So, the start to our new year was pretty crazy…
‘Life is Either a Daring Adventure or Nothing.’—Helen Keller
How was your 2015 then? Ours lived up to this maxim in more ways that previous years. The usual travel adventures with trips in the USA and Australia were interspersed with new career trajectories for both me and my beloved wyff, a move to an apartment overlooking Sydney Harbour, and the cherry on top- a pregnancy for our first child. It was with great trepidation that we opened the envelope of genetic tests to reveal we would be having a son, due on the 1st of January 2016 no less. In December I wrote about my great excitement at becoming a parent in 2016.
Well, as it turns out I became a dad a couple weeks earlier than expected! After our routine 36 week scan it was found that the baby looked a little on the small side, but our obstetrician advised us not to worry, it was probably expected being that neither my wife or I are particularly huge. The doc then went on leave for Christmas while we went to a follow up scan at 38 weeks. At this scan, it was found that our baby was even lighter than expected, and we were advised to go straight to the hospital. As you can imagine, we were on edge as we entered the delivery suite.
There, we were advised by the very grouchy fill-in obstetrician that the baby needed to come out basically immediately. We were shaken to the core and given just one night to digest the information. As you can imagine we were terrified- no guarantees of how anything would turn out, forced to make a critical decision, and ready ourselves psychologically for an early birth without the doctor we had grown so accustomed to.
Thankfully, everything went ok, and our son Sebastian made a dashing entrance on the 23rd of December, looking skinny but healthy, screaming his lungs out and literally opening his eyes from birth and looking around the delivery suite like it was Mars. Birth- wow. All I can say is it changed my life and blew my mind, and all I did was stand there and swear a few hundred times- I didn’t actually have give birth to anything! I can say however that I will be very hard to shock in future, because wow, well, if you’re a dad and you saw your wife give birth then you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t been there yet, then you’re really in for an event!
Anyway, it turns out that the excitement does not stop at birth. Kids need to be raised too, and what bloody hard work it is! Thankfully they are dastardly cute, so even when they’re still screaming at 120 decibels at 3 am despite the fact that you’ve woken with the urgency of an earthquake in progress and dutifully begun preparing milk, you still love them. Being such a little tacker, our son had to spend some time in the special care nursery at the hospital in order to stabilise his blood sugar levels.
Christmas and New Year passed with such a blur that I don’t even know where they went. We were given cute gifts by the hospital midwives, grandparents from both sides of the Pacific Ocean arrived, and life became a mishmash of doctors and bottle-feeds. Despite all of that, I still managed to head out on Sydney Harbour on the 26th of December for the start of the prestigious Boxing Day Sydney to Hobart yacht race, and watched as the super-maxi Wild Oats pulled a freakish manouvre, tacking between two other yachts and barely missing them. After this, she sailed so close to us that we could almost touch her giant sail bearing down on us from above. It was an amazing moment.
With Sebastian in special care, we also were able to throw a little party for friends and family at our place, taking it easy as the world’s most amazing fireworks heralded the start of 2016. And on the 7th of January, we finally celebrated Christmas with a Re-Christmas lunch!
It’s going to be an amazing year coming up. A new family, travels planned to countries I’ve never seen before, and new business opportunities abound. Can’t wait to tell you more soon! I’d also love to know your plans, travel or otherwise. Love to all those who got in touch or left comments on Confiscated Toothpaste.
Viva 2016!