6 weeks ago Isa and I were in a taxi heading out of Newcastle, where we live, to a clinic on the edge of the city. We left Biddlestone Road, where our current place is and crossed over the coast road which runs down to the beach. It was early evening though still light. ‘Stargazing’ by Myles Smith was on the radio – do you know it? It has this lovely line I think, ‘love me to my bones’ and it goes up at the end into falsetto , I like to sing it when I’m on my bike!

Window on the Womb is a clinic for early scans, the NHS do them only at 12 weeks. A scan at this point has significance because of something pretty special – the heartbeat. At 5ish weeks the heart beat begins and having a scan at this point, week 8, confirms the pregnancy and brings the first visual of a being that – from week 1 (1/100 of an inch long) first produces an independent hormone letting the carrying body know it’s there(!) to now, at 8 weeks the size of a blackberry.

In the scan room Isa, the nurses and I are looking at a big screen TV. Moments before, the nurses scan and look. It must be at this point they prepare themselves to let you know there is something or maybe there isn’t. They asked us to look at the TV, and we watched it…

The image on the screen was like a night sky, inky and cloudy. Amidst it all I saw something right away. It stood out like a star in that darkness, a bright light flickering slightly. The moment of recognition is something that will stay with me, as I noticed the nurse zoomed it, selecting the area and bringing it closer. “There”, she said, “the heart beat”.

I suppose my brain understood it but something deeper recognised it with much more intimacy almost familiarity, I felt it, and a feeling of loving protectiveness instantly arose that was beyond my thinking! I can be sure of this because my thinking was still thinking about the size of this collection of cells, how amazing this machine was that located it, how many trails and designs of that machine must have been generated to make this moment possible at all (my mum tells me in the 80s when I was born no such thing existed!) Yet somewhere deeper than all these, funny when I come to think of it now, thoughts – was this heart beat and it was still beating, still flickering.

This blackberry has just lost it’s tail (it had one) fingers and toes are slightly webbed no knees, thighs, ankles, the buds of legs are forming.

I cried in the car park, waiting for the taxi. In-wonder, awe and also unsure about some things, worried patterns would come and go and I’ll share more on them another time, though this lasting image of the evening stays with me. As we drove back in the early evening, rear car lights ahead of us and Myles Smith’s ‘Stargazing’ playing on the radio again – I looked at our inky, cloudy and dark sky, saw stars emerging and flickering through and the feeling of being inseparable from that vastness and beauty owned the moment.

It’s the one that holds some weight because of pre 12 week (first trimester miscarriage). Before 12 weeks the possible conditions that need to be present include a number of things, include a chromosome presence that is stable taking 23 from each parent and making 46 or 47 which we know as Downs Syndrome in English. No clotting has occurred around the placenta which can stop nutrition coming in and waste going away from the baby-to-be. Infection free and Uterus normality. 

Waiting to be called we looked around the room in the fertility unit of the RVI in Newcastle, people there for different reasons I imagined, at different points in this journey. Something I’ve felt through our journey so far is that these spaces of appointment, of checks and tests, hold within them the felt-significance of the potential pain to joy spectrum. Hospitals in general I find such poignant places moving, as they do, people in at birth and out at death everyday, everyday. Taking last year in the UK, (2023) births: 605,479, deaths: 544,054 deaths. All those moments of tenderness, tears, love and… coming into focus in that space. Both felt so present to me that day as we looked around, and felt inside. The thing that you sometimes don’t know apparently, is that a heartbeat can come to rest and the body continues to hold it, sometimes for weeks.

I realise the borderline which health care professionals are at when people walk into their scan rooms. With each encounter, there’s a connection and then they do what they train to do, then there’s the seconds before they share with you and hold you somewhere on that spectrum. I bow to them, my hand is on my heart to them, I pray for them, I raise my tea mug to them (however they would appreciate my love) for their work everyday. The scan took minutes and the picture is here. We saw a person where the heart beat had been, as clear as you like, the size of a lime; kicking and holding hands across the face, in prayer hands for a moment, arm over eyes, arms by the side. My tears fell again!

The spiritual writer Rupert Spira has a quote I love: “Whatever this Universe is, we emerged from it. Therefore whatever we essentially are must be the reality of the universe from which we emerge”.

Isa said: as I remember “I feel like the baby is born of the universe, through me no not from me”

Current size: pear. the journey continues.

In this space of knowing growth is happening though not seeing it Isa says, ”I sometimes forget I’m pregnant!” I do too. Through these pre birth weeks I find my heart and mind weaving together questions and wonder in a kind of ongoing contemplative exercise I’m enjoying. “What is a baby anyway?” came in as a question, with a smile, the other day. Good question! I think held with love, questions like this can open a lot. 

