Three months of Freya. Three months of outrageously obnoxious nappies, three months of wrestling with buttons or tiny socks or doll sized singlets. Three months of giggles and gurgles and smiles and pouts and frowns and farts and screams and oh my god she’s going to explode and three months of gentle happy sleeps on my lap. Three months of accumulating housework, of overflowing office turned junk room. Three months of frozen dinners and frozen milk and frozen little feet – where are those socks?! Three months of walking lightly in happiness, of hand knitted beanies and ingenious soft toys, of soft welcoming rugs and little hands now curled up, now batting at butterflies, now gripping a toy, now using toy to bat butterflies.
I tickle Frey’s neck. She gives a serious concerned expression as if unsure of something: what’s that hairy guy up to, she seems to wonder? A few seconds later it computes - all seems to check out, he’s just being silly and she grins, a toothless gaping grin which spreads from ear to ear and across the room until we are all grinning together, sharing a joke, a moment of hilarious unity.
I get home from work. Kath is tired, juggling life and yawning hungry baby girl and feeling a sniffle becoming a cough become a weary bone ache and she needs to rest. I take over, tidy the lounge, prepare some nappies for later, get dinner going, feed Freya from a bottle and rock her off to sleep while Eddie on the telly asks the $10,000 question. It’s D you fool, lock it in!
“You should go on that show”, says Kath and I idly wonder what I would do with $250,000. Sure, the money would be great but somehow the idea of it isn’t quiet as exciting as it might have once been. We already feel rich.
freya sleeping (via Serge Marx)
Freya was born at 7:24pm on 24th April 2009. 3.1kg, or 6lb 13oz in the old parlance. She entered this world a slippery flub of white and blue wrinkle, covered from wriggling toe to alien cone head in cheesy bloody goodness. The first sounds to greet her newborn ears were her mother’s screaming and her father’s sobbing, intermittently interjected with the click wind click wind of my old Olympus OM. All in all, a good start I’d say.
To say the birth of Freya was for me a life changing and awe inspiring moment is the kind of cliche I’d prefer to avoid, but sadly for lovers of great and original literature I must stand by those terms. Adjectives were surely invented solely to better describe the overwhelming emotions felt by anyone witnessing a childbirth - and yet they are sorely insufficient for those whose child it is being born.
We can look at this scientifically of course. The room is literally flooded with oxytocin, that feel good hormone that gets the labour started. Surely we must be high on this human happy gas? Or we could point to the long long hours - for us fifteen of them - and suggest that anybody pushing something that bloody big through something that bloody small, for that bloody long, must feel some kind of transcendental moment when it reaches it’s bloody climax. All true, but in the end, irrelevant. It’s all about her.
I had planned to write the story of Freya’s birth as a kind of blow by blow journalistic account, complete with witty observations of the behaviour of midwifes, rollicking anecdotes of harrowing car journeys to and from hospital, and perhaps a faithful description of the delightful Indian food I ate a few short hours after her arrival, thus evoking an exotic and somewhat spicy flavour in the reader’s mouth, thereby enhancing their appreciation of the moment I experienced.
However, I have changed my mind. You know how birth stories go. Imagine a good one, with no medical interventions, no need for pain relief due to Kathryn’s calm and relaxed approach (and exceptional support people - of which I proudly count myself one.) Next, insert one or two worrying moments when the midwife voiced some concern about the time things took, but put that to one side and instead imagine that everything went to plan and in the end, a baby fit and well, cuddled in her mother’s arms and wondering what in the world had just happened to her. A thought we three were sharing perhaps.
