Life with a Bean - the first three months

Our Little Bean is almost three months old now... and I feel like we have made it through the tough initiation period and are in the land of cuddles and smiles. Finally! It sure hasn't been easy. I hear that boys tend to be harder than girls for the first 18 months, and then easier for the rest, haha. Lucky he's the cutest little thing on this earth!

People often ask me if motherhood is what I expected. Well... I'm not sure if I really had any expectations, to be honest. The love I feel for my boy is as expected, in that it is greater than I could ever have fathomed. But the tough bits? Well, I thought the tough bits only involved things like poo explosions, nappy rash, learning to differentiate hunger / pain / tired / bored cries, and dealing with an extreme lack of sleep. What I didn't expect was the intense emotional involvement with each of these things (okay, not so much with the poo explosion). I didn't expect that each and every time he cried I would feel such an overwhelming sense of doom, as if my whole world was shattering. My stomach would drop, I would break out in a cold sweat and often I would also start to cry. I imagine that it would be the same feeling you'd have if you found out a loved one had been in an accident and you didn't know the outcome. It is such a horrible feeling, and to have it occur on repeat throughout the day and night is emotionally draining to a degree I can't describe. Around two weeks ago, his cry changed from the newborn cry to a baby cry, where it's much easier to distinguish the problem and where it doesn't make me react in such an extreme way. Thank God. I was worried I was going to be like that for his whole life! I mean, how would I ever let this boy out of my sight?

Another thing I didn't expect was how well I am dealing with a lack of sleep. The hubby and I have discussed it, and we figure it must be hormones, because he sure struggles with it! The first week of his life, I probably had a total of ten hours sleep... perhaps even less. And I was still functioning! And then there was the period of around four weeks where I was functioning just fine (though a tad tired) on just two and a half hours a night, all broken up into half hour chunks, and without managing to get any naps in the day. And I'm the kind of person who has always needed at least nine hours sleep to feel human. Now I'm running on somewhere between five and six hours a night, but at least I am getting some deep sleep now. I usually get around three hours in one stretch, then two hours, then a half hour. If I'm lucky, Dunc will then take Ruben downstairs for some morning time while I grab another hour.


What else was unexpected? The many many many hours a day I spend with a baby in my arms, bouncing and swinging like crazy to try and get him to nod off to sleep (though, the last two days we have had major sleep breakthroughs, and he has managed to nod off himself while in his bed for at least one of his naps!), the inability to breastfeed (I wrote a huge post on this and deleted it -- it is too emotional -- but trust me when I say that I exhausted all possibilities. The decision to stop was made after visiting five different breastfeeding consultants around Switzerland, for a total of 23 consults, and it seemed they all breathed a sigh of relief when I admitted defeat after two and a half months of feeding battles. Now our household is a much happier one.), my incompetence at dressing a baby, the fact that I often cry out of happiness when he looks at me and smiles, the amount that I am missing my mum... and probably a thousand other things.

So we've almost made it through the 'fourth trimester', and we are both so excited to see what fun the next stage will bring. And perhaps I will even have a chance to do some writing! (See my previous post 'What about my novel?' and multiply these issues by a thousand.)

The Story of Ruben's Birth, with all the gory details!

Warning! This post is loooong... I have written it over the last month with one hand, often on my mobile, as I now have a bubba that is usually in the other arm :) I have done this mainly for myself, as I don't want to forget anything that happened. But if you are interested, feel free to peruse. Be aware that I didn't leave anything out!

The summary
Our gorgeous little boy, Ruben James Viggo Sargeant, was born on May 16th at 4.15pm. The labour lasted 27 hours  and I managed to get through it with nothing more than natural suppositories, a saline drip at the end to keep me hydrated, and the occasional homeopathic injection to relieve my seemingly constant need to throw up. It was a tough labour - Ruben was a 'sterngucker', or 'stargazer' (he'd come out face first, looking up), meaning he was in a posterior position with his back to my back, giving me what is known as a 'back labour'. This kind of labour is renowned for being extremely tough because, besides the incredible back pain it causes, it doesn't give you a nice rest in between contractions. This also made our hypnobirthing preparation very difficult, as you rely on these rest periods to bring yourself back into relaxation. It was, however, hugely beneficial through the earlier stages of labour, and perhaps I would not have been able to make it through the birth medication-free without it. Near the end, it turned out that I had a 'cervical lip', where part of my cervix did not totally recede until the absolute final stage, meaning that while I had the intense urge to push, I had to do everything in my power not to, for otherwise I'd tear my cervix. It's really impossible to explain how strong the urge to push is, and how it completely takes over your entire body, and so trying not to do this was... yes, hard. But the moment that he popped out? The love was overwhelming. And in hindsight, I love that my birth was difficult - A baby this beautiful is something that has to be worked for. :)

Details! 

