| blogging our children into being |
|
motor functions |
|
The Dads |
|
extended blogfamily |
|
what is it? BlogSprogs is homeplace of The Crucial Three: the babies Turner, Matrullo and O'Connor Clarke. |
Another year older, another year more handsome, funnier, more charming. This little man is possessed of more charisma in his little finger than most of us will ever have in our entire bodies.
We cannot tell what Ruairi will do with his life. All we know is that he's sure to do great things. Great things.
Unless you've had the sheer joy of his company, you couldn't possibly know just how incredibly warm, witty, and kind-hearted Ruairi is. He's a genuinely amazing kid, and we love him more and more with each passing day.
The photo is a couple of months old - showing Ruairi doing one of the things he loves most: running like crazy. In this case, he was tearing down through one of the valleys at the Caledon Badlands, a little north of us, just outside Toronto. It just seems to capture a pure Ruairi moment. Couldn't resist it.
Happy birthday, beautiful boy.
My God, Ruairi - I love you so much. Thank you for being you.
Sunday, December 18, 2005
Happy Birthday Ruairi.Blogsprog #2 is a big three years old today.
Love you very, very much.
Thursday, December 18, 2003
The Sweetest Thing...
Our lovely baby boy just turned one year old.
Here he is trying out one of his birthday presents. The shot's a little underexposed, but it's such a perfect Ruairi face I couldn't resist it.
This perfectly captures a very Ruairi look - he's just the smiliest, happiest kid. It's a pity the picture can't capture the constant stream of little chuckles and chatter he keeps up throughout most of his waking hours.
Happy birthday, Ruairi, we love you.
BTW: yes, I cheated - I changed the time stamp on this post to the exact date and time of Ruairi's birth, one year ago. But what the heck - I was far too busy celebrating to actually blog about this yesterday :-)
Entertaining to look back to some of the Blogsprogs posts from around this time last year, and remind myself of this extraordinary tale...
Wednesday, April 16, 2003
Baby
Well Mr Turner, you say that she's prone to emotional outbursts, sensitive, fussy about her food, unable to move about on her own, slurring her speech badly, doubly incontinent, drooling a lot, funny with strangers, suffers from mood swings, can sometimes vomit after feeding due to a build up of wind?
Hmm.
Well I think I know what the problem is, it appears that your daughter is suffering from a classic case of Baby. Nothing to worry about, it's something that she'll grow out of in a few years. Seriously, nothing to be concerned about, you'd be surprised to discover that it's something we all go through at some point in our lives, typically in our early years.
I have heard that some people don't quite fully recover from Baby and present some years later as having sometimes baby-like behavioural traits, but again I must stress, this is perfectly normal and nothing to be concerned about.
Give her plenty love and affection and she'll soon recover.
Monday, April 14, 2003
The First Supper
Cameron started on solids yesterday (sunday). I say solids as a means of differentiating from milk. However in my book, runny and ever so slightly gloopy baby rice stretches the 'solid' definition somewhat. But, all the same, she's now on solids and loving it.
Fiona, being an annoyingly natural born mother, has got the whole spoon/mouth thing covered but tonight I thought I'd give it a shot; spoonful number one was delivered without a hitch and raised my confidence to a foolishly high level and as a result, after spoon number two ended up being grabbed on its final approach by both of Cameron's paws, rendering them ricey in a very messy way, I was quickly bundled out of the way by the maternal one and told to get on with making our dinner instead. Fan-bloody-tastic.
Monday, March 31, 2003
This response has ended up longer than I expected, so I've pulled it out of Comments and into here...
I agree with Gary: persistence, and SJ's hunger, will probably be the key.
Both of our two oldest were exclusively breast fed (Sausage is a stay-at-home Mum).
Ruairi, though, for a combination of reasons was just not wild about the breast. He had difficulty 'latching' and just wasn't getting full up enough.
So we introduced formula early on - starting with a little medicine cup (messy - but helped get him used to the taste), then switching to bottles.
He's now a happy, hungry bottle beast - hoovering down 40+ ounces of formula per day.
A few general observations and things we've found that make a difference:
1. Waiting until the kid is really hungry for the first few times. It seems cruel, and you'll feel like a complete bastard at first; but it may be the only way to help SJ learn that the bottle is his only option until Mum comes home.
2. Having the formula just slightly warmer than the books suggest. This may be a matter of taste, but Ruairi likes his milk a good bit above room temperature. Not hot, of course, but certainly a little warmer than you'd think.
3. Avent bottles. Quite simply the only ones that worked - and they have the added bonus of dramatically reducing the burp factor.
4. Using canned concentrate as opposed to powder. We only twigged this one fairly recently - but the difference in Ruairi's appetite has been remarkable since switching. Think about it: would you drink powdered milk?
5. Using a non-iron formula at first. The iron stuff led to Ruairi suffering dreadful, painful week-long constipation. Apparently, kids don't actually need the extra iron until after the third month. We switched to unleaded and everyone was much happier. Going to reintroduce the added iron formula now.
Hope some of his helps. If you can get him comfortable with the bottle it becomes a genuinely wonderful thing for a Dad to be able to experience. Gives you much more of a feeling of participation and a certain extra bond you can't get from watching Mum do all the work.
Monday, March 24, 2003
Hard to believe...
...but Ruairi now has chicken pox.
He's turning out to be simultaneously the sickest, and yet the most robust kid I've ever known.
Poor little mite. He doesn't really know what's wrong; doesn't yet get the whole itching/scratching thing (and hasn't developed the coordination to do anything about it even if he did), but he's still not happy. Just can't get comfortable.
We're consoling ourselves with the thought that he's building an immune system to rival Wolverine.
