Heading downtown

Posted on July 20, 2022September 1, 2022 by Kilian Ateh

– 9:55 pm

Another week, another hospital visit, (another box of doughnuts).

Liza took the car to the garage early this morning for an 8 am appointment. Our Ioniq 5 got recalled so a software update could be made. Something about the park mode not working as expected. We didn’t notice the fault or the difference in driving after reading the letter.

She then took it to charge after a pitstop at home. I’m amazed she’s still driving and being so active this late in her pregnancy. I’d be a comfortable bum in her condition.

I was due to see a hygienist until I fractured my leg. So I prioritised walking over the welfare of my teeth. It seemed like sound judgement at the time. Still is. But last week, I was able to get an appointment to coincide with Liza’s weekly checkup. Dr Erskine is away so she’s meeting her first replacement. The chilled-out Dr… (I’ll have to ask your mother for his name again tomorrow). Overall, he’d be my first choice if I had to pick. He just seemed like the guy you’d want by your side when in a clinical shit storm.

It’s an hour-plus drive from ours after one pm. Both appointments were on Harley Street. Mine was first, at 2 pm and I just about got us there on time. It was 13:59 when I parked. I rushed out, limping away, leaving your mother behind to lock up – her (sensible) suggestion.

The plan was to wait for me at reception so we could walk to her rendezvous together. But my session overran so she had to leave. The receptionist knew I was coming (because your super aware mother told them, to save me from explaining). So I was directed to the consulting room on the second floor when I got there.

She was leaving the examination room when I knocked and walked in. My ears were ringing from the screeching sound of metal against my teeth. They still are.

All four of us sat down to what became a brief and light chat. The highlight to me was the fact that you had adopted a natural birthing position, head downwards. I just learned this is called a cephalic presentation. Big fucking relief! I’ve lost quite a lot of sleep over that. Plan C kicks in if you refuse to come out head first. And the C is for Complicated, Caesarean or both. So I was glad to hear you’re OK and (so far) you plan to give your mother a chance at a natural birth. That’s what she wants. So whenever you’re ready, so are we.

– 7:28 am, Thursday, July 21

That mister's name is Dr Patrick O'Brien. I also threw in our pre-packed bags into the car to stay there until you're born. Currently, the chances of us being together with the car are high. So it makes sense to have our stuff with us in case we need to quickly detour.

The perils of war

Posted on July 24, 2022September 1, 2022 by Kilian Ateh

– 11:52 am

The war in Ukraine has been ongoing for some time now. Russians are invading the country, a square meter at a time, shredding it to bite-size bits as they go. By the time you get to read this, there’ll probably be a movie or two about it. The desolation portrayed by the media is only a quarter of the story I’m sure. The situation on the ground is probably worse.

Liza was introduced (by her friend Yana) to a lady whose home and fitness centre was bombed down to ashes. She’s now homeless and without her business. Your mother’s been supporting her by taking a stretching class every Saturday morning. Today is the third one I believe. I think it’s a great way to empower another human without a handout. Kudos to her.

She’s currently in the studio unpacking your tommee tippee. I’ve got a clear line of sight at my eight o’clock where she’s got her face buried in a manual, sitting on the green sofabed. I’m leaving her to it. She just chuckled and said, “someone said on YouTube that this is like an espresso machine for babies”. That’s hilarious because it’s so accurate.

I’ve been busy fiddling with your baby cam. It’s all set up. I just purchased a camera holder that’ll let me mount it to your crib. That’s due to arrive tomorrow. Hopefully, it does the job.
The footage of all the silly things you’ll be doing is going to be priceless. I’m looking forward to that, in between all the crying and screaming. You should know right off the bat, that we don’t plan to pick you up every time you yell. At least I don’t. I’ll encourage your mother to do the same.

Hillbillies

Posted on July 26, 2022September 1, 2022 by Kilian Ateh

– 7:20 am

Yesterday, Liza and I opened a package from Nate. A stylish set of baby clothing gifted to you know who. It was like going through my wardrobe but in infant sizing. My first words to him about it this morning were, “how dare you gift the greatest jacket on earth to a fucking baby who’s going to vomit all over it!? Wtf is wrong with you?” This was between discussions around some CSS changes to make to this site. (I wanted the tags and category fields hidden. They are now.)

