Category: Family

I’d forgotten what the poo of a newborn, breastfed baby smells like. It’s sour and yeasty, and it triggers floods of memories. Every time I change Fiona’s nappy, I’m taken back to Alex’s early days, and I’m astonished at how much he has grown and changed in the last three years.

Alex is huge compared to Fiona. I can hold Fiona with one hand; that same hand can now no longer encircle Alex’s thigh. Alex talks. Not just words, but whole conversations. When we put him to bed, he wants to tell us about his day. When he comes through to our bed in the mornings, he wants to tell us what he’s going to do.

Right now they both have physical needs, but only Alex has emotional ones, even if he doesn’t properly understand them. He wants and needs our attention. He’s scared that we’re going to forget about him, and spend all our time on Fiona. He knows when we’re tired and stressed, and that makes him sad.

Although Fiona is the more helpless of the two, in many ways it’s more important for us to concentrate on Alex right now. Fiona needs warmth, soothing voices, a certain amount of visual stimulus, and mama milk. Alex needs intellectual and emotional effort. Fiona may be a challenge to Abi and me, but it’s Alex’s world that is experiencing the greatest upheaval right now. And he’s reacting in the only ways that he knows how: by getting angry, by getting sad and crying, by hitting us and screaming when we don’t immediately jump to attention.

It’s hard to react positively to that, and generally, we don’t. Letting him get away with behaviour that would be unacceptable under other circumstances is not the way to reassure him or make him feel loved. He has to figure out that the rules still apply: not just rules like “don’t use crayons on the walls”, but also the rule that “mom and dad love you no matter what else happens.”

It’s a tough balance. We want to spend the same kind of time and attention on Fiona that we did on Alex when he was young, but Alex’s presence means we can’t. It’s hard to put Fiona in second place mere days after her birth, and concentrate on Alex almost to the point of ignoring her, and it’s hard not to feel resentful towards Alex because of it. But I have to realise–and I have to help Alex realise–that this isn’t going to last forever.

We’ll find our new equilibrium sooner or later. In the meantime, Alex needs my patience and love more than ever.

By interesting coincidence, we have bagged a full set of blood groups here in the Sutherland household. This makes us a nice little case study in genetics and blood typing.

Abi	A-
Martin	B+
Alex	AB+
Fiona	O+

The simplest illustration of how genes pass from one generation to the next is the one we probably all learned in school: eye colour. If you have two copies of the “blue” gene, you have blue eyes. If you have two copies of the “brown” gene, you have brown eyes. Because the brown gene is dominant, a combination of blue and brown genes still results in brown eyes.

Unlike the blue/brown eyes gene, your ABO blood type is determined by a gene has three different forms: i^A, i^B and i. i^A contains the code for making the “A” protein, i^B generated the “B” protein, and the naked i doesn’t produce either one. You get one copy of this gene from each of your parents. Also unlike the blue/brown eyes gene, the i^A and i^B are co-dominant, which means that if you have copies of both of them, you end up producing both A and B proteins rather than just one of them.

People with A-type blood therefore have either two copies of i^A, or one i^A and a naked i. B-type blood is generated by two copies of i^B, or one i^B and a naked i. To have AB blood you must have both an i^A and an i^B, and to end up with O-type blood both of the genes have to be naked i, which results in a bloodstream devoid of both the A and B proteins.

The Rhesus (Rh) factor, which is the + or – after your blood type is much more like the blue/brown gene. The Rhesus gene has two forms, Rh+ and Rh-, of which the Rh+ form is dominant. So if you have one or more copies of Rh+, your genes will produce the Rh protein. If you have two copies of Rh-, they don’t.

These blood types are significant because of your body’s immune system. If you don’t already have a particular protein in your blood, your body will create an immune response to it if it is introduced. For example, if you are of blood type A, your body will generate antibodies to attack the B protein. If the B protein is pumped into your body in large enough quantities, say in a blood transfusion, the clumping and clotting produced by the antibody response may actually kill you.

People with the blood type AB+ are really lucky: they have all of the relevant proteins coursing through their systems already, and can accept transfusions of any type of blood. They are called universal recipients. Conversely, though, the blood they donate can only be used by other AB plussers, which means they are of limited use as donors.