The lead-up
Duncan and I had spent three weeks glued to the weather forecast, after hearing that the dramatic drop in pressure during a storm can often break a woman's waters. Two storms came and went, we walked everywhere, ate lots of curry, pineapple and eggplant, had lots of sex, spent my days doing squats and visualising opening rosebuds,  everything. And while I went into labour only one day after my due date, it felt like an eternity. You see, Ruben had been pressing down and ready to pop for months, so I'd been instructed to take it very easy, avoid walking, avoid my pregnancy yoga, avoid stairs and even  standing, as much as possible. So we had to prepare for a possible premature birth and so I had been very much ready for this baby for a long time!  Then of course when it came to the week before my due date, his little head popped back up, still with his head down, but now completely disengaged. Gah!

I knew that things were really gearing up, though, because for four nights before my waters broke, I had contractions that were stopping me from sleeping. They always stopped by the time the sun rose the next morning though... so it was just a matter of waiting. Impatiently.

First signs of an imminent baby - waters breaking
And then on Tuesday the 15th of May, one day after Ruben's due date, the lake turned a little green and unexpected clouds started rolling in. I was in the bath listening to my relaxation CDs and positive birth affirmations ("my birth will be easy because i am so relaxed and confident") and keeping an eye out for any more traces of my mucous plug, which I had begun to lose two days earlier. When I got out of the bath, it seemed as if I was leaking a little bath water. Hmm. Nothing dramatic, no great gush like in the movies, but whenever I moved position, I leaked. I put in a pad and tried to calm my beating heart... was this my waters that had broken? And then the flow just became heavier and heavier, and I was going through one pad every five minutes, destroying my clothes and underwear in the process... So yes, this was it! It was around 6.30pm so I checked Google latitude to see if Dunc was still at work or already on his bike heading home. It didn't seem to be working, so I sent him a chat,which he'd get if he was at work, saying, "You still there, lovely? Coming home soon?" I certainly didn't want to tell him via chat that I think my waters had broken! But no answer... so I called him. Six times over twenty minutes. No answer. All of these things - the unanswered calls, the fact his latitude wasn't working... this all lead to the obvious conclusion that his phone had been destroyed in the horrific accident he'd had on the way home, and that he'd never get to meet our little bean!

Of course he was fine. He trundled upstairs and I told him my news -- I thought he'd get into a bit of a tizz, but you have never seen anyone more calm in their life. 'Oo, awesome! Better have a shave then,' was his response. We then had dinner (Thanks to my grocery deliveries for throwing in a free microwave dinner - perfect for my husband at that time! I just had some pureed apple and a rice cake... I was starting to feel pretty jittery), talked through some positive affirmations, and rang the hospital. They said we could come in now or come in a few hours. We decided to wait. But then  I became unsure about the colour of the waters, and my contractions, though not painful, were getting much closer together, so we called again and they told us to head in. I hadn't expected my waters to break before big contractions began, so all of my earlier plans for the first stages of labour -- bake a cake, watch The Sound of Music, play a board game, sleep -- went out the window.

It was a quiet taxi ride to the hospital, and I tried not to get overly stressed by the fact our driver kept checking his phone and swerving into the bike lane... he ended up giving us a discount -- in Zurich!!-- because he went past the turn off. Or perhaps because he knew we'd be broke pretty soon.

The first few hours - hypnobirthing and remaining at 1cm dilated
When we entered the geburtsabteilung, the midwife hooked me up to the monitor, and we watched my small, relatively painless, contractions for around 45min. I had an internal exam and was totally bummed to discover that I was only 1cm dilated (you need to get to 10cm) and only around half-way through the thinning phase. Seems I wasn't in for a speedy and relatively painless three hour birth after all. I was holding out hope! We were left alone during this time, and I made sure I followed my friend Vanessa's advice and worked on my breathing and relaxation even that early. She told me not to wait until i felt i needed the relaxation, as its better not to get yourself to that point in the first place. Eventually, around 10pm, another midwife, Melanie, came to speak to us. She asked me to wipe myself with some litmus paper, which turned bright blue, showing that yes, that was definitely amniotic fluid, and said, "looks like you'll be having a baby in the next 24 hours then!" Yikes! She then asked us what we'd like to do, whether we wanted to stay or head home. She was pretty blunt and said that she would head home, as there was nothing to worry about, the contractions weren't painful and it might take a while for them to get that way. Once she realised we were carless and would have to taxi, she sorted out a room for us. Meanwhile, I went to the toilet and noticed the waters had changed colour and it seemed our little bean had been a bit stressed and had done a poo in there in the last few hours. I knew that this was meant to complicate things, and I became a little worried for our bub. When I told Melanie, though, she seemed to think it wasn't a big deal and that we couldn't do anything about it anyway, so no need to be stressed. But this went against all my research -- shouldn't this be some kind of an issue? But no, we should just try to get some sleep.


