Primary Data

` <http://www.bennee.com/~alex/blog/2011/05/17/primary-data/baby-3/>`__

It's hard to explain the impact of seeing a few grainy pixels waving at you on a medical monitor stand. While it's a sign of our modern magical times that I can provide people with a picture of my yet-to-be borne child it loses some impact due to it's static nature. While we watched this recognisable form bouncing around in natures playpen my thoughts underwent a moment of crystallisation from the abstract to the actuality. Obviously I've known we* were pregnant for some time however this was the first irrefutable primary data that it is really all happening.

Obviously I'm not the first person to feel these sort of things. Evolution has been doing it's thing for some time providing the unbroken thread of life to something that is now our responsibility. I'm left thinking that questions about my suitability as a parent are rather academic now. I'm slightly mollified by the fact that a number of my friends have already walked this road. Friends that joined me in youthful excesses and moderately irresponsible behaviour back in the day seem to have taken on the mantle of parenthood with relative ease. It gives me hope that the mantle will fit me as well.

* I hesitated to use the pronoun as Fliss is very much taking the brunt of the pregnancy downsides. However it is a shared experience even if my input at the moment is restricted to platitudes and earnest requests if there is anything she would like that I can fetch her.