People with O- blood have none of the proteins present. This means that any blood type other than O- will generate a dangerous immune response. That sucks. On the other hand, because their blood has no proteins to cause a reaction, their blood can be used by anyone else. O- people are called universal donors. Blood banks love O negs.

Alex, therefore, is a universal recipient. Good for him, because even at this early age he’s a thrill-seeker, and he’s probably destined for fame, glory, and broken bones galore in some outlandish extreme sport. Fiona, on the other hand, is going to have to be more careful when she goes para-base-boarding (or whatever). Fiona can donate to Alex, but Alex can’t donate to Fiona.

Their blood types also tell us that Abi must have only one copy of the i^A gene, and that I have only one copy of i^B. Abi is Rh-negative, so she has two copies of the Rh- gene. Alex and Fiona therefore both have one copy of the Rh- gene. Because they are both Rh+, though, they must have both received their other Rh+ gene from me. Without checking with my parents and my brother (and possibly even further back along the family tree), I don’t know if I have two copies of Rh+, or just one.

So out of the four of us, we can nail down the blood-typing gene patterns for three of us with certainty:

Abi	iA/i and Rh-/Rh-
Martin	iB/i and Rh+/Rh??
Alex	iA/iB and Rh+/Rh-
Fiona	i/i and Rh+/Rh-

I think that’s pretty cool.

Related Links

• HowStuffWorks.com on blood types
• Pregnancy and Rhesus disease

We’re all home now. Abi, Alex and Fiona are all asleep upstairs. I’m kicking back with a glass of very nice malt whisky (thanks, mum & dad!) and some chilled out grooves. The last couple of days have been pretty intense.

On Tuesday evening just before midnight, Abi said that she was experiencing regular, painful contractions, about ten minutes apart. They had started at around 11, but she hadn’t said anything until she was sure they were really constraction, and were really regular. It looked like the start of labour. We called the hospital, and they advised us to sit tight and wait, and call them again if the contractions started happening about once every five minutes. Abi took a warm bath to relax her a little and ease the pain. She said that around 2am the pain seemed to be backing off a little.

We thought it might have been a false alarm. But false labour often closely preceeds real labour, so we went to bed to try and catch some sleep in case the next day turned out to be a long one.

Sleep didn’t really happen. I was too wound up, and Abi was in too much pain. The contractions were still coming. They were coming about seven or eight minutes apart, each lasting almost a minute. Abi occasionally drifted off to sleep, but only for a minute or two each time before the next contraction arrived. At 4am we both got up again. Abi took some painkillers and called the hospital again.

The hospital agreed that labour was properly established, but again they recommended that we wait before coming in–at least until the contractions were closer together, or until Abi’s waters broke. Realising that labour was underway, though, we called my parents and got them to head over. (We had arranged for them to catch Alex while we were busy with the birth.)

While we were waiting, we tried to catch some more sleep, and were at best only partly successful. My parents arrived at about 06:15. Alex woke up at about 07:45. Despite everything, I think I managed to pull together an hour or two of sleep, but I don’t think Abi had much more than an hour, if that. Her waters broke at 08:45.

We stuffed some last-minute bits and pieces together into our bags, and drove to the hospital: the Simpson Centre for Reproductive Health at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. (The RIE, despite being one of the largest hospitals in Scotland, appears to have no web site of its own. How quaint.) The RIE is only about a mile away from our house, so we got there pretty quickly.

Abi was taken to an admissions room, where she was poked and prodded and monitored by various midwives and doctors. At just before 10 she had an internal exam, and the doctor was surprised to see that she was already 5cm dilated. This is apparently quite far advanced for so short a time after waters breaking, and they got her transferred up to the labour suite pretty soon afterwards.

By the time 11 came around, the contractions were coming every couple of minutes, and were extremely painful. Abi was sucking down large volumes of entonox (an N₂O/O₂ mix) for the pain, and the anesthetist had only just finished administering the first dose of epidural. (Abi, being a freak of nature, still has sensation even after doses of epidural that would fell a rhinoceros. So she was still in a lot of pain at this point.) Normally, contractions expand the cervix by about 1cm per hour. “Fully dilated,” the point at which the baby actually heads down the chute, means about 10cm of dilation. So when the doc performed another internal examination shortly after 11, he was surprised to find that Abi was there already–several hours earlier than expected.