As if! Of course, Dunc slept with no problem at all. I was having what my mum calls ‘monkey brain’... along with all those contractions. I took the midwife up on her offer and called at 12.30 to ask for something herbal to help me sleep. After this, my contractions started to become pretty intense. At 1.30 I woke Dunc and said I wanted to move to the birthing room, as I needed to cling onto things, roll around on the balls, etc, just not lie here in bed. So off we went.
My contractions at this point were really getting to be strong, but we practiced all our hypnobirthing techniques, particularly the breathing, and Dunc walking me through the relaxation and visualisations of my special nature place (a lake in Sweden where we camped and skinny dipped). The midwife left us on our own to do our thing, leaving us with what she called the 'boom box' so I could play my yoga music, and lighting the oil burner for my rose oil. After a couple of hours we asked to use the bath and Dunc jumped in too, but I just couldn't find a place where the pain was feeling relieved, and I just got kind of annoyed with the situation, so got out. Awkwardly. And painfully. The contractions were coming pretty hard and fast by now and I was beginning to feel myself go into that strange zone that people mentioned women often go to during birth, where all time and space becomes a bit warped.

The midwife came in again and asked if I'd like to have an internal assessment to see how much progress I'd made, and I was eager, as I felt it had been quite a few hours of pretty intense pain by that point. I nearly broke down when she said that now I was still only 1cm dilated, but at least my cervix had almost totally thinned now. I mean, really! She saw how dejected I looked and tried to explain to me what a big deal that cervix-thinning phase is, but whatever - I had spent the last three months on forums reading about women who spend weeks at 4cm dilated before even going into labour. I was bummed.

Enter Anja - my incredible midwife.
But, let the games continue. Pretty soon, at 7am, my wonderful midwife Anja arrived for work and came to help us out. I had met her a few times during the past week when I'd had to visit the hospital every second day to keep my blood pressure, fluid retention and Beanie's stress levels in check. She is an amazing woman who had spent the past six years working as a midwife in Darwin, Northern Australia, and had just returned recently to Switzerland, so it was great to have someone with a semi-familiar accent, where I didn't have to remotely worry about whether I could be understood. I can confidently say that without Anja, I feel as if my birth story would be a very different one, perhaps even resulting in a c-section.I hold this woman up with so much praise!

I had told Anja during our past meetings about some of my friends in Australia and their amazing birth experiences, particularly with hypnobirthing, and with home births. We also chatted a lot about Dunc and our big six-month cycling tour... and while this may seem a little irrelevant, it all came to play very important roles during the birth. During particularly difficult periods, for instance, she would say to me 'Joh, you spent six months of your life cold. You can do this!', and later on when she came to visit after the birth, she referred to the fact that she knew how important having a great birth story was to me, and how much I love my friends' stories, and so she was determined to give me one of those stories to tell too. Which is amazing, I think.

From this point on, I remember only snippets, and a lot of it is what Duncan has reminded me of. The thing I remember most is the strange place that I was in for the rest of the labour. I remember times when Anja and I were having a very serious conversation, and as much as I tried, I could not focus my eyes on her, and I kept feeling them roll back in my head. And her voice sounded as if it was coming to me from across a valley... and all of the hypnobirthing practices that Dunc was attempting to use with me were completely in the background - I was barely aware of them. Until he stopped, and then it was obvious something had changed and I didn't like it. At some point, I remember having a lucid moment where I thought about how incredibly awful this must be for my husband, watching me for so many hours, moaning and yelling like a wild animal, and feeling so helpless. I am really grateful to hypnobirthing for at least being able to give him an important role to play.

The bath - the fight for medication and becoming an animal
We went back to the bath, and the contractions were much worse now. Also, II was at the point where I was not getting any relief between the contractions. I remember being in the bath and moving my body around with the pain, wiggling backwards and forwards, and moaning. Anja had to leave the room at some point, and I remember beginning to sob to Duncan, telling him that I just can't do this anymore, it is too hard, and I'm done. Hearing myself say these words, though, I remembered that in our birthing class, this often happens right near the end, so I actually had a moment of elation in there too. When Anja returned and asked if I'd like an examination to see how far I'd progressed, I was eager. But I was only at 4cm. Not even half way. I can't tell you how soul destroying this was.

The pain at this point had become something that I could never have imagined. It was totally all-encompassing in a way that I just cannot describe, and knowing that I still had so far to go, I broke. I told Anja that I needed medication for the pain.  It was time to push that red button. Screw the homeopathics, I want the hard-core stuff. Now.
Here’s how it went:

“I need something more. Something for the pain. I can’t do this any more.”

