Thursday, 29 October 2015

Co-parenting journey - 9 weeks and blooming/ballooning

My not-so-little little girl (the Jewish mum in me swells with pride at the burgeoning double chin and tummy) is doing just fine. So much so that we’re electing to take her to the ‘states on a family trip. Bolstered by the online blog posts claiming that it’s easier to travel with a 2-3 month old than an 18 month old I’m taking heart and going for it – my next blog may mention the results!
My partner and I have agreed I should ‘modify’ my expectations for how much I’ll get to see and do. In our household this means lower them. After all, if I can’t get out of the house until beyond lunchtime in a sweat of stress at home, why should it be any different abroad? I’ve never been the U.S., am a born explorer and used to the freedom of pounding streets and crannies unencumbered. Much as I have now physically achieved lifting the baby, nappy bag, two parts of the heavy pram up three flights of stairs at a time (just one of many rites of passage for any mother worth her salt), it isn’t quite my idea of a fun time so the trip should be an interesting one. I need to realise the extent of my travel restrictions for the next 5 years. Wouldn’t a routine help? The mere word sends shivers down the spine…..
Much as my little sweetheart is a very good baby by all accounts, let’s be clear: showering, brushing my teeth and getting fully dressed in a day is still a victory. From 6-8 weeks the likes of Gina Ford start carping about routines and structure for the baby. My partner is all for this. But it falls down at the point of being me, 24/7 Mummy, who has to deliver it.
One fateful Monday my partner worked from home to oversee our first attempt at a routine. More implied than overt we both knew it wouldn’t happen left to me alone. One hour to feed and change, one to play and a 1.5 hour nap from waking. Not so hard, huh? Of course Little Beans had other ideas and not only did it fail but it took with it the previous few days’ of almost-routine behaviour, taking us on a completely new trajectory of hourly waking from 4am onwards. Most unforeseen.
By 7am I was comatose and my partner chucked her at my nipple in bed so she could go to work; I blocked out the pain of the resulting shallow bed-latch position with sleep. So, turnips to routines! Though I admit we could have tried it for more than 24 hours and would be happy to hear from people who have got it to work (and how!). Wearing a wristwatch might help but frankly, but it just ain’t me.
Along the rocky road of early parenthood we’ve often disagreed. This is no surprise - we’re behaving exactly to ‘type’ (of which we are opposites) and it can get frustrating. The bottom line is that when she does cry we both get stressed. And with that stress comes blame. And that word again, routine. It just won’t go away.
Talking to the other NCT girls’ their partners defer to them as ‘the birth mummy’, taking full account of every hormone and thought of cataclysm that intractably joins birth mummy and baby. It makes for more harmonious households by the sounds of things – certainly much less DISCUSSION at every juncture. “How much bottle shall we give her?”, “How many layers should she wear?”, “She’s too hot”, “No, she’s hungry!” No such luck in a single sex household. How many lesbians does it take to change a lightbulb? God, please, not two!
Anecdotally and unsurprisingly, our girl wears a lot of baby blue. In fact she bloomin’ well rocks pale grey and pale blue. Lucky she is secure in her gender identity as her main wardrobe is cast-offs from her older future boyfriend (platonic – we’re not casting aspersions on her sexuality as yet – does four gay parents increase the likelihood of her being a lesbian? Let’s hope so! Heheh…) who at 10 weeks old has hit 8kg / 17lb and exceeded 99.6 percentile. Good work my man, they’ll be re-drawing the scales with all the large baby boys coming into this world of late. And well done my cute as a button little 25th percentile sweetheart.
Article: Two excited mums 28th October 2015

Tuesday, 20 October 2015

Pride Angel Journey - Newspaper cuttings

October 18, 2015 18:41 by PrideAngelAdmin
Every couple of months we pile into the car and land two hours later (or up to four hours depending on the number of potty, nappy, milky, lost toy, food, unstuck sun-blind, sick stops required) at my parents’ house for a few nights. While the children settle in by strewing around the house handfuls of 1970’s/80’s toys, revived from a third-of-a-century hibernation in the loft, I unpack the case and leaf through the dozen or so newspaper cuttings my mum has left for me on the bedside table. An advertisement for chewable toothbrushes for babies, a piece from the local paper about a girl I went to school with…and an article from The Telegraph earlier this year entitled: ‘Is it time to question the ethics of donor conception’. (Of course for some this would be a fairly clear message about their parents’ feelings on donor conception – I, though, simply saw this as a matter of my mum seeing the phrase ‘donor conception’ and automatically reaching for her scissors).
Well, I’ll be honest, it wasn’t an encouraging read, especially since the negative views stressed were those of donor-conceived children of the past forty years or so. And it made me realise that no matter how hard we try to provide opportunities, role models, how hard we try to get it right, there may still come a day when, for example, we need to listen with love and acknowledgement and acceptance to the remonstrances of a furious or miserable adolescent who wants a dad.
But if any part of me starts to question the ethics of our decision to use donor conception, I just need to look at these two beautiful children – beautiful people and remember that outside of donor conception, they couldn’t exist. They are, as we all are, part of that tiny number, those lucky few, that one in a million and something chance of a particular egg and sperm meeting because chance just happened to mean that both were in a certain place at a certain time while some number stretching to infinity tells of the sperm/egg combinations that did never, can never, will never occur. And as the even more unlikely combination of a lesbian woman’s egg and a heterosexual man’s sperm, a lesbian woman and heterosexual man whose lives in no way overlapped until Pride Angel, chance must surely be on their side...
Article: by Lindsey, West Yorkshire 18th October 2015