last post amended

You would think people might think a parent might feel more vulnerable to random strangers when they are holding a tiny baby who looks little more than a day old. Instead a baby becomes an open invitaton for anyone to talk to you about the most intimate of personal details. Asking if it was a natural birth etc, what do they want to hear ? What do they get out of hearing that information ? I'm almost creeped out enough by complete strangers who smile at us. What is it about other peoples babies, that makes people smile?

Another thing is, if you are walking around with a baby and you're a guy and you're walking with a male friend, people just assume you're gay dads, not that i'm offended by that but I am by the looks some people give you. They've created an idea themselves that they can't handle or that makes them uncomfortable, even though it is in no way represented by the reality of what they're actually seeing. Dick's.

not THE abacus?!

So today we returned to the hospital for a hearing check. Apparently hearing problems can be common with trisomy 21. So we go with the doctor and this photographer and this other lady and apparently they're doing a photo shoot to promote hearing checks and the need a photo with a baby having it done. And so Danielle said how Abacus is Trisomy 21, and the lady asks, what's her name?

Abacus.

Abacus? I know Abacus I read her blog!

Apparently she works with a girl I used to go to design school with. And so she was wrapped to finally meet her. She's so famous now. So they took a bunch of photos of Abacus with her wires all over her head with us watching lovingly over her - they said it was rare to get both mother and father so that should hopefully help her chances of scoring the modeling deal. hehe. Unfortunately she was hiding her face through the shoot, but fortunately the back of her head is cute too.

After they'd taken a million photos of the staged hearing test, we went through for the real one, where they put something in her ear that was attached to the computer- and i did mean to research this before i wrote the blog but i didn't have time - so they put this thing in her ear and somehow measure her hearing ability. Unfortunately the test was inconclusive, so we have to come back in a week, they say 15-20% of the tests are inconclusive and only1% of them might actually have impaired hearing, so we'll see.

The doctor was really nice and really good with kids. He made funny noises to both test her hearing and calm her down, Danielle wondered if that was part of their training. And the guys from learning media doing the brochure were really nice too, and I'm sorry I didn't get your names if you're reading this.

And then once more after our free hospital care we paid for our parking in the infamous carpark. But next time we have a free permit. Yay!

40 weeks

The bonus round is over we were told today, as Abacus celebrated her full term day, alas she is no longer fetus, they grow up so fast don't they. She spent a day out and about having breakfast with friends and going to the library and to the office, then, in honour of the end of her third trimester we wanted to have her weighed.

So we drove out to Plunket and they were only too happy to weigh her. Except Abacus had exploded in her pants so badly we had to borrow a bunch clothes to get her home in after emptying almost a whole tube of baby wipes.

So her official full term weight is 2.44Kg, a little over 5 pounds.

So now she's officially a baby. And exhausted after her big day of walking and driving around the city.

and as for abacus

ha. that last post had nothing to do with abacus, oh except that she was better known to the person who helped me than i was. She's miss popularity.

She had a bit of a crazy night on saturday and kept us awake with her crying, which seemed to be related to nothing but wanting to be cuddled - can fetuses be clingy ? last night she made up for it by giving us 5 straight hours sleep. She seems quite contented a lot of the time, just looking around and making happy sounds. She's getting so baby sized, I think i'm already missing her smallness, and she's only just made it to small newborn size.

It's strange she's still supposed to be a fetus but we know her so well already and she seems to have so much personality, what do they do in their those last 2 months ?

stop the rollercoaster! - oh it's stopped

whoa. how much more intense can it get ? this morning i went to check my exam time online, for my exam tomorrow, and found it was already underway - i'd got the day wrong!!! so following danielles advice I phoned Celia, the woman who had helped with our enquiries about agrotats a few weeks ago, and who was also in charge of late exams and stuff AND who was a big fan of abacus. She said come in now and do it.
And so mentally unprepared i went in and did it, and maybe it helped that i hadn't had the last few hours to stress about it, or maybe the peripheral stress overrode my exam nerves, but i felt somewhat calm about the exam - just a little bewildered at how crazy everything has been lately.

incidentally when we did go to see about having a comment put on our grades that our mark was impaired due to our situation - they said we shouldn't and it was actually seen as a weak point to have a comment on your academic record - even though they offer it - why would they? they said it's best just to explain the grades when it comes time to apply for masters. it's a harsh cold academic world.

suddenly a million burdens seem lifted at once. what do i do now ? what do people do again ?

good news !

So they quashed all our parking fines - the whole shebang - $135! And not only that but the homecare team came around yesterday with some hand me downs from some other baby and a whole unopened pack of nappies - hooked up!

Abacus was a bit not herself last night after all the shots and wanted a lot of hugs and milk and then she slept in this morning - but she was supposed to wake me up for work! She's had a bit of a blocked nose recently but this morning when she woke up her nose had cleared a lot, maybe that's why she slept longer.

Sometimes it s a bit wierd to have a baby. Like I go into the room to get something and then see her sleeping in her cot and I'm like - oh yeah, we have a baby now. And I don't really feel like a dad, I don't feel I have changed at all, I'm just the same but now there's a new person in my life who I have to look after and I feel fortunate to be her guardian - but I don't feel like I'm her "father", she's just this cool little person with her own business going on.

shots

Abacus had her 6 week shots this week, even though she's still a foetus. It was her first visit to her GP and he was a really nice Dr. At first we were not going to mention that she was trisomy 21 because we didn't want him to make his opinions judged on his preconceived ideas of her condition, but we couldn't hold out long enough and had to tell him when he checked her ears - as Down Syndrome babies ear canals are usually narrower than normal. He did a few checks but most had been done many times before in neonates, as he pointed out, but of the checks he did she was sweet.

Then down to wait for the nurse to shoot her up. I was really nervous, we both were. She screamed pretty badly when the needle went in - but only for a couple of seconds, then she was happily sucking on her pacifier. Then the next leg was the same. We gave her a feed afterwards, which she downed really fast - and the nurse was hella impressed. Then she had to have the sticking plasters taken off, that happened all the time in neonates and she HATES it! But she only ever cries for a second or so and then is calm again.

And it was all free - even our prescription. Yay public health - even if the clinic looks a bit crap and there's patients across the spectrum from new born to elderly, from professional to homeless looking - ah, public health, like a public toilet but with medicine.