“Well, Joh, I’ve spent a lot of time reading your birth plan, and you say in there that you want to exhaust all other options before reverting to that. So that is what we are doing.”

(Insert enormous contraction)

“Yes okay but now I’m done. I need something else.”  

“Look, you also said very clearly that you don’t want to be offered any medication and that you have to specifically ask for it. So I’m not going to offer you anything. You need to tell me exactly what you want.”

I’m pretty sure this is where I would have said something along the lines of “that fucking birth plan!” So after the next contraction I said very clearly (though I was unable to look her in the eye..) “I would like an epidural now please.”

She replied, “You’d like an epidural? You’d like  one? Well lots of people would like lots of things in their lives...” and she continued this way until my next contraction. After this, I looked at her incredulously, asking what more did she need me to say. She explained that she was sceptical to give me one because I was moving in the bath in exactly the perfect way for this kind of labour, to help bring the baby down (I was rocking my whole bottom half left and right with quite a bit of force), and she didn’t want to give me something that would stop that movement. I think this was when I pretty much broke down, so she told me she needed to leave the room for a moment to check on a few things, and when she returned she was very straight with me, which I really appreciate. She told me that, considering Ruben’s position and the fact that I would need to be able to have a lot of power and strength to push him out, asking for an epidural is tantamount to asking for a Cesarean Section. She reiterated that it wasn’t guaranteed that this would happen, but it was very likely. So from that point on it was just put out of my mind as something that wasn’t an option anymore.

Water injections as pain relief
Somehow I managed to plough on. We tried a bunch of different positions in the bath, and at one time Dunc became worried I was going to inhale too much water... But I didn’t drown, so everything was okay. :) As the pain continued to intensify, Anja offered me what she warned as being a very painful procedure, where they would inject water underneath the skin of my lower back, which would put a lot of pressure at the particular points that she and Dunc kept pressing into with absolutely all of their might. She continued to warn me that it would be very painful, but it would relieve the back pain a little... so I agreed. She said that she’d count me down and I would have to cling onto Duncan, who would count up to twenty while she injected the water, and then she would do it again for the other side. WOW that hurt, but it was a different pain - an intense stinging, so I could deal with it. And I am pretty sure that it did take away some of the pain... but from here on, I remember very little until we got to the point where I felt the need to push.

Dunc tells me that at some point here they needed to give me an IV drip to keep me hydrated, as I was sweating profusely and refusing water, as I continually felt the need to throw up with every strong contraction. I actually only did throw up once, but it felt like a threat throughout.

The last centimetre - trying not to tear my cervix

I remember my friend telling me about the fact that, during her labour, she felt the need to do a poo, and it was actually the feeling of wanting to push out her baby. The time came when I really felt the need to do a poo... Anja said that she could take me out of the bath and to the toilet, but the contractions were coming very fast then and each time I tried to attempt to get out, a huge contraction would put me back in the bath again. So she said don’t worry about it - if it happens, it happens. Turns out it also wasn’t a poo - it was a baby. But in my situation, I wasn’t allowed to push yet. My cervix was almost totally dilated (it should have been right from the start), but there was a ‘cervical lip’, where part of it hadn’t totally retracted, so if I went with my body’s intense urge to push, then my cervix would tear -- a pretty big drama. So Anja told me that every time I had the desire to push, I would have to pant as hard and heavily as I could, but only just until the point where I felt the urge pass, because if I continued for even a few seconds more than necessary, I could very easily hyperventilate, which could cause a bunch of other problems...

For me, this was the hardest part of the whole labour. It is impossible to explain to anyone who hasn’t done it how strong this urge to push is. It takes hold of your entire body, in an enormous wave from the top of your head, all the way through your body, as if a steam roller inside of you is squishing everything down. It seemed almost impossible to stop this feeling, but most of the time I managed it. There were times when it just took over completely and I was entirely unable to stop it, and I would end up doing an enormous push, all the while being very scared of the damage this was doing...
At this point, I moved out of the bath and back into the birthing room, where I knelt on the bed, which was tilted up, and clung to the back of the bed. Dunc was standing behind the bed doing light touch massage of my back and arms the entire time, which I wasn’t even aware of until he stopped it for a split second - and then everything became so much worse. The panting and occasional accidental pushing continued for the next two or three hours, with Anja often doing internal checks to see if it was okay for me to push yet. Finally I was told that I could go with it the next time, and the urge disappeared. I couldn’t believe it! But just that one time... from then on, the fun part started.