At 11:15 she started pushing; at 11:56 Fiona arrived.

Wow.

I didn’t feel nearly so overwhelmed by this experience as I did by Alex’s birth. When I first left the hospital to make the Phone Calls right after Alex was born, I was amazed to see that people were still going about their everyday business. How could they possibly be acting like nothing had happened, when the whole world had just changed?? Fiona’s birth was very special, but it was also a lot more matter-of-fact. With Alex around, we can’t just drop everything to spend all our attention on the baby. There’s a toddler here who needs attention–a lot of attention–just to get from one end of the day to another. We can’t just drift into a dreamy eat/feed baby/sleep cycle: we have to be proper grown-ups this time round. I suppose it’s like going to the moon for the second time. It’s a big step, but it’ll never be that giant step again.

The doctors and midwives kept Abi in the Labour Suite for most of the afternoon, and didn’t transfer her to the maternity ward until about 5pm. My parents brought Alex along for the evening visiting hours. As soon as they’d heard the news, my mum and dad went shopping for cute pink clothes (inevitably). They’d also made sure that Alex had a wee toy to give to Fiona as a present. Scott and Angela and Kyle, their three-month-old son, also came to visit, and we broke open a bottle of champagne to launch the good ship Fiona Chenoweth Sutherland on her way.

(The name “Chenoweth,” by the way, is an old family name from Abi’s side of the family. I assume she’ll explain it on her own blog at some point. We knew we wanted to use Chenoweth as a middle name almost from the start of the pregnancy, and because it’s nicely gender-neutral, that’s what we’ve been calling the baby for the last nine months. We’re still calling Fiona Chen or Chenoweth much of the time; it’s going to take a while for us to get used to her new name. Alex has known her by the name of Chenoweth until now, so it’s strange for him, too. Also, thinking of her as a girl is still odd. We’re so used to using male pronouns around Alex.)

I came home yesterday evening. My parents were staying overnight to help out with Alex. We all had pizza for dinner, and a very early night. I slept like a log, and made it in to the hospital just after 10 this morning. Abi and Chen Fiona had had a reasonable night’s sleep, and they were looking well. We were hoping to get them both home by lunch time, but Abi’s haemoglobin count was very low, so the doctors and midwives wanted to keep her around longer for some more observation. We pointed out that we only live a couple of minutes away, so if anything were to happen (like Abi’s fainting episode yesterday afternoon–I’ll let her tell you about that one), we could get back to the hospital quickly. The doctor reluctantly agreed that, if nothing untoward happened in the afternoon, Abi could probably go home in the evening. Yay!

Because I’d forgotten my phone, I want home to make further arrangements at lunchtime, and came back to the hospital in the afternoon. My parents and Alex came round to visit again, and when the visiting hours were over we left Abi and Fiona alone while we went out to buy Alex a present.

You see, Fiona is an extraordinarily generous girl, and very well-spoken for a newborn. She told us that she wanted to get Alex a special gift because he’d been such a good big brother while she was in the womb, and because she loved him very much. So she asked us if we could get Alex…a bicycle!

We brought it back home and only just had time to assemble it before we had to rush back out the door again to pick up Abi and Fiona. My parents headed back off to Murthly, and Alex and I drove back to the hospital. When we got there, Abi was discharged already, so we bundled her and Fiona into the car and took them home. Sweet home.

The adventures will continue…tomorrow.

Born 11:56 on Wednesday 28th January 2004, by natural birth.

4.1 kg = 9lb 0.5oz

At the Simpson Centre for Reproductive Health, Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland.

Mother, father and baby are doing fine. Alex won’t be meeting Fiona until this evening, though, so we won’t know how he’ll react until then… 🙂

Looks like Abi may have started labour.

Update 28/01/2004 01:59 False alarm. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Update 28/01/2004 08:59 Not a false alarm after all. The contractions that started last night lasted all night long, and Abi’s waters broke ten minutes ago. Looks like we’re about to head into hospital! Woo!

“Dad, what are cows made of?”

“Beef, milk, and leather.”

Not that Alex is asking questions of such complexity yet, but I need to start practicing.