About the jacket, seeing is believing. And see it you will, obviously. I’m sure there’ll be many a question asked about “where did you get this? It’s so cute” and so on. It’s bound to show up in a picture or two. Nate’s words were, “I got the jacket in a size 2 I think, so he gets more use out of it and can wear it while walking around and get compliments and all that”. Needless to say, your mother and I loved the gift and were extremely grateful.

Also, this tip of his made me laugh. I haven’t been through your wardrobe but I’m sure you have some outfits with buttons…

Nate: Those Wondersuits are the best. Seriously recommend baby clothes that come with a single zip. Makes changing so much easier. If you see buttons, avoid lol

Me:
at least i think the messaging is consistent
1. you wont sleep for shit
2. fuck buttons get zips. seriously, fuck buttons
3. dont kill the little shit

And that was yesterday’s highlight. I also mounted the baby cam to your crib but that’s trivial at this point. Liza sent some demo pictures to her parents who had basically never seen such “hi-tech”. The generational gap comes to the forefront once again. It seems like an obvious thing to have in today’s world but for older folks (and most of present-day African countries), these sorts of gadgets are unheard of.

Your mother is meeting up with Rozalia this morning for breakfast at HIDE. She has her usual appointment with Dr Erskine thereafter. I’m going to drop her off at the station at about 8:15. I actually need to get moving. Wez is coming round to finish the wardrobe downstairs. He should be here any minute now.

Straight from the oven

Posted on July 26, 2022September 1, 2022 by Kilian Ateh

– 1:14 pm

I left the shower and came down to seven missed calls from your mother and a text, “Yo, I need to talk to you”. I just got off the phone with her. She has news hot off the press. You have outgrown ~~her womb~~ your home and are currently too big for it. So you need to come out this week, whether you want to or not. Dr Erskine has you booked to be induced on Sunday unless you play ball and come out willingly, with your hands in the air. You are currently surrounded, with nowhere else to go. And as part of the negotiations, you need to free your hostage and make sure no one is hurt in the process.

I’m cool with all the above. In fact, I much rather prefer a scheduled ~~release~~ birth than dealing with the unpredictability of when, how and being in the dark. But this way, we can drive to the hospital on Sunday morning and follow a plan of sorts. (Apparently, nothing about births go to plan. I wonder why they even bother with those birth plans). That’s assuming you choose the hard way out.

Your mother is on her way back now, in an Uber. She was going to take public transport but the checkup with Erskine was too painful. I am also too far out to drive to her. Her latest message says she’s having cramps again and if they persist she may just stay in Central. I’m assuming she means the hospital. By now she’s probably thinking, “I need to call my parents, book their flights, get a bunch of shit ready…” Or maybe I’m projecting and it’s my mind racing. I think I’m cool though. I feel settled. Everything is in place, nearly. But it’ll be fine.

We’re not done

Posted on July 29, 2022September 1, 2022 by Kilian Ateh

– 7:53 am

I woke up at six with no desire to go back to sleep. So I decided to make the most of the morning starting with the blog (which is currently down so I’m drafting this in an email using Spark).

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been making posts on the site public. They were private until I could figure out some basic SEO. If I don’t get the chance to hand this over to you, then maybe one day you’ll make a great discovery about yourself.

As of yesterday, we now have a spanking new kitchen. Well, almost. There’s still a glass splashback that needs fitting in a fortnight but otherwise all done. It looks ~~glam!~~ like us. The Corian countertop covered all but a couple of the previous holes on the wall so I decided to add a filler to them. I think I’ll address the other damaged bits of the wall this weekend. Unless you decide to make an appearance.

I made myself a decaf and started typing when your uncle called. Fusi that is. Everyone calls him Judex but I prefer his middle name. He inherited it from our maternal grandfather, the same way you’re inheriting yours from my father’s grandfather. He called worried he couldn’t reach me yesterday, thinking your mother had gone into labour and something had happened. I apologised for not returning the missed call and reassured him he’d be the first to know the moment Liza and I got in a car heading to the hospital.