The Buddhist teacher Ahjan Brahm has a technique for answering any questions. He says something like, put all the information that feels important in your mind, make sure it’s there then leave it alone! It’s something I try and do for practical decisions. While I’m not making a practical decision, I thought I’d try it anyway. Here’s what came to my mind since I contemplated what a Baby was…

An agreement 

In our case, we thought about this a long time, we all will have our own stories. I remember I was doing a workshop with 11-15 year old kids one summer and we were talking about parents, children and families and and one of them said with ease and half a smile, “I wasn’t planned!”. It seems to me that this agreement can become real at different points. Conception, pre birth, afterbirth, somewhere along this line there’s a “yes” by a parent, parents, carers. It feels to me this can happen not only once, maybe many times. Someone I know who came to the UK on the onset of war in Afghanistan arrived to London as a teenager, not speaking English and he found himself at the table of a Nigerian foster family with a mixture of foster children and blood family children. He told me it was as though the parents had developed a way of talking and gesturing that your brain didn’t understand but your heart did, there was no doubt that had decide to look after you! Maybe each day is a new agreement to give each other spaces to grow like that.

Creation 

Creation may chime as a religious word, though is also an artistic one. The artist René Magritte says, “Art evokes the mystery without which the world would not exist.”

 I name things don’t I? Objects, places, people (my phone book is a collection of people’s names and things about them that make me smile… ‘Adam paint-pots, Sholee silent sea swim, Pete the garden maker’… wonder what yours is feel free to ask! 

This act of creating seems a natural inheritance to me, an everyday act of loving the world into being and love is I guess an agreement of agreements (or agreeing to not agree) that all the same celebrates our creative nature and sees that goodness in it. 

An interesting meditative exercise is ‘unnaming the world’. This can happen involuntarily though mental illness I understand, the world becomes shapes and colours, have you seen the Pixar film ‘Inside Out’- it happens there. To choose this is something calmer, something appreciate and I find something that brings a path home to love if that makes sense?

This excersise would mean simply sitting and looking at the world around you. Seeing trees and then un-naming the tree and seeing the colours and the shapes you can also do this with things it seems more difficult to un-name maybe places, maybe people, and then allow it all back in and see how that feels.

A process

Cold hard science says: we are born we live we die (eyes open, teeth clenched emoji!) We are then a process of growth and entropy (the decline into scientifically called, ‘disorder’).

The French scientist Antoine Lavoisie said, “Nothing is born, nothing dies”, in a paper suggesting all that exists continues to exist in another form. A cloud is in a cycle -we know this don’t we; I remember leaning it in Mrs Daniel’s class in primary school!  Lavoisie extend it to …everything! A baby in this way is an expression of life at this moment, born of the conditions, a process yes, though what then isn’t? A mountain, a song, a sunset, the feeling of love, or a flower. The Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh said, “we are flowers in the garden on humanity” – how about that? 

As as warning this chapter talks about a few visits I made to doctors and hospitals – not in any great detail though if your a bit sqeemish there is some.

About 18 months – 2 years ago Isa and agreed to try naturally for a child alongside some appointments we had booked for IVF with the NHS. IVF is invitrio fertilization. I was interested to read about the statistics on IVF having heard about it over the years though not in much depth. I found it moving to find that while IVF was at one-time a very controversial topic for many (I appreciate for some it still is) it’s track record of allowing, by now, millions of healthy babies to exist since it’s trial in 1978, has now made it common-ish place. Interestingly Louise Brown, the worlds first IVF baby (born in the UK in Oldham), now 47, gave birth naturally in her late 20s. 

The possibility of carrying a child drops after 40. Isa is now 38 and was asked to consider IVF by the NHS. The NHS currently provides 3 free attempts per person.

It wasn’t until I had a sperm test with my first NHS appointment however that the doctors were unsure about how likely it would be for me to have children at all. The results were that actually, of an expected range of 15 – 200 million, my count was 10 and none were living. 

I remember the nurse telling me on the phone in a very quiet and concerned way, explaining that a specialist would call. It was a strange feeling. Like many times in life I realised I was stood where many had stood before. How would I respond? I have this tendency to take in news, let it stay and let it be. I remember when I heard my Dad had a few weeks before passing, a wave of significance passed through me, I took a walk in the park as this new reality arrived, ‘it’s ok’ I remember saying to myself. For sure I have my moments, I’m not one to hold back tears when they come, though this felt similar, ‘it’s ok’.