Friday, March 21, 2003
"The highlands and the lowlands are the routes my father knows,
the holidays at Oban and the towns around Montrose,
but even as he sleeps, they're loading bombs into the hills,
and the waters in the lochs can run deep, but never still.
I've thought of having children, but I've gone and changed my mind.
It's hard enough to watch the news, let alone explain it to a child,
to cast your eye cross nature, over fields of rape and corn,
and tell him without flinching not to fear where he's been born.
Then someone sat me down last night, and I heard Caruso sing.
He's almost as good as Presley, and if I only do one thing,
I'll sing songs to my father, I'll sing songs to my child.
It's time to hold your loved ones while the chains are loose,
and the world runs wild.
But even as we speak, they're loading bombs onto a white train.
How can we afford to ever sleep, so sound again?"
the holidays at Oban and the towns around Montrose,
but even as he sleeps, they're loading bombs into the hills,
and the waters in the lochs can run deep, but never still.
I've thought of having children, but I've gone and changed my mind.
It's hard enough to watch the news, let alone explain it to a child,
to cast your eye cross nature, over fields of rape and corn,
and tell him without flinching not to fear where he's been born.
Then someone sat me down last night, and I heard Caruso sing.
He's almost as good as Presley, and if I only do one thing,
I'll sing songs to my father, I'll sing songs to my child.
It's time to hold your loved ones while the chains are loose,
and the world runs wild.
But even as we speak, they're loading bombs onto a white train.
How can we afford to ever sleep, so sound again?"
"The Night I Heard Caruso Sing" -- Everything But The Girl.
Sunday, March 09, 2003
Our three month old Cameron is going to see a specialist tomorrow afternoon to have a suspected heart murmur investigated. I'm more than a little perturbed, as you might imagine.
Our three month old Cameron is going to see a specialist tomorrow afternoon to have a suspected heart murmur investigated. I'm more than a little perturbed, as you might imagine.
Our three month old Cameron is going to see a specialist tomorrow afternoon to have a suspected heart murmur investigated. I'm more than a little perturbed, as you might imagine.
Our three month old Cameron is going to see a specialist tomorrow afternoon to have a suspected heart murmur investigated. I'm more than a little perturbed, as you might imagine.
Tuesday, February 25, 2003
I think Canada is broadly similar to the U.S. in the generally accepted approach to vaccinations.
Ruairi actually had his first shots last week, including the standard mix of diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, polio, and Hib. On the advice of our paediatrician we also opted to cough up extra for the Prevnar. Ruairi's earlier blood infection probably doesn't mean he's any more susceptible to pneumococcal bacteria than other kids, but we were still easily convinced it was a smart choice in his case.
Note: In prelicensure clinical trials, the most frequently reported adverse reactions to the cheesy marketing on the Prevnar site included fever, irritability, drowsiness, vomiting, nausea, and scepticism.
I guess we're lucky in that we were able to have pretty open, informative discussions with our family doctor and paediatrician about all of this stuff. I also found this site useful in addressing some of the myths.
Up here, you're not absolutely required to have your child immunized - no one is going to make you do something to your baby you don't want to do. But they will still strongly advocate vaccination in almost every case.
Our older kids were certainly expected to have all their shots before getting into playschool or kindergarten. Exceptions are made in cases of religious or cultural preference, of course, but you're required to produce an affidavit to cover the school's ass.
Wednesday, February 19, 2003
Damn! That feels good.
Tuesday, February 18, 2003
1K words
Sunday, February 16, 2003
Cameron shows us how.
Saturday, February 08, 2003
He's home.
Thursday, February 06, 2003
Best Ruairi news yet
He's coming home!
After settling in to the strange cycle of the last couple of weeks, we're thrilled and relieved to know that Ruairi is now definitely well enough to be almost ready to come home. If everything goes as planned, he should get his last dose of the antibiotics tomorrow night around 8:00 and will be ready to come home about an hour after that.
He’s visibly, obviously better in so many ways. Active, comfortable, alert, smiley and eating like his Dad – weighed in at 11lb 1oz earlier today.
Life since last Tuesday has been extraordinarily strained and tiring; for him most of all, but also for all of the family. It really looks like we’ll be back to some semblance of normality by the weekend.
I don’t know how we would have coped without the loving support of so many friends – online and r/t. The messages of encouragement, the many meals cooked for us, the countless favours and offers of assistance – Sausage and I are just floored by it all. The typical daily schedule for this last week has been something like this:
– Up early with Charlie & Lily for breakfast.
– Lily either off to playschool or dropped with friends for a ‘play date’; Charlie either to the same or a different friend’s house (spreading the load).
– Me in to the hospital, bearing coffee and breakfast for Leona, to snatch some brief moments with our little man and give Sausage a chance to shower and relax for a while.
– Off to the office for a few hours of maintenance activity, trying to keep things rolling as well as possible.
– Back to hospital by around 2:30 to relieve Sausage for the afternoon shift. She – to school to collect Charlie (SK, so he’s only there in the afternoon), gathering in Lily from whichever friend’s house en route.
– Then (after their piano lessons or ballet or whatever) back to the hospital, complete with donated food from one of our wonderful friends for a family dinner in Ruairi’s drab, grey little room.
– C, L & I back home by 8:30; Leona settling down with Ruairi for a night on the thin hospital cot.
– C & L to bed; me back online – phone calls, email, writing, catching up on work till late at night.
– Repeat with small variations until no longer remotely funny.
