Category: Second Trimester

Second Trimester

Beaten but not out of the fight

Posted on by Kilian Ateh

– 10:19 pm

Fatigue is the only thing that persists now. She’s just about hanging in there. Moments ago, she said it felt like you were growing by the hour, stretching her hips and belly in every direction. Nevertheless, (and I am truly amazed by her grit and toughness), she keeps up with regular exercise and stays healthy. I am proud of her. She swears by Bruno, her personal trainer, whom she’s described as a “miracle worker”. I don’t know what shape your mother would be in if she hadn’t gone to see him earlier today. She woke up looking like she’d just done a sixteen-hour graveyard shift, completely shattered.

Liza defeated Liza working out

Oh! She threw another name at me during dinner, Feodor. Daniel and Marcel were previous mentions. I thought I heard Theodore. She really likes the name, which she says can also be spelt Fiodor or Fyodor. If I recall, she said it belonged to her great grandfather. But I’m struggling with it. Good thing these are just conversations. A name will come.

Also, l think you need to look like your name. There are some names that just have an aura about them, Miles (Davies), Coltrane (John)… Great names. I don’t think (and don’t want) your name to define you, but it should have roots and history. It should prompt you to ask questions and be inquisitive.

Your mother just called out a few minutes ago. I’m going to hit the sack.
PS – It’s an interesting date today, 02/02/2022.

It’s been a while

Posted on by Kilian Ateh

– 6:27 am

I am recapping from seat 5A on a Brussels airline heading to Douala, Cameroon. From the corner of my eye, the aisle is silent but busy with people. Most of them head down into their boarding passes, and only looking up to find their seat numbers. The sun is bleeding in from the window on my left. It’s quite the picture.

My alarm went off at 3:30 am and I’ve been up ever since. Addison Lee bailed on me this morning. Not only did the driver not turn up without notice or warning, but they also charged me for the service they didn’t provide. I’ll have that fight when I get back. I don’t want to start today with a quibble.

Fortunately for me, I have a heroine by my side in your mother. Without asking, she was intuitively on Uber during my frustratingly unproductive conversation with Addison Lee’s customer support. Given our home address, I was fortunate she could find a taxi. I popped out to flag it down before he could get lost on our road (as they all seem to do).

07:06 – The plane is taking off. A man’s just been yelled at to “SIT DOWN” as he walked up to the hostess while we were still in “take-off” mode with the seatbelt signs brightly on. I’m trying to hold in the giggle. Sloppy dude. Sloppy.

Anyway, I threw both my “Africa bags” in the booth of the electric crowd carrier, an extended kiss goodbye to your teary-eyed mother and off into the Benz “bus”.

You are probably wondering what an “Africa bag” is. By my definition, it’s any large luggage, rigid and flexible enough to overpack and ram things in. It ranges from cheap to moderately priced. Inexpensive enough, such that there is neither regret nor disbelief when it comes out damaged at Baggage Claim. You should see how the cargo loaders fling them around. It’s luggage assault. My Eastpaks will be unrecognizable by the time I get back.

My black driver, late 30s or early 40s, had Captial FM on. “It’s the Weekender”, I heard the host say. With the near-miss I just had with not finding transport to the airport, I wasn’t about to complain about loud Techno that early in the morning.

He also seemed to whisper throughout the short conversation we had about electric cars. I couldn’t hear a thing. So for the most part, I responded with “yeah” and “Mmm”. It wasn’t a chatty ride. No complaints though from this sleep-deprived passenger either.

07:46 – Just landed in Brussels. It’s 08:46 here. O’look, it’s snowing! I’m going to get my shit together, text your mother and find my connecting flight. Brb.

I had to complete a Passenger Locator Form at baggage drop. Urgh! Another document to complete. Thank you, COVID! Your mother would’ve had this done before arriving at the airport though. She’s meticulous with travel paperwork.

From there, I went through Security without further fuss and grabbed a watered-down coffee an Americano at the lounge. I had a second one on the flight and here we are, at another lounge in Brussels. I just had a fascinating chat with an older gentleman who has a son a few years older than me. His business card says he’s the Founder and Co-President of the Africa Research Excellence Fund (AREF). I just intro’d him to your mother via email. Hopefully, their lines of work can intersect somehow to mutual benefit.

