Mrs. Stevo and Baby Stevo a week later.

It happened like this:

Monday, June 7: We went to the hospital. Knowing someone that knew someone, as well as a giant basket of fruit to bribe the floor nurses, secured Mrs. Stevo a nice room and attentive care. After checking in and meeting with the doctor it was off to the labour room. A bag of IV fluid, labour-inducing medication, and five hours later, Baby Stevo had yet to arrive. Baby Stevo was stubborn. Back to the room and a night sleep for Mrs. Stevo – back home for moi.

Tuesday, June 8: Back to the labour room. Unlike the day before, the medication kindled a fire. Just after lunch a stronger medication was introduced. Mrs. Stevo’s contractions went from winces to bed-sheet clawing near-convulsions. Our temp Nanny arrived, a sentinel over Mrs. and yet-to-be born Baby Stevo. By early evening Mrs. Stevo was in agony. No epidural until she was dilated enough, said the doctor. “I’m going to die,” she said, again and again. Because things were progressing slowly she was moved back to her room. The baby would come tomorrow, they said. I returned home, to be called when Mrs. Stevo returned  to the labor room.

Wednesday June 9: 1 am – The nanny said “Guo Lai!” when I picked up the phone. I dressed, found a taxi and headed back to the hospital. Mrs. Stevo was in the labour room again, pale, sweaty, and grimly facing her fate. No epidural yet. “I’m going to die” was her mantra. A doctor appeared and I was ushered out. When I returned Mrs. Stevo was roses and rainbows – an IV line snaked from under the sheets to a stand above the bed. She was able to get some sleep, as did I, outside the mosquito net, eaten alive. Three other women arrived in the labour room, they were quickly taken into the delivery room. Baby Stevo was still stubborn. By 5 am the doctor suggested Mrs. Stevo drink Red Bull and eat chocolate. They took her away and the orderly showed me the door. Husbands don’t routinely go into the delivery room in China.

I anxiously sat until an entire extended family arrived to wait. Quiet is not ever a word I would use to describe China. I roamed the corridors, coming back every 10 minutes to see if a nurse had appeared. Tired of walking I stood by the waiting room window and listened to my iPod (with noise excluding headphones) to drown out the unquiet family.

The door to the labour room had been dead-bolted – I had tried to get back in earlier. As I took a break from my musical escape I heard the bolt scrape open. A doctor emerged. All I caught of her statement was “… nu hai.” A  girl. What I wanted. I was excited, but exhausted. No where near as exhausted as Mrs. Stevo must have been. After another hour I was allowed in to visit.

Mrs. Stevo was radiant and angelic, like a renaissance painting. A bundle of blankets was held in the crook of her arm. Babies aren’t bathed their first day in China. Even with a mucky head, Baby Stevo was beautiful. The nanny fawned over them both. I sat a spell and returned home.

I returned mid-afternoon, after sleeping and packing. Baby Stevo and Mrs. Stevo were back in their room. I held my daughter for the first time and walked about the room with her in my arms. It was a brief first meeting – I was headed for Beijing. It would be a week before we spent more time together. (In Beijing I did not get to take any Great Wall Tours – for the second year in a row. One day Great Wall, I will climb you).

Welcome Baby Stevo.

A pregnant Mrs. Stevo two days before giving birth.

Mrs. Stevo and I will go to the hospital this morning – the goal being the birth of Baby Stevo. My lovely wife is not due until June 11 but during a recent hospital visit the doctor suggested Mrs. Stevo induce labour.

Hopefully this will go quickly and end in a natural birth. Many women in China opt for a c-section to reduce the pain factor. Mrs. Stevo is determined to have the baby naturally – but Mrs. Stevo is a small women. We will have to play it by ear.

It’s isn’t the norm for husbands in China to be in the delivery room with their wives. I asked Mrs. Stevo if she wanted me present to offer support, etc – but she has barred me from accompanying her. In her own words, she will be like a “crazy woman” and doesn’t want me to witness related crazy woman behavior. Given the drama that Mrs. Stevo displays from a stubbed toe it is probably for the best that I wait outside.

While we are hoping this is quick I am going prepared. My iPod is loaded with films, including the classic 1981 Clash of the Titans and something called Mega Piranha.  The netbook and GPRS-equipped phone will be standing ready – as will a Canon DSLR to catch some images of Baby Stevo.

Wish us luck – check Facebook for updates.

The movers and a rotund Mrs. Stevo.

Asian Ramblings has been woefully neglected as of late. That’s what happens when you’re a jet-setting photo guy with a pregnant wife, a new house, and far too much RL stuff to do.

Mrs. Stevo is quite round and moving at a snails pace. The doctor said the baby is ready to arrive although the due date is June 11. If the doctor was using the lunar calendar (which I still don’t comprehend) Mrs. Stevo could be overdue. I’ve learned not to ask too many questions about Chinese culture.

We have finally moved into Chateau Stevo, freshly remodeled.  I say we meaning myself and my mother-in-law. Mrs. Stevo is still staying with friends and will move in when her maternity leave starts this Friday. I look around the place with awe I we paid for all this, or will have in 23.5 years.

Most of the rooms  are lovely. My “study” is not. Boxes of books, photography gear and assorted crap are stacked helter skelter. I may have time to organize it all, when the baby starts kindergarten.

Pictured above are the movers I have gotten to be quite good friends with. Last Sunday they brought the final load to Chateau Stevo – our large wedding photos and a television. They didn’t even charge us (because they over-charged a naive generous Stevo last time). The television no longer works we learned after trying to hook it up. I have no idea what mother-in-law is doing with her time.