Time to ‘breathe the baby down’!
In all of our hypnobirthing preparation, we were told to not refer to ‘pushing’, and that we should just use a particular kind of breathing to bring the baby down. I also stated this in my birth plan that I didn’t want to be told to push, and that I would ‘breathe the baby down’ in my own way. Anja said later on that she couldn’t help but laugh at this, and that perhaps after a person has had five babies this is how it works... and now, I believe her. This pushing business is not an option - it is something that your body just takes over and does, whether you want it to or not!

Each time I had the urge to push, Anja would encourage me loudly to push harder, harder, and longer. And then to take a quick breath and try again before that contraction ended. Sometimes I would manage three huge pushes with one contraction, and I remember feeling really proud with all of the praise she was giving me. She would often tell Duncan to come around her side and see the head begin to come out. She would grab my hand at times and I could feel Ruben’s head, so soft and wet and covered in hair! “You’ve got a blondey!” she said at some point, though Dunc says the head looked more like a big tennis ball, all hairy and green with the meconium-filled amniotic fluid.
This phase went really quickly for me, I suppose because it felt so productive. Apparently it took one and a half hours, which I was told is really fast for a posterior birth, and therefore evidence of my crazily powerful pushing. Yay me! Dunc has said in the meantime that the power I had at this stage just totally blew him away. I would always feel that I could stop after one huge push, but at that stage I just wanted this baby out of me, so I totally went for it!

The point where his head popped out was amazing - it really felt like a ‘pop’, and then with the next push, in the same contraction, the rest of him slid out and immediately they put him onto my chest. What a completely overwhelming feeling. Duncan and I were both in tears immediately, and I kept rubbing this soft, warm, wet creature on top of me... He was incredible. I remember that immediately I was amazed at the fact that this little baby had just come out of me, and that just seconds before, it was inside of me!  It took a few minutes for me to realise we still didn’t know if it was a boy or a girl, so I asked Anja, and she told us to find out ourselves. Dunc went exploring and, through laughter and tears, told me that we had ourselves a little boy!

The aftermath
It took about fifteen minutes for Ruben to start breathing properly. He was doing very shallow little gasps only, and they placed a small tube that was pumping out oxygen underneath his nose, holding it there. They also gave him some homeopathics, but it wasn’t really a worry because the cord was still attached and pulsating. Only when they took away the towel that was keeping him warm and comfortable did he do a big hearty cry, much to my relief. I had wanted him to lie on my chest and then find his own way to my breast for the first breast-feed, which newborns amazingly do, but he was too tuckered out from the whole experience, the poor little bubba.

It took over forty-five minutes for the umbilical cord to stop pulsating, which was incredible. From then, it took another hour for the placenta to come out. The doctors and midwives were doing a variety of things to make it happen that I remained completely oblivious to, until I got told that I had to hand the baby to my husband and I had to focus on getting the placenta out, because it was beginning to take a little too long. Eventually, after trying a whole bunch of things, the trick that worked was for me to blow into a bottle pretending that I was blowing up a balloon. And then out it popped, no problem at all.

I discovered afterwards that Ruben had been born with the cord around his neck, but they managed to untangle him quickly before it became a problem. Also, he came out face first (which happens with the posterior birth), with a hand pressed to the side of his head, making it a MUCH wider area to have to push out, so the fact that I needed only one stitch (though the doctors and midwives argued about whether even this was necessary) is a real tribute to the benefits of being vigilant with perineal massage for the month leading up to birth!

And now my gorgeous boy is lying asleep on the couch next to me, one month old and one kilogram heavier, having no problems with producing hearty cries, and beginning to smile. I had always said that no matter what happens during the birth, it will surely be one hell of a thing to experience, and that was right! I look at my little boy and am so amazed and perplexed by the fact that my body grew him and my body managed to push him out. He is so perfect.

What about my novel?

A friend of mine here asked an innocent question recently about how my being pregnant has affected my ability to write my novel. It got me thinking... I mean, I'm sure I have been asked this question before, but perhaps it wasn't asked in the same genuine, I-want-a-real-answer kind of way, where 'Well, I'm a lot more distracted and tired than usual' just wasn't going to cut it.

I am still working on my novel, but badly. When I do write, the quality is still the same as before, but there's something different... It took a while for me to put my finger on, and I think it has something to do with the intensity of the imaginary world that surrounds you when you are writing a novel. I have created so many imaginary places, all that have sounds and smells, weather, atmosphere, and a feeling underfoot. My characters are as if they were real people, with annoying habits, endearing qualities and flaws, with brows that wrinkle a certain way during specific emotions, with a particular gait, and with history. I have the story, both the grand tale and the perhaps-waiting-to-be-edited-out smaller scenes, floating about inside my brain, waiting to be caught and pinned onto paper. But mostly, it is a feeling. This novel has a feeling to me, and it is a feeling that I am totally encompassed by.

