So it turns out I'm not the only writer in this family...

My sister-in-law gave birth to a baby boy this morning.  We are all thoroughly delighted for my brother and his wife (who, by the way, looked like a supermodel in the photo taken moments after the birth which my brother sent me) and right at this moment in time I have to admit that Moscow seems even farther from the UK than usual.

The Boys are equally delighted, and this evening when Boy #1 came to do his homework, which included free writing for 20 minutes, there was only one topic he was interested in. Here is what he wrote;


"I have a new baby cousin today.  His name is James John xxxxx.  He was born 1 minute after 7am.  James weighs 3.2kilos.  He was a good size for a two weeks early baby.  James got a nickname, that was xxxxx.  I do not expect him to play football straight away.  He is very cute.  He only see's black and white things.  James has to crawl on his legs and hands because he is very young. I think he is going to be very smart. My uncle and aunt were very happy but also a little shocked. I think that xxxxx is going to let his beard, when he gets one, grow as thick as his dads. I can't wait to go there at Christmas. Maybe he will have the same colour hairs as his father."


Welcome to the world, James!

The one where it turns out I'm not so brave, after all...

I try to be a relaxed parent when it comes to matters of health for my sons, really I do.  Nobody wants to be that mother who flinches every time her child sniffs, or wraps them up in cotton wool every time they set foot outside the front door in case they encounter a normal childhood illness.  I believe whole-heartedly in letting your child's body develop without undue interference from antibiotics unless they're absolutely necessary*.

But once the Fear has had you in it's grasp, it never really lets go.

I still remember it all; the gut-wrenching dread that stalks your every waking moment when you have a seriously ill baby.  The feeling of helplessness as your 6 day-old child is prodded and poked, pricked and injected.  The constant watch to make sure that his Moro Reflex** doesn't knock the canula out, resulting in yet more harrowing attempts to insert a new one into his tiny arm.  The crushing, awful powerlessness of not being able to pick up my crying baby because doing so might interfere with the effect the lights are having on his bilirubin levels.

I remember the guilt; did I cause this?  Was it because I wasn't very good at breastfeeding?  Would he not have developed jaundice if I had had more milk?  Was the way the Scalded Skin Syndrome took such a fearsome hold a result of his lowered immune system because of the jaundice?  Did he catch the SSS when that none-too-clean looking orderly gave him a bath in the hospital when he was less than a day old and I could barely move from the bed due to the emergency c-section?  Should I have followed my instincts and grabbed him from her arms, ordered her away from the bed and refused to let go of him until, exhausted from lack of sleep on the too-noisy ward, we left 24 hours later?

Nearly seven years on those questions and many others from that time still haunt me.  Most of them I can discount in daylight hours when I am feeling relatively sensible. But one that won't go away and which I repeatedly ask myself (just like, I am sure, many expat parents living far from their comfort zone), is this:

How would I cope if an accident or a serious illness happened to my children here, now, in Moscow?

The answer is, I truly don't know.  Certainly there would be support structures I could call on; a Husband who speaks excellent Russian and who knows the right people to go to, or if he were travelling, friends who speak far better Russian than I do and who I know would go through hell and high water on my children's behalf.  Recent experiences within our social circle of excellent levels of care in both Russian and expat hospitals comfort me to some extent.  But say what you will about the UK NHS; it is still light years ahead of what the average Russian can expect to encounter in their nearest hospital.  And who knows, in an emergency,where you will end up?  It might well be the all mod-cons expat hospital in the centre of town.  But on the other hand, it might not.

So on evenings like tonight, when one son has a nasty cough and the other is complaining of stomach pain, I am rather more attentive than perhaps I might be if we were still living in London.  Logically I know that Boy #1's stomach pain is not possible appendicitis, but instead the result of too many sit-ups at his Taekwondo class this evening (stomach muscles are not our family's strong point; if I manage 10 I'm a mess and according to him, they did 200...), and that Boy #2 is not developing pneumonia but has just picked up one of the many colds doing the rounds at school at the moment.  Logically, I know both those things.

But logic doesn't stop me wanting to move my duvet to the floor of their bedroom tonight.

Turns out that the Fear - it never leaves you.


*although long term readers will know that I am fierce in my support of treating eczema proactively to prevent it developing into a long term issue or something more serious.

**also called the Startle Reflex

Time moves on...

A good friend of mine has just had a baby. Now, in the UK, we tend to hang back a bit when there's been a new arrival to a family; not for us (unless it's a very close relative) the Dutch way of dashing over there as soon as possible to a pre-arranged scheduled slot ('we can fit you in between 2pm and 2.30pm next Tuesday'), to eat special new baby treats and present gifts to the new arrival.

No, we go the opposite way in Blighty, waiting until the dust has settled before popping by, sometimes being so reticent about it that we can wait 6 weeks to present ourselves and pay our respects.

So it should be no big deal for me that I'm unlikely to meet this little bundle of cuddles before July, on our next trip back to London. Hell, if I'm honest about it, with the crazy schedules that we all follow these days, we probably only managed to meet 3 or 4 times a year when I was living there, so really this delay is just more of the same.

But it's things like this - the arrival of a new baby and the subsequent photo arriving in my e-mail inbox - that make the 1500 miles between here and there seem such a very long way...

Congratulations, F. I am thinking of you and your gorgeous-looking boy and will drink a bellini in honour of both of you.... x

And if you're wondering what the picture is of, it's a traditional treat the Dutch serve to celebrate the arrival of a new baby; a crispbread spread with butter and sprinkled with sugar covered aniseed (blue and white for a boy, pink and white for a girl). Apparently, the aniseed is good for stimulating milk production in nursing mothers. It's just a lucky coincidence that it tastes good, too...