She’s always thought that big babies are much cuter than 7lb weaklings, but seeing our friends’ baby this week – who was 9lb 3oz when she was born – has made up her mind.
I think she should be careful what she wishes for!
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She’s always thought that big babies are much cuter than 7lb weaklings, but seeing our friends’ baby this week – who was 9lb 3oz when she was born – has made up her mind.
I think she should be careful what she wishes for!
It's been handy having our friends five months ahead of us on the baby bus, as it's given us a better idea of what to expect. But seeing their two day-old daughter sleeping in the hospital’s nursery made me realise just how unprepared I still am for what's to come. It made me realise that, despite the bump and the time I'm spending writing this blog, I'm still thinking about this whole pregnancy thing in a pretty theoretical way. Finding myself face-to-face with a newborn reminded me of the reality.
"Holy crap," I thought. "Five months from now I'll be standing here looking down at my own child."
I was amazed by the softness of the baby’s skin, and how terrifyingly fragile she looked (though I was assured that she's surprisingly robust). Thinking of our friends as her parents required me to perform a mental re-adjustment.
I was also surprised to learn that the nurses will take your camera and snap away during the birth if, like me, you’re someone who prefers to stay away from the “business end” of proceedings. I’m not sure I'd want pictures like that in the family album, though.
It must be a result of all the gambling we were doing in Vegas the other week. Mandy has suggested I should start a sweepstake on what’s going to happen to the small tattoo of a sun that she has on her stomach over the course of her pregnancy.
As of today, when Mandy is standing with her arms by her sides, the sun measures 3.8cm at its widest point. You have to guess the widest it will get as her belly grows.
My money is on 4.5cm.
Mandy would like to point out that the picture above was taken a couple of weeks ago, when she was 15 weeks pregnant. She didn't look like this in January!
I’m going to try to stick with the latter.
A couple of months later, a day or two before Mandy and I were planning to announce our news, I was IMing an old friend from college. As I was considering whether to tell him about Mandy's pregnancy, he told me that another friend from our college days had recently discovered he was going to be a dad. By chance, our friend's wife was due just a couple of weeks after Mandy, at the beginning of October.
Then my friend told me that he was going to be a dad too, also at the beginning of October.
I almost choked. "Well, I guess I'd better tell you my news then," I said. That two of my college friends would become dads almost simultaneously was coincidence enough, but for all three of our wives to be due within weeks of each other seemed downright freaky.
Then this week I emailed another old friend from my school days to tell her that we were expecting. Congratulations, she said, adding that she was currently on maternity leave following the birth of her son in February. I hadn't even known she was pregnant. But by this point, the news didn't come as much of a surprise.
Babies, it seems, are like buses. None for years, then five come along at once.