watching the baby dragons grow
What to Expect When You’re Expecting
This is the most comprehensive book on pregnancy going. Not designed to be an entertaining read, but rather, the answers to literally every question you could have about your pregnancy. Well worth having, to save you stress when something comes along that would otherwise keep you awake at night.
Ok, not really a book, but this DVD was given to me by a friend – another expectant father. There are a lot of tips, including lengthy interviews with an Obstetrician to get the technical information right, but the whole thing (except perhaps the footage of a birth) has the feel of a conversation down the pub amongst blokes.
Perhaps the one drawback is the lack of mention of God; the impression is that no-one in the DVD is really religious (the doctor talks a lot about the way that “mother nature” designed things) except briefly, in the lead-up to the birth. Not surprising, but worth pointing out.
As you’d expect from conversations in a pub, the language is at times coarse, but this does give a pretty good cross-section of blokey opinions in the lead-up to fatherhood, and in life after birth.
From Here to Paternity – Sacha Molitorisz
The third book on this subject I’ve read, but the first one to drift further beyond the birth, and into the realms of fatherhood proper. As a SMH journalist, Molitorisz has a particular writing style that will be familiar to readers of that broadsheet.
Not the definitive guide to the subject, nor does it set out to be, but useful as far as it raises topics to consider, and starts the prospective father thinking about what life will be like during and after pregnancy.
Whatever, by William Bee
When I saw this picture book in Better Read than Dead in Newtown, it had a “staff pick” sticker on it, and so I read through it. It has such a dark sense of humour that I knew it would make a perfect gift for kel. Perhaps not suitable for the smallest children, this reminds me of the best of the darkly comic works mum used to read to me when I was small.
I spoke today to a friend who is from a previous generation – he’s already a grandfather – about how much he knew about kids when he was growing up. In fact, he didn’t know much about babies, except that they were annoying some of the time. As it turns out, nothing much has changed between generations.
One of the things I’ve learned through this pregnancy is that my schooling hasn’t taught me _anything_ about what happens to someone who is pregnant.
A few things I’ve picked up in my reading and observation on the subject:
The first trimester is a rough time. The mum is tired all the time, often feels nauseous, but often has to pretend nothing is wrong, because she won’t have told people she’s expecting. Why will she not have told anyone? Because if something is going to go wrong with a pregnancy, it will happen (most likely) in the first trimester.
All kinds of crazy things happen to a pregnant body: it’s not nearly as much fun as the TV ads might make it look.
With all of the changes, the one thing that hasn’t happened yet is any sensation at all that there might be a baby inside you: the baby is in fact far too small to feel yet (except in the way that you get nausea and the beginning of a change in shape).
Found via a google text ad – diaper cakes; it’s a hamper, made of nappies in the shape of a cake. I think. Seems very odd to me (or at least calling it a ‘cake’ seems odd).
it’s been a long time coming, but this little blog represents a certain cat being let out of a certain bag.