And special thanks to Jessie at Wandering Educators for the lovely baby blanket she sent. Either by luck or fate – It’s Mrs. Stevo’s favorite color.

Little Baby - lots o hair.

Stevo and Mrs. Stevo are proud to welcome this little wonder  into their lives.

Haha, got ya, didn’t I? She not ours, but the daughter of friends.

Miss Han and her husband Jin Shan had this lovely baby girl, (her name in English means Shiny Morning),  just over a month ago. She was born with a full head of hair. In honor of this I have given her the English name Harriette.

Miss Han doesn’t have an English name, other than Miss – the fact she is an English teacher hasn’t affected this. Her husband has no English name – but his Chinese name, Jin Shan, translates to Gold Mountain. That kicks it as a name.

Mrs. Stevo and Miss Han have been scheming since early in their pregnancies. Our children are destine to marry – but Miss Han progeny was suppose to be male. This little plan may not work out as the mavens wanted.

Welcome, Shiny Morning.

A Chinese lantern

Chinese Lunar New Year is long gone. The lanterns (above) are packed away until the next firework-fueled blow out: Two weeks of the year that an entire nation stops.

When the next new year arrives I will be father.

A father.

A man approaching 40, a successful yet slightly unstable vagabond, an expat, a square peg in a round hole, will be a father.

The thought fills me with terror. Life is now real, each day flashing by in sickening Technicolor dread. Not that life wasn’t real before – but your existence takes on a Disney-quality when someone else pays all the bills.

You should be happy, Stevo, says the inner voice. A baby! You like babies. You love children. You are child, in a middle-aged body – this will be only job you will ever really be good at.

Why is inner voice so optimistic?

I’ve never run from responsibility – that has been my lot in life. Making decisions regarding the design of a wireless flash trigger and raising a child are worlds apart. Can I do it? Will the jitters go away? Or, am I destine to be a nervous wreck until  Baby Stevo graduates university?

Don’t worry, everything will be fine. This is China, everything is always fine, you’ve learned that, worry wort, whispers the inner voice. The glass isn’t half full, it is full.

Half-empty then half-full – terror and joy holding hands with freakish regularity. That’s me, the lantern, blowing in the wind, between two extremes.

Seven weeks. That’s all. Seven weeks to stop being all dramatic, to put up and shut up, to be the man I should be – the man – the father – I want to be.

A bright and frightening future awaits.

I have moved.

Not into the freshly renovated Chateau Stevo – that’s not ready yet. (I’m beginning to think it will never be ready). Our stuff is temporarily in storage – by stuff I mean Mrs. Stevo’s shoes and assorted non-essential photography equipment. I am camping on a friend’s sofa (he’s in Europe) and Mrs. Stevo, luckily, given her condition, is living with a friend who is a doctor.

This is only temporary (fingers crossed). The new flat needs to be painted and the ash floor refinished. On the plus side, the bathrooms are finished and lovely orange kitchen cupboards have been installed. I won’t speak of the dreadful tile job that was done by incompetent contractors. I should be documenting this on the DIY blog I set up, but there’s only so much blogging one man can do.

Moving is never easy. It’s not natural to pack your entire life into boxes. This was my third move in under 12 months – that’s about four moves too many. It’s easy for newbies teaching English in China to pick up stakes – the same cannot be said for veterans now working as corporate types. After five years you accumulate stuff. I tossed much of it, but there’s still boxes and boxes.

We couldn’t move the boxes ourselves – Mrs. Stevo can’t lift anything and I am vying for laziest man in Shenzhen title: Enter the movers. Mrs. Stevo said she had found some guys with a truck – they would arrive Saturday morning. Boxes packed, the first mover arrived 15 minutes late – which in China is early. He looked around, said he couldn’t contact his partner, and left. Fifteen minutes later his partner arrived, looked around, and left.

By 10 am we called someone else. They had two trucks and would come immediately.

The “trucks” it turns out, were motorized trikes (much like the one above). The new movers loaded our boxes onto two trikes with speedy gusto. The two piles I had made – boxes for storage and boxes for my temporary apartment – were efficiently mixed together into one homogeneous pile of plastic and cardboard. I should know better than to try to be organized.

Then the first mover returned and tried to take over. They had been looking for bigger trucks, he explained. His cell phone was broken. They now had a bigger vehicle, they would take over. If the current movers could load the boxes onto his trike…

Nay, I say. Thanks for coming out.

A security guard wandered over as we prepared for the monumental 150 meter trek to our stuff’s new home. I’ve said before you can’t swing a dead cat in China without hitting a security guard. They are everywhere, like Amway distributors.

We couldn’t move, we were told. We didn’t have a moving permit. A permit wasn’t needed to move in, but to move my possessions 150 meters, from one apartment to another, an officially stamped permit was required.

“This is my stuff,” I protested.

“Get a permit,” I was told.

At the same moment the incompetent tilers called. Mrs. Stevo waddled to the new flat and I jogged to the estate administration office, passport in hand. The clerk looked at my passport, couldn’t read it, and took the ID card of a friend and put his personal data on the all-important moving authorization permit. It didn’t matter that the rental contract was in my name – any Chinese name would apparently deal with the red tape.

The security guard added the official permit to his clipboard and we were allowed to depart. Fifteen minutes later it was over. The movers were given my almost broken desk and a somewhat broken sofa bed, a bonus above the $13 US they had been paid.

As dusk settled I sat in my old apartment and drank a six pack. Beer is a peaceful balm to the mental abrasions China can cause.

In three weeks I get to do it all again. Actually, the way things are going that could be 5 months. Ain’t that grand?