The daft thing is – through all this enervating, weird time, I’ve still managed to keep the new baby sleep deprivation thing going at peak. Yet I’m the one who has been retiring to the big comfy bed every night, while poor Sausage worked the night shift in the hospital. No babies crying - no 3 o'clock feed to get up for, but do you think I could sleep? I've seen 04:00 tick past on the radio alarm just about every night in the last 2 weeks.
Tonight, I think, I’ll finally be able to get some balm for this hurt mind. Our little boy comes home tomorrow. Looks set to be a memorable weekend.
Sunday, February 02, 2003
Basically still OK. Nothing new of substance to report.
10lb 15oz. Happier, healthier, more awake, more appetite, more activity.
Good day all round - basking in the bloglove and gradually getting better.
Goodnight, sweet prince.
Saturday, February 01, 2003
Getting better...
Not out of the woods yet, but Ruairi is definitely on the mend. He's still on antibiotics, but they've narrowed down the original cocktail to an e.coli specific drug now. He's definitely looking and acting happier every day, thank God.
More blood work, ultrasound, regular temperature, respiration and heart rate checks - so far everything's confirming the original diagnosis. As we caught it before it had a chance to really take hold, the doctors don't think there are likely to be any lasting complications. We have one extraordinarily tough, resilient little bruiser here.
His fever peaked again during the night, but it doesn't seem to have been a real issue - they took the latest round of blood just to try and confirm that the treatment really is working, and that they don't need to step up the dose or anything.
One moment of drama today, when his temperature flared up again and he started panting like crazy, his little heart hitting 180 bpm. I ran to fetch the nurse; by the time we came back his left arm had puffed up like a balloon around the IV site. Looks like the tube had either slipped out or his tiny vein had just collapsed.
Thankfully, it took a lot less time to get a new drip in this time around - he's not so dehydrated now, which makes it easier, I guess. Soon had a brand new IV in the other arm, and his temperature, pulse and respiration dropped back to normal. (Think my own pulse rate might be back down by some time next week).
Overall, though, today was a good day. He's awake a lot of the time, and feeding reasonably well - doesn't want to be put down, but that's just fine with me. Happy to hold him till my arms go numb - he just has to look up at me and I'll do anything he needs.
Settled in now for the next week of this. All our friends - online and realtime - have been simply astonishing. The support and care we're getting is terrific. Sausage's MomNet & book club mates have worked up a rota to cook hot meals for us every night. We've had prayers, emails, cards and kind words of encouragement from Toronto to Taiwan. I'm awed by the healing power of firm friends in hard times. Thank you, all of you.
Here he is, then, clearly relishing the extra attention and proudly displaying his IV:
And extra thanks to Saints Beuno and Clement for listening.
Thursday, January 30, 2003
Latest
We got the results of more tests today. They've found an e. coli infection in his urine - so this is almost certainly what the culture they've grown from his blood is too.
There's a strange relief in knowing they know what it is. I mean - it's still not great, but it's oddly reassuring and re-stabilizing to put a name to the thing. Now we can name it we can research it, understand it, deal with it.
I got home from the hospital a couple of hours ago. Got to spend almost the whole day with Ruairi and I was able to mark his gradual improvement every hour of the day. I finished the book and newspaper I'd brought fairly early in the day, so spent the afternoon 'reading' my son - watching his face change colour, the clouds lift from his eyes, his mood shift and brighten.
When I left him and Leona for the night, he was probably the most alert and happy he has ever been. Makes me think he's had this thing brewing in his system for the whole short six weeks of his little life.
So it looks like we caught it in time. I don't want to think about what might have happened if we'd not listened to our wonderful family doctor. From what I've read so far, another 24 hours without treatment and he could have been much, much worse.
He has to stay in for another week or so, but he's definitely on the mend. The powerful antibiotics are working miracles. Still more tests, more drugs, more monitoring - but we're going to make it.
Thanks to everyone for the messages, thoughts and prayers.
Meanwhile, I'm struggling with a rather more mundane issue over here, if any of you have some time to help out a little...
Thanks.
Wednesday, January 29, 2003
Ruairi update
The blood work came back. He has a bacterial infection in his blood.
We still don't really know what that means, but I think it's going to be OK. We caught it early enough.
The spinal fluid was clear. Oh thank God.
Things not so great.
Just back from the hospital. Ruairi and Sausage are spending their second night in while they continue to monitor him. General prognosis is that there's probably nothing badly wrong - but it's still very frightening to have your 6 week old baby lying there – surrounded by all that clinicalness with a huge IV jutting out of his tiny, perfect pink hand.
We've all had this bug for the last few weeks. Charlie came down first - high temperature, sniffles, nasty barking cough, feeling generally miserable. Took him about 10 days to get through it - by which stage Lily had it, of course. Leona and I have been feeling more than a little off - but you just keep going.
Inevitable that Ruairi would pick it up. He was running a low grade fever for the back end of last week. Got him into the doctor on Saturday morning for a once over. Everything fine. Over the weekend he just seemed to slow down - but still wasn't what you'd call desperately ill. Monday, the fever spiked up pretty high and he’d lost his appetite, so Tuesday saw him back at the doctor's office for another check.
Again: probably just the same virus, so sent home with instructions not to worry unless his temperature topped 39°.
A little after dinner, Tuesday night, pottering about the house and checking his forehead every time I passed his bassinet in the kitchen.
He was getting noticeably hotter.
Checked him: 39.5°
I bundled him into the car seat and off through fresh snow to the late night paediatric clinic up on the Danforth. Got there at 8:50 – it closes at 9:00. As I walked up to the glass double doors, the receptionist walked up from the inside, smiled, and bolted them.
