Last night was the second of our parenting classes, Newborn Connections. The class is in the basement of a hospital in San Francisco. It’s mainly for parents who plan to deliver in the hospital, but we chose to go to a class in San Francisco hoping that we wouldn’t be the only gay parents. We were.
The class was good. Maybe not $95 good, but I’m glad that we chose to take it. When we arrived and I saw the infant-sized dolls on the tables I thought, “Oh Lord… This might suck.” But the props turned out to be a good addition to the class. I discovered I’m pretty good at holding a baby (although I don’t recommend the American Academy of Pediatrics-approved “crotch hold” which sounds like an illegal wrestling move and not something you’d want to use to carry around your baby), but I am terrible at diapering. I’m not sure how it happened, but somehow I got her shirt tucked deep into the diaper. Like, right in harm’s way, so to speak. Then, while attempting to pull the shirt out of the diaper it came loose and slid down her legs, exposing her little butt to the elements.
I will practice more at home. We have a small watermelon that’s approximately the right size. Of course, the melon isn’t wearing a shirt…
The class opened with a discussion of the first moments after birth. Like most articles, books and websites I’ve read recently, this discussion was very mom-focused. For the first hour after birth, the child is supposed to lie on the mother’s bare breasts. Skin to skin contact is supposed to increase the production of helpful hormones and begin the bonding process with the baby.
I’m not sure how this is going to work in our situation. B. is not supposed to bond with the baby, for obvious reasons. Am I going to rip off my shirt and lie down with my daughter in an empty hospital bed? I don’t want her to be deprived of those helpful hormones. But it also might be a little odd if I’m barreling through the hospital, half-naked, carrying a newborn, and looking for a spare bed.
I’m sure there will be plenty of time for bonding, but the emphasis was on that first hour. It’s probably just one of those things that we are going to have to realize we can’t provide for our child. And one of those things that in the scheme of things is less important than what we can provide.
April 21, 2013
A lot has been happening in our lives, but not so much with the baby, which is why I haven’t posted in two months. I guess this part of the pregnancy is uneventful if everything is going well. I shouldn’t say it’s uneventful since the baby isn’t growing inside of me. I’m sure B. would have a very different description of the last two months.
We still Skype with her every Sunday. And although the camera isn’t pointed at her belly, she still doesn’t look that pregnant. I’m comparing her to the server at the Mexican restaurant where we ate last night. She looked like her water was going to break all over my chips and salsa. But she said she still has a month to go. We have two more months to go, but B. is considerably smaller than I thought she would be by now. She has a noticeable bump, but her face doesn’t look much different.
Apparently the baby has been very active. We’ve been calling her “Philipa” because we are not sharing the name we have actually chosen until she is born. We’ve found that people are judgmental about names when the names are disassociated from the person they describe. When people put a face with a name they are more kind. I’m not sure if this is because the name is suddenly synonymous with an adorable baby or if because at that point the name is on the birth certificate and it’s a done deal.
In any case, I’m concerned that Philipa is going to stick around as a nickname. And let’s be honest; that is an ugly name. I don’t care how cute she is, she’s not going to transform a name like Philipa into a thing of grace. But our family has started calling her that, with the exception of my mother-in-law who calls her “my princess” (we’ll get to that in another post…).
In other news, we both live in California now – which is great because neither one of us was doing well with the long distance thing. We have sold our house in Massachusetts and I have been hard at work in my new job for a little more than three months now. We’ve renovated and decorated our new house. We’re settling in to our new life. Just in time for it all to be transformed again.
We still Skype with her every Sunday. And although the camera isn’t pointed at her belly, she still doesn’t look that pregnant. I’m comparing her to the server at the Mexican restaurant where we ate last night. She looked like her water was going to break all over my chips and salsa. But she said she still has a month to go. We have two more months to go, but B. is considerably smaller than I thought she would be by now. She has a noticeable bump, but her face doesn’t look much different.
Apparently the baby has been very active. We’ve been calling her “Philipa” because we are not sharing the name we have actually chosen until she is born. We’ve found that people are judgmental about names when the names are disassociated from the person they describe. When people put a face with a name they are more kind. I’m not sure if this is because the name is suddenly synonymous with an adorable baby or if because at that point the name is on the birth certificate and it’s a done deal.
In any case, I’m concerned that Philipa is going to stick around as a nickname. And let’s be honest; that is an ugly name. I don’t care how cute she is, she’s not going to transform a name like Philipa into a thing of grace. But our family has started calling her that, with the exception of my mother-in-law who calls her “my princess” (we’ll get to that in another post…).
In other news, we both live in California now – which is great because neither one of us was doing well with the long distance thing. We have sold our house in Massachusetts and I have been hard at work in my new job for a little more than three months now. We’ve renovated and decorated our new house. We’re settling in to our new life. Just in time for it all to be transformed again.
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