View from the Potting Shed

Last month I had to do an online health and safety assessment exercise that determined my understanding of health and safety matters to do with sitting at a desk all day staring at a PC monitor. I’m happy to report that I scored 100%.

As part of the instructional part of the exercise I was shown the following image:

It’s of a man, an office-worker we are to assume, sitting at a desk, in front of a PC and beneath him it reads:

Every 20 minutes or so, re-focus your eyes on a distant object to allow your eye muscles to relax.

and there’s a call-out with an image of the Arc de Triumph!

Re-focus your eyes on a distant object it says. My word! What kind of eyesight did they expect me to have that I should have to gaze at the Arc de Triumph from St Andrews?! Google Maps UK reckons that’s over 760 miles. Hardly relaxing!

This week we are been mostly re-focusing our eyes on the Grand Canyon.

Renault key card for Mégane — and yes, the image is mirrored because the original was from a left-hand drive car!

A couple of days ago I did something I’ve never done before, and I’m not really proud of this: I lost a car key; an expensive car key too.

The magic key-card

Jane has a Renault Mégane Sport Tourer (the estate version) which has a magic key-card system for locking, unlocking and starting the car.

For my Vauxhall Astra I’ve got a button on the key that will lock and unlock the car from a distance. As I approach the car I press the button and *CLUNK!* the car magically unlocks. You’ve probably got something similar on your car too.

Well, Jane’s key-card is even more impressive than that. You don’t even need to press the button, you just need to have it somewhere on your person and using magic the car senses that you are in the immediate vicinity and the doors unlock when you pop your hand into the handle to open the door.

And it doesn’t stop there!

You don’t even have to slide the key-card into its slot for the engine to start. When you press the START/STOP button the key-card just has to be somewhere inside the car.

Or on the roof, as I discovered.

What happened next?

In fact, lets say that you accidentally left the key-card on the roof and then drove off to … well, an example might be to St Andrews, and while negotiating a right-turn at a roundabout, lets say on the A917, the key-card calmly slid off the roof. What would happen then?

In that situation you might expect the car to make a bit of a fuss about it. You might expect that it sounds an alarm. Or the lights flash a bit. Or the engine comes to an abrupt stop even … although that would be a dangerous option, thinking about it.

But no, it didn’t. The first I knew that something was amiss was when I pulled into a parking space on North Street in St Andrews and was politely invited to press the START/STOP button twice to confirm that I did indeed wish to stop the engine.

“Hmm … that’s a bit odd,” I thought to myself while obliging the car’s seemingly random whim. A few minutes later it all became clear.

So there I was standing beside the car frantically and fruitlessly checking every pocket. Passers-by might have been forgiven for thinking that I was on fire. The anger that I was directing at myself certainly was. I sat back in the car, pressed the START/STOP button and … “Card not detected” flashed the message on the dashboard.

Oh, right! So now you’re happy to flash a warning message!

Jane: the fifth emergency service

I phoned Jane. There was panic in my voice. “I’ve lost the key-card!”

“What key-card?” Jane asked calmly.

Calmly?! This was no time for calm. She clearly didn’t understand the severity of the situation. This was clearly a time for swearing. This was exactly the kind of situation that swearing was invented for.

“THE KEY-CARD!” I said louder, using the same logic that British tourists have employed for years while abroad, that if you say things loud enough people will be forced to understand. “THE KEY-CARD! THE FECKIN’ KEY-CARD!”

Swearing didn’t help Jane understand any quicker, but I like to think that it helped prevent me from crying. At least at that point in the conversation!

Thankfully Jane’s mum and sister had just arrived at our house so they took over Operation Twins Feed and Jane jumped into my car and drove the 10 miles as quickly and safely as she could to St Andrews to deliver me her key-card, while I stood guard and rehearsed over and over how this could possibly have happened. This is not the sort of thing I do.

The simple answer is that it happened because I was over-tired. But at the time, that didn’t seem quite enough to justify losing an £80 key-card. I was really angry with myself.

Lost and found

But thankfully I had scripture to hand to help me. In the New Testament there is more than one parable about losing things and finding them.

When I got back — I’d gone to St Andrews, by the way, to get emergency supplies of nappies and infant formula — I parked on our drive, got out my torch and went searching. I retraced the route on foot, scouring every inch of the road and pavement. In the dark.

I reasoned that if I’d left the key-card on top of the passenger’s side (the left), while loading bags into the car, then it would most easily have come off when I was turning right. I made an extra careful sweep of anywhere that I’d had to turn right.

And then I found it, about half a mile down the road.

