Well apologies for the lack of updates from me and thanks to Oblivious for once again stirring up a robotically enhanced hornets’ nest on scifi. I have been otherwise occupied with the movement of Lombaby V2 from beta to final release.

So maybe rather suprisingly for a geek blog today’s post is gonna feature quite a bit about babies. Now this was spawn #2 so gone were alot of the worries and surprises that go with the unknown of a first labour. This time I knew what was going to happen and wanted to be prepared – the only way I know how – by gadgets and software (and yes I realise this post should generate significant pity for my poor wife).

Stage #1 – Revision

So firstly I needed to reacquaint myself with the process flow for labour, the various stages of labour, when to say ‘Breathe Deep!’, when to say ‘dont push!’ etc – This was a bit last minute as it being the second baby we didn’t bother with any of the courses – ignoring the library of books we had stashed somewhere too obscure to bother finding google saved the day by showing me -

New Dad Survival Guide

This covered all the main points pretty well and a few reads covered the necessary revision.

Stage #2 – Guns – Lots of guns

OK so guns aren’t really needed (although my better half way well have wanted to shoot something off at the super painful bit) – no this is tools that can not only help but, by their use, distract me from the verge of panic that the imminent arrival of a baby can cause. As soon as you get woken up with the ‘ I think its time’ line I need something to concentrate on and, as well as looking after my lady, I have both times got absorbed in the contraction analysis game.

This is basically a data collection scenario followed up by analysis and judgement call of when you need to go to the hospital.

Call too early and you get sent down to the ward and spend far too long listening to babies cry or labour screams – call too late and you end up being the ‘Roadside Midwife’

Now of course this should be pretty simple:

If frequency of contractions > 5 minutes – make like NCC-1701

but no

it ends up something like:

Did u remember to stop the stopwatch at the last contraction or were u distracted by the love of your life being in agonising pain?

Was it a proper contraction or just a Braxton Hicks?

How long did it last and did that show a regular pattern forming or was that a rogue point on the graph?

The list goes on.

For baby one I had a stopwatch, pen and printed spreadsheet – Time since last contraction, length of contraction and strength of contraction. this time I visited the app store and found this:

Contraction Master

Perfect – all done on the iphone so extra hand free to be ripped off during a bad contraction :D

In addition you also get a cool bit of kit that allows you to electrocute ur wife – The TENS Machine – Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation – The idea is for electrical impulses to interrupt the nerve signals heading up the spine – in reality its a better and more fun version of putting ur tongue on a 9V battery.

Make sure you get this in plenty of time so that it can be thoroughly tested ;)

So far so good – we are getting to use gadgets and tech in the oldest of applications

Stage #3 – !=Theme Hospital

So you have driven to the hospital got to the delivery suite where else can we get tech in?

Well unfortunately it goes down hill from here. There are some machines to pick up the heart beat of the baby, there is Entonox which is surprisingly effective when inhaled passively.

However, the brutal fact is this is still a pretty intense and primal process where there is just alot of effort and pain required. Now my other half being the elite birthing machine she is gives birth standing up and in about 40 minutes. Its not always so simple and the hospital ‘equipment’ to assist before a c-section are effectively some big pliers and a hoover.

So moving on swiftly:

Stage #4 – Tell the world!

Now here we really can do something again. Pictures etc can now be on ur favourite social network/s within seconds (especially hospitals have now admitted the no mobiles rule was just a revenue stream). After that its time to enjoy the new arrival and get sleep whenever you can (and its MUCH easier the second time!- for the Dad anyways – sorry ladies)

So here’s to baby Nate and my wonderful wife!

Lombear