House guest extreme

Hero of the week: our friend Anna who came to visit for two days. She tidied up our home birth supplies, did laundry, helped me with a huge shop, organized our house. cooked oodles of food for our freezer, took care of us and generally made us feel human again and ready to go into the second week of parenthood. Anna - thank you!

Philosophical musings (Anna)

In a day of projectile poos shooting across the room, and projectile vomit wiping out yet another t-shirt and pair of pants, Caroline said to Emma, "Hey litttle one. This milk is warm and rich and has everything you need. It's been created just for you and it's right in front of your nose. All you have to do is find the motivation to open your mouth and it's all yours. Everything you could want."

And I wondered: maybe this a metaphor for life.

And then, as if to bring me back to Earth, Emmy spat up again.

A week in words (Anna)

Today, Emma is one week old. And it's been quite the week.

Here's the short version.

On Thursday last week, we went for an ultrasound. While there, our baby's heart beat dropped and we were told to go to Women's Hospital immediately. After monitoring, our baby's heart turned out to be fine, but the midwives were concerned about some other complications to do with "shoulder dystocia" - the potential for the baby to get stuck in the birth canal. Effects range from mild (needing help getting out) to infant death.

After long discussions with our midwives, the doctors and each other, weighing the risks and talking through the implications, we decided that the risks were too great and we decided to have our baby through a Casearean birth. Quite the departure from our hoped for home birth, but we had always agreed that our plan was to go with the flow and respond to whatever Caroline's body and our baby needed. And this, we decided, was it. Decision made, we were sent home from the hospital as we awaited scheduling for the birth.

Meanwhile, Caroline was going into early labour! What are the chances! A day of "Braxton Hicks" (practice contractions) turned into actual contractions and got closer and closer together. C and I went out to dinner (after all, we could be becoming parents the next day) and I found myself timing her contractions while she sucked on her knuckles. My job was to keep the waiters away. She even bumped into a colleague of hers who commented "Not long now, hey?" If only she knew.

We were both a bit disbelieving that this was actual labour, but the signs were pretty unambiguous. Eventually, we ended up back at the hospital, where our midwives asked us whether we wanted to reconsider our decision to have a Casearean. After all, Caroline's body was actually in labour and she was progressing well. That was hard! It had already been a difficult decision and now we had to revisit it (in between contractions). We decided that the risk factors hadn't fundamentally changed and decided - again - to have a Casearean. It then took the hosptital over 6 hours to pull together an OR and a team. So Caroline went through around 10-12 hours of labour and was well and truly in active labour by the time her "turn" came up. I'm grateful for the opportunity to go through that with her, even under less than ideal circumstances. She was amazing.

"Baby girl Rueckert" came into the world at 7.10 on Friday morning. I helped the nurses to do their checks (and fumbled my way through putting on her first nappy, all thumbs, despite having put on quite a few nappies in my time - speaks to my state of mind!) and then Caroline and I held our baby to her cheek while the doctors did their magic on her belly. We named her Emma Catherine Rueckert Lidstone and gazed at her in awe. She is very healthy Her apgars were excellent and she is flourishing.

Caseareans are not exactly minor procedures. The last week has involved a lot of nursing Caroline through some hard pain, our share of frustrations with hospitals and medical procedures, some scares with Emma's health (now resolved), a lot of pumping breast milk while Emma figures out her "latching" challenges, settling in at home after our discharge from the hospital, and, yes, staring adoringly at our beautiful, amazing, fantastic, little one.

And today, she is one week old.

Too exhausted for words...

Emma Catherine Rueckert Lidstone

Born on Friday 13 March, strong, healthy and absolutely gorgeous.

Mums and bub doing well.

Global Parent (Anna)

Good news!

With 9 days to go before our baby is due, Australia now has federal legislation recognizing same-sex parents!

This is a huge deal for us. Prior to a few weeks ago, I would have been recognized as a parent in Canada and then flown back to Australia and lost all of my parental rights. It's like a crazy game of peek-a-boo. "Here's your Mum! Where's she gone?" One minute a legal parent, the next a legal stranger. If we were ever back in Australia and something happened to Caroline, I would have had to hightail it to the Canadian embassy to reassert my parental rights (which I would lose again outside the gates).

Which doesn't seem like a huge deal (after all, it's the emotional stuff that matters, right? Right?) until you count up all the ways you can get screwed if you are not recognized as a parent. Everything from giving permission for medical procedures, to being allowed to travel with the child, to being allowed to make schooling decisions...not to mention custody rights in the case of seperation, etc, etc. The kinds of rights you completely take for granted...until you don't have them.

It hasn't just been a problem practically (and, after all, we do live in Canada and so would have been much more protected than couples living permanently in Australia, and many other places around the world) but also emotionally. I've never been able to understand how Caroline and I can go through this process so much as a team, with every decision a joint one, and then somehow she ends up with full rights and I end up with nothing. It just doesn't make sense. And it has also left me completely vulnerable - if Caroline and I ever broke up and she moved back to Australia, it would have been her good will and ethics that would have protected me, not the law (and, of course, good will is usually available in spades between couples after a break-up!)

But now Australia has come aboard!! Now, when I go back to see my family, I don't have to sacrifice my family to do it.

A beautiful case of the political having huge implications for the personal.

Belly Love (Caroline)

I'm on mat leave so finally have time to breathe!

We went for a long walk today along the Sea Wall. Anna wanted to take photos of the belly before it's too late. Lo and behold, it turns out that our old trusty hand-me-down camera is no longer so trusty! Result: mad dash to camera shop to buy replacement. You can guarantee that the minute we don't have a camera handy I'm going to go into labour. And then of course we had to try it out!

These photos are extracts from the belly series....

As you can see, my profile has changed somewhat...

I love these photos the best. A snapshot of Anna having deep and meaningfuls with our little one. She's going to make an incredible Mumma!

Of course, the camera also brought out the playful side of us both. So here's us being the true goofs that we are!