Plenty has changed since my last entry. At this point, you are days beyond 21 weeks old and kicking, quite literally. You are no longer shy about making your presence felt. I’ve felt it to know. You won’t sit still. Those may be my genes.

We had a scan last week and the sonographer said you were in “perfect health”. I’ve attended a few and been emotional on all occasions. It kills me your grandmother can’t witness this. This was her dream, not mine. She didn’t wish for anything else but to see my children. I can barely contain the desolation.

Other than that, your host is doing an outstanding job at keeping you safe and healthy. For a time, she had some pain around her lower back, and walking hurt her hips and pelvis. But Bruno (her PT), has been doing an even better job at keeping her pain-free.

Sometimes she has to hold my hand up a flight of stairs or pause to catch her breath but we’re told this is to be expected. I cannot overstate the amount of work she is putting in to ensure your wellbeing. When it comes to your health, you owe her a great deal. She’s risen to every challenge, sometimes with tears but risen nonetheless, face to face and eye to eye.

I do boxing chants when she has her hooded robe on in the mornings, “Ali, Ali, Ali”. It’s to let her know I’m in her corner, coaching and cheering her on.

Before boarding a plane to… just about anywhere now, you have to prove you don’t have COVID-19, with a negative test result. For Cameroon, I need a negative PCR test result, also known as a Fit to Fly certificate. I did the test in Kingston on Friday after work. Your mother came with, not only for the company but to ensure I was taking the right test. I listen to her on these matters.

Rather telepathically, we decided to grab a burger after. We walked to a place called Smok’d in Kingston. The burgers were good but honestly, we make better ones at home. Between mouthfuls, we talked about a natural birth versus a Caesarean. My ignorant perspective was, “Why would anyone want a natural birth?” It sounds agonizing. And I struggle to see the upside.

Reading the article your mother sent me later that evening, the body apparently learns from the first experience and is better equipped during the second coming (if you are insane enough to have more children).

C-sections seemed ill-advised and riskier. If I recall correctly, it read as though, a natural birth second time round from a C-section for the first birth, was more susceptible to complications. Caesareans were generally for people who medically couldn’t have the baby naturally. The matter is currently unsettled but I told your mother it’s (her body and thus) a personal decision. I will support either. However, given what I now know, I would lean towards a natural birth in lieu of a Caesarean.

13:24 – After “technical delays” and seemingly much ado about nothing, we’ve now been in the air for about twenty or so mins. I’d be drunk by now if I obliged to every booze offer from the hostesses. They put up this pleasant but astonished smile every time I decline and opt for water instead. Wine gives me headaches and coffees are a no-no beyond midday. I’ve also been given a landing form to fill which I better do before returning to this. Brb.

Liza’s birthday is March 10, her father’s the day after. So on March 8, we touched down in Venice. The trip marked your first holiday, your first time on a plane, a speed boat and a gondola. We’d never been either so it was the first time for the trio.

Liza & I in Venice

It’s a very unique city, built entirely on water. It takes time to wrap your head around the fact the primary mode of travel is by boat. You don’t have bus stops, you have boat stops. But all of that is probably normal to those who live here. As a consequence, the pace to life is a lot lot slower. And that is a great thing while on holiday.

Outside our hotel window, across a tiny canal, was a construction site, a renovation of sorts. I found myself thinking about how long it took to assemble all those raw materials by boat. Probably forever.

There are several monuments that speak to the city’s expansive history. The castles were stood up by wealthy families who had gondoliers to take them around. The colours the gondoliers wore was ID to say what house (or family) they came from. That’s the overly simplistic version, for dummies.

Turns out that buying a canoe doesn’t make you a gondolier. Each gondola takes about a year to build from scratch and entirely by hand. Only two places make them, all within Venice. It’s “unauthorized” if not from either of these places. The gondolier requires training for equally as long and needs to pass an exam set by the controlling body. A gondola can stay within a family, passed down from father to son across generations.

