| my baby
blog 1.0 |
 14th
December 2004I am writing these lines my love while you’re asleep in my arms. So many feelings are going through me right now that I find it really hard to put down in words what is going on inside me. It’s a mixture of pride mingled with intense happiness. Hey if you get chance to listen to the Sinead O’Connor song, it translates my feelings quite well. Several times in fact I’ve tried to calm you by letting you listen to this music but it would seem that you’re not yet senisitive to nice tunes. I have listened to this song for years wondering when I would have the joy of doing it with a child in my arms … |
||
|
19th November 2004 From now on I am watching you asleep with your closed fist in your little perspex bed and I am rapturing in trying to imagine what you’ll be like in 10, 20 or 30 years – an astronaut on the way to Mars or a PSG supporter, a brilliant climber or a zapping addict, a humanitarian benefactor or a bloody monster. All of this depends, amongst other things on how your mother and I behave. This new responsability fills me with as much worry as with fantastic strength hitherto unsuspected. |
||
|
16th November 2004 It all happened so fast : our walk at the seaside on Sunday afternoon. Your mother was having contractions about every half an hour. Your grandmother came to the house completely by chance as the contractions got closer and increased in intensity. At 22 hours, the struggle began, the pain was gettin too much, all of us, although we couldn’t  quite believe it get off for the clinic when the midwife confirms that the birth is imminent. The rest is fixed in my memory as the most intense moments in the whole of my life. My emotions were such that at the very moment of delilvery, feeling faint I had to go out of the delivery room. Just a few moments later, I finally discovered you my darling, my love, my child crying from the depth of your fresh new lungs. |
||
|
14th November 2004, 23h32 That’s it son, we now know the date of your birthday. You’ll have to forgive me for not writing more but I feel ill at ease hearing and seeing your mother writhing in pain with each contraction... |
||
|
7th November 2004 A few months ago we were trembling with fear at the idea of a premature birth now we can’t wait for you arrival. Today your mother has the last « monitoring » session before delivery and it’s to the machine-amplified sound of your heartbeat that I write these lines...  |
||
|
20th October 2004  Your mummy and I have just been to the last birthing lesson which for me was in fact the first ! They’ve briefed us on what to do from the first contraction to when we leave the maternity unit. Hey, it’s funny I think it’s the first time that this « we » includes you. This morning we hung around Decathlon’s where we checked out the trailer which we’ll take you out in for your first bike ride.It’s crazy how much we love you already ! |
||
|
9th October 2004 My dear love, you’ve seen the date, these lines will probably be the last before your arrival in our airien world. It will be time for us then to move on from dream to reality. We’ve idealized you for so many months. First of all not really believing it, then feeling you move, hiccup and grow day by day, we are forced to admit that our happiness is real : you are there ! Your mother is as beautiful as an over ripe fruit and we are getting on fine together. First of all I couldn’t wait for you to be born and then thinking carefully about it, isn’t it gorgeous sharing everything with you as now ? You’ll never be as safe as now, never as beautiful as we imagine you to be. |
||
|
21st August 2004  It’s
crazy how time goes quickly my love. It’s now more than a
month
since I found you, through writing that is, because every day with your
mother we are in ecstasy when we feel your kicks inside her tummy.