Or should I say 'was'. I still have reasonable chunks of time where this is the case, but having a baby (I'm assuming particularly your first baby, and perhaps also doing this as a reasonably new expat) is a pretty all-encompassing thing. It seems that the bubbles of my internal worlds have collided. The image of rain pouring through the veins of a cobbled street has to share space with the  cloth-versus-disposable debate, with the hunt for baby singlets (which, incidentally, I had to buy from Bonds in Australia, as my hunts here were fruitless!), the worry about whether that little tumble down the stairs caused real damage, the research into prams and baby-carriers and car-seats and boobies and ways to prevent premature birth and ways to kick-start labour... Add to that the list of health complications that make it all the more difficult for me to get to my writing places, and I'm starting to see the problem.

Of course I realise this isn't going to stop. It's not like this little bean will pop out of me (superman style, says the hubby) and then suddenly I can regain the imaginary world of my novel. I'm not deluded. I had thought that having a definite 'due date' was like giving myself a deadline that I had to work hard towards, but I soon found that I needed to manage my stress better, and what with the doctors consistently telling me to relax, I eased up on myself a bit.

So yes, I am still writing, and still writing what I consider half-decent words. I figure, though, that this is a balancing act I'll have to keep for the next twenty (or thirty!) years now!

Learning to be hypnotised

So I could pretend that my life isn't revolving around this Little Bean inside me at the moment, but... well, I'd be pretending. It is consuming almost my every thought, to the point where, if I manage to think about something else for a reasonably extended period of time (say... 10 minutes), I feel quite self-righteous. This scares me... I am arrogant enough to think that, for the majority of the time, I am a reasonably interesting person, but at the moment I am just in my own little bubble of Beanieness and, to be honest, am happy to stick around there for a while. And really hope that sometime I'll come out of my bubble...

I blame hypnobirthing. Each day I either listen to, read or recite my positive birth affirmations, I practice my breathing techniques (calm breathing for the times between contractions, surge breathing for use during contractions, and birth breathing for the time at the end where everyone is usually yelling awful things like 'push!'), my relaxation techniques, my visualisation techniques and attempt to bring myself into a state of self-hypnosis. I try to read a positive birth story every day or every second day. Each night, Dunc practices working with me through these, using certain scripts and skills to help me become comfortable with this process. So... it's no wonder that I'm feeling a bit of a 'birthing aura' around me at the moment. I choose not to believe that being easily hypnotised (or 'brought into a state of deep relaxation') is the equivalent of being gullible...

The best bit about hypnobirthing is the science behind it. For someone like me, who is split pretty equally between the left and right brains (find me anyone else who started out studying biomedical science and then finished up being an English teacher), it is perfect. It uses my creativity and my ability to imagine, while also grounding it in science and logic. For instance, if you analyse the formation of the three muscle layers of the uterus, it makes complete sense that 'pushing' at the end is counter-productive. The release of adrenalin and the redistribution of blood flow during times of fear really help to explain why the process of deep relaxation is so important. Etc, etc, etc.

I still struggle with certain aspects of it -- not the approach and the philosophy, but the practice. There was a time a while ago where we were following instructions to a tee, but I found myself an anxiety-ridden, crying mess at the end of each session, which was obviously not the intention. We've had to ditch some things and adjust others so that it works for us, and just during the past week have I really felt that we have gotten into the groove of it. Yay!

Very excited to meet this little creature inside of me that has just discovered the true power of its knees in the last 24 hours. :)

Rambles of a Beanie Nature

My last baby-related post focused on the things that I am afraid of. I realised, though, that I was yet to write a blog post regarding how I feel the vast majority of the time... 'And how DO you feel the vast majority of the time, Johanna?' I hear you all ask with baited breath. Finding one word to describe such complex emotions is... difficult.

But, I'm going to go with: EXCITED!

There is a person growing inside of me, which is truly just mind-boggling. And it's not like I've actively done anything to make it grow there (besides the obvious *cough cough*), and yet there it is, having grown from pretty much nothing to the size of a pumpkin, to something – no, someONE - who has the hiccups multiple times throughout the day, who stretches its legs out so that a foot is pushing on one side of my belly and a bum on the other, who flinches when the train squeals loudly as it passes, who reacts to my husbands touch and who had little dance parties at 5am, 10am, 4pm and 11pm, on the dot. I mean really, how mind-boggling is this.