Our gondolier – and I will go further to say we had the best one – spoke of the job with so much pride, refusing to ever do anything else. He was joyous about being the first of his bloodline to become a gondolier. He bought his gondola off a retiring gondolier on the cheap and is paying it off slowly, at Venice pace.

We got to hear fascinating short stories paddling up to every landmark, key facts about every monument as he kicked from wall to wall with elegance, poise and extreme precision, never hitting another gondola, even around seemingly impossible bends and corners.

For such a small city, there are apparently over 400 bridges in Venice. But I can see how they got to that count. Some of them are no more than a couple of meters long. The word bridge is used very loosely here. Coupled with the stench of the canals made for a fun and memorable birthday activity.

I had breakfast once, on the first morning, to see if it was delicious enough to forego my fast. For the remainder of the holiday, I merely kept Liza company while she had breakfast. I regimented to a plain black coffee.

We walked a lot, from one end to the other. She’d be exhausted at the end of the day but thankfully without pain. We had some truly fantastic meals. The best of which was a six to eight-course set at Wisteria. It was by miles the best food we’ve had this year, or since Croatia which was about 6 months ago. Exceptional!

Food at Wisteria Pizza joint Speed boating Food at Wisteria

From a far away land

Posted on by Kilian Ateh

– 11:39 am

We drove safely into Buea last night from Douala. Night travel by car in Cameroon is probably the most dangerous activity you can participate in. Whatever the death rate is, it’s too high and the number publicised is likely deflated to misrepresent the truth. (Oh, we happen to be a very corrupt country as well). Decent roads are few and far between. The one or two without crater-sized potholes barely have signage or supporting infrastructure. I mean, good luck finding a lamp post (with a bulb in it).

However, what we do have in abundance, are untrained drivers in cars that should be written off. This blend (of reckless driving on bad roads) makes this form of travel the equivalent of Russian roulette. Sooner or later… And that’s not an exaggeration. But thankfully, our trip was without incident. I sat at the back so I didn’t have to visually engage with the road.

Your aunt and uncles Lyn, Junior and Carl (respectively) are still asleep after a cabaret evening. I was too tired to join. The day and drive had taken it out of me. But not for these party animals.

I’ve been up a few hours now. I spent the morning doing some housekeeping – email, Whatsapp messages etc. The weight is off. I feel lighter. Unlike your mother, unchecked notifications worry me.

I then video-called her. She was still in bed, just waking up. I gave her a tour of the WDC apartment we stayed in. The owner, Watson, is very close friends with Lyn’s husband Lambert so our stay is on the house. It’s quite fancy. Liza asked me to steal the glass table in the living area. Haha!

The baby bump is definitely bigger than it was a week ago when I left. You’re not skipping meals that’s for sure. You are apparently the size of a large corn (on the cob). Your mother says you won’t stop dancing either. Good on ya!

Plan Z

Posted on by Kilian Ateh

– 10:45 am

When your mother cries, I wonder if it affects your mood and development. I imagine it does. And not in a good way. So I try to keep her smiling, for as long as possible, by any means necessary. My silliness has been amplified of late. And thankfully, she’s so far had a happy pregnancy. Happy mother, happy baby. That’s my unqualified theory anyway. This article seems to suggest the same though. There have been times when her hormones come to power like an African coup d’etat and she almost always finds herself in tears. No one (including herself) can do anything about those, unfortunately.

I left Douala for London via Brussels. A couple of hours into the flight, a passenger fell gravely ill. I could hear him groan in pain and woke up to see an IV hanging from the overhead luggage compartment where they’d moved him to.

Among the concerned red dresses pacing up and down was a lady who said she was a friend of the family. I’d had three glasses of champagne at this point (on your mother’s suggestion so I could sleep. I actually hate champagne. It’s the closest thing to piss in taste). I recalled thinking, “there’s not much you can do to assist here”. So powerless in the situation, I selfishly went back to sleep.