One of our neighbours in Douala died so there was a wake keeping which they all attended, your grandad included. I know some of Pah Sama’s kids. His children are like my younger siblings. We all grew up together. I spoke to his eldest son yesterday over Whatsapp. He seemed aware and settled with the notion of what was happening. His dad had been sick for a while so this was either relief, shock or both. Likely both would be my guess.

Fusi updated me on that. We spoke about the family at large and life in general. He talked about Mafor, your grandmother. There were moments I felt like crying but held it in. They accomplished a lot together, from nothing, and evidently very close. It cuts us mighty deep to talk about her but this is therapy for us. We need to. She was so undeserving of the ending she got. It haunts me all the time. There are people I will never forgive and ties severed beyond repair.

I went upstairs to the bathroom to contain myself where unfortunately your mother was having a shower and saw me. So she’s in tears now as well, begging me not to cry. For both your sakes, I don’t want her crying so I’ve applied a hard stop.

Today’s entry was meant to address names, your first name. I thought we had one pinned but your mother handed me a shortlist… I want to say yesterday but it could well be the day before.
By the way, doesn’t she look fantastic for someone who’s about to give birth like any second now? She looks fab!

Her list includes “Gustav”, which she said she loves. I’ll be damned if I ever have to call you “Gus”. No thanks. It reminds me of Eddie Murphy’s BBQ skit on Delirious where he talks about his Uncle Gus. You won’t be named “Milan” or “Isaac” either. I suggested Eli, which she also likes. Emil isn’t bad…
Short story shorter, your first name is still up for grabs, according to your mother anyway. That’s fine though. We can wait to see what you look like and name you accordingly.

Any day now

Posted on July 30, 2022September 1, 2022 by Kilian Ateh

– 10:27 am

I just finished my second yoga session at home since breaking my leg. With some difficulty, I still completed every pose. My body is extremely grateful and thanks me very much. My back and knee send special regards. I feel so much lighter.

Your mother came down as I was rounding off Bruno’s homework. And yes, it’s the same Bruno she’s been seeing for her workouts. She’s in the kitchen whisking eggs and flour. Pancakes I think. I got a coffee order but I’ll wait “a few minutes” till she’s done rattling that kitchen aid. The coffee machine is right next to it.

Umm, I don’t know if you can tell, but you’re anything but a small baby. The girls from Liza’s NCT class have been joking about the bear size of your mother’s tummy. Accordingly, bets have been running on her giving birth first.

But news just came in, literally minutes ago, that Helen gave birth to a girl early doors this morning. The Beatles chic – that’s what I call her, she looks like a lost Beatle – messaged Liza saying, “you got beat, don’t be too jealous”. She’s funny.

Turns out Helen had a difficult pregnancy. She went in for a checkup yesterday and got diagnosed with OC, whatever the fuck that is. But the baby had to be brought out as a ~~911~~ 999 situation. Glad they’re ok.

By the way, yesterday was your due date, full term at 40 weeks. Your mother and I received a letterbox full of messages asking if we’d had the baby. No, we haven’t. Tells you everything you need to know about birth plans and due dates. Helen was due in mid-August.

Also, and this is a major shift, your mother and I decided not to have you induced. You’ll come round when you’re ready. I’m happy for you to start making your own decisions as early as ~~possible~~ now. We’ll be your compass is all. It also felt like Dr Erskine wanted to deliver you by Sunday because she had holiday plans from Monday.

A similar thing happened when your mother was born. The doctor (back then in the Soviet Union) had your grandmother induced and did a rush job so he could go on holiday. She couldn’t have any more kids after that. This had the same vibe to it. So we emailed Dr Erskine’s office to decline and if she’s not around when you decide, we’re happy with Mr O’Brien.