Heated words through layers of glass. I’m embarrassed, still, but have to admit this is the closest I’ve come in a long time to physical violence. I guess she figured opening the door was a little quicker than calling the cops to drag me away, or something…
Inside. Last doctor in the place gladly agreed to see him, of course (despite the charming Ms. Jobsworth’s hopes of getting off early. No Hippocratic oath for admin staff).
The paediatrician started talking to me in that curious abstract-but-concerned doctorspeak you sometimes hear.
“Well, you know, what we like to do when they’re this young…is just be as cautious as we can be….you know…we’d typically refer the baby to the hospital and run a few routine tests, just to be on the safe side, of course…”
I snapped clear. She’s talking about MY baby. She’s on the phone to Toronto East General, referring him to the paediatrician on call. What? But he just has a nasty cold…
She’s back: “OK, so we’ll just keep him in for a couple of days – do a spinal tap, you know…”
I remember calling home on the way to the hospital – Sausage and I both holding back the tears, the fear. I couldn’t tell her the spinal tap bit. Too much cold terror in those two small words.
Leona made hasty arrangements with friends and was able to head in to meet me at the hospital. Thank God for Claudine & Doug, Thamason & Joshua - true friends in the best and worst of times.
She arrived just as they were getting him prepped for his tests: blood work, a catheter for the urine sample, and the spinal fluid. We had to leave the room for this stuff – probably just as well. But I’m not sure the pain of waiting is better than watching.
Long night. An hour just to get the IV in – lost count of the number of attempts to thread his teeny vein for the saline/dextrose/antibiotic drip. At least I got to hold him all through this, and whisper words that soothed me somewhat, even if he hardly knew.
Home at 3:00 this morning, up at 7:00 with C&L – hungry for Cheerios.
So now we wait. We spent most of today holding him or at his side. His temperature’s down, but we won’t know what it is until tomorrow at the earliest.
All we can do is hold him. Pray. Try not to freak out, or freak Charlie and Lily out. Put our trust in the wonderful doctors and nurses of TEGH, including his almost legendary paediatrician, Dr. Duke.
Updates as and when I can.
Sunday, January 26, 2003
Sunday, January 19, 2003
Fast Month
So Ruairi was a whole month old just yesterday. Sausage corrected me on this. I'd commented elsewhere that he was a month old on the 15th, when he was really only 4 weeks, if you see what I mean. Anyway.
Like Gary, I've been feeling a tad guilty about the lack of updates to this blog. Yet we've all been busy doing the right thing with the r/t version of these BlogSprogs, so I think it's understandable. Feels to me like we've got our priorities right.
I know when Charlie was born I was back at work way too fast. I still kick myself for not spending enough time at home in those first incredibly important few weeks. Think I was a very different person back then, and working for a completely different kind of company. Looking back, I guess one of my main reasons for moving out of insane software companies into PR was the desire to bring a little more balance to my life. Long story there...
This time around I was able to completely and utterly disconnect from just about anything even remotely resembling work (big thanks to the caring and wonderful Weber Shandwick organization, btw).
Tried it both ways now, and I think checking out of the everyday world, if you can swing it, is definitely the right thing to do (that's my Platitude of the Month Award sorted, right there).
Spent over three weeks at home, gazing into Ruairi's eyes, trying to decode the stream of little signals in his ever-changing expressions. As a reward, Ruairi, like Cameron, has just started treating us with his first hesitant smiles:
Doesn't look like much - but that really is the beginnings of a smile. Trust me on this. He's fighting fit now, as you can see (TG), but the little mite had a bit of a dodgy first few weeks of life. Nothing major, compared to some of the desperately sad stories you hear - but enough to scare the bejeezus out of us all the same.
From his birth weight of 9lb 9oz, he dropped more than a pound in week one. Sure, all newborns lose some weight – but that’s a big drop. That, plus a sniffly nose, infected navel and the laziest bowel in the Western hemisphere – kept Sausage and I on edge for a while. All seems a bit daft now, in perspective - but we were really, really worried. He just wasn't eating enough - neither of us was prepared for the incredible appetite this boy has. Man! he likes to eat.
Charlie & Lily were relatively straightforward, I guess. And while Ruairi really only had a few bog standard newborn baby complications, they still threw us for a loop. We'd somehow lulled ourselves with "been there, done that" over-confidence. I'm assigning at least part of the blame to the parents' favourite standby - that wonderful one-size-fits-all, million-and-one-uses excuse: sleep deprivation.
Lack of sleep helps heighten your emotional sensitivity to the point that you end up doing stupidly stupid things like waking your infant son at 3am because you want to check he's only asleep. The very intensity of the emotions is exhausting. So much so that you really need to sleep. Which you don't get to do much of. Which makes you more emotional. Which is really tiring.
Zzzzzzzzz.......
Saturday, January 18, 2003
Missing, Inaction
Well hello. Been busy, sorry for the absence. OK, almost 5 weeks uptime and Cameron smiled at me today for the first time whilst I was dressing her before we went out on a shopping trip. Cool, and about time too, she's been smiling at Fiona for ages, or so she says - Fiona, not Cameron - and I've been getting concerned that she might not like me. But she does. Phew.
We had an interesting first couple of weeks, Fiona had a bad infection thanks to some 'retained products' - in other words they never got all of the placenta out at the birth - which isn't good. At all. Two different types of elephant strength anti-biotics for a fortnight, equally not good. But she's fine now having returned to her former self about a week ago.
Cameron lost about four ounces in the first two weeks but she's back over her birthweight now and eating,well drinking, us out of house and home.
Tuesday, January 07, 2003
Long time no blog.
[update: minor edits inline - feedback from LBS ;-) ]
Like Gary, Fiona, Tom, and Wendy – we’ve been kind of busy.
