Immigration around the world have now decided all persons need a passport no matter what their age they are, to travel .. so when we come home for the holidays Liadan cannot just go onto mine she will need her own passport. All passports have photos so we needed to get a picture of Liadan with her eyes open, mouth closed looking straight ahead and all the rest. She is 2 weeks old when we attempt this as we need to speed this process along so we can get her application in and get the passport before the holidays.. cause we all know how long consulates can take with that kind of thing if they want. It ended up not being as hard as we thought but here is a selection of we got in amongst the winner. Here is a selection of photos we got in the process.

Breasts

In addition to the soar and toughened up nipples behind them came milk and with the milk came their new size to accommodate their new duty. They grew and grew and grew, I’ll tell you it was not comfortable. Everytime I would see myself in the mirror I was blown away ..i was starting to look totally out of proportion like a Barbie doll. Thankfully they did calm down when they realized that I was not a cat, cow or pig and that they didn’t need to feed a whole litter. They can still get a little hard making reaching for the light not as easy as it used to be…welcome to motherhood

Jaundice

Liadan had a visit from our midwife a few days after we came home and let us know that she had a small case of jaundice. Quite common in new borns and it was so minor she just said we need to make sure she feeds regularly and that will flush the bilirubin out of her system. So our little yellow baby was feed every 3 hours for the next week or so and then she was all better… on the last visit the midwife said she looked all better and that the last little bits of colour were just her colourings from her mom.

Nipples

Okay so before I read a ton of things about nipples and that they get sore from breastfeeding so when that part of my task began I was prepared and prayed that it wouldn’t be so bad. At first it was no problem.. but then a couple days in ..man alive they were so soar that even the shower was painful. One book said that they would toughen up and not to worry and thank god a couple more days later and they did just that. Now things aren’t completely back to normal but I feel I am prepared for the next months of lactation duty.

Parents are here

So my mom arrived a couple weeks before my due date to ensure she was here for the main event. She stayed at our place for the first little bit and then when my dad got here a couple weeks later they moved into a flat just up the road and will be there for a month. We went to check out the place last night and watch the final World Cup Rugby game of South Africa against England and they have a really swanky pad. It will be really great to have them here over the next month to help me out with the baby and help take some of the load off while I figure out what I am doing. At the moment I have only changed Liadan’s diaper twice in about two weeks.. thanks Andrew!! I leave the dirty work for him and I have been mastering my cuddle technique. - here is a pic of Liadan with my dad, i don't seem to have one with my mom in it.. but we shall fix that shortly

Coming Home

After being taken to the ward with Liadan I was thinking great now I get to rest and sleep but I was mistaken. The ward had about 4 other mothers on the ward with their babies as well so someone was always up or baby was crying and all the rest so it was not very restful. Besides the fact I still had quite a bit of drugs pumping through my veins and with Liadan beside me in her little plastic bed I was really in no state to rest.

The next day I was not sure when they were going to let me go home, I had been told that women who had assisted deliveries can be held for at least a day but that my midwife thought that they would let me go home on the 11^th sometime.

They wake you up at 7:30am not that I had been asleep so I had a bowl of cereal. Then various people came to see me to give me some pain relief pills, make sure I could feel my legs after the epidural, and other info I would need for the two of us when we left the hospital. Had a meeting with the pediatrician who did a bunch of little checks on her and she was all good. When I came back from there Liadan was sort of making foodie faces again so we did a little feeding. Andrew came shortly after and they told me I could go home.. so we got all my stuff ready put Liadan in her new stroller and headed out. The hospital was so close to where we lived we just took the bus. Then we were home… ah.. now it’s really the time to relax .

the Labor Story

So here is the detailed events of Liadan Siobhan Lawson entering the outside world.

It all started before two am in the morning on the 10^th of Oct with contractions that I had been semi timing for the last hour. I really didn’t think it was going to be it.. I figured it was the false labor everyone seems to get in the movies first and I really didn’t think she would come before her due date as I though she was going to be late.

Just before 8am when it was just getting to be too much to handle I though let’s go to the hospital. When we got there the contractions started coming on thick and fast ...so i said bring on the drugs.. so i got fitted for an epidural. For those of you who may not know what an epidural is it is a needle/tube they insert into your spin and inject you with drugs to numb you from the waist down. They give you a dose that is not a much as it used to because you can still feel the contractions and when the push and all the rest and I could move my legs. Then as the feeling starts to come back they top you up through the handy tube they have just hanging over my shoulder. It was good.. definitely took the edge off but of course the down side is that its slows the contractions down.

I was 3 cm when i got there and then four hours later only 5 cms.. urgh... then in the evening I was fully dilated but my waters still had not broken so they broke them for me ... oh what a very wet occasion that was and on my drugged up legs I had to get out of bed.. while they changed me and the bed as everything was absolutely soaking.

