Ben’s Musings

We had the 20 week scan of our baby on the 10th April. We chose not to discover it’s sex - we’re leaving it as a suprise. I haven’t had chance to scan the scan yet, so I’ve taken a photo of it with my phone:

You can see it’s skull, nose, hand, big “Gibbs” belly, and spine; and it seems to be sucking it’s thumb!

The scanning nurse said everything looked fine and it was growing normally. But, at a heart checkup recently, the doctor told me that our baby will have a 5% chance of having a congenital heart problem since I had one when I was born (normal babies have a 1% chance). So he is going to book Mary-Lou into a Fetal Cardiology scan with a specialist to check for heart abnormalities before it is born.

At the same appointment, the doctor said that he expects me to develop no problems with my heart in the next decade at least, but that I will inevitably have problems in later life. A number of things could go wrong: The electric pulse which contracts my heart muscles could weaken or stop, the left valve could become exessively leaky, my aorta could constrict itself again. So I could have a pacemaker, or sugery on my valve, or a heart replacement!

I knew my heart would go dodgy later on in life, but to have it spelt out was another thing - mostly helpful I think. It has made me prioritise my current health alot more, and made me want to achieve more sooner, before my poorer health excludes me from certain groups and activities. But I suppose that my poorer health would include me in different groups and activities too!

It’s made me think about my future years, especially in view of being married to Mary-Lou and having children. I don’t want to be a drain on my family in later life because of my ill health, and I feel quite anxious about that. But, I know my life (and my family) is in God’s hands and I feel very secure about that.

And, I’m gonna live ’till I’m 83 anyway.

Easter was good. Mary-Lou and myself went to see my family in Derby - perhaps for the last time. My Dad has agreed to run the Elim School of Ministry at Regents Theological College where he is already doing a Masters degree. So Mum and Dad are moving to Crewe in the next few months. Dad is also becoming an Elim Vicar!

Our mates, Andy and Nicole, gave us a lift down to Derby, and Andy asked whether I felt anything since this was probably the last time I was going to Mum and Dads house, where I lived for 7 years. To be honest, I don’t feel a thing about it. My only emotional and relational link to Derby is my family, all other links have long been dead.

Mary-Lou thinks that this is odd. She is still best mates with some of her school friends. But I feel comfortable with it, I don\’t miss Derby at all, and I have no friends there anymore since school. After A-levels, I popped off to Uganda and my mates all went to Uni, so during their first Christmas, they still had something in common - going through the same thing - but I was in Africa experiencing very different things! So thats why I think I drifted from them.

We arrived in Derby on Thursday night and my Dad came back from Tanzania on Friday afternoon with a chap called Ian who is a Dentist in Mwanza and who started the congregation there. He helps run Bridge2Aid. It was great to have him around. He beamed and boasted about his children and wife and he had lots of stories.

Mum bought us 4 plain baby grows and some Disney baby grows with Winnie The Pooh character on them. I saw this article about Sesame Street releasing a DVD aimed at under 2 year old babies a few weeks ago. The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood were saying how

“There is no evidence that screen media is beneficial for babies and growing evidence it may be harmful. Sesame Beginnings will encourage babies\’ devotion to TV characters that have been licensed to promote hundreds of other products.”

We recently went baby shopping at Mothercare and Toys-R-Us, and I realised how many products have Pooh or some Disney characters on. I don\’t want our baby to be surrounded by Disney characters from the moment it is born.

Not only do I think that Disney know that children will adopt these characters as friends and be more inclined to want products with these characters on at a later age, but I also hate the irresponsible marketing Disney, and other toy manufacturers, produce. It is aimed at children who have no money and so nag their parents, and creates the idea that they need these products to be accepted and to be valuable to their friends. It makes me shudder, It’s disgusting.

Mary-Lou is a bit worried about my opinions! She has great memories of watching Disney videos with her Dad. I don’t have a problem with our kid watching Disney videos, as long as it is not surrounded by them and it is old enough to understand the story - otherwise, what’s the point? The child will be watching characters doing random things and will come away with images of characters in it’s head, not a story with some moral.

I’m sure my opinions will change over the next few years as we raise our baby and have new babies! But for now this is where I stand with Disney and Babies.