified. I looked around the room. Other people looked serene and interested. I looked at the pregnant bellies. All of the babies are due weeks sooner than ours. All of the bellies were smaller than KT's. I was even prouder/scareder.

She can almost not get into the shower recess. It only opens so wide. Clambering out of the car, she then closed the door on her belly, not realising it stuck out quite that far.

It was certainly a good and practical class and I feel much more in the spirit of things having done it. I have a good sense now of all the stages of labour, what to do when KT's water breaks (clean it up), when to go in to the Birth Centre ( when the contractions are five minutes apart and/or she can't stand the pain any more or I can't stand the screaming) and what pain relief she can get there (a bath). Also we got a bit friendly with the other lesbians and maybe if one of us is feeling brave we might even call them. Coz they seemed really nice and pretty together. Which could mean they made an attractive couple or that they were relatively grounded and emotionally stable.

There is an adventure ahead, it seems. And that's all before the little tacker comes home.

Soon this will be a parenting blog and not a trying to conceive blog or a pregnancy blog. Parenting seems so grown-up.