Julie's Boggle

There are several options for antenatal classes in our borough. For us, the easiest (if you don’t count the slightly awkward hours and the long waiting list), was the one held by the National Health Service (NHS) at the hospital we’re going to. [An added bonus is that they're also free.]

So over the last two Thursday evenings, 5 — 8pm, we covered both of the three-hour sessions for new parents as well as a tour of the delivery floors.

The first session was particularly good. Delivered by a charismatic midwife with the doubtful name of ‘Iffy’, it covered all sorts of practical information up to and including the birth itself. Overall she did make giving birth sound like quite a positive experience (and she had live videos to show us!), but that didn’t stop odd snippets from lodging in my mind including little gems like “painful” and “lots of blood”. Ho-hum.

The hospital tour followed the first session. First off was the “Delivery Suite” which has 12 attractive en-suite rooms (all medical equipment hidden away inside pretty oak cupboards), some of which even come with a bed for Dad to use overnight before they send the entire family home the next day.

If all goes well, the midwives run the show in the Delivery Suite. If not, the doctors are all on the same floor (so are the operating theatres and “high-risk” rooms) and very accessible if required. If you were having an epidural for example, this is where you’d go.

Then for even less complicated births, we were taken for a look at the recently added Birth Centre unit which is exclusively led by the midwives. (Any problems, and there’s a dedicated lift to the Delivery Suite upstairs.) The en-suite rooms there, complete with a bed for Mom and Dad, were even more cosy and home-like — although the birthing balls, hammocks and beanbags might look a little out of place in the average bedroom.

Overall we were both very impressed by the delivery options. It all looks like it’s been carefully thought out and designed for purpose, and it’s greatly reassuring to know that our closest hospital — where they deliver 5000 babies a year! — is so well organised.

The second session last week went a little more slowly :yawn:, but it did cover the all-important breathing (by a sweet, but much less charismatic, physiotherapist) and then another midwife took over to pass on a whole swathe of info regarding post-natal care both at the hospital (generally minimal) and later at home.

So I guess you could say we’re all trained up now (just the final “breast-feeding workshop” session for me to go to in a month’s time) and about 7 weeks to go until we get to put it all into practice! Whee!

We hadn’t been planning on doing any gardening this long weekend — the weather’s been grim. That was, until I happened to look out the window yesterday and discovered the creeper growing over the back wall of our back yard, had decided that it just wasn’t up to providing its own support any longer…

Now does that look like a hedge monster or what?

I do wish I had a photo of it before this incident, but for years now I’ve been a little too embarrassed over its state.

(If you want to imagine it, take the image of the green leafy stuff, that’s now trying to consume the white table, first push it back about 1.5 meters and then use it to fill in all the way up to half way through the first paragraph. That’s how tall it was.)

That’s not to say that we haven’t been trying to tame it on an annual basis, but we always had to be satisfied with the leaving the bulk of its green height behind; because (a) our ladder was too short and (b) the trunk that supported it (now lying at a rather different angle!) was approaching 10cm thick!

What it’s come down to is that I’ve been working myself up to calling a garden services company to come and apply some hard hedge discipline this summer. The only thing holding me back was the thought that I should first approach the neighbours behind us as the trunk comes from their garden and decapitating their creeper (their garden starts a meter or two above ours) without warning might seem a little rude.

After all that debating though, the weather seems to have taken matters into its own hands.

Which is great except for the clean-up job that we (Tom on his own yesterday, and both of us today) have been left to deal with.

11 bags later…

…and clearly a whole lot more still left to do.

I was rather expecting that my free time would start to evaporate once the baby arrived… But it turns out that the little guy is using up a lot of our time right now while he’s still got weeks to go! (And not just for scans and doctor’s appointments either.)

Last weekend, for example, just vanished in a blur of baby business.

For starters, we painted the spare room (when I say we, I do mean mostly Tom), going over the yicky old cream paint with a nice clean white.

Sunday was more relaxed but still had a baby theme. Firstly, there was a mound of tiny clothes to wash and hang out — a generous loan from friends whose baby boy is just passing 4 months.

Then we had a great evening of boardgames with another couple who had their firstborn less than 2 months ago. This makes them perfect for sharing pregnancy and new baby experiences with, and they’re also keen to pass on a number of useful baby items to us as they’re out-grown.

Along came Monday, which we’d both taken as a day’s leave, and with it our (my) goal to finish off the long-postponed “baby shopping”!

Fortunately we had already taken care of a lot of the bulkier essentials (stroller, car-seat, Moses basket etc.) as well as some of the less bulky ones, like clothing, as loans or second-hand buys / donations from friends. But according to the list we got from the hospital and the books I’ve been consulting, this still left us with a whole host of goodies that we really should have on hand more or less immediately after the big day…

On the grounds that a branch of the Fine Burger Company is very close by, we chose the Mothercare in Oxford Street to start off our shopping. It’s their newest branch, and rather a large one, so I was quite disappointed with the selection they offered on many of the baby essentials. For instance, they didn’t sell single hats in a newborn size! Only as part of an expensive gift ensemble that also included socks, mittens, vest and a babygrow! And their breast-pump selection was abysmal.

Nevertheless we did find a lot of other things from our list there, and afterwards mopped up most of the remainder at a large outlet of Boots, just up the road, that also had a whole floor of baby stuff.