Not long after, I heard an announcement we were making an emergency stop in Algeria to seek medical assistance. Looking out the window, I saw two people wearing the type of outfits you see in movies when trying to contain an airborne viral disease. Like a hazmat suit. They were gas masks away from being ready to deal with an alien invasion.

We were stationary. Further announcements requesting “passengers who could speak Arabic to please come forward” half woke me up. To be honest, I was quite pleased with the detour given I had a five-hour layover in Brussels. So I was happy to see it sliced considerably as long as no one had to die for it. But I had no network connection to notify anyone of the detour.

More ground staff came and went. An hourglass went by. Then another. And then some. I was in and out of it and fully out by the time we’d regained the skies.

All the while, Liza was in London struggling to sleep. Around 4 am, she decided to track my flight, which for some reason, she couldn’t find. Fearing the worse, she started making calls. The airline said they had no idea where the plane was. I couldn’t believe they said that when she recounted her version of the timeline. It pissed me the fuck off. It’s literally the worse thing they could tell her. If there was ever a time for a white lie…

They said they had no other information. That could definitely have been better phrased and handled. It’s even worse hearing it in hindsight.

So now your mother can’t sleep. How can she? She’s panicking and jittery. She calls her dad. Pops starts making other calls trying to source better intel. And down go the dominos.

The pilot chimed in to say we were to land in Marseille to re-fuel. We’d also have to get a new flight crew because “legally they couldn’t continue”. (Something to do with the number of hours they’d been working blah blah blah). We’d have to disembark.

We stood on the plane long enough for the aisle to start sitting back down. Then a hostess walked by, almost briskly with unease. She was crying out her eyeballs. I looked back to realise the severity of what the pilot had announced earlier.

Of course! Duh! There were passengers with connecting flights to catch, meetings to make, people to see, gifts to give, plans to fulfil etc. All of which had gone to shits. This anxious and disgruntled mob was having an exothermic reaction from this short stick translated into verbal abuse at the first person who represented the airline. The hostess.

But I’d been rather chilled this whole time. I have a thing about not worrying about situations I have no control over. Unless I was going to get into the cockpit and fly this damned plane myself, any other reaction was uncharacteristic of me. I was at the mercy of external decision-making.

That is not to say people shouldn’t voice displeasure. They should and so do I. Your mother would be losing her wits right now. I always have to ask her, “But what can you do about it?”. And all I mean by it is, “Fuck’em for putting us in this situation. We’ll deal with them later. For now, let’s work our own way out of this mess.” And some type of leverage usually gets you out of the most sticky situations. So whether financial or otherwise, always try to get leverage. It’ll easy your life.

More chaos continued to unravel. The plane got even louder. I checked my boarding pass to London Heathrow to conclude I was just as fucked. Best I let the fam know.

I was typing a message when your mother called. She exploded into tears as I answered. I seldom hear it but I know that cry. I don’t like it. She was very unsettled. I did my utmost to reassure and calm her down.

I assume the police who walked in had been called to deal with the near riot. The entire flight was disembarked to a confined area where I am currently typing this up. There’s another announcement being made, I should listen up.

MDLM

Posted on by Kilian Ateh

– 11:39 pm

I just got an invoice from Nate, requesting payment in Bitcoin. He’s a front-end developer. We met many years ago working for a payday loan company called Sunny. He’s since moved back to Australia and started a family. Undoubtedly, his daughter has outgrown the baby clothes I sent her. She looks ready to earn an adult-size wage.

We were good friends then and even better ones now. Our friendship has aged like vino. He’s also an excellent soundboard, so I often bounce ideas off him. No one provides feedback more thorough and criticism more constructive. It’s bulleted, concise and digestible. It’s OCD. If you’re ego-free, he’s a great brain to work with.

This time, however, payment was to go live with a new site called mydearlittleman.com. I don’t have the time to do it and the opportunity cost is too high. It’s a steep curve for me, a ‘ten-minute’ job for him given he works with WordPress on a daily basis. This way, everyone gets a trophy. I did the legwork and found a template that meets my needs. Beyond that, he doesn’t know what it’s for.