Isa took it in, I could tell he was quite sad; we let it be for a week or so before telling the clinics.

Over the next few months we decided with some support to look more into the situation and went to private clinics for tests. There was definitely a privilege check in this for me. While the IVF route continued and the NHS would also investigate the results, waiting times could be a couple month or so between appointments.

Private treatments took place in London clinics, Harley Street mostly and some drop in test centers near Victoria. Appointments are available most weeks and waiting times are 20 minutes at most. Prices are around £100 for tests, results are back in a day or so. 

I resolved at this point to find ways to support the NHS, to listen to friends who worked there and campaign for its survival. Isa and I share a deep love for it and heartbreak at its privatisation.

I underwent a number of initial blood tests, all came back ok.

Next step was to investigate why the count was low and the infertililty. According to WHO infertility affects 1-6 people and is something that is increasing in recent years. 

It interested me to consider population in this wider way – the WHO studies on infertility are based on worldwide research meaning that people with all kinds of conditions of living and experiencing similar things. Isa and I talk about ‘signs’ a way of saying ‘ok, life doesn’t (or does) want that!’ It’s funny sometimes: going running when it’s raining (life just wants us to drink tea inside!) having a flat tire on the bike and canceling an appointment (same!), though we also share this sentiment about larger scale things, social movements, growing protest movements in favour of humanitarian ethics and natural rewilding during the pandemic for example.

On a personal level there were contemplations around what to investigate and also when to let go. Isa’s wish to be a mother biologically is something that fascinates me. Many books and blogs detail people feeling something of this and though I don’t feel it, it had become quite an enchantment to me. With the complications we had, we wondered if this was a sign, something that naturally wasn’t supposed to be. While there was a feeling of sadness, there was also an ok with this, or at least that it would be ok.

This being said we chose to use some money we had, in a limited way, to continue investigating, deciding the end point would become clear within it.

On walks through parks, on tube rides and on my bike at this time I’d pass people and think, ‘we were all born!’ obvious in one way though with my recent experience, newly deepened; what stories must exist in our ancestry of these births, and those stories are in me.

The following weeks saw three scans and the discovery of a tiny growth over the tube which the sperm leaves the body. 

The clinician who discovered it called us to say that a newish treatment was available which involved a hot wire being inserted along the tube, removing the growth (which is likely to grow back) and allowing the sperm through.

We decided to try and more on that in 10% part 2

spending a few summers with friends backpacking and busking in Europe- to living in a monastery, something that meant so much to me some years ago. In each of these cases, there were questions and maybe challenges though my sight felt clear, I just had to do those things- maybe you know these feelings?

When Isa told me a few years ago that she wanted to become a mother I was in awe and so touched and somehow knew deep down that while this was something I hadn’t yet decided on; this calling of Isa’s had cast me in it’s light, if that makes sense? We talked it through from idea to plan over the next few years. I came to feel this wish as a powerful force, something that I deeply respected.

My own uncertainties In no particular order, and were like this: I was concerned about climate change – I know no-one really knows, but some predictions hold that things could get pretty tough in the coming years and for some in the world already are. Isa and I have also struggled, leaving each other feeling quite misunderstood at times (not unusual in human relationships I know!) Would I make a good father? Life paths, location and responsibilities to beloved parents to name a few other things too. This is to say that before we realised there was a “10% chance” biologically, my own process with it was still shaky!

The responsibility I felt to make a decision has had me awake many nights, I also read blog after blog, I journaled, talked to friends, family members, some therapists and myself! And also meditated. I think it’s good to deeply contemplate things though I’d never quite experienced something like this! In one excersise I came up with I spent a week living with the decision I would not go ahead with it, the week after, the decision I would – my head and heart were still as confused as each other!

All this while, Isa, who knew I was struggling, continued her path; her research, her plans and contemplations – Isa’s resolve to become a mother was not changing, it was something I found so beautiful, cosmic and unshakeable. I remember a few times the words came to me, ‘Isa is going to be an amazing mum’. I figured whether it was with me or not this would happen!

In what sounds like a quite non-action kind of way, I decided to kind of let life decide. I would go ahead with getting the operation. It took place successfully at a private hospital, Princess Grace in London, more another time.

While it felt good to have moved in that direction- I still struggled and kept it inside. My Dad passed away around that time also something that was unexpected, I’ll write about that another time.

Isa and I then took some time apart in January.

During this time, I stayed with a friend. I felt free from the decision for a while though it sat with me again, so to speak, kind of holding my hand more than anything else. Another friend said to me at that time: ‘relationships are brave work’, we shared some voice notes about life and understanding unfolding through relationships. Whether friendships or family, we wouldn’t be here without we concluded!

