Alex Kidman

(OK, I promise I will never again quote Amy Grant lyrics in public. But you’ve got to let me, just this once.)

Let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time, there was a little girl. Isn’t she cuuuute?

Ahem. Anyway, she grew up. Still cute, though.

Then, when she got a bit older, she went from cute to seriously, seriously gorgeous. The observant amongst you might notice that she likes cats. The more observant amongst you might also notice that she’s in a wedding dress.

This is part two of our story.

In which she met someone who, at one time, was a seriously scruffy teenager.

After he was a scruffy teenager, he spent some time as a surly teenager, just for balance.

He must have cleaned his act up at some point, because the stunning beauty in part one went and married him. And they had two kids, and all the fun and games that go with that.

Until this morning. Then, suddenly, this happened:

Yup, we finally went and had our third baby.

The day started, as it always seems to when Di’s pregnant, with her waking me up between the hours of 3am and 4am — she did exactly the same thing with Zoe and James, although in James’ case it was a midwife calling me, as Di had been in hospital for a week by then. Anyway, at 3:45am, she woke me up because her waters had broken. Thankfully, she’d had something of a feeling that something was up, so she’d called her mum to come and spend the night “just in case“. Wise woman, my wife (and her mother, too).

This is what Di looks like at 4am, in case you were wondering.

So it was off to hospital and off to the delivery room. They check, and yes, the waters have broken, but we’re not very dilated, and the contractions are coming and going. Sigh — we’ve been here before, about a dozen times this pregnancy. After an a hour or so of waiting for things to kick off, they transferred us to a ward room to wait for a consulting doctor, who eventually saw us at 9am. Not much is happening contraction-wise, and as such, we can either stay or go home. Walking or other light physical activity may help to bring on contractions, and given Di’s past history, we decide to stay and do some laps around the maternity ward after Di has breakfast. We do one set at 10am, and not much happens. So far, it looks like we might be in for the very long haul, and it’s not as though this pregnancy hasn’t had its share of long haul stress as it was!

The 11am lap of the ward, however, brings about some small contractions… and then some big contractions, at around 11:30am. The powers that be decide to transfer Di back to the delivery suite, “just in case“. It’s a pretty good job they did, as exactly 34 minutes later, after a brief struggle with a stuck arm and an extremely long placental cord that was twice-wrapped around his neck, our third child was born.

Hello world. Baby’s first minutes. I have earlier photos, but they’re a touch on the blood-soaked side.

For those interested in vital statistics, it’s a male child, weighing in at 3.39kg and measuring 51cm from top to toe. That’s almost exactly 1kg heavier than either of his siblings were at birth.

It’s cold out here — can I go back in?

Feed me!

I’d like to deny I’m a touch obsessed. But then there aren’t any photos from today where I’m not looking straight down at bub, so it’s a bit of a tough case…

Mum is doing quite well, and is amazed at this concept of a baby she gets to hold for hours and hours after it’s born.

I don’t like being weighed! Mainly the cold, nakedy bit, but also the indignity of it all.

I need a nap. It’s been a tough day.

Baby meets its older siblings. Zoe in particular is smitten.

See, I said she was smitten.

James, on the other hand, is a touch on the confused side. But Zoe got a cuddle, so he wanted one too.

Grandma Pam gets her first cuddle. Better get the crowbar ready to get our baby back.

Somehow, Grandpa Brian manages to sneak in a cuddle when Pam’s not looking.

Speaking of one more hug…

Phew. That was a big day. So what’s next?

There is, of course, one more important detail — new baby’s name. Well, some things are worth waiting for, so you’ll just have to wait a little bit longer — we haven’t decided yet.

Sure, I’ve been working until 2am most nights this week. And both the kids have bad head colds, so they’ve been waking up around 2am most nights this week. And, as always, there’s about fifty billion things to do, from repainting rooms to crack repair to installing smoke alarms and plenty more besides. Did I mention that I’ve got the same bug as the kids?

But none of that matters.

None of it at all.

Why?

Simply because today marks a day I never thought I’d see — Di is 37 weeks pregnant today. That means that (barring things that’d floor so-called “normal” pregnancies anyway), we’ll be getting a take-home baby sometime in the next three weeks. We’ve never had one of those before — I wonder what it’s like?

Just for the sake of it…

• Saw Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest today. Coincidentally, I finally picked up my own copy of Sid Meier’s Pirates just beforehand. Both the game (which I already had a long borrowed copy of, thanks to the magnificence of the one and only “Big” Al) and movie were sublime for what they are — frothy action romps. Who doesn’t enjoy a good romp every now and again?
• The sharp counterpoint to all this piratical merriment lay earlier in the day, when I was checking my trusty old Amiga 500, which was uncovered under a pile of boxes the other day. Sadly, I’m going to have to replace the word “trusty” with the word “deceased”, as all it could manage was a pitiful whining sound — and that, rather alarmingly, from the power supply. Oh, well, there go all those terrible undergraduate history essays that I slaved so hard on from ’93-’95. I can’t say I’ll miss them. Oh no… It’s just occured to me… no more SMURF HUNT!
• Some of my writing that has re-emerged is a guide to Firefox Extensions that I co-wrote for CNET.com.au some months back; it’s been refreshed and revamped (although, to be fair, the new stuff in there isn’t mine).
• The demands of work, children and a heavily pregnant wife are eating away at my sleep time. Exhibit One demonstrates this nicely, I think: This is me trying to get some writing work done, about five minutes ago. Time to go get the eyelid-propping matchsticks, methinks.

Just for those who might think that all this waiting… and waiting, and waiting — it seems almost inevitable that we’ll be going to term at this rate, although as soon as I say that… maybe I should shut up now — where was I? Oh yes. Ahem. I’ll start again.

I hit something of a record at CNET.com.au today. It’s the first time (since becoming a freelancer) that I’ve had five reviews go up on the same day. Helps a little that they’re all around a central concept and for that matter manufacturer, but you get that. Used to happen quite frequently when I was fulltime there, what with reviews, newsletters, editorials, DIY guides and games reviews, but my pace has been somewhat more sedate in recent times.

Freshtel 2070 Internet Telephone: “Freshtel’s 2070 Internet Telephone is a basic but entirely usable VoIP telephone with good audio quality and simple installation…”

Freshtel Firefly: “Firefly seems unlikely to usurp Skype as the web surfer’s voice client of choice, but it’s a decent alternative with reasonable but not spectacular calling rates…”

Freshtel 1040 Internet Telephone Headset: “The 1040 Internet Telephone Headset isn’t the world’s greatest VoIP headset, but it’s reasonably priced, nice and light and works well enough for most PC audio applications…”

Freshtel 3010 ATA: “Freshtel’s 3010 ATA almost pulls off being an attractive ATA, but we’ll settle for it being a stable and easy to use VoIP phone adaptor…”

Freshtel 4030 Stick Phone: “Travellers with VoIP fixations will love Freshtel’s excellent and easily transportable USB VoIP adaptor…”