Greetings from the couch! Some of you will be aware that our baby son, Fela Jack Hawkins was delivered safely into the world last Wednesday, May 23 at 120pm, weighing 3.4kg (7lbs 9oz). It was a surreal experience – walking into theatre and having my baby lifted out of my stomach about 20 minutes later, but an experience I can highly recommend.

Fela is a Yoruba name, and our son’s name was inspired by Fela Anikulapo Kuti, the Nigerian Afrobeat musician and human rights activist of the 1970s and 80s. Matt’s been a fan of his music for some time (its pretty cool – James Brown was but an imitation of him) and we figured the name had a resonance in Australia too. Jack seemed a good solid conventional name, in case he decides his parents were being pretentious when they chose his first. We also like the initials FJ and can only hope Fela J Hawkins may have some of the talent or cool of American Jazz musician Screaming J Hawkins.

I know anyone reading this who has a child doesn’t need to have explained the overwhelming feelings that come when meeting one’s child for the first time, and we were no exception. Admittedly, when Fela was first presented to me like a little Babooshka doll whilst still on the table, the morphine was still giving me quite a rush, and so that overwhelming feeling was rather more like nausea. But only a little later he was placed naked onto my naked chest, squirming like a little kitten…..And we have not looked back ever since. The love is actually very frightening.. The fact that I learnt later that night that the ashen-faced girl wheeled past me earlier in the day had just delivered a stillbirth who was due the very same day as Fela only increased the sense that we had been blessed far beyond what we could ever have deserved.

So, after a most impressive first suckle at the breast (Fela seemed to know exactly what he was doing, so that was one of us) we were taken to our room (a huge room overlooking the golf links and to the city and hills) the sun was setting, and celebrations began. Bottles of bubbles flowed for the next few days and I dived into a platter of almost everything that might contain Listeria as soon as I could (Matt had done a great job finding the stinkiest blue cheese, tastiest smoked salmon and the best duck liver pate I know for the occasion). I have to say I didn’t exactly feel like a Patient and made a speedy recovery from surgery, leaving one day early 6 nights later because I couldn’t bare the sense of fraud any longer.

I was pretty excited to get home too. Fela has been a very easy baby to this day. He is very contented, feeds well, and sleeps plenty, even at night. He does keep me guessing with the occasional fussy spell, but I guess that just keeps life interesting, if at times a little heart breaking.

So: there’s our news. There’s not much more for me to say except please take a look at our little slice of heaven for yourselves.
Note: squirmish people may prefer to skip the first couple of shots

23 May 2007, 1.15pm










7 minutes later.. a thoroughly modern birth







letting the paediatrician know all about the temperature of that stethoscope







2 hours old





















big little feet






the sage one






















Fela does Harrison Ford (no, I am not strangling him - that is a perfectly legitimate burping technique)





Sunrise views from bed


















Sunset views from the cocktail party suite










ready to go home























Home, sweet home

So, one and a half hours before I am due to go and have a baby I finally get around to writing a few words about my recent life for you all to read, in case you are interested. I’m feeling a little bit nervous in the last few hours of my pregnancy, a common feeling which has unfortunately been with me for a couple of weeks and a common enough feeling amongst women awaiting the arrival of a child. Being a medical practitioner and a paediatric one at that does give me a somewhat perverse perspective on things and those who go into spontaneous labour are rather more preoccupied in the last few hours to get nervous but, nevertheless, I don’t think I’m feeling anything new.

Part of me is a little sad too – a funny kind of bereavement in knowing that your intimate companion of the last 9 months is about to leave you, or at least your body. Definitely quite a profound experience: being pregnant: There did not seem to be a cell of my body that was not pregnant and every corner of it seemed to change: even my nails were not spared (of the fingers at least – those on my toes have been beyond reach for too long for me to know how they’re faring) Joining in on that prehistoric and seemingly miraculous chain of birth and death on this planet has also had me feeling a wonderful sense of connectedness with the world around me and all those who went before me. And I am not the first to notice the look of joy people get in their eyes when they see a pregnant woman and step aside or offer some help, advice or encouragement (those that have had children, that is: those who haven’t, like me a few months ago, barge on past, clearly too busy to notice or care) I found it pretty disconcerting at first, having my private life so clearly on display, especially when patients started asking me all about it when I was trying to formulate a management plan for their particular eye complaint. But I came to love their sharing of this time with me – and even their stories and advice. I reckon it’s pretty nice when you’re taking your child to the doctor and they’re pregnant – it probably gives you a sense that they may be on a sympathetic track (even if they know better than anyone what pregnancy can do to one’s brain)

So, I’ve had a great pregnancy, with no complications and no significant discomforts, once I became accustomed to the idea that breathing easily was for woos’s and numb hands and a stomach that looks like the entrance to the Louvre was all part of the weekly evolving joy. The reason we’re having Caeserean (for, unfortunately, I am feeling that uniquely contemporary sense of guilt which comes from today’s obsession with “natural childbirth” (something which I’m afraid has not ever been, not even now, a strong presence in my own brain – my take on it being that the day you are born is the most dangerous one of your life (after the day you die) – and a year in Africa did little to make me wish for less medical intervention) but also with accepting almost no level of risk) is because we’re 6 days late and induction is looking unlikely to be successful. So I reckon it’s safer, at least for Baby, to just go straight to a nice, controlled, situation instead. And perhaps I am just a bit “too posh to push”.

So what else has been happening? I’ve been working – at the Children’s Hospital down the road, and in private practice around the corner from there. The mix of the two is nice, though I have to say I do prefer the regular paychecks, complete with tax, superannuation and the like all sorted for me, that come from the hospital. Perhaps I am a little institutionalised – probably not surprisingly after 13 years in the public service.

And there’s been some time for play too. March was particularly crazy, since Adelaide decides to do all its festivals in one month of the year, leaving us in April with little to get excited about apart from some rain and possibly the end of Australia’s latest hundred year drought. Oh, and we’ve also had the arrival of a family member to get excited about too.

I can’t think of much else of interest, at least to me, to write about. I’ll add a few pictures of the expanding Jo, though I’m afraid my husband has been quite uninspired by the walrus he shares a bed with these days to take many shots. I think we have about two, so I’ll include them both here.

Signing off for now, hopefully with some good news to come within the hours!!!!!!

babysittting my niece at 21 weeks
















Ghanaian maternity gear, 25 weeks

























getting the baby's room ready










3 days overdue










postcard from Adelaide