To consider life like this, as relational – realising more and more that for some relationships, knowing you have to let go into them as they change to continue in them yourself, feels like standing knee deep in a great river feeling the pull of the water. Do you get back on the bank and enter another time or do you …you know…jump in! Have you had experiences like that?

On the otherside of my doubts were always other ways of thinking, other ways of knowing; life of humans on earth can be so beautiful, and may well continue for thousands of years. A strong belief in Isa and I. Life’s questions have answers. As the poet Rainer Maria Rilke said, ‘live into the answers’.

We moved back together in early Spring to continue the journey. 10% chance pt 2 next time.

It took place at Princess Grace a private hospital which also takes NHS patients. We were there as private, having paid for the surgery. It crossed both our minds what the NHS would be like if it had more funding, maybe like this was today; we booked the appointment a month or so earlier, we came in and went straight to the resting room, met within half an hour by a nurse, the anethnatist and the surgery team. 

Staff seemed to have more time, and the building itself was less busy than any time I’d been to a public hospital.

I read that while care funding in the UK has increased in recent years, we still fall behind many other countries on the amount of GDP that goes to health and of what is spent increasing amounts is done so on privatisation. I love the NHS and would love to talk to anyone reading about campaigns to save it. 

In my hospital gown I sat in the bed and talked with Isa. She has a beautiful smile I think, and while I know she was nervous (I think more than me!) I remember thinking it will be great when it’s all over and I can wake up back here and see it! 

The door opened and the nurse returned to wheel me down the corridor, anesthetic then operation. The anethnatist has one job, brought in to deliver the injection alone, I know this because he said, ‘it’s a lonely job mine, I chat with people and then they fall asleep!’ I think he was trying to put me at ease as he found my vein and gave me the dose. I asked something along the lines of, ‘please tell me what will I feel’, he seemed to like this question and talked through the next 20 seconds precisely: ‘so, first you’ll start to feel a little dizzy… and then your tongue will feel a little fizzy and then…

In my anethnatised dreams I was on a beach with my Dad, his dogs were there and my step mum Jane, it was golden like autumn days are and I felt safe.

‘Joe’ Isa’s voice, ‘hello’. And that was it, the surgery has been successful and I got my included meal of vegan soup and salad and a taxi back to where we were staying. The following days were spent recovering and using a catheter (which helps you pee) because the reflex to allow and stop that takes some weeks to return, which it did!

The days were sweet and the feeling of Isa’s determination to bring a human into the world that was a part of both of us rested in my heart.

One night in the hotel, some friends, maybe you who are reading, held a small online gathering for me, a ceremony for my Dad, amongst one of the most beautiful things I have been given in my life. That night I slept feeling held by many hands in this river of life. 

In it she talks about the ‘Warmth of the Ages’ meaning the warmth of human love and literal bodily warmth that is passed through our ancestors. In this way, the warmth I feel in my body as I lay down to sleep, I know is my grandmother’s, and her grandmother’s and so on!

I mentioned my Dad. He passed away last year. We had 3 weeks with him in hospital and got to hold his hand and talk with him about family and friends, and memories as his body moved, pretty gracefully to rest. A time of great reflection and letting be and by the same sentiment as above  his warmth is here in me.

This baby to be, now the size of an ear of corn, has the same warmth of course and that feels deeply profound and deeply scientific to me at the same time.

So much of the pregnancy is like this I feek, full of life’s mysteries unfolding right there within Isa’s belly. ‘in the pure place’ a friend said last week with a smile.

I’m reminded though, what isn’t full of life’s mysteries if we have the eyes to see? Even the challenges.

A friend of mine called Christa (a mother of two) and talked about this, this week. We are both fans of Plum Village, maybe we write some meditations for being parents we thought, a way of keeping the wonder. While it’s easy to say now, I don’t want being a parent to feel less magical but then, I know it’s sometimes all too easy to lose that sense of wonder when life is a bit hard.

Here’s a little start I made inspired holding Christa’s newborn.

“Holding this body in my arms, may I remember what is in my care: thousands of years of human family, the love of lifetimes, the warmth of the ages.

Eyes that will come to see grains of sand as easily as stars. 

Hands grown from life, reaching out to find warmth and love

A voice ready for words, for song, for poetry.

A heart that knows it’s belonging, to all that is, that grows in each moment toward the love it brings into the world.

May I be on board with the sacred agreement to nurture this.”

A start!

It’s a baby!