Some catching up to do here. At the risk of boring anyone still following this blogsaga (and the ancillary risk of frightening off prospective parents) I want to document some of Ruairi’s arrival and the first few weeks through the next couple of posts.
Short version: this has been a tough, worrying, occasionally stonecold scary 20 days. We’re all great now, thank God. But it’s been hard. Really hard.
First – the labour and delivery.
I have never in my life seen any two human beings work so damned hard.
Leona blows my mind. This was our third trip to the maternity ward, but in many ways the hardest. She has bottomless reserves of strength and determination that are impossible to capture in words; or any other form of communication, for that matter. You had to be there. (Well, no. Actually you didn’t – that would have been just weird. You’re all lovely people, and everything, but...)
We had our last OB appt. on the Tuesday, Dec 17. We were more than a little surprised to find out he’d already scheduled Sausage in to be induced at 7 am the next day, but we trust this guy and had discussed this enough to be ready for it. So off we go...
Charlie & Lily were packed off to our saint-like friends Claudine & Doug’s house for their first ever sleepover – high excitement all round.
Up early on the Wednesday – getting ready to go, catching the radio news we learn that Toronto East General Hospital has been closed to visitors as an outbreak of the nasty Norwalk Virus sweeps through the wards. Head off anyway, and we’re checked in to the birthing suite by 6:40am.
By around 9:00, Sausage is sitting up in one of the hospital’s terrific new delivery rooms; IV steadily dripping Oxytocin in through her hand.
When Charlie was being born Leona had opted for an epidural, which turned out to be a major nightmare – took them over an hour to get the damn thing in (an hour in which I had to wait outside at the end of the longest corridor I’ve ever walked - sometimes an active imagination is a tough thing to live with). Scared both of us shitless. Charlie arrived after 15 hours in the hospital and 3 ½ hours of solid pushing. Streuth.
For Lily: Sausage did the frontier woman thing. About an hour and ten minutes in total – seven minutes of pushing at the end to pop her out like a cork.
This time round – with nothing to prove, and the prospect of stronger than normal contractions brought on by the extra dose of IV hormones, Leona called the epidural in around 10am. This time, the anesthetist actually seemed to have a clue (imagine!) – all done in 15 mins.
Skating over most of the subsequent scary endurance test ... let’s just say we both think, in hindsight, Ruairi just wasn’t really ready to come out.
The last two hours before he finally emerged was the most harrowing, intense, emotionally dislocating (then relocating), and brutally painful experience Sausage and I have undergone together.
Mostly her, of course. Ever want to feel useless as a man? Watch the woman you love scream in anguish and be unable to help beyond words, looks and holds.
I should pause to note that the end product of all this still makes everything – EVERYTHING – Leona had to go through more than worthwhile. I’m sure she won’t mind me stating her part here; I know she shares this view. But the journey was a grim one, nonetheless.
A lot of stuff went down in that delivery room that I’ve neither space, time, nor will to get into here.
Our obstetrician, Dr. G, is terrific, but I’m not sure this was exactly his finest hour. I don’t want to paint him in an ill light: without his relentless aid and expertise we might well have ended up somewhere I don’t even want to think about. He’s a great, great man – but he let the Nurse-From-Hell into our delivery room, and that was a mistake.
Picture a five foot nuttin, Jamaican Rosie Perez-a-like drill instructor on speed. That’s the Nurse-From-Hell.
Barking, yelling commands to “Push harder!”, “No! Push down!”, “You’re NOT pushing!”, “YOU HAVE TO PUSH PROPERLY!”
At one point we had Nurse-From-Hell, Dr. G, and two other nurses in a small arc around my wife’s business end, screaming conflicting advice at my desperate, labouring Sausage – then NFH has the gall to lean back and roll her eyes in a “you ain’t gonna make it” look.
That’s the point at which I kind of lost it.
Things were a lot quieter after I did a little of my own order barking. I forget exactly what I said, but something in the vein of: “All of you, JUST SHUT UP and Leave. Us. Alone! for a minute.”
[N.B. in the previous cut of this post, I'd indicated the use of an expletive in my moment of rage. According to Sausage (and she would know) I managed not to colour my command with anything remotely Anglo Saxon. Remarkable, for me, as anyone who knows me would attest. Normally have the Profanisaurus close at hand at all times.]
Sausage and I held each other, locked eyes.
Something happened there – a bit flipped inside her to give her that extra Power Up she needed for the home stretch.
8 minutes later, Ruairi, beautiful, perfect, wonderbean, was “born screaming small into this world”.
He was a big kid, broad shoulders, and in at kind of an angle. That, plus the curious experience Sausage described of feeling the pressure in completely the wrong place - not where she'd expect to feel it in childbirth, but across her hips and front instead. Made it much more difficult to push back against the pressure, when that pressure wasn't were it's supposed to be.
Hard, hard graft. For both of them. I’m awed.
She won’t ever have to do it again. Ever. But somewhere at the core of my love for Sausage is the certain knowledge that if she did have to, she would. With a smile.
We got home the next evening, very much in love with our big baby boy. Things have been a little rough since then, but more on that later.
For now – one last vivid moment from those final harrowing minutes before he arrived. I’m holding fast to one of Sausage’s legs, acting as human stirrup on one side, while Nurse-From-Hell mirrors my position to the right, Leona’s leg bent right back, foot hard against NFH’s shoulder.
She gets right up in my darling’s face and snaps: “NO! DON’T PUSH WITH YOUR LEGS – PUSH DOWN!!”
Clearly the right advice, but Sausage was still justified in giving one last mighty “push” with her legs. And such a push.
She kicked the mat ward tyrant clear across the frigging room.
I could have cheered.
