Nature's Balk: 39 weeks DEFCON 5!

Charla has not been sleeping well this past month. I guess it is common for expecting mothers to experience discomfort as they now carry and extra 30-40 pounds of fluid, placenta and baby. The strain on her back has been great and there are no positions that seem to be comfortable. I have been giving some middle of the night massages and have tried to stay up with her and make sure she is OK. The tiredness combines with the anticipation and gravity of the situation to make for a kind of excited paranoid state- a kind of almost disbelief that we will have a child in the next few days or hours. I feel like I am standing on the quiet beach waiting for the title wave to come.

"March" is X-rated on the Maternal Movie Ratings Guide: 37 weeks

When thinking of movies to avoid when pregnant, there are several things to consider. Pre and post natal demonic possession and tragedy are obvious non-picks. Movies like Rosemary's Baby, Basket Case, The Omen or Dead Calm are not the best of choices. But far more disturbing is the one described below. Damn you and your Electric Company Morgan Freeman!

Broken Flowers was an excellent pre-natal flim. Jaramush's subtle, quiet style, amazing ecclectic sounds and stylish comfortable track suits made for a great movie for someone in their ninth month of pregnancy. Nobody in the theatre experienced any variation in heart rate from the opening credits until the end. I was pleased with my choice and so was Charla. Buoyed with the confidence of my success, when the time came for us to go to another film I suggested March of the Penguins. That is where I lost my title.

On the surface, March of the Penguins was perfect. It had won awards, the birds are quirky and cute, it had Electric Company's Morgan Freeman for a narrator and it was rated G. I couldn't loose. I was imagining a kind of Incredible Journey/Benji meets Imax's Coral Reef. What a perfect movie for people who are weeks away from contributing another member to our grand planet earth.

Much has been written about the sensitivity and universiality of motherhood. We are all aware of animals caring for each other's young. Feral children who were raised by wolves and other species are well known. Last year there was that abandoned baby in Kenya who was brought by a dog to join it's litter. There seems to be an unexplained connectedness between all mother animals and newborns. Oh, and if you want to experience that first hand, take your quite pregnant wife to March of the Penguins.

At about 5 minutes into the film when I had a sense that things were not what I had anticipated. The fun began as the birds came out the water to obviously march with their clumbsy waddle across the crispy snow. Ha, ha. Look at the funny bird/fish. Freeman then informs us that they hobble for 70 miles to get to the mating place. I won't provide a running commentary for the entire film but it is when the eggs are laid that the film turned into a maternal hellish nightmare. The helpless creatures watch with horror as the egg rolls out of protection only to slowly freeze. They even grace us with a stop motion shot of the shell cracking open from the expanding frozen yolk. I was distracted by Charla had started to gently but committedly rub her eight month swollen belly. I looked up at her face and there were tears streaming down her cheeks. The action continued on the screen as follows:

-Momma penquin heads all the way back to feed while poppa sits on the egg- result- we see a sea lion devour two of the feeding females leaving the newborn to slowly starve to death at the feet of the male who had been standing there for two months...
-More frozen dead peguin babies who had hatched by then had strayed from their father's feet...
-Peguin babies trampled to death by their own mothers who were trying to protect their young from the heartbroken, lonely, crazed mothers who had lost their own... King, Ellis and Hitchcock couldn't have even thought up such disturbing tragedy.

By this time Charla had her head buried in my shoulder which was wet from the tears. Finally, the little toddler peguins were free to walk around and they looked really cute. Charla had just caught her breath and up flies the hungry osprey looking for some toddler penguin meat- we had to leave the theatre.

Perhaps it was that it was a documentary and with real animals- I don't know. Hollywood couldn't create such a horrific maternal decent into the Inferno. It was quite an experience.

False Alarm- Looking for Louie: 36 weeks

The school where I work has a no cell phone policy. Kids are not allowed to have them and if we see or hear them we are to confiscate them and their parents need to come in to retrieve it. At the start of the school year last week I showed them my cell phone and explained that when she goes into labour, she is going to call. My wife never calls the cell phone during the day.

Today, during the middle of a lesson with my 31 grade 7s, the cell phone rang. It was like time had stood still. My jaw dropped open and the kids all were staring. I finally stopped shaking and flipped it open I answered and they asked to speak to Louie. I said, "Sorry, wrong number," and the class broke out into laughter and I collapsed onto the floor. I have helped to get the room ready, assembled the crib, felt the baby kick and roll and sat through 16 hours of Mucus Plug Academy at the Grey Nuns, but I don't think the gravity of this situation hit me until that phone rang.

Mucus Plug Academy: 33 weeks

We recently spent the weekend at an intensive 14 hour course at the hospital. Most people take the course over a 7 week period but we decided to cram it all in in one weekend at the hospital.

Most of the couples who were in the course were about a month to eight weeks away. The participant mothers had that "glow" and the inverted hand behind the back for support and accompanying changing centre of gravity type gait. The expectant fathers all gave each other the nod of appreciation that you would witness before participating in battle or a football game. We all knew there were videos and discussion coming on subjects and occurences that previously we could control by turning the page of the birth book or simply by not trying too hard to understand. By the end of the course, we definitely understood.

We watched five births on video. I went to school before the internet age so one of my first exposure to vaginas was in a video similar to these ones. We were riveted back then. [Incidentally, I also looked at the bra section of the Consumer's Distributing catalogue and scoured National Geographics for a glimpse of nipple. Punching in the word "breast" or "sex" into a computer and instantly getting one hundred million different possible images was right beside breathing under water and making out with Farah Fawcett in hopeful inconceivabilities. But I digress...] The thing that struck me during the video viewing this time around was the sheer pain and exhaustion of the soon to be mothers. It means so much more when you come to the realization that your lover/partner is about to experience this in a short amount of time and you are: 1. Partially responsible 2. Unable to do anything about it and 3. About to witness it first hand.

Back in the classroom, nurse after nurse educated us with all the things that could and have gone wrong during labour, delivery and after. Post-partum depression, 70 hour labour, Frank's breech, detached placentae, episiotomies, fetal stress, emergency C-sections, forseps and cords wrapped around arms and necks. The nurse tried to placate us with, "But we only see that once in while," or, "But we don't see that too often." Thanks. What a relief. We were all now part of some macabre prenatal lottery.

One nurse gave us a story and it went something like this:
So I went in for a routine check on the dilation of the cervix and as soon as I inserted my fingers, I felt it immediately. "Prolapsed cord!" I shouted to the station as I struggled with my left hand to reach the emergency chain. I crawled onto the gurney and repositioned myself because I had keep my fingers in there to prevent the baby's head from engaging furthur and pinching the cord. As I straddled her and they wheeled us down to the OR for the emergency C-section... But we only get a couple of those a year...

Don't get me wrong; I am glad to be more educated about this than my grandfather and father. As appealing as it sounds, I don't think the bar or the waiting room is a better place to be as this is taking place, but as I learn more, I seem to feel more and more helpless.