That said though, the contractions are the strongest they’ve ever been. So we are surely days away, or not. Who knows? Thankfully they’ve so far been happening exclusively during the day, after lunch. Maybe you don’t like having lunch. Do you like fasting? Who knew!? It’s great for ya! I do it too, every day. It’s a habit to me now. The longest I’ve gone is 47 hours without food. But I’m well over 10,000 hours of fasting so this didn’t (and shouldn’t) happen overnight. It took years of practice. Anywho, I don’t want a night drive to the hospital. I’m dreading it. So do me a favour, let’s make it a day trip. Please. Evenings will work too when there’s little to no traffic. From say 8 pm. Muchas gracias.

PS – Your mother just asked what I’m doing. “Checking mail, reconciling my accounts…” I swear it’ll be the funniest thing when she reads this. If she ever finds it. What a troll. See you later little man. I’m going to do that wall I told you about. We may have to drive later to B&Q to look for bathroom shelves.

All done

Posted on July 31, 2022September 1, 2022 by Kilian Ateh

– 11:38 pm

I’m in a bathtub struggling to keep my eyes open. What a tiring day. Forgive any typos or bad grammar as I won’t read over this.

From a practical standpoint, we’re fully prepared to receive you. We’re as ready as we can be. You don’t have baby sunglasses but we have the essential must-haves from this list. We picked up wall hooks, shelves and baskets from B&Q for the bathroom earlier today. I also got some more Polyfilla for the kitchen wall. As always, I poured too much paint out onto the tray and decided to roll over other bits of the house with stained walls. Let’s not waste the paint yes!? Cool. My dinner was less than an hour ago. I didn’t anticipate finishing so late but I’m pleased with the results.

This is the second self-checkout I’ve noticed with live CCTV footage of the customer to the customer.

I first saw it at Waitrose. The assistant there said it was meant as a deterrent to shoplifting when I asked. We used it to pull faces.

By the way, what did you think of all the rap music we played today? I went through some of my favourite albums. Also, your mother has this mic-in-hand-rapping thing she does when the beats are thumping. It’s my favourite thing in the world. I managed to catch it on camera, pissing myself the entire time. Too. Cotdamn. Funny. DMX is laughing in his grave for sure.

B-Day

Posted on August 4, 2022September 1, 2022 by Kilian Ateh

– 4:19 am

“Please tell he or she I have a needle phobia and I don’t want to see anything”.

She’s talking about an epidural.

Moments ago, every contraction felt like a crucifixion, hammering a nail in. Agonising and excruciating. I imagine it was. You could see it on her face, in bold. She was crying (not screaming, in fact, she hasn’t screamed once) and failing at handling the pain. Some can, most can’t. And why should they?

What a demanding couple of days! We came in to see Mr Patrick O’Brien on Tuesday as part of our weekly check-in, (we call him PatPat by the way) and by then, your mother had been contracting for nearly half a day. In her mind, she was ready to give birth. But at 1 cm? No chance darling. Not even close.

It was 2:25 pm when I handed over the keys at Devonshire Row Mews Car Park on Wednesday. Your mother had been contracting for over 24 hours at this point. We thought this was it (according to her at least). But after another examination, she was still only a centimetre dilated. Given her exhaustion, sleep deprivation, and unbearable pain, we decided to wait it out in case “something happened”. The contractions grew stronger, and the pain got worse but nothing really did happen. I now know this first stage of labour to be called the latent phase. And it can be quite long.

I got some Duck and Rice delivered to the hospital. It was uncharacteristically disappointing. I mean where did the duck sauce go? Some meals are best eaten at the restaurant and not from a tupperware box I guess. This was around 6:12 pm and within an hour, I was fasting again.

PatPat did another readiness check between 8:30-9 pm. A couple of centimetres dilated this time. So still not active labour. Those weren’t his words but it’s what I deduced from his well-pieced explanation of what needed to happen. The decision then was whether to stay or leave to the comfort of home and familiar surroundings. The pain was still quite sharp and your mother had been on gas and air for at least a couple of hours to shave the edge off. I had the same. It was helping some. But the dilemma was not having it at home. So we stayed an extra half hour or so to see if she could cope without it. And then we left.

