4D Snowy.

Its my birthday next week and Tricky decided to take me on a day trip to Windsor this weekend.

We've been to Windsor before but I was too stupid to realise that this was just a ploy by Tricky to get me to a London suburb called Ashford on the way back home. What's at Ashford you wonder? Well, there is a 4D ultrasound clinic at Ashford I reply. What is 4D ultrasound you ask? Why, I reply, its like a regular ultrasound only in 3 dimensions plus time, which is the fourth dimension. Yep, we saw our little Snowy in glorious monotone poo-brown 4D! How amazing is that? It would be easy to carry on about the technical marvel that this type of ultrasound is, but I was completely overwhelmed by the emotions of seeing our child breathing, sucking, swallowing, opening and closing eyes, flailing arms and legs, still inside Tricky, still to stay 10 weeks inside Tricky. It was the most emotional experience I've had during this pregnancy since I saw the first little flicker of light that was Snowy's heartbeat at 6 weeks. Its sometimes hard for me, the non-pregnant human in this relationship, to relate to our little baby but this left me with a big lump in my throat. I just want to point and say to friends and strangers that I made this with Tricky! It is difficult to put these emotions into words so I will just post these few pics. I think you'll agree that Snowy is a very cute little baby.

Normal reception will resume shortly

It seems I'm having a slight problem with some images after moving to a new server. Most everything else should function normally, including the photos. I'll fix the other images after work tonight. Update: now everything should be working as before. Except I seem to be back in my updated-once-in-a-blue-moon mode.

Birthing class.

Well, this is all become a little too real. I've been to my first birthing class with Tricky in the local Methodist church.

It was a bit surreal at first walking into a big room with a bunch of heavily pregnant women and their partners. All of the partners have a look on their faces – something like worry mixed with confusion and perhaps just a smidgen of panic. Thats the first-time fathers anyway. There were a few who already had children. They just looked tired. It turned out to be quite a good few hours. We went through all of the ways the partner can help during the birthing process. There was lots of massage involved and there was some squatting and there was a bit of moaning (Tricky got the giggles during the moaning – can't take her anywhere.) I also learned an amazing fact about the woman's body. When the baby is born, its head comes out first, right? You might also know that some of the female pelvic bones are specially designed to move and widen the birth canal to allow an easier birth. But did you know this? The coccyx bone (tailbone) also moves out of the way, like a trapdoor and – get this – when the baby is in the perfect birthing position, the coccyx is actually designed to slide over the babies nose and squish the fluid out of of the nostrils. Is that detail or what? Besides that, there are numerous other tiny details that make the whole process flow as... erm well, as nature intended. I'll try to compose a list of them for your education and awe. God (insert deity of choice) has a pretty amazing design shop out there somewhere. God and his team of industrial designers.

God: *stroking long white beard and poring over some blueprints* Hmm, I like this.. erm, what's that thing called, the coccyx? ..I like this movable coccyx but why don't we make a change here *takes pencil from behind ear and scribbles* and have it squeeze the boogers from the little tyke's nose at the same time?

Designer One: Hmm, that's doable. What about the rest of the tail?

God: Get rid of the tail. I never liked it. And make it cry the second it comes out. I like a bit of drama.

Designer Two: And what about the appendix and that little dangly thing at the back of the throat?

God: I spent a whole day on those. They stay!

D2: But you said form follows function. They have no function. What possible use....

God: *thunderclaps and lightning* I SAID THEY STAY! Along with the nipples on the male model.

D2: *groans and mumbles* nipples on a man. You'll be having the testicles back in those little bags again.

God: Well the woman has breasts, why shouldn't the man have a couple of dangly things to play with. Maybe I will put them back in the bags.

D2: *sarcastically* Well, that brings us back to the nipples, hey, Mister Almighty One.

D1: *whispers to D2* leave the nipples alone dude...do you want to spend the night in purgatory doing the waste disposal documentation again?

God: Whose donuts are those?

This week in Snowy-Land

I'm going to try to do weekly Snowy updates from now on.

I've been very slack in this respect. Sorry about that. This week, Tricky had her first antenatal appointment with her GP. She had been a little concerned as Snowy hasn't been moving a lot lately but the doctor soon reassured her. There's a strong heartbeat and her uterus is around exactly the right size (a little on the bigger side if anything.) We also discovered that Snowy is in a tranverse lie. This means that, rather than the usual position of a foetus at this stage (bum up, head down) Snowy has settled into a side to side lie. He likes to do things differently, just like his Mum. He's a bit more laid back and cool than the average foetus. This explains why we have been noticing most of the movements to the sides. We read a bit about tranverse lie on the web and became a little concerned but a quick call to Tricky's midwife cooled things down. She was not concerned at all (as was the GP) and said this was no problem and not uncommon at this stage. Snowy will turn around she said. And already, we think maybe he has. Don't believe everything you read on the internet kids.

mmm… maggots.

Some of you will know that my day job is as a pharmacist in a big hospital in London's inner west.

My job there is half web-development and half pharmacist stuff. I spend the pharmacist half on a vascular surgery ward which throws up some pretty interesting stuff. Here's a quick list of some of the things I've seen recently.

• amputations, lots of 'em (usually legs or feet, usually the legs or feet of smokers – you white stick puffers take note)
• one woman who fell 3 floors from her flat window and impaled herself on the pointy metal bannisters below (cocaine-snorting, alcohol-fuelled party-people take note)
• one penile shaft fracture (my eyes water every time I imagine it)
• several stabbings
• one gunshot wound

But one of the most interesting things I've come across is the use of sterile larvae in wound management. Yes, I mean maggots, folks. These are only used on really manky, disgusting wounds, often as a last resort before amputation and they are extremely effective. They've apparently been used as therapeutic dressings since the American Civil War and have been noted in literature as far back as Napoleonic times.

We get them sent from a small award-winning laboratory in Wales in little vials. The tissue viability nurses whack them on the wound and away the little fellas go. They're in maggot heaven, munching on dead tissue, spewing out antimicrobial enzymes and destroying bacteria including the often mentioned MRSA, the so-called superbug (trust me folks when I say there are much worse bugs in our hospitals than MRSA.) When they go on, they are only a few millimetres long and a creamy translucent color. When they come of they have gorged themselves and are more like ten millimetres long and huge and fat, good enough for fishing. The nurses count the maggots on and off but there are always some missing.. hmm.. where do they disappear to? This is the reason larvae can't be used on wounds with a sinus (a hole) or near body orifices, lest any of them escape to the inside of the body (!)

I asked one patient what it felt like to have them wriggling around on their wound and she said it was fine, just a mild tickling sensation. But, she said "At night, if you're very quiet, you can hear them".

Hmm... not very pleasant, but better than a penile shaft fracture any day.