Little Kids, Big City: Tales from a Real House in New York City (With Lessons on Life and Love for Your Own Concrete Jungle) Read Online Free Page A
Author: Alex McCord, Simon van Kempen
contractions. Twenty-seven hours from the first twinge, François made his entrance.
Baby François with Alexis (Alex’s mom)
Although he arrived 12 days late by the calendar, the midwife and nurse agreed that upon examination of the vernix, he wasn’t late at all. Apparently that white stuff covering the baby at birth starts to look less like body lotion and more like cottage cheese the later a pregnancy goes, and his was very, very smooth. Who knew? Not me. Evidently the first date was right, but hindsight was 20/20—at least the date snafu didn’t interfere with the ability to go natural. We learned from François’ birth not to go to the hospital too early because we didn’t want to wait around, which almost caused a commotion with Johan’s birth.
One of the best things about natural childbirth was the rush of adrenaline afterwards. Although the final stages of labor were very, very painful, I never used our code word (tin can) for “game over, give me drugs.” I definitely recommend using a code word, because it was kind of fun to scream, “I want drugs, give me drugs” through a contraction and have the midwife, nurse and Simon all know I wasn’t serious. Once he was finally out of my body, I experienced a tsunami of endorphins that was almost orgasmic, and I understand completely the stories other women have written about ecstatic birth. Simon was sitting behind me at the point of birth, and later when we untangled ourselves he discovered he’d actually ejaculated though hadn’t felt any of the normal lead-up to that. It may seem distasteful to some, and definitely neither of us was thinking of sex at the time, but with the rush of emotion and my lower nerve endings going crazy, it’s not too far a stretch to say that it’s a profound experience. Once François was out and we’d bonded, I passed him to the nurse who did the weighing and the testing and such, while I bounded around the room and through a shower like I’d just won a race, and Simon ordered pizza so that we didn’t have to experience the joys of hospital cuisine.
Simon
After the pizza, we were allowed to stay in the birthing room for another couple of hours, but eventually we had to move to a regular hospital ward (ugh!) where at least I was able to stay and spend the night with Alex and François, albeit by sleeping in a chair as opposed to sharing Alex’s bed. The vast difference from the relative calm of the birthing suite (despite the violent animal shrieks from Alex during labor) and the ward was the hospital nurse who entered and wanted to take François to be circumcised. No way, we said, and yet despite our refusal we would be asked again and again before we escaped from the hospital at 10 the following morning.
Although my father was Dutch and born in a country where practically no babies are circumcised, I happened to be born in Australia in 1964 when the circumcision rate was 95 percent. Once we’d discovered that our first child was a boy, I remember asking Alex her views on this practice and stating my own before I gave her a chance to answer. I was relieved that she was also anti-circumcision and another potentially contentious issue between us was as usual a nonevent.
Alex
When I became pregnant with François, we immediately started planning for a second child and decided to try for baby number two ASAP after his birth. It took a bit longer than we expected for me to become pregnant again, but on Simon’s birthday in 2005 we were thrilled to see a double line once again. After a quick calculation, we realized that the age difference would be almost exactly two years. We called the midwife who attended François’ birth, and were happy to hear that she’d started her own private practice in Brooklyn. Since we’d learned François’ gender before the birth we couldn’t contain our curiosity, and decided to go ahead and find out whether we’d be buying a whole new wardrobe, dressing our
Baby François with Alexis (Alex’s mom)
Although he arrived 12 days late by the calendar, the midwife and nurse agreed that upon examination of the vernix, he wasn’t late at all. Apparently that white stuff covering the baby at birth starts to look less like body lotion and more like cottage cheese the later a pregnancy goes, and his was very, very smooth. Who knew? Not me. Evidently the first date was right, but hindsight was 20/20—at least the date snafu didn’t interfere with the ability to go natural. We learned from François’ birth not to go to the hospital too early because we didn’t want to wait around, which almost caused a commotion with Johan’s birth.
One of the best things about natural childbirth was the rush of adrenaline afterwards. Although the final stages of labor were very, very painful, I never used our code word (tin can) for “game over, give me drugs.” I definitely recommend using a code word, because it was kind of fun to scream, “I want drugs, give me drugs” through a contraction and have the midwife, nurse and Simon all know I wasn’t serious. Once he was finally out of my body, I experienced a tsunami of endorphins that was almost orgasmic, and I understand completely the stories other women have written about ecstatic birth. Simon was sitting behind me at the point of birth, and later when we untangled ourselves he discovered he’d actually ejaculated though hadn’t felt any of the normal lead-up to that. It may seem distasteful to some, and definitely neither of us was thinking of sex at the time, but with the rush of emotion and my lower nerve endings going crazy, it’s not too far a stretch to say that it’s a profound experience. Once François was out and we’d bonded, I passed him to the nurse who did the weighing and the testing and such, while I bounded around the room and through a shower like I’d just won a race, and Simon ordered pizza so that we didn’t have to experience the joys of hospital cuisine.
Simon
After the pizza, we were allowed to stay in the birthing room for another couple of hours, but eventually we had to move to a regular hospital ward (ugh!) where at least I was able to stay and spend the night with Alex and François, albeit by sleeping in a chair as opposed to sharing Alex’s bed. The vast difference from the relative calm of the birthing suite (despite the violent animal shrieks from Alex during labor) and the ward was the hospital nurse who entered and wanted to take François to be circumcised. No way, we said, and yet despite our refusal we would be asked again and again before we escaped from the hospital at 10 the following morning.
Although my father was Dutch and born in a country where practically no babies are circumcised, I happened to be born in Australia in 1964 when the circumcision rate was 95 percent. Once we’d discovered that our first child was a boy, I remember asking Alex her views on this practice and stating my own before I gave her a chance to answer. I was relieved that she was also anti-circumcision and another potentially contentious issue between us was as usual a nonevent.
Alex
When I became pregnant with François, we immediately started planning for a second child and decided to try for baby number two ASAP after his birth. It took a bit longer than we expected for me to become pregnant again, but on Simon’s birthday in 2005 we were thrilled to see a double line once again. After a quick calculation, we realized that the age difference would be almost exactly two years. We called the midwife who attended François’ birth, and were happy to hear that she’d started her own private practice in Brooklyn. Since we’d learned François’ gender before the birth we couldn’t contain our curiosity, and decided to go ahead and find out whether we’d be buying a whole new wardrobe, dressing our
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