Love you Sausage. And again, it was all worth it, for this:
Monday, December 30, 2002
Reasonable Drought
BlogSprogs has been kind of quiet these last several days. Totally natural and reasonable - lots of seasonal reasons, and three particular sets of special circumstances, of course.
Up here, we're doing plenty of this:
Interspersed with occasional bursts of this:
More later...
Friday, December 27, 2002
A tired & dishevelled father feeds daughter.
Sunday, December 22, 2002
Home again, home again, jiggety jig...
Actually been home since Thursday night, but couldn't resist the nursery rhyme theme...
Sausage and Ruairi both doing well. Tired, tired, tired, but content.
Rediscovering the simple joy of spending 20 minutes at a time doing nothing but gazing at a little miracle like this:
Tom's right about the network multiplier effect here - the value of the network increases exponentially with each new baby added :-) Good luck guys!
One last pic before sleep. Here's Ruairi again, watched over by his two guardian angels - both very much in love with and in awe of their baby brother.
Life is sweet indeed.
Thursday, December 19, 2002
Opus == Ruairi
Sitting here like a soft lad, tears running down my face, listening to this.
My heart feels too big for my body today.
I’m so proud of my astonishing wife, and so much in love with our new little boy and our whole family.
Now we are five...
Sorry about all the name confusion. Paul is indeed a lovely name, but it’s the lovely name of one of my very best friends, Paul Reed, who proxy blogged for me over the phone last night.
The ‘Alexander’ confusion came from our indecision over the name. As I was calling family last night, Leona and I still hadn’t quite settled on Ruairi or Alexander.
Ruairi it is. His full name will be Ruairi Michael O’Connor Clarke – kind of after Ruairi O’Connor (Ruadrí Ua Conchobair]) the last High King of Ireland, but also just because we both love the name. And if he lives up to the promise of his 9lb 9oz, he’ll be a king amongst men, for sure.
Tired now, and very much in love.
Thanks for all the messages from around the world – you’re good people.
Question is – as the third of three O’Connor Clarkes, but the middle one of the BlogSprogs – should Ruairi opt for youngest sibling or middle child syndrome ;-)
Gary, Fiona, Cameron, Tom, Wendy (and ...?) – love to all of you. Hope you're well. Good luck Wendy & Tom. Being induced is not easy...but well worth it in the end.
More details (and photos) soon – off now to get back to basics.
/m
'ó dhia gach aon cabhair'
Wednesday, December 18, 2002
Baby boy. 9lb 9oz - all's well
(paul)
Tuesday, December 17, 2002
Here we go!
And so the second BlogSprogs countdown commences...
Leona and I were at the Obstetrician earlier today for our checkup.
We’ve discussed in the past various ways of helping things along a little, and we’re now actually scheduled to go into the hospital tomorrow morning at 7:00am to probably have Opus induced with a little intravenous Oxytocin.
We’ve been wrestling with this one for weeks, and have read everything we can find on the pluses and minuses of induced labor. I wrote about some of the complications Leona and I face in an earlier post, below.
As it turns out, we may not need to worry. At the examination today, turns out Sausage is already dilating, and she’s been having “cramps” on and off for days.
So, Charlie and Lily are heading off for a sleepover with friends tonight (great excitement all round – they’re probably more excited about their first sleepover than the intangible promise of a new baby in the house).
Our bag’s all packed and we’re ready for an early start. The doctor is confident that Opus is absolutely ready – and I know Sausage is ready.
She’s really suffering today after a rougher than usual night and an utterly rotten day yesterday. We were hustling through the normal off-to-school routine yesterday morning. As I got C & L into snow pants and coats, Sausage ducked out, despite my protestations, to scrape the ice & snow off the minivan.
Couple of minutes later I heard this sad little voice from the driveway – she’d slipped and crashed down hard on her bum in the packed snow, poor darling. She amazed me yet again, though – lying there in the snow, hurt and scared, unable to get her feet under her to stand back up. She smiles up at me and says: “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.” :-)
As if that little trauma wasn’t bad enough for her, she called me later in the day from the car on the way to collect Charlie from school. She’d just been rear-ended by another car on the icy roads. No major damage or injuries, thank God. I love this woman so much - I can't imagine what I'd do if something happened to her...
Seems Friday 13th clearly came a little late to this household. Two such narrow escapes in one day. Yikes, indeed.
Tomorrow’s going to be a much, much better day. We know.
Come on, Opus! You can do it!
Monday, December 16, 2002
Cameron Says "Hi"
Breathed her first breath at 03.24 GMT, weighed in at a healthy 7 pounds & 3 ounces. A beautiful baby girl. Mother is fine, father is off to bed. Awesome. Thanks to John for the proxy weblogging.
Sunday, December 15, 2002
Movement over the water
According to a proxy post up at Gary's main blog, something's shaking over in the UK.
More here. Gooooooooo Fiona!
Meanwhile, all quiet on the Canadian front. I'm just back from a five hour Christmas shopping trip round a crowded downtown mall with Charlie & Lily (and we're having a third...!). Sausage is out for a long walk. I'm cooking the Eggplant Parmigiana tonight.
Saturday, December 14, 2002
Special Forces Maternity Squad
OK. The reinforcements have arrived. My mother and sister, who have had 5 kids between, them just flew in tonight for a couple of days. So, Fiona's up at 5am for a drill before cleaning out the latrines after breakfast and a 3 mile run. "I wanna be a loving mother, get me a loyalty card from Mothercare....."
Aubergine?
Sausage and I were puzzling over Tom's eggplant comment, below. So we Googled, and came across this.
Who knew?!
I'm off grocery shopping now, to buy ingredients for tomorrow's dinner. Hope I can find reggiano...
