With all the ongoing stuff regarding David at the moment I've been sadly neglecting something.

I promised myself months ago that since Amy was pregnant this would probably be the only time I would spend significant time with a pregnant person from the early stages up to the birth. I wanted to pay attention to the process and experience (which I have) and blog about it (which I haven't).

My mum used to be a midwife, you see. Throughout my life I've been exposed to the various concepts of conception, pregnancy and birth. Mum did a lot of home-based training and refresher courses and I used to sit with her and watch the videos and read the books and listen to her talk about it. I often say that I knew what a cervix was before I could read.

So now I'm living with a pregnant person and getting to find out first hand what all those words and concepts really mean! Is it interesting? You bet it is! Is it fun? Meh, not so much.

It's been interesting to see an example of how morning sickness can seem to take over the first trimester. Amy was one of the unfortunate ones who was hit hard with the sickness and kept hold of it until after week 12 (when it's meant to calm down). 

Amy's suffered. It's been one loooong series of complaints. My feet hurt, my head hurts, he keeps kicking me in the bladder, IT'S WEIRD, my back hurts, my boobs hurt, I'M LEAKING, my ankles hurt, I feel sick, WHY DO ALL THE CATS LIKE ME.

:-)

Don't get me wrong, the above might look like me taking the mick, but I'm not. The human processes of procreation amaze me, and it surprises me at this stage just how much suffering Amy has gone through. Mainly, like most men, it seems like a lot of effort and pain and strife and destruction of body parts. Behind all the outward negativity, though, there's always that look of wonder on her face when she looks down at the ever increasing bulge and thinks about who's in there, or when he starts rubbing his hands or feet against the walls of his "egg". The sensations coming from in there must be amazing. There's all this pain and weirdness, then the agony of childbirth. I can't get my head around the fact that women want to have more than one. When you've spent nine months being sick and with every bit of you bent out of shape and hurting then at the end of it you do something which I can only compare to pushing a melon out of one's winkie. Invariably tearing something at the same time, or having to get it cut open a bit to make enough room. Then, an undisclosed amount of time later, they want to do it all again. Foolishness! That's probably all down to that need to continue the bloodline that I spoke about in the last blog. Whatever it is, it's a strange and beautiful thing.

At this point, something like 9 weeks to go, there's not a lot of time left to get ready. Amy's mind and body are going through the final adjustments to prepare for the "motherhood" part of, well, motherhood. The factory stage is nearly over and soon there will be a tiny pink lifeform in her arms kicking her in the bladder from the outside. In all the conversations about it, Amy's face is always the same: 2 parts "fuuuuuuuck" and 4 parts "woohoo!".

It's been interesting to watch the changes to Amy over the last 7 months. She's started now to transition towards the "glowy" pregnant person rather than the pain-ridden, sickly looking baby factory. I've had a few tries to see if I can feel him moving, but every time I come near him he stops moving. Honestly, I think he can sense evil.  I just have this image of him in my head hiding behind the placenta until I go away.

Names have all been sorted out. Yes, I said names. Amy and Jason have decided to call him Alfie. Amy quickly nixed Jason's first option: "The Project". I suggested "Harry", and there was a look of contemplation until I said it was short for "Harbinger" at which point it was unfairly dismissed from the running. However, as far as I'm concerned, the lad's Sunday name will be Harbinger T. Project Dunsire-Vial. Alfie for short.

"Don't you take ANYTHING seriously, David?"

Nope. Well, that's not true. Remember that I use humour as a defence mechanism. I do take some things seriously. For example, I'm going to be a grandad soon. A GRANDAD. I'm going to be "Jim" to some other young person, the same way that my grandad was. I have a need to start taking up gardening. I've been pulling out grey hairs in the hope that I go grey quicker so that when Alfie/Harry achieves sentience he'll grow up remembering grandad always having grey hair. Like I did.

I think I'm the first of my "generation" of friends and family to become a grandad. What sort of grandad am I going to be? What sort of dad hae I been? Ask Derri and you'll get a different answer to Amy and obviously a different answer to David. Alfie will have more grandads than most, given that Amy has two stepdads to figure into the mix (both called Dave, just to make things simple).

I hope that I can be the sort of grandad that my Grandad Jim was.