I am 32 weeks preggers right now, though I am emotionally feeling like I am full term. I am ready. And not in that 'ugh, being pregnant is a pain in the bum, get it over with already' kind of way, but in a 'what do you look like? What will you smell like? How heavy will you be in my arms? Do you have hair? I want to touch your little button nose! I want to meet you!' kind of way. Apparently my body is ready too. My pelvis has been open and pretty much ready for the big event from four-and-a-half months (insert a few sentences about pelvic pain and walking problems), and now Beanie is head down and shoving itself as hard against my hoohoo as possible, trying to get it all happening a little too early. Here's a picture of mah belleh today.

Feelings regarding birth:

The thing that really shocks me is how excited I am about the actual birth. I wonder if perhaps it is all the hypnobirthing practice I have been doing, but I am just feeling so positive about it (the vast majority of the time). The scariest thing about it is the unknown, and yet I feel as though I have been preparing myself to deal with that for a while now. And having Duncan there to deal with all the bits besides the physical aspect of it gives me a lot of calm. The main thing that I have realised is that although, of course, I want to have a perfect birth where everything goes calmly, naturally and according to plan, if things go awry, I know that Beanie and I will be okay. So no matter what happens, it will probably be the most amazing experience of my life. And at the end of it all, we get to meet our little Bean!

The house isn't quite ready, though. I mean, if Beanie popped out today, we'd be set, but it's just not at that point where I'm happy – we still have boxes around the place, we still need to fix the changing table, we still need to buy a bunch of little things (though the big purchases are finally out of the way) and I'm still waiting for my elusive sewing machine pedal to reveal itself somewhere in the shambles of The Spare Bedroom.

A few difficulties to overcome:

There have been quite a few personal difficulties I've had to attempt to overcome that go hand in hand with having a bubba in a country where I don't (comfortably, or with much proficiency) speak the language. I'm really glad that I have pushed myself to learn the amount of German that I currently know, so that hopefully I'm not feeling too helpless or lost. It also comes in handy in situations like this morning, where a lovely old lady sat next to me on the train and started speaking to me about my belly and the weather (two topics I am comfortable with! If only she also started speaking about food... then I'd be in top form!).

Another big personal issue I have had to confront is that of my body image, which is just so nauseatingly predictable. I've never been little, and being a six-foot-tall not-little person often makes me feel... well... I don't have to say it. Standing in one of the busiest squares in Zurich, waiting for a tram, and realising that I am a solid head and shoulders taller than everyone around me makes me feel very conspicuous. Which, of course, I am. Now throw an enormous belly and an every expanding bum into the mix, and it takes a bit of effort for me to try to feel comfortable. I wish it wasn't an issue at all, but perhaps being this height at 14 years of age, surrounded by boys who barely reached my belly button, affected me more than I realise. And perhaps being reasonably sleep deprived doesn't help this situation... check out the number of extra pillows I had to order when we were on our babymoon last week (plus a wedge I created out of towels to prop up my back when sleeping on my side)!

A kinder surprise!

Now for the issue of Beanie being a boy or a girl. I was so completely sure it was a boy up until about 6 months. I'm not sure why, I just knew. And then one day I woke up and instead of thinking about the boy in my belly, I suddenly was hit with this feeling that I now had absolutely no idea. None. No feeling one way or the other. My 'boy' feeling had gone. And from then on, I began having dreams about Beanie being a girl, and gradually I've turned to feel as though it's a little girl in there. Dunc thinks it is a boy still, and we often speak with each other along the lines of 'How's he doing in there?', 'Oh, she's doing great!'. And so we've made a bet. If it's a boy, then Dunc gets to choose the first take-away pizza; if it's a girl, then I get to choose (and by god, it will have lots of gorgonzola!). Meanwhile, every single silly gender-prediction test we have done says it is a boy, so... we'll see. :)

Alright, time to end this ramble and put on my 'Affirmations for an Easy and Comfortable Birth' CD. I'll leave you with a picture of the very excited parents-to-be on our little mountain get-away last week.

I'm so postmodern

I'm currently reading Jeffrey Eugenides's Middlesex and am having some major breakthroughs with my writing. Not with the actual words on paper business of writing, but of the sitting and thinking hard aspect -- the 'composting' (incidentally, I think that the amount of composting time required to write a novel that is as complex and interwoven as mine was vastly underestimated...).

Oh! Disclaimer! Please don't think I am comparing my writing to that of Jeffrey Eugenides, Pulitzer Prize winner and one of America's greatest writers of contemporary literary fiction... okay, so that is a lie. I am comparing, albeit a little shamefully. Though (she says, stamping her foot), there can be nothing wrong with aiming high and using successful, admirable writing as a model for my own. Now if only he could create a couple of worksheets for me, I'd be set.