I think it was 11:01 pm when I checked the time on the car dashboard. She had a bath while I crash-landed in bed. After a minute, she woke me up with “…[something something] hospital”. “Ok”, I said and got up speedily. Her waters had broken and the pain was worse than before. Yes. Worse. I got our loose bits together and we set off a few minutes after 3 am.

The roads were empty and the only thing that worried me was her pain. But I held it together and just kept repeating we were almost there. I hand-walked her into reception and left to park the car.

The valet was sleeping comfortably. I envied him for a second. It was the same guy who checked me out earlier that evening, still struggling to keep his pants up. No underwear either. “Oga, just get a belt nau” is what I thought. But he was super nice. And so had all the staff there if I’m being truthful. Africans are just so… welcoming. It’s our gift and our curse. We small talked about the sex of the baby and so on.

It was a different nurse and a different room at Portland Hospital. But Carine who had seen us prior was able to swap. So we’re in familiar great hands. There’s just been a handover to a lady from New Zealand. Chris her name is. She’s a talker this one so we’ve been chatting. We just heard a story about a lady from Khazakstan who dripped her newborn in Dolce and Gabbana, got it in gold shoes (for a one-year-old) and forced the nurse to say nice things about her baby because her friends were present and she was recording… A nothing story. Much of the exchange has been much about nothing really. But she’s nice. And that’s more than enough.

Ah! I also spoke to your grandmother to reassure her. Liza’s since had an epidural, a canola pumping salts into her veins. The latter was begging for a joke so I made one about going to the sea. Laughter and applause all round. Thank you, thank you.

Your mother slept some and is now in a seated bed position. PatPat should be making an appearance shortly. And speaking of ~~the devil~~ angels…

I like this guy a lot. His chilled personality is perfect for us. We need someone calm but knowledgeable. After asking about us, I asked him how he was doing. We talked about his career, delivering his first baby in 1990 and about ten a week since… He’s great.

It’s now 10 am on the dot. I’ve been writing in between things, either helping your mother, holding her hand or assisting the medical staff with various procedures. Liza’s asleep and “contracting beautifully”. You’ll need all her energy later so best if she rests now.

I also messaged Rozalia and replied to Kim who was worried (as she hasn’t seen our car in a while). She wanted to know if we needed anything. By the way, we have the best neighbours on earth – Kim, Tom and their little girl Lennon, Vanessa and her dog, and Georgia and Jamie. We’re super lucky in that sense and look after each other.

Before all this

Posted on August 4, 2022August 4, 2022 by Kilian Ateh

– 10:20 am

Your mother’s snoozing. I’m going to take a walk in a second and come back to work on FUSi. If I tried sleeping now I’ll miss your birth so I’m going to do something creative instead.

Before I do though, I’ve been meaning to tell you more about who your mother is. You’ll find out soon enough how super and selfless she is. This woman did everything to give you the best health possible. It still blows my mind she was able to do a full-on Bruno session a few days ago today. That’s who your mother is. And it shows. You’ve been ultra active throughout, kicking all the way, even right now as I’m typing.

Stranger things

Posted on August 4, 2022September 1, 2022 by Kilian Ateh

– 11:20 am

I got up from the bench opposite Great Portland Street tube station. A few metres in, I found a pound on the floor. The shiny coin went into my pocket as I looked around for more manna from heaven. I didn’t find any so I continued my aimless walk down random streets, limping and floating about. My watch said eleven so I decided to make my way back in case PatPat showed up for a (dilation) exam.

I looked across and stopped in my tracks, confused and shellshocked at who I was staring at. I mean we both were. We looked at each other, speechless, for about a year. Jaws on the floor and everything, wondering the odds of such an encounter. It was Kim, our neighbour who texted me earlier. We exchanged a massive hug. I lifted her off the ground in the process as she cautioned repeatedly, “be careful, your leg!” But fuck my leg. This is perplexing.

We took a selfie for lols and started walking back (in the same fucking direction).

Turns out her office is literally a few minutes from the hospital. I was just getting some air I said. She asked about your mother who was (and is) doing fine. She’s now 7 cm dilated so maybe fully dilated around 3. The coincidence is mind-bending and baffling.