Email received in the wee small hours from the Blogsprogs theological and spiritual counsel:
Dear Dads,
I just thought of something--a visual pun? an orthographic pun?--that
one of you probably already noticed. I'd post it on Blogsprogs, but
since I've given up paternity for Advent, I don't post; and I might
have put it in the comments on each of your sites, but I'm too worn out.
So the conceit in question was that, as David W. didn't say, we're
waiting ourselves into existence on the Web.
It's too small to bother with, but I couldn't go to sleep without doing
something with it. So there.
Grace and peace, gentlemen--
AKMA
Chortle.
David's 'writing ourselves into existence' trope from SPLJ has been gnawed on at great length elsewhere.
Since Blogsprogs was born, a different passage in the book has been rattling round my lumber room:
"...we are rewriting ourselves on the Web, hearing voices we’re surprised to find coming from us, saying things we might not have expected. We're meeting people we would never have dreamed of encountering. More important, we’re meeting new aspects of ourselves. We’re finding out that we can be sappier..." [ah ha!] and "...We’re falling into email relationships that, stretching themselves over years, imperceptibly deepen, like furrows worn into a stone hallway by the traffic of slippers."
But I'm going to stop right there as I don't want this to become yet another blog chained in geostationary orbit around that book, or even that other book (deliberately not linking, for obvious reasons).
I can think of much better reference material for this particular project.
Friday, December 13, 2002
No news from Canada, yet.
We were out at my firm's management team Christmas nosh up last night and half-expected something to start rumbling in the wee small hours (large intakes of rich food preceded both previous births). Alas nothing.
Sausage justified in grumbling this am about suffering a hangover without actually having had any booze. More of a foodover, I guess.
Now we're both hoping the wee un stays put until at least Monday - Leona doesn't especially want to be going through labour on Friday 13th, plus our OB doesn't work weekends. Opus will, of course, follow his/her own schedule...
This morning the consultant decided that Fiona would be better off at home waiting for something to happen than stuck in a dingy hospital ward. I'm being the attentive husband. She says that she's very grateful for all your words and messages of encouragement. As am I, of course. I'm going to try to convince her to watch Captain Corelli's Mandolin in front of a warm fire this afternoon.
Thursday, December 12, 2002
Timeline:
Fiona's holding up despite what seems like the entire medical profession's attempts to achieve otherwise. The photo was taken just after we were told (incorrectly) the baby had gone breech again and a c-section was on the cards. I've been making a video diary over the last couple of weeks, with short interviews with Fiona as things develop. Was intended to be a positive, joyfull video diary to look back at in years to come, so far in comprises interviews full of hope and expectation followed by despair, followed by hope followed by despair ad nauseam.
On a positive note, the Consultant OB totally rocks, dead against a c-section unless absolutely no option as a last resort.
That's rotten, Tom.
Of course, there's no way on earth we can possibly know exactly what's best for our wives: no matter how much empathy, support and involvement we strive for - there are certain things about childbirth only the mother can really decide (this shall henceforth be known as BlogSprogs Standard Disclaimer #1).
If it’s a case of a qualified OB-specialist acting in an emergency situation, or strongly recommending a certain course based on diagnosis – that’s different. But to mandate pitocin and c-sections as the preferred standard approach throughout the hospital is disgusting.
In fact - to have any of the mother’s choices taken off the table through fear of malpractice suits is simply insane. Healthcare in the US is clearly in even more of a mess than it is in Canada
I could get really outraged and twisty about a thing like this. The mother should have the absolute right to choose her birth experience as far as that is possible. In consultation with her partner, coach, doula, whoever, and a trusted healthcare pro, of course – and wrapping the usual caveats around things “in the event of an emergency”, &c.
Do you guys have a birth plan? These things seem kind of like a wanky idea at first, but Sausage and I had one for both Charlie & Lily and they were tremendously important. The simple process of walking through the alternative approaches to pain relief and such like becomes in itself almost cathartic. You’re forced to think about, and attempt to plan for, all the worst case scenarios.
And you have something to hand to the hospital and obstetrician that clearly states what you want and don’t want to happen. You have to tell them: clearly, simply, directly. This is incredibly important.
I’ll write more about our experiences with C & L’s births a little later (briefly: first one was with an epidural, long and arduous – second Leona did the frontier-woman thing. Astonishing).
Wednesday, December 11, 2002
For the record...but then, isn't all of this?
It occurs to me that a lot of people (and getting to No.10 on the DayPop Top 40 presumably means it really is quite a lot) - a lot of people might be arriving at this blog and trying to figure out what all the fuss is about.
So in case you're wondering, here's a cross post of the original blog that triggered the sequence of events leading to what you now see before you.
There were a number of links and mentions on our respective blogs before we reached this stage, but the inflection point for me came a few hours after writing this:-
"Blog Sprogs
There’s something in the air...or in our wives, at any rate. I already knew Gary & Fiona Turner were expecting a baby any day now. Thanks to Gary, I just found out that Tom Matrullo’s missus is also expecting imminently.
And tonight I arrived home to discover the lovely 39-week pregnant Sausage on her knees scrubbing out the kitchen cabinets. She’s evidently been cleaning, sorting and tidying all day. As this will be our third time around, I’m pretty sure I know what this means. Nesting behaviour. Tonight could well be the night...
Wonder which blogger will sprog first?"
Next morning, I woke up full of beans and bouncing off to the office. En route, Echo & the Bunnymen on the Discman, had a curious thought. Posted it:
This might be the sappiest thought I've ever entertained ... or perhaps I'm onto something. As a follow up to the previous post, this thought occurred to me on the tube ride in to work this morning. Perhaps I can persuade Gary Turner and Tom Matrullo to join me in a Gangblog of sorts for our three respective babies. Call it 'BlogSprogs' or something of the sort.