To be honest, it was the clack-clack! sound of another car driving over the key-card that alerted me to its location. But praise the Lord! there it was. And when I returned home I was even more delighted to discover that it even worked!

It was lost, but now it’s found. All that was left to do was to kill the fatted calf and celebrate. After I’d unpacked the formula and nappies, of course.

Me, feeding Reuben on Christmas Day while holding Joshua.

Wow! Can it really be one month since I last posted anything on this blog?! It’s not that there’s been nothing to blog about, it’s just that … <whispers>twins are rather time consuming</whispers>. Woah! There’s an understatement if ever I read one.

If you want more regular updates then check out my Twitter feed; if even has an RSS feed (if that means anything to you — if not, check out the BBC News feeds page for an explanation).

Words of wisdom

Now, before Reuben and Joshua emerged into this world last month I received the following two comments from friends. Sophia, who has twin daughters, wrote

The first few months can be very, very hard with twins and I found that people who had had only one really couldn’t understand that.

Louise, who has younger twin brothers, wrote

I have some experience of twin boys… My word, you are in for a shock! I think ‘relentless’ is the word I would use…

Adventure

Tomorrow it will be six weeks since Reuben and Joshua (pictured right) were born and what an amazing adventure we’ve all been on.

Some days have been great, straight forward and relatively uneventful. The boys have fed well, gone down to sleep quickly and slept for hours, repeat. Other days, however, have very, very difficult. The boys have been unsettled, been out of sync with their feeding and have kept us up for hours at night. Two to three hours sleep just isn’t enough!

Someone at work asked me, “Do they wake at the same time at night?”

I said, “No, but Jane and I do!”

But you know, overall … overall it’s been amazing and continues to be so.

We have two beautiful boys (they’ll not like being called that all their lives!) and two of the most content babies I’ve ever encountered. They really have made life so much easier for these n00b parents.

I’ve had such an amazing day with them today. This morning I sent Jane to bed because she was fighting some sickness bug that I think she must have picked up from my brother on Boxing Day, while Reuben, Joshua and I worked out together how they could be fed by me on my own.

A lot of people have asked “How do you cope with two at once?” The simple answer is that we don’t know any different.

Reuben looking serious, lying on his play mat.

Possible improvements

Over the last few weeks, however, I’ve been taking notes. There are one or two things that I’ve noticed could be improved with the basic design of the human baby.

Handle

The most obvious is a handle. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a handle on their back! Obviously, it would have to be recessed so that it didn’t hurt when they lay down, but when required it could be pulled out and the baby could be more easily and securely held.

In the womb a baby has an umbilical cord. This is used for a short season and then is removed. Well, their handle could be the same, and comes away after say 6 months.

Valve

Speaking of the umbilical cord, it would be really useful if a small portion of it could be retained after birth onto which a small valve is fitted. This could be used during feeding, as the current ‘burping’ or ‘winding’ techniques aren’t the most efficient.

What would be easier and quicker, sitting the baby up and rubbing and patting its back for 5-10 minutes or simply releasing a small valve on their umbilical cord stump, a bit like ‘bleeding’ a radiator? (We’d need to find another term as ‘bleeding’ the baby would attract the attention of the social services, methinks!)

Dashboard

But when would you know when to use it, I hear you ask. Well, that brings me to my next design improvement. How about a dashboard on the baby’s chest? I suggest the following dials:

• Fuel
  Empty on one side, full on the other. Never miss a feed again, or give one too late.
• Pressure
  Now you can easily determine when the baby needs winded. (See valve above.)
• Rev counter
  How upset is the baby really? With a rev counter you could quickly tell at a glance
• Temperature
  A few times we’d have saved ourselves half an hour trying to work out why Joshua was crying when all he needed was to be wrapped in a blanket. A temperature gauge would have been a time-saver.

Further inventions

Another couple of ideas we’ve had … I say ‘we’, I really just mean a couple of ideas that I’ve had and Jane’s humoured me.

Drip feed

Night feeds are tiring on parents. At the moment our mid-night feed can happen anywhere from 01:45 to 03:00. That’s a grim timeslot. You certainly won’t find me at my best should you roll up at our front door at that time.

How much easier if you could double-nappy the babies then fit them up with some kind of intravenous drip of infant formula milk! Or something. (Seriously though, don’t try this at home!)

But wouldn’t that be much easier!

GM cows

Now, I realise that the whole GM topic is still a tad controversial, but has anyone considered developing GM cows to produce infant formula?

Just another wee, free thought from me for some boffin to boot around with his mates.