Here in Zurich, I am a member of two writing groups, each with three other wonderful writers. One group meets each month religiously, the other meets a little more sporadically, though usually every two or three months. The week before our meets, we email each other our submission, usually of around ten pages, and then we edit, respond, critique and praise each other's work in preparation for our meeting. When we meet, the three readers, often in conflict with each other, discuss problem areas as well as sections that they particularly enjoyed. The writer of the piece isn't 'allowed' to speak (theoretically) until after all feedback is given, removing the opportunity to explain yourself and justify any potential problems.

Every time I submit my writing, I am riddled with nerves. I assume people won't like it, will find inherent problems with any number of things (continuity of tense, embarrassing spelling or grammatical errors, flaws in characterisation, and - the worst - just 'not getting it') and will be secretly scoffing behind my back... how can I possibly think I have the ability to complete this mammoth task? And yet, every time, I am astonished that people seem to genuinely enjoy my writing. Yes, there are problems (such as 'I really sympathised with this character up until now, but what they just said just doesn't fit with my idea of who they are', or 'this sentence starts in past tense, moves into present, then ends back in past again'), but on the whole, I always leave our sessions feeling as though I actually can do this.

Back to Eugenides.

Some feedback that I continually receive is in reference to my use of point-of-view. I have chosen a very complex structure for my novel, and in order to tie all the flailing bits together, I have employed a grumpy old man to tell the story (I hate having to summarise complex areas of my narrative... just know that it is a whole lot more complicated than that). He makes appearances at the beginning and the end, but also continuously pops in throughout in order to provide comment to his own ability to tell the story, in the style of a metanarrative. Now, the critique that I often receive from my fellow writers goes along the lines of 'How would he know that? How could he know that X feels this way, or that Y is hiding there, or that Z wants this more than anything in the world?'. And so, despite my refutations that he is telling a story and therefore needs to invent the emotions and justify the actions of his fellow characters, I often find myself censoring my old man.

Eugenides doesn't. He has his narrator providing us with an intimate portrayal of his grandparents' first sexual encounter, of the complexities of his parents' relationship, of the events that occurred in the house down the street from his Grandmother... and I never found myself wondering 'how would he know this?'.

I have been reading a lot of interviews with Jeffrey Eugenides to try to uncover some of the challenges he found in writing this novel (which took nine years... *sigh*), and I found this segment, taken from www.3ammagazine.com, particularly interesting and relevant:

Eugenides: I've blended postmodern and traditional I think. My narrator in Middlesex is not entirely reliable; he's inventing the past as much as he is telling it. "You can't really know much about what you really know" is the bottom line, which is an old postmodern strategy. There's a lot of self conscious narration in the book, which is an issue in a lot of postmodern literature as well. Along with that, there are very old-fashioned narrative techniques in it, of telling about wars and the burning of Smyrna. But postmodernism is always recuperating old styles of narration. The one thing that I definitely believe is that strict postmodernists don't all believe that I believe in this power of story-telling. I think that people are still interested in this old-fashioned goals or traits of novels. Something that seizes you, that grabs your attention and gives you a ride through a book. So, I don't want to constantly frustrate the reader by taking him down on dead ends, at the dead end of literature or something -- that doesn't interest me. I want, in a way, a Classical shape to my books and a pleasing and elegant form to them, which is old-fashioned. But within that, I still have a lot of postmodern play without the continuing sense of relativism that… I got so tired of.

So that's it -- I've decided that I'm postmodern. And, apparently, a bit of a fan of writing magical realism. And I'm totally cool with that.

From now on, I'm not going to sensor my storyteller. He is going to be as verbose, arrogant and cumbersome as he likes, popping in and out of my story where he decides is right (yes, I know claims such as these, where the character has control and not the writer, are a little wanky... but they are true!), and screwing with everyone's idea of what is the 'correct' way to write a certain point of view. Iida, Stacy, Kristen, Jill, Libby, Daryl - you are all just going to have to deal with it.

Excitement!

After my last somewhat negative post, I thought I had better fill you all in on my current state of being - which is not at all like it was one month ago. I am EXCITED! I'm not sure if it's just the hypnobirthing techniques I've been practicing, but something in me has changed. I am feeling really in control of my pregnancy and imminent birth (okay, so not really in control - I mean, I am an Australian woman giving birth in a foreign country where I don't speak the language comfortably, and where I'm almost as far away from my Mum as I could possibly be), and I am pleasantly surprised by the way that all my research and study seems to be staying in my otherwise mooshy brain. Yes, occasionally I have a little private meltdown when hubby is here to give me a cuddle, usually over the language issue, but on the whole I am really excited. I mean, this little bean is going to be here soon! I'm gonna be a mummy, and Dunc's going to be a daddy. This is just plain awesome.

The thing that surprises me is that I am very excited about the actual birth. I know, right? How many people go around saying that? This is where I'm a little curious as to the effect that the hypnobirthing is having on my brain...