Month: December 2007

Everybody is a nanny

I had a rough night as the baby was fussy. After hours of holding and cuddling he fell asleep in my arms and I didn’t dare take him to his bed.

I fell asleep with him and I had this dream that we were grocery shopping and that strangers around me were nannies.

I was riding the bus to the grocery store. As soon as I was out of the house I had forgotten what I needed from the store. But I stayed on the bus and then went in the store. I picked stuff from the shelves, selected fruits and vegetables, wondering what it was I had meant to get, and not remembering.

Then I noticed a woman was holding and gently rocking a baby next to me, and it was my baby. I thanked her for holding him for me and took him from her. We took the bus to go back home. I looked in my bags and realised I had forgotten to get some basic items. As the bus route was a short one, we would be back to the store pretty soon. I waited.

A baby sound caught my attention in my back and I turned to see a man was smiling at me, holding my baby. I smiled back, thanked him for his kindness and took the baby back with me.

The dream carried on, much like what it had been so far. We were back in the store, I noticed a new person was holding Adrien while I was quickly shopping. Then back on the bus where a new nanny was suddenly sitting next to me and handing me the baby, just as I had realised I had forgotten to get stuff. And I woke up to the sound of Adrien crying (and warming up to wail…). Just like now, in fact.

Nobody talked in this dream, but me. And there was no other sound other than my voice and that of Adrien.

Words that I didn’t know 9 months ago

Nine months ago, I had no idea that the words meconium, vernix or colostrum existed. I knew about labour, epidural, delivery, but the notions were very abstract.

My son is now fast asleep. We’ve been back home for a week. The hospital kept us for 6 long days ; Adrien had lost more than the usual 10% of his birth weight. He was born on 23 November at 7:37 p.m., 13 days ago. That was less than a half hour after they took me to the delivery room and an hour after we arrived at the hospital. There was no time for an epidural, as I made it all the way to 9 centimeters by the time I got there. I thought I might have the baby in the car! We left home in a hurry. It was time to go, suddenly, as the contractions were happening every two minutes. All day I had had them, every 10 or 15 minutes, sometimes every 5 minutes, but not for two hours. I had had them the night before too. In fact, they started in the afternoon the day before. I was attending the last birth preparation class and I started to experience contractions in the middle of it.

I had a wonderful and easy pregnancy. I was hardly tired and the only nuisance, really, was having to go to the doctor’s every month. Only three weeks before the end did I start to walk at a slower pace. I was still at work 2 weeks before the end (only I thought I would have three weeks).

Adrien arrived a week in advance, on 23 November 2007, at 7:37 pm. He weighed 2,990 kg and was 49,5 cm tall. His father held my hand and encouraged me through it all. And since then, he’s been as fantastic as ever, helping me and supporting me with the baby.