Currently, I’ve been notetaking on Notability, either to edit docs or write freehand. I’m using it as we ‘speak’ but will have to migrate my entries onto the site once it’s live. So everything you read to this point started off some place else. As brilliant an app as Notability is, it’s unideal for diary-style blogging. Come to think of it, perhaps I’m not using it right, not entirely. But if I knew this would evolve into what it is now – and I still don’t fully know what this is – I would’ve used it slightly differently. I could also retrofit it to make it work. But my current setup is too rigid for me to work with. Moving things around has become quite painful. So in all, a site gives me better flexibility for current and future needs.

I just spent the last 4 or so hours designing site icons. It’ll be interesting reading this in the future and looking at the site to see if I used any of them.

Soy sauce

Posted on by Kilian Ateh

Liza: My results came back and my haemoglobin count is really low. The doctor is recommending an iron infusion

Stuart: Ah, ok. Be sure to stay away from magnets

Liza: [What a great dad joke] Haha!

– 7:42 pm

I could hear your mother coming down the stairs and had to open another tab (to conceal this one). This site and entries are still very much a secret you see. And I plan on keeping it that way for as long as possible.

She looks like she’s been sleeping for a couple of hours, and she has. For no explicable reason, we got up really early today, around 5 am. And when I’m up, I’m up, only night will take me down. We’ve since walked to Kingston and back with some fresh bread (from Olivier), a new perfume for her and some cheese from the Surbiton Farmer’s Market. There were two pitstops, the first at Ginger Bees Café for her (vegan salted caramel) ice cream and oat milk cappuccino, and at Local Hero where we normally brunch but only used the bathrooms this time. It was a great day to catch sunrays on a bench.

I got into the car after the Man City (2), Liverpool game (3) game. O’Yes, we bought a new car. Unlike my BMW M Sport which I now have to sell, it’s one with four doors and enough room to ram half your shit in. We picked up the Ioniq 5 on Thursday. So I spent (way too much) time in it trying to figure out what all these damned buttons and settings are for.

Liza’s bloodwork came back with worryingly low haemoglobin levels, which explained the constant fatigue and tiredness. So her doctor recommended an Iron Infusion. When she told her old previous boss Stuart about it, he made the “magnet joke”.

Your mother just interrupted – again, had to hide my work – to suggest we do a court marriage before you’re born… Let’s ice that for now.

Yesterday, we left the house at 9:30 am for Portland Hospital. There was no fuss about our slightly late arrival. The nurse was ultra nice and got us comfortable in a room.

A doctor came in, walking somewhat hastily. I couldn’t be certain through her face mask but she didn’t appear as jittery and overworked as I’d imagined or anticipated. The impact of the pandemic on healthcare professionals has been clear for all to see. But she seemed awake and capable, which was a relief. It sounds ridiculous I know. She rustled through some packaging and got an IV ready, complaining about the amount of waste as she ripped through plastic after plastic. I asked what was stopping her from solving this problem through a business. “Nothing”, she said. I emailed the address she gave me so let’s see if she replies. In hindsight, I doubt she has the time or the headspace.

Your mother squirmed and looked away the entire needle process, as expected.

Drip, drip, drip, the soy sauce went into her veins. Lizzie, the nurse, stayed for what became a free-flowing and extremely enlightening conversation. In between her forms, we spoke about topics I condensed into “the life and work of a creative”. Most importantly though, she used to work for the NHS and helped set us straight on some medical decisions your mother and I had been on the fence about regarding your birth. We now know what we need to do. It’s going to break the bank but it’s a long-term investment in yours and our futures.

It wasn’t immediately apparent but by sundown, she looked ready for a triathlon, buzzing with energy. I wonder if you felt any of it. You must have. She had Sauti Sol coming through the speakers, bouncing away. I wish I had a video. But it was great to see.

On the train to Portland Hospital After the iron infusion

Time flies by when you’re laughing. And in no time at all, the hanging bag was empty. Within a few bright smiles and goodbyes, we were out on the street. We sauntered around the city, opting for the quieter Marylebone. She had lunch at 31 Below, where I had an iced Americano.