Pinky and the Geek

After what has been almost eight months, that simply flew by, we’re finally in the home stretch. Baby #Koos’ arrival is imminent and for the first time I’m wondering if I’ll be able to manage everything.

I’m not just referring to after the birth, but everything left leading up to and including the birth as well. We’ve set up an area for the baby’s things, the pool is in the house (still needs to be pumped up and tested), the classes have been attended and the lessons memorised. But it still feels like there is so much left to do, so much more practice for the Hypnobirthing, and time is running out.

I guess deep down I just really want to make sure I get everything perfect and help Pinky have the perfect birth as we both envisaged, because let’s face it (and as she’s made abundantly clear) I only get one shot at this.

This is of course completely ignoring the period after he arrives and possibly steals what little I sleep from me. Remaining totally blissful of the impact he will have on my studies. Will I be able to juggle all of these and work, family, etc. without giving myself an overdue stomach ulcer?

…

I hope so. I guess I’ll have to, because failure simply isn’t an option.

So let’s just call this my mild panic post, a virtual scream with my hands in my hair before the excitement starts happening. Because when it does, I want to be calm and ready and have the panicking all filed away. I want to give Pinky the calm, relaxed, beautiful and inspiring birth she wants, because I want it too.

Ok, I’m ready now…

(from http://lowercasemarcus.blogspot.com/)

I don’t mean to over dramatize this, but #koos almost felt like he was trying to do just that last night! Most of the time he is content to shuffle around, just poking a leg here or there, but, much to Pinky’s chagrin, every now and then he does a full kata session in there.

It’s very difficult to bring across the emotions I feel when not just feeling, but actually seeing him rummage around in Pinky. While you would imagine it being slightly disturbing, it isn’t. I do feel sorry for Pinky that gets prodded at all times of the day, but mostly I feel (undeservedly) proud. And curious… I so badly wish I had my own personal ultrasound machine so I can watch him as he learns and explores his cocooned world consisting of legs, arms and membrane. I constantly wonder what neural connections are being made right now and how (or if) it affects who he’ll become.

It’s not too long now before I can finally meet him. As we say in Afrikaans: “min dae.”

Family members and those likely to be embarassed by sexual admissions, please scroll on by!

I think it’s time to just state matter of factly how sexy I find Pinky right now. It might be the glowing smile and general broodiness, the fact that I find her gorgeous or even a biological drive to the mother of my child… but I can’t keep my hands to myself.

Beyond my new obsession with her tummy, I often look at her and I’m floored by how beautiful and radiant she looks. Having the kids at their grandparents has definitely helped with the banking for later! ;)

< /TMI >

I’ll be honest, my first thoughts when Pinky mentioned hypnobirthing was: “Yes dear, whatever hippy stuff will make you happy.” Scepticism was rife of course, that’s just who I am.

Tomorrow is our second class and it has taken me a week to sift through my opinions and thoughts on the matter, but the outcome is oddly positive. (Blogging about it might have been more delayed had Pinky not pointed out how sporadic my posts are already, but I prefer to think I digest longer before raising an opinion…) I truly think this works.

You read correctly. It’s still early in the process, but from what I’ve heard and learnt so far makes perfect sense. Birth is not and was never meant to be painful. The pain stems not from the birth itself but the fighting of the body’s natural process. It’s uncomfortable to be sure, but the female body is beautifully engineered to achieve this pinnacle of procreation. There is no physiological reason for pain.

Pain stems from our ingrained belief that it should be present. Think about the last birth you saw in some tv show, there was lots of anguish and screaming right? I know that was my only perception. Imagine now, for our male readership of none, that you have to start the journey of pregnancy knowing it will culminate in this arduous seperation of baby and mother. I’d be tense and panic stricken too, at the very least.

That’s where the videos (so many videos!) and self-hypnosis comes in. Not to brainwash the pain away, but to help keep you calm and let the fantastic machine that is your body just do its job. I was flabbergasted and, I’ll admit, my mouth was agape in considering this gap in my knowledge. Apart from from the little common knowledge we all pick up, I too had accepted that it hurt, and that was just how it was.

Learning and realising that pain was self induced from fighting the contractions, was an eye opener. To that end, the very shy geek will gladly help share the video in the hopes that the message can be spread. Apart from some names for birthing that avoid making birth sound like a design flaw in us, hypnobirthing made sense.

And to a geek, that *really* matters ;) I’m looking forward to helping Pinky achieve the birth she wants.

PS #Koos is kicking like a pro :D

I have, as Pinky very often states to me, been a bad blogger. This stems from a number of reasons, foremost being that I am inherently private: talking about what I feel, think and believe is not as easy as for most. English not being my first language doesn’t help when trying to emote my heart and mind either.

But my recent quiet has another cause; a typical one, things have been, and still is, very busy. As you are aware, we have just moved and I promised Pinky I would make the ‘great trek’ as smooth as possible for her. Never having moved so much stuff before, I underestimated the quantity of work that entailed, but I think I succeeded.

Also, never having had a house of our own, the sheer quantity of work in getting (and keeping) it maintained has caught me unawares.

All that complaining out of the way though, this fortnight of living in our new family home has been awesome. There’s space for the children to just be children, Pinky to have her own office and still more space for me to escape to when the need invariably arises.

We have a large lawn, which does need me to mow it (groan, an absolute hated task for me) but over the weekend it afforded me the luxury of camping out with C. Of course the girls would have none of it and us boys wouldn’t have it any other way.

Laying in the tent that night, watching him happily dream and snore, I did resolve to spend as much time with him as I can, before next year. Soon there will be another boy taking up much of my time and I’m so scared that he will be the big loser in all of this. R is old enough to understand all of this and, being a girl, will have a strong role she can fulfill in the baby’s early years. Also, she will be the only girl, making it easy to not let her feel too neglected.

There will however be two boys, and one biologically not really my boy, although for all intents and purposes I view him as completely mine. The big fear I have is that he feels I prefer the baby over him.

As we both woke in the morning, his little smile at seeing me, I just thought how awesome it is spending time with him and I hope I don’t screw up our relationship ever.