Conversations with Zara

There I was saying that I’d have lots of material for this blog... and 3 months later I finally get around to putting up some photos of Junior (or Juniorina – technically speaking).

It’s funny that we had this strong feeling that we were having a boy... I don’t know how we had convinced ourselves of that. I mean we had settled on a girl’s name; we had thought either Tara or Alexis (which is why we chose neither)... And given that the best boy’s name we had come up with was Aston – you know Deebs for short (that’s after DB9 for those ignorant of how we choose to refer to Supercars in the Goulasz family) – not to mention that I hadn’t yet forced a consensus around this brilliant name, we just figured Murphy’s Law meant we were having a boy. Anyway, before I give you the punch line... which you already know; we had a beautiful baby girl we named Zara... we need to rewind back a couple of days... So there we were, literally sitting on Balmoral Beach in the middle of winter as Nic’s labour started.


What can I say about the labour without boring the life out of you and me both? It was my brother that said in the middle of a private Ante Natal class full of emancipated fat women and their neutered husbands (who had indicated that the pain of labour was just off the chart – literally, they were standing at 11 out of 10 or something while Art alone stood at 2), that women produce endorphins which mitigate the pain of labour and that it shouldn’t be such a big deal... and ironically following the birth of Amelia, there he was virtually in tears recounting the emotion of the experience. Then every other time you get given a ‘contraction by contraction’ account of your friend’s ‘chai’ (defined as a happy pant wearing, uber-yogic, enlightened, spicy milk tea drinking), ‘Earth Mother’ birth experience as they quietly scorn the fact that you weren’t quite able to maintain that perfect back bend whilst meditating in the bath through the second stage of labour. Worse still, you could find yourself mates with some nutter who thinks subjecting their friends to a video of the whole ‘beautiful’ experience (particularly the close up shots of their partner’s vagina) is appropriate during the course of a dinner party... these things happen... though I’ve never been able to look at Agnes quite the same way since then :) Kidding of course, I can spot these nutcases a mile away but have it on good authority that these horror stories actually happen!

So how was our “Birthing Experience” I hear you ask? Just like everyone else’s; private, intimate, emotionally charged, unexpected and with a little bundle of joy to look after at the end of it. Mother and child came out virtually unscathed (forgoing the minor forceps marks on Zara’s head) and at the end of the day (perhaps 60 hours from the first contraction to delivery), despite Nic – the drama queen – claiming she’d been to hell and back and those last minute disclaimers that she could be up for an emergency caesarean, it was but a very brief episode in the new life of our gorgeous little girl.


As I was recalling the whole birthing experience with a friend the other day, I thought what a distant memory that is now. How much has happened since. And how much importance we had placed on that one event. In fact we were probably a little more relaxed about it than that but when I see how our friends tend to want to out-compete one another with regard to the birthing experience and the pressure that that puts on each would be mother I think that’s neither healthy nor normal. And when I hear Nic saying that some random woman from mothers’ group said to her “You did what? Why didn’t you just get an early epidural like any normal person?” I think that’s almost a breath of fresh air... I mean we shouldn’t discount the importance of birth and obviously the ideal is an unassisted water birth while doing the downward dog but that tends to be the exception rather than the rule and the fun just starts when you bring the little munchkin home anyway... you then need to work out what the hell you’re supposed to do with it.

I don’t really want to give you a day by day account of what’s been happening in the last 3 months – you can imagine it’s mostly comprised of eating, shitting and sleeping, as my father-in-law so eloquently once put it – but there are a number of initial observations I want to make. Firstly, in response to the father-in-law, they don’t just eat, shit and sleep... far from it. In fact, even in their first weeks their needs are much more sophisticated than that and while 3 months in I don’t pretend to be anywhere near as receptive as mum to the variety of cries that she makes, I know already that she’s a complicated little girl with varied needs – for example she’s got the shits right now as she doesn’t want to go down for her afternoon nap despite being very tired. Further, I’ll add that a mate once said to me “yeah the first 6 months were hard but following that you start to get something back” and I think “what are you farken talking about... I’ve been getting a whole range of expressions and responses right from the first weeks... and given that I know how great a child you have, I can only conclude that you were totally oblivious to that whole stage of their development, you numpty!”

Finally, just a couple of points on the grandparents: It needs to be said firstly that training the grandparents is never going to be an easy process. Whilst we’ve started on ours, they’re proving quite resistant to the proposition that they got everything (and I mean everything) they did with us pretty much wrong :) Of course they retort with “but you came out OK” (which may not necessarily be the case for a start) but I guess 2 things need to be said; 1 the research on early childhood development has come a long way since their time (a very long way in fact across every aspect of childhood development with most current theories in conflict with the beliefs of the time) and; 2 parents are always going to take responsibility, and make their own decisions in the best interests of their children, so they don’t need their parents telling them what to do. Despite this of course, grandparents, who are often suffering from a bad case of baby amnesia and don’t actually have any recollection of what it was like in ‘their time’, won’t be told and the battle of wills has only just begun... we’re sure to be successful in the end but the training will likely be ongoing (with the odd fallout I’m sure) for at least some time to come.

So how’s our little girl getting along then? She’s now 3 months old now. She’s 5.3kg and 60cm long – meaning she’s long and skinny. And of course I’m totally biased (as I’m supposed to be) but she’s absolutely amazing. In fact we can’t believe how animated and full of life she is. Like a nutcase I recall proclaiming only a couple of weeks ago, at her first wedding, that she’s already started babbling the word “herro” (in response to our often saying ‘hello’ to her) – so she’ll be stringing full sentences together in a few weeks no doubt – and while that’s no longer the activity of the moment we can see how much more curious she’s getting about everything as the days go on. Gone now are the spasmodic, Peter Garret-like arm movements and we’ve convinced ourselves that she’s started to recognise her hands. Best of all of course are the myriad expressions that she’s always giving us; starting with that beautiful ‘I’m so happy to see you daddy’ expression when she gets up, followed by a long stretch, those surprised and inquisitive looks, the ‘feed me now mummy, I’m hungry’ demand, to the countless smiles and most recently even the occasional laugh.


Anyway, Conversations with Zara have only just started and while she may not exactly have the most engaging things to say just yet, she nevertheless has no trouble capturing the undivided attention of her rapt parents... and her toys seem to really enjoy whatever she’s saying too.


‘Til next time a Goulasz has something to say... Herro!