Whenever this happens I’ve found a new expression on your
mother’s face, an expression of love that I didn’t
know. I
am really proud at having captured it on this photo. At the
same
time I want everything to move even faster I am so impatient to hold
you against me and at the same time I’m afraid that something
awful might happen before the end « We’re
too happy
I’m afraid it won’t last your mother confided in me
at the
Palavas fair yesterday and as well although we don’t admit
it, we
feel reassured by the fact that in the present state of development you
could survive in case of premature delivery. However, I
assure
you , don’t be too hasty in joining us because you
‘d be a
long way from finding such bliss. Like the daddy in Benigni’s
film, « La vie est belle », I
would like to hide
the ugliness of this world from you , love but I know in advance that
this would be impossible. ...On the other hand, you can count on me to
show you the voluptuousness of dawn pierced with the sun’s
first
rays after a night in the mountains spent dreaming of the splendours of
the Milky Way. |
||
|
4th July 2004  Everything is moving so fast. Yesterday we were still worried about your well-being. Today as all the results are clear, we finally gave way to the blessed joy of future projects. And I finally realise that the father’s role is not a restful one …. The only cloud on the horizon is that your mother sees to have got the « nesting » syndrome. Of course, the room where your cot will go has to be redecorated, the floor of the living room needs redoing as it’s dirty, we need a bathroom where the toilet is and the toilet where the bathroom is, we need a ramp on the stairs in case you decide to go down them before we’ve had time to do it. And no matter how hard I use laziness as an excuse to go against her, nothing seems to work, I can’t fight against hormones. |
||
|
14th June 2004 Your mother and I are very worried. Tomorrow we’re going to get the results of the amniocentesis she had 2 weeks ago. |
||
|
5th June 2004 Recently your mother and I have decided to communicate with you. She spreads mysterious oils on he tummy and sometimes lets me stick my ear on it hoping to hear a noise ; a sign, some movement from you. O.k. to be honest, the  conversation
is not that rich. It seems more like a monologue, but we
are so worried that our imagination takes care of the rest and
that’s quite enough for us. At the moment. Thinking of you
fills
me with happiness. The word happiness is not used here by
chance :
it’s not a question of contentment, of joy like after going
up a
beautiful mountain, but of true happiness ! However, this
happiness is rarely free from worry about your development until the
day you’re born, as much as concern for the violence of the
world
into to which we are delivering you. |
||
|
3rd June 2004 Phew ! … You can’t imagine how relieved we feel. Surprisingly enough, every time we see a scan, we get the impression of meeting you. And when we leave the doctor’s surgery, it seems a bit as if you stay there until our next appointment. This morning however, it’s a bit more serious than usual : we have an appointment for an amniocentesis. It’s very quick and almost painless, but you can’t imagine how worried we are about the follow up. You see little man – it’s only a short time since we found out you were a little man and not a little girl – I don’t know where we’ll be when you read these lines, maybe things will be different, maybe we won’t even be together to talk about them, maybe modesty will paralyse us.. In any case you must know... |
||
|
22nd May 2004  I might as well tell you – I feel let down. For the last few weeks your mother and I have been delving into the popular book with the pink and blue cover which any self respecting couple should read one day. « Expecting my child now ». We love the 3D photos of your little face, each and every detail about the way in which you perceive the world fills us with happiness. And then I learn in the « mystery of life » chapter that you’re not only pleased to wee into the amniotic fluid but you also drink it to « exercise your taste buds » -quote ! Now then lad, pull yourself together ! These aren’t an honest man’s manners. It’s high time you started sucking your thumb or any other thing worthy of us. O .K ! It appears that you’ve found no better way of breaking in your digestive system and kidneys>. If that’s the case, I won’t mention it again. And if for next Friday’s scan you could get us a nice smile ready – I’m not joking- that’s also written in the book – , then I promise, I’ll forget all about it ! |
||
|
15th May 2004  Your mother is gorgeously lying across my lap. We’re spending the end of this weekend in the Cevennes on the banks of the Hérault. You can’t imagine to what extent you existence fills our lives. You are already the centre of our conversations, our photos and our arguments as well. Paradoxically, as far as I’m concerned, your presence has become real to me since I started writing to you. It doesn’t seem possible to write these lines for nothing and for nobody any more than when I wrote more or less regularly in the diary which I’ve been keeping since I was 11 and which one day might annoy you ! I imagine you with us on the banks of the same river in 20 years discovering our present feelings. |
||
|
6th May 2004  Yesterday I placed my hands
on your
mother’s hips. When I realised how full they were I decided
there
was no more time to waste before writing or rather typing. Also, her
hair has changed over the last few weeks. First of all the texture and
then the smell, not to mention her breasts. There’s no doubt
about it, your presence is undeniably felt. The physical changes are
not the most radical, you should see her getting made up in front of
the bedroom mirror or swaggering about when the latest film is released
with some bodybuilding scoundrel : good humour is the name of
the
game not only when she’s just returned from a visit to the
gynaecolgist and she calls me delighted to describe your
beautiful shape - a monochromic tadpole. |