Kathryn has written her story and she has ably described the day from her perspective. Which is quite the achievement given that for 75% of the labour she had donned an eye mask in order to labour in darkness (an extremely effective pain management tool as it turns out.) As a result, I feel no need to add to her narrative at this stage. For my part, the day began at 5:30am with the information that labour had been underway for four hours. The next 14 hours consisted of tears, massage, showers, massage, tears, low low moaning in tune to Kath, yet more massage, a brief respite, then the final act: more tears, don’t touch me, more tears, pushing pushing and then…
Some things in particular will stick with me forever when i think back on the moment of birth. The crowning, that little egg shaped and shockingly white lump gently pressing its way down, and the folds of skin on Freya’s head looking something like white brains and me for a moment fretting that my daughter had no skull. And then she was born, and I can’t describe it. After two weeks of wondering how I would write this up, I simply can’t do it justice. I was crying. I took a couple of snaps. I saw her on the ground, surrounded by blood and it was perfect and beautiful. But these images themselves are snapshots, and telling them now it feels like a hollow reconstruction. And perhaps it is, as in some base way, for a few moments at least, I wasn’t there. The inner dialogue which normally functions ceaselessly in waking hours, providing our life narrative and making sense of the world had for a moment shut down. Colours shimmered. I noticed the umbilical cord, vivid and blue and throbbing and alive and I couldn’t understand how this thing, so queer and by any standards grotesque, could appear to me to be the most beautiful thing in the world. It was, perhaps appropriately, the sight of the cord, that vision of a blue so unprecedented in my former experience of colour that snapped me back to the scene. There she was. Not that we knew she was a “she” for quite a few minutes, so caught up were we in the moment that we forgot to look.
I can say this now. I always knew it would be girl. Which is nonsense, since I didn’t really know… but in my mind it was always “she.”
And so here we are then, two weeks later and Freya is growing before our eyes. She’s now about 3.5kgs .. maybe 3.6, feeding well, keeping us busy with nappy changes and keeping us fit with all the walks in the pram which help her settle. Life is different. Sleep is precious and comes easily, food is glorious and satisfying and Kathryn is tired, but as happy as I have ever seen her. Truthfully, we’re both at that level of happy.
Today I went back to work for the first time since the birth - and after two weeks of living so closely with my two favourite girls I must admit I pined a little. In August I plan to take over as full time house husband - a prospect which has me excited and nervous. I’m sure I’ll report back here then.
*****
For the record I’d like to acknowledge a few people who have in either small or large ways helped us bring Freya into the world. Our family and our friends, we love you, we are lucky and we know it. Our doula, Erika who was incredible and beautiful in her support of us both throughout the labour. She showed us how. The Mercy Hospital’s Family Birthing centre and all the wonderful staff there whose passion for natural and non medical birthing is both infectious and a great asset to the human race.
And Kathryn. The most courageous, gentle and beautiful woman I know. You are already a supermum. And my hero. xox
My daughter is a rug addict! (via Serge Marx)
five seconds (via Serge Marx)
Merry Creek - The Heidelberg Rd Bridge.
Am borrowing a camera from a mate - a home-made 6x9 with a super sharp 47mm Super-Angulon f5.6. The detail in this shot blows me away.. I may even use it for UNSENSORED09 (http://silvermine.org.au/unsensored09)
Georgia’s last ever moment of calm before she becomes a casualty of baby related cat nerves.
We are now what those in the birthing industry call “term” which is a nice way of saying, “your baby can come at any time,” that is to say… we’re now 38 weeks pregnant.
The kid has shifted into a nice position, head pointing down, bum pointing out, and one little foot perpetually jammed into the womb wall creating a bony little lump in Kath’s belly. It’s a ticklish little lump.
So anyway, I’d read that it’s often possible hear the heartbeat with the naked ear if both the baby and your ear are in a good spot. A few nights ago I put this to the test, and after 10 minutes of rubbing my ear over a swollen belly, I was greeted with the unmistakable congo sounds of an infant heartbeat. Unless kath has two hearts, like Doctor Who.
Well, that was cool. Now we play the waiting game… Am busy checking out all sorts of baby carrying options and assisting Kath with her instinctive (?) “nesting” - which involves a whole lot of cleaning and organising and the purchasing of plastic containers. One can never have too many it seems.
Was it really October when I last wrote about the upcoming arrival? I mean October??!! That was what, five full months ago.