On Thursday my Mum came up to Anstruther (kindly driven by my brother and family) for an overnight stay and to spend some time with her new grandsons.

It was really lovely to have Mum/Grannie Rosalie here over a couple of days. I found Mum’s support, advice and reassurance absolutely wonderful and exactly what I needed.

Twingles

I was having a tough day on Thursday. I’d overdone it; we’d had lots of visitors that day and that was the first day since being diagnosed with shingles that I hadn’t gone for a sleep during the day. I certainly learned my lesson by the time the evening had come around.

What’s more exhausting than having shingles? Having twingles! That’s having twins and shingles at the same time.

In the end Mum and Jane sent me to bed, but before then Mum encouraged and coached us through what was quite a tough evening.

Up until that point evenings and nights had been perfect: wake, change, feed, wind, settle, sleep, repeat.

Thursday evening was more like those six activities were printed on a couple of dice and shaken at random every few minutes!

Your trial period of perfect, sleeping babies has expired, please renew your subscription to continue.

Hey! Welcome to the real world of parenting!

Tuition from the world’s best midwife

It was reassuring to be reminded that we’d only been parents for ten days by that point, and that we were still getting to know Reuben and Joshua, and they are still getting to know and trust us.

And Mum was an absolute star, simply reassuring us that we were doing the right thing: are they hungry? windy? too hot? too cold? is their nappy dirty/wet? do they just need some reassurance and a wee cuddle?

Mum gave us some great tuition in how to tell if your baby is still windy after feeding (a blue-ish look around their mouth, and pulling their legs up to their chests) and techniques to help bring up the wind. It was just what we needed, and like all good tutors allowed us to try it out for ourselves rather than taking over. Of course, having twins we could both do it at the same time! Perfect.

“Always go with your gut instincts,” said Mum. “Nobody knows a baby better than their mummy and daddy. No health visitor or midwife.”

“Yeah, but that said in this case, a midwife-trained mother of three trumps me just now!” I joked.

Over the last couple of days I’ve found that invaluable advice. As well as the advice to go for a sleep during the day!

Spot the sleeping babies.

Well, as you may have gathered from the last 24 seconds post, we’ve been home since Sunday evening and the last few days have been all about getting into a new rhythm of life, with new responsibilities, new concerns and new cues. Four days later and we’re really beginning to get there.

Expectations

I don’t really know what I expected, if I’m truly honest, once we brought our babies home. All of our focus the last few years had just been getting to the point of the possibility of bringing home a baby: our journey towards and through the IVF treatment, then our journey through the pregnancy.

Of course, we had equipped the house, we had made space in our home and in our hearts, in expectation. But beyond that I had no real appreciation for what it would mean on an hour-to-hour, day-to-day basis to have two newborn babies in our home, in their new home.

The good news is that’s amazing; they are amazing!

Privilege

What a privilege to look after these two beautiful creatures, to be there to bathe, feed, dress and keep them warm and safe; their lives in our hands. What a tiny glimpse I’ve been given into the love that God has for us, whom He has made. It’s truly humbling.

Last night after feeding Joshua as I held him in my arms, his head over my shoulder, rubbing and patting his back, his tiny hands clutched the top of my t-shirt, grasping a few chest hairs with it — really holding onto me — and he held on and held on. Father and son. It was amazing, gazing into the dark eyes of this tiny, vulnerable child knowing that I would do anything to protect him; protect them both.

So many things about parenthood suddenly make sense now that they are born, the things that folks joke about: getting up in the middle of the night to feed them, the sleep deprivation, changing their nappies, having to wear three different t-shirts in a day because your other two have sick or wee on them. But none of that really matters because these things are down out of love.

How I used to struggle to get up at 05:45 because I wanted to work on a website before heading out to work. I can be out of bed in seconds at 03:00 to attend to Reuben or Joshua’s cries for food.

Each day with them is a blessing, an opportunity to learn more about them and more about myself. What an incredible gift.

New skills

And boy! have I learned some new skills in the last nine days.

I can change nappies now, feed and wind a baby. And I no longer look as though I’m awkwardly carrying the world’s most expensive jelly when I pick them up. Today I bathed Reuben for the first time and I’m even getting the hang of putting over-the-head, long-sleeved vests on them — wow! those are hard vestments for such an energetic, wriggling mass of baby!

Shhh!

One tip that we picked up from a Gina Ford book was that the first two weeks at home should be paradigms of peace, calm and quiet and that’s what we’ve tried to promote and it seems to have done wonders for our tiny bundles of joy.