After that labor speed up a little which is what they were trying to do …
more epidural drugs please cause man my lower back was in so much pain. So while I held out before I got a top up on my epidural I gave the ol’ gas and air a go. I have to admit it was lovely so I finished a tank of that off for them. Many hours later she is SLOWLY coming at 7:30 they wanted to see how far she got in an hour and that would decide if they were going to give me this other drug to speed up the contractions again. But an hour later she had made good progress so they gave her one more hour to “Come on Down” before the main pushing event.

Eight rolled around and we had a shift change so we met all the new doctors who were on and my new midwife and so everyone got caught up on my situation. At 9:30 she was pretty much ready to be pushed out and the doctors came in before hand and said that I would pretty much have 1 hour to push her out see how far we got and if it was not going fast enough they were going to give me the contractions speedy up drug so we could get her delivered and that they may decide to use a ventouse and episiotomy. Not to happy with the cutting side of the whole thing but at this point I was a little exhausted and on board with whatever needed to be done to make sure she came out ok and in good time.

Pushing began… I could feel the contractions fully but was pretty numb from the waist down so i was using all my memories of taking poos to figure out what muscles I think I should be using to push her out and cross my fingers I was actually flexing them. The Midwife and Andrew seemed to be happy with the muscles I thought I was using so I went with it. The pushing took lots of concentration which is good as it takes your mind off what is really happening in my neither regions as you can sort of feel that something so large is starting to come out. Over the next hour her little head popped out but still not far enough for the doctor so in we go with some assistance ..i push, he pulls. For those of you who do not know what a ventouse is its like a little vacuum cap they put on her head and pull as I push.

So Shortly after she was on her way I could feel her head on the way out and then of all things the doctor tells me to stop pushing.. so her head can come out smoothly.. that was almost harder than the pushing. And then out she came blue and bloody and all safe and ok but I have to admit it didn’t seem real when they gave her to me I didn’t really know what to do. Then they took her for the pediatrician to do his once over clear her lungs and make sure she is really alright and the doctor started stitching me up. Then when they brought her back to me that is when it hit home a little more that this wrinkly little thing was our daughter. She started making her foodie faces right away so we gave breast feeding a go, she seemed happy. Then it really was time to relax after the I was all sewn up and rested for a little I had a shower and got back into some clothes. The midwife brought us a cup of tea and we had some quiet time.

My blood pressure was high so they would not discharge me to the ward till it had come down so Andrew and I got to chill in the room longer which was nice since if they had been able to check me to the ward Andrew would have had to leave. So we got to be together the three of us till about 2:30am when they took me upstairs to bed.

And that was the pretty much 24hours that Andrew and I became a family.

Andrews review of New Pornographers concert

On the 9th I joined our new flatmate, Chris, and a couple of soon to be Framestore cohorts and went to see the New Pornographers play down the street at Koko.
Now, first off, I'm not a big fan of going to concerts. Indeed, while I love sitting out in a field enjoying band after band entertain me while I hang out in the sun/shade with friends, drinking whatever beverage suited my fancy at the time, I have never really fully appreciated live indoor music unless I'm dancing. And to prevent this review getting sidetracked and devolving into a drawn-out wet towel of a diatribe on the deficiencies of music concerts in general, let me say simply: It's on a rare occasion that I exit a concert venue not thinking my time and money would have been better spent just buying the album.
Then why even go, I hear you ask. Well, Chris arrived a couple of months before and, with the eager excitement that only his unique brand of boyish charm could produce, rattled of all these great shows we could go see. This sort of enthusiastic proclamation always gives rise to a feeling of guilty inadequacy that my lifestyle seems so comparatively slothful and uninspired and makes me chasten myself for not taking advantage of being in London, a city that on any given week dishes up a multitude of entertainment options that would never be on offer back in Vancouver. So, being humbled and wanting to redeem myself for my social inaction I accepted his invite to join him. Of course, the fact that I am a big fan of the Pornos and the venue was a mere 3 minute walk from our place helped seal the deal. (I told him, however, exactly where he could push his precious Tragically Hip tickets)
So although they had already won me over years before with thier music, the Pornos had my prejudices against live shows to overcome.
Did they? Well, the were pretty good. I liked the vibe they gave off and they did Canada proud by laying out a ballsy set that re-awakened a crowd that had been effectivey lulled into a semi-intoxicated indifference by the half-hearted efforts of the Phil Collins wannabe of an opening act. Most importantly though, and this is something I think every band should do in concert: they changed up the songs a bit so that they weren't just carbon copy versions of the ones you know from the albums. All in all a good effort from the visitors. Down side? As always: the sound quality. But hey, what can you do?
And it only took us 3 songs to recognize them as the group at the table next to us at the pizza place we ate at before the show.