Well, one can grab the clock from the wall and wrestle those pesky hands to a standstill, but somehow time still slips silently though your clenched fists until the day arrives and you realise you’re going to be a father in a month. Maybe less.
Kath is of course looking beautiful, astonishing, incredible, as I imagine most people reading this would already know. Or maybe not. You never see a pregant woman - I mean really see them - until you’re an active participant. Well I never did anyway. Yes, big lovely tummies full of naturally selected miracle is always amazing. But you don’t find your eyes welling with tears of joy for that nice lady on a train you gave a seat to, you don’t quake with fear at the thought of your Auntie’s upcoming labour, and you certainly don’t find yourself wondering who it is you’ll be after your sister’s first born arrives.
Of course I’ll still be myself, who else would I be, right? Well, yeah, but there’s this other voice, the one that says this moment, this upcoming event is the making of me as an adult. At 34, it’s probably well overdue that I let that occur, but isn’t it odd? Getting a job wasn’t growing up, getting married wasn’t growing up… hell, buying a leather couch and a new fridge with my wife was damn close, but still not growing up. But with the impending arrival, with all the life changes, and all the preparation, I can feel that this really is it. Neverland is no longer my place. But hey, I’m hoping I can get work as a tour guide for the kid.
So this last week in particular, I’ve been stressing, and stress - I have discovered, can be a very physical thing. Rampant and constant vertigo, headaches, pains in the chest, the urge to break stuff or just let the damn tears flow and flow. Kath has been patient. In fact, very wisely, she has mostly left me to my own devices and let the thing run its course, simply advising that I rest and talk to my friends. (You know who you are, and thanks for listening.)
In labour there are stages. Pre labour is marked by the early and increasing contractions, while full labour is that phase in which the pushing really starts. But between these stages is the twilight zone known as “transition.” Strange things happen, reality twists, the woman becomes sharply focussed while yet still in her own primal birthing world. She thinks that the pain has become unbearable, that her ability to continue has deserted her. The reality is she is now ready, more ready than ever to push and push and make that last heroic effort in the marathon that is birthing.
Thinking about all this, and in particular thinking back to a quote from a book of birth stories I’ve been reading… “A couple’s first child represents three births - a child, a mother and a father…” I can see how the analogy fits perfectly. I am a father being born, and i have passed through my own version of transition. Yes, the real work is ahead - but the panic is passing and I’m ready to go. I know Kath is too.
I don’t update here very often, but I’m sure I’ll be writing up the full birth story when I have one. No doubt at some crazy hour of the morning between feeds.
So…
Yesterday we heard the heartbeat of our yet to be borned kiddly widdly for the first time. A bit of goop on Kath’s belly, a fancy 1980s looking fawn plastic microphone, and for a brief moment, the room is filled with the rapid buddabuddabuddabudda of little one’s rapid heart.
And it was pretty amazing.
All the changes in Kath’s body are obvious, but that little heartbeat, pounding away in there, well, somehow the whole thing just got a bit more real.
All this stuff is going through my mind - what name, what school, how to approach the messy room problem, first talks about messy life stuff, will they hate the music i like, will they hate the rules I have to set, will they rebel, will they want to be like me, will they like me?
I think I’m beginning to realise being a parent isn’t easy. But I can’t wait.
Serge.
unsensored08-7 (via timijimi)
The Ice King Cometh (via Serge Marx)
your blood for ice (via Serge Marx)
More Ice Dreams…
yesterday I invented a camera made of ice. Kind of.
Wrapping some film around a cardboard roll, then immersing that in water and freezing it, it then putting the resulting filmsicle in a black box with pinholes on the sides - results from first attempt at this method can be seen below. This experiement in ice as lens has only just begun. So far It seems I’m taking photos of the ice itself - the minute flaws and cracks… very cool indeed, but i really want to capture images of the ouside world. I think perhaps distilled water is required…
deeper in the ice (via Serge Marx)