The first night home from hospital was another matter all together, but let’s not go there. From the second day at home we got them into a pretty good routine, as much for us as them, and just kept everything calm and peaceful — even if inside we were somewhat nervous and uncertain.

We’ve had various visitors, mostly close family. Jane’s Mum was amazing the first few days — everyone needs a “Jane’s Mum” when they bring a baby home from hospital! Today my Mum came up from the Scottish Borders, which has been lovely, and my brother and his family visited too.

So … all is well, thanks be to God! Long may it continue.

Well, if daddy can’t go to the babies, then the babies will just have to come home to daddy!

Reuben

Meet twin #1: Reuben on 12seconds.tv

Joshua

Meet twin #2: Joshua on 12seconds.tv

… of course, you’re going to have to trust me that there are two babies and that I’ve not just dressed the same one up in something different!

This afternoon I got banned from the maternity ward.

Let me explain.

Insect bites?

A couple of days ago I noticed what looked like a cluster of nasty-looking insect bites on my chest. They were red and swollen, and quite typical of my reaction to insect bites.

While many thousands of people have idyllic experiences of the isle of Iona, off the western coast of Scotland, my memories of it are distracted by the recollection of 350+ infected midge bites which made me feel like my arms, legs and torso had been repeatedly slashed with a scalpel. That’s the kind of typical experience I have with insect bites.

So, with that in mind, I didn’t think too much about them, assuming that it was perhaps some wee beastie that the cats had brought in, and gave the ‘bites’ a liberal application of Anthisan (an antihistamine cream) and went to bed.

That didn’t bring the relief that I’d hoped for, and by yesterday a few had developed into nasty looking (and feeling) blisters. Hmm … maybe it wasn’t an insect bite after all.

Allergy to antibiotics?

This morning I woke with the most incredible pain across my chest that started underneath my left breast and extended in a line beneath my left arm and onto my back, finishing beneath my left shoulder blade. It felt like someone had taken a jellyfish wrapped in nettles out of a bucket of acid and slapped me on the chest with it. It felt like a chemical burn (it still does!).

At this point I was suspecting an adverse reaction to the antibiotics that I’m currently on to treat a kidney-related infection that I developed nearly two months ago. The information leaflet that came with the Ciprofloxacin says about possible side-effects:

The most common side effects involve the gut and the nervous system …

• Skin rash and itching can occur in less than one in ten but more than one in a hundred persons
• Peeling, blistering or crusting of the skin

That sounds like what I’m experiencing. But the leaflet advised that I contact my GP immediately.

NHS 24

I telephoned NHS 24 (0845 4 24 24 24) and explained my symptoms. The NHS 24 nurse agreed that it sounded like a possible cause but said that she’d ask a doctor to telephone me. Within 10 minutes I had a call from a GP at the out-of-hours service in St Andrews.

Cobbles!

Nothing could have prepared me for what she was about to say. “It sounds like you’ve got Shingles, she said.”

Here’s what the mighty Wikipedia has to say:

Herpes zoster (or simply zoster), commonly known as shingles, is a viral disease characterized by a painful skin rash with blisters in a limited area on one side of the body, often in a stripe.

The initial infection with varicella zoster virus (VZV) causes the acute (short-lived) illness chickenpox, and generally occurs in children and young people. Once an episode of chickenpox has resolved, the virus is not eliminated from the body but can go on to cause shingles—an illness with very different symptoms—often many years after the initial infection…

Most people are infected with this virus as children, and suffer from an episode of chickenpox. The immune system eventually eliminates the virus from most locations, but it remains dormant…

… until this flippin’ week, of all weeks!

About two to three weeks ago I was in contact with a couple of children who had chickenpox. A couple of children who were, of all things, twins!

Banned from the ward

During the blistering phase (which is where I am currently) I am extremely contagious … but only if someone who hasn’t had chickenpox comes into direct contact with the rash, which is extremely unlikely given that it’s on my mid-torso.

But, still, as a precaution the hospital have had no alternative but to ban me from the maternity ward.

I cried when I realised that I wouldn’t have the opportunity to see Jane and my beautiful children for the next few days.

In other news

Meanwhile in Dundee … Jane and the babies are doing fantastically well. I did manage to see them briefly this afternoon, as I broke the bad news.

Feeding has been going better overnight, as Jane and the midwives made an executive decision to supplement feeding with bottled formula. A tremendous decision which has really helped Jane.

For the few moments that I saw them they looked contended and beautiful. It’s going to be hard not to see them for the next few days, but it’s more important than ever that I get sleep and well rested before they come home early next week — still no definite date.