As a very last stop — following some yummy burgers and ‘shakes — we found a natty black changing bag, in the satchel-style I’d been after, at John Lewis. And from there we made our weary way home.

So I think we can conclusively say that we are pretty much there in terms of our equipment! Phew!

The painting of last week has been great for helping us to de-junk the baby’s room.  For instance we have finally made a move on getting rid of our three old computers that have been languishing in the cupboard for far too long (just waiting for us to find an environmentally-friendly way of disposing of them).

And as part of the putting-the-room-back-together process, Tom put up his
“Nerdy Baby ABC” cards, which do look very cute:

The weeks and months of a pregnancy have so many different way-points (scans, clinics, doctor’s visits) to mark off the various stages, that it’s easy to lose track of the ones that tie in more with day-to-day life…

For example, we had a new joiner in our team this week — my “maternity cover”. A stark reminder that my time in the office is down to its last 6 weeks. *gulp*

It all feels like it’s come around very quickly, but then things at work have been fairly manic these last couple of months.

We really do need to hold thumbs that I won’t need to go off any earlier than mid-June because I’ve still got a mountain-load of stuff to get through with the new guy… (It’s early days still, but I’m fairly hopeful that he will be able to cope. )

Aside from that, I think -sadly- that I am reaching the point where things are starting to be less comfortable generally than they were, say, a few weeks back.

Heartburn, for example, is becoming more of a feature of day to day life even when I do avoid pepper, spicy food and late suppers. And there is a general achiness around the bump peripherals — I’m guessing tendons and ligaments that are being stressed somewhat.

And then of course there’s still me doing the odd dash to make the traffic lights, or catch the train, which has various leg muscles crying foul for a day or two each time. Wusses.

But otherwise, I’d say things are going relatively well for the start of the third trimester…
Sleeping, for instance, isn’t an issue, and I usually get away with just one mid-night totter through to the bathroom on stiff and creaky legs. And when it comes to pressure from inside, our little guy still has a fair amount of room to play with down there, so he shuffles around quite a lot, but only occasionally biffing my diaphragm or bladder in his travels.

Long may that last…

As a final note on work, about two weeks back, I finally managed to find myself a decent (sensible design and reasonable price) pair of maternity trousers for work — only just in time really! (I was inordinately pleased with myself for managing to hem them — my first hemming ever! It took about 30 minutes per leg, way longer than Mom would have taken I’m sure(!) but it was successful, and they’re a decent length now which is all that really matters. )

I really enjoyed my time in New York… even with taking it easy, trying not to eat supper after 20h30 (leads to nasty acid :sick: ), and finding that I can’t keep up with Tom after a couple of hours walking…

Friday:

Woke up to the most gorgeous sunrise around 7am… And the sounds of New York traffic and building sites getting started from 19 floors down. (Our hotel is the skinny black one on the left.)

Breakfast was from Tom’s work canteen – oops, no wait, cafeteria.

Wandering back hotel-wards through the Financial District, it’s hard to miss the NY Stock Exchange building.

That really is a very big flag… they must change it frequently to keep it so crisp and clean!

My guidebook (Frommers NYC Free & Dirt Cheap) recommended the Staten Island Ferry – a free service with great views.

View looking back at Manhattan - click to enlarge

And we had a good sighting of Lady Liberty as we cruised past Liberty Island.

Lingering sunset behind the WTC site - click to enlarge.

Weekend:
Saturday morning, we went walking after breakfast — crossed the Brooklyn Bridge and back again. Tom took another cool panorama from the middle looking back at Manhattan.

Time to head on down to the subway for a trip “uptown”…

…And back to “The Village” for a landmark that we’d missed before.If this corner doesn’t look familiar (even after mentally removing the delivery van and clicking to see the larger version) then you clearly aren’t a dedicated Friends fan.

We made good use of Tom’s company’s corporate membership at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA)

We were keen to go anyway to finally see Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” for real (after searching various galleries for it in Europe back in 2001), but there was quite a strong wince-factor in the $20 adult entry.
So getting free tickets came in very handy!

(We went on to see the Guggenheim Museum for free the next day.)

The ice-rink at the Rockefeller Centre was still going strong for late March.

Monday (my birthday ):
Started our day at the funky little deli-cafe very close to the hotel where we had breakfast (coffee & oat porridge) most days.

At the end of a morning’s shopping, this little bakery-coffee bar in the Village was perfect for an hour or so of people- watching.

(Click to see an enlargement of the mouth- watering goodies behind the glass.)

And then I wanted to try the famous ‘New York slice’ for which Bleecker Street Pizza clearly could not be beaten.

(I should really have taken the photo from a different angle to match the sketch on their menu.) For the record, I had a “plain” slice ($2), and it really was pretty tasty. (No illusions about the ‘junk-food’ aspect though – this had it all. )

Had to be careful not to eat any more and spoil my appetite for a fantastic New York steak for my birthday dinner with my favourite guy at Mark Joseph’s steakhouse. :party:

Tuesday:
Not too much time before the afternoon plane, but enough to head on over to Brooklyn to see Coney Island.
(Apparently they’re going to completely re-vamp it soon — which would take away a lot of the fairground charm.)

Can’t go to Coney Island without having a hot-dog. And this one was “More Than Just the Best Hot Dog!”.

Verdict: Not that special! (Perhaps this is one of those cases where, as Tom puts it, “more is less”. )