Over the next few years, the three Dads could use it to post notes, thoughts, moments of reflection, pure sleep-deprived insanity, progress reports, that kind of thing - writing our tiny charges into being, as Weinberger put it, over the months and years ahead. Like a collaborative online version of one of those cheesy Hallmark baby books, but just way more fun (at least for us). Comparing the first smile, first solid food, first baby steps, first sinking feeling as we sign up for those second mortgages...
Of course, we'd really only be the temporary caretakers and guardians of this blog which we would, in due course, pass on to our growing children to continue the tradition. We'd be blog building a bridge between generations.
My hope is that our kids would grow up to cherish their unique and curious online friendship - three kids in three different countries, sharing their growing pains and personal triumphs through what might be the best vehicle so far invented for such a dialogue..."
And there you have it.
This is yet another manifestation of the way fatherhood stretches your time sense. More than any other ‘coming of age’ thing, being a Dad really shifts your gaze in to the future. For me, at least. Things like pensions, education savings plans, mutual funds suddenly become important and even (yikes) attractive.
Even your writing shifts. I type these words and imagine our unborn Opus one day reading them. Even, now that I’ve added a comments feature, responding to them.
We’re inventing time travel here. I’ve just written something that I know my growing son or daughter will one day add to in his or her own words.
Blogging’s a kind of acid like that – no longer in need of any mind expanding substance round here anyway; not with thoughts like this to boggle my neurons.
Wondering about the name.
As a bit of a logophile, 'BlogSprogs' has obvious appeal. But it's a little rough, all the same. Don't want to get tooooooo meep and deaningful over this, but maybe this blog should be re-christened something with a little more presence and weight.
The Long Promise, perhaps...
Off to pick up Charlie at school now, then to Lily's ballet recital, then a long night working on a ginormous new biz pitch and catching up on all the pressing stuff in my r/t life. More later, if time allows.
Back from the Quack.
Prognosis: thank you for continuing to hold. Sausage and I both really thought this was it, but the (wonderful, hilarious) Dr. Giffen thinks she’s a ways to go yet. We’ve even scheduled next week’s appointment.
Now the discussion about trying to schedule the arrival picks up again – both of us trying to decide if it would be better for this one to be induced.
As it’s a third, and expected to come really fast – we might find ourselves in scramble mode when we least expect it. This could be a problem. With the other two still so young, and absolutely no family in Canada – we may find ourselves calling up neighbours or local friends in the dead of night to ask them to accept our two poor waifs as we high tail it to the hospital.
Perhaps a drop or two of Pitocin is the safer way all round...?
Meanwhile, I was cleaning out the little hard-to-reach cupboard set into the wall above our fridge the other night (more nesting behaviour). In amongst the dusty bottles and old Tupperware, I found the note given to us by Joy, the Doula who shared our ups and downs as we brought Lily Àine into the world.
Startling, sharp intake of breath moment of serendipity. Here’s the note, in full. Good guide to the kind of thing we should expect some time in the next few days:
JUNE 11, 1999 LILY’S BIRTH
4:37 am Got the call
5:10 am At house
Leona progressing quickly, on top of it all (MOC: on top of her birthing ball, in fact)
6:00 am Left for hosp.
6:15 am at hosp.
6:30 am in room
1st VE
8cm with bulging membranes! (MOC: ee-yuh)
Dr. called
6:40 am on EFM
6:57 am monitor off
“Do you want waters broken?”
Leona decides to wait through a few more contractions
7:25 am in Delivery room
(picked sunny room)
7:28 am Leona bites Michael
7:30 am waters broken by Dr.
7:32 am pushing in earnest
7:42 am Lily born!! 8lb 3oz
The rest, indeed, is history...
I've just added Jeneane to the 'extended blogfamily' links. I love what she's writing about us and love her for writing it.
Twice or thrice had I loved thee, before I knew thy face or name....or something like that. Isn't that just what the blogosphere is like all over? Brand new relationships reach operating temperature in a fraction of the time they would take in the normal world.
No time to respond properly to Jeneane or the many other kind emails I've received - gotta go see a man about a blog ;-)
After which, if this hippy-dippy love-in continues, I may have to spill some patchouli oil on my Afghan coat and set about preparing the nut roast for tonight's holistic dining experience...
Cameron Turner (to be), 3 weeks ago.
We have what will surely be our last Obstetrician's appt. this afternoon. Sausage suffering dreadful lower back pain. I'm booking out of the office at around noon to get to the quack and spend the rest of the day working at home. Plus Lily (3) has her ballet recital later today - can't miss that...
I need to fit in some work on BlogSprogs too, if I get the chance. Template tweaking - maybe moving it into somewhere with image hosting so we can post ultrasound scans and then early baby shots, drool specimens, etc...
Thoughts of Billy Connolly's 'birth video' sketch running through my head ; "Och, the wife looks very well there." "How the f*$%# would ye know?!"
I've decided to work from home this afternoon, Fiona called and asked me to come home if I could. Hmmm.
Tuesday, December 10, 2002
I'm double bluffing. I have been very imminently expectant for the last couple of weeks but nothing happened. I'm now cool as a cucumber, gliding around the office saying, "Nah, it won't be here for weeks", in the hope that I'm upsetting some universal karmic law that will result in bringing labour on. Somehow.
This is a cool idea Michael.
Activity - good
Pulse - 110bpm
Grimace - sneezing, coughing, pulling away
Appearance - normal
Respiration - Good, crying
Congratulations!! It's a Blog!