The 20 week scan, the second and in many cases the last one offered by the NHS was another one of those deeply moving moments.

Scanning technology had developed to the point now where, on a ‘good day’, where this new being is cooperating, meaning the body is unfolded enough to see, the nurse is able to check a number of signs of health including measurements of the spine, face and limbs, mobility and amazingly, blood flow. We were able to see inside the baby’s heart to locate four chambers and, through superimposed colours based on blood movement, blue in and red out I think it was, flow of the blood from those chambers. 

The appearance of baby to the eyes is again profound: that’s me, that’s not me, that’s Isa, that’s not Isa, that’s both me and Isa and not me and not Isa all at the same time.

And yes, we were shown the sex – well we were shown the growth of external reproductive organs though the nurse didn’t actually say the word ‘boy’ I noticed, I like that.

A few friends asked if we had a preference in the last few months. We both had imaginings though caught them before they became thoughts or preferences I would say, at least for myself. Sat back at the table the evening of the scan Isa and I wondered what it must be like to have a strong preference and then your baby not be that.

Statistics show that there is 1.05 ratio of boys to girls – meaning slightly more boys are born than girls. There is also however higher infant mortality amongst boys. 

Excluding preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), a procedure that can be performed as part of IVF, there is no way to guarantee a ‘boy’ or a ‘girl’. Why do I put these words in marks like this. 

Did you know that the number of intersex babies born is about 1 in 1000? This means there are millions of people worldwide not fitting the binary of traditional female and male, men and women, boy and girls: natural variations in physical characteristics exist.

From amnesty: Intersex is an umbrella term used to describe a wide range of natural variations that affect genitals, gonads, hormones, chromosomes or reproductive organs. Sometimes these characteristics are visible at birth, sometimes they appear at puberty, and sometimes they are not physically apparent at all.

While I don’t think rejecting the binary on behalf of someone else is the right thing to do it brings up some interesting contemplations around allowing this little human bean to be themselves – and actually, contemplations about why that should even be a contemplation.

The amnesty article goes on to say, sadly, that intersex people are operated on from birth when, in many cases, there is no need.

While transgender identities and intersex identities are independent there feels a commonality in being forced into boxes and rejected when who we are pulls those boxes apart.

I vow to celebrate every cell of this being as it grows, finds their way, their preferences of toys, clothes, music, friends and love. May the future be as fluid as it is naturally meant to be. …and… neutral colours please.

From 16 weeks science tells us that unborn babies can hear! Described in an article I read as like if you are in a hotel room and you can hear people in the next room. You can’t make out the words though, there’s something, something of melody, strength and ultimately feeling.

I reflected on this and thinking about how sensitive I can be to communication, maybe this is familiar to you? If I’m talking to someone and they are sad, irritated, anxious, angry and so on, I know. How do I/we know? I figured it’s a number of things including volume, spacing, weight (like power), tone and so on. If I put myself in that imagined hotel room I feel I could make a good guess at what the atmosphere in the other room would be like. With life experience, you could say, well that’s easy to surmise; though what else is that, on a fundamental level than feeling?

I also know that attention can be a powerful thing. If I come into someone’s for a while and that comes with care and love, I feel it.   

Heartbeat

‘The mother’s heartbeat is a constant’ I read on one blog. That moved me. So you could say hearing forms to the backdrop of that rhythm, and so it has been in family lines children hear the heartbeats of their mother who heard the heart beats of their mother who heard the hearts of their mother …in an unbroken chain.

Around now it’s recommended to say “hey”, ears can differentiate voices and music and so each day Isa and I are together we read a bit and sing a bit.

We are currently getting through the wild ride that is Pippy Longstocking, one of Isa’s beloved childhood stories. Pippy is an 8 year old who lives with a horse and a monkey called Mr Neilson as her mum died and her dad is at sea. She is incredibly strong and quick witted, constantly outsmarting authority figures in the shape of policemen, bullies and other adults who tell Pippy what to do in an unkind way. We are also getting through my back catalogue! 

The sound of voices, of cities, of winds, of the sea, even in quieter places when we listen; the breath.

What it is to hear? I love this quote by writer Clarice Lispector, “The world’s continual breathing is what we hear and call silence” 

you realise something when you hold a baby…how much your parents loved you.

Christopher said he’d heard it from somewhere else though I knew every word was meant of that sentence and when I heard it, it landed inside me, like truth does, familiar and timeless!

I think wisdom like comes right through life, carried by various messengers; you are one, I am one –  I think we all are sometimes; there’s moments when I feel I’ve just got to share something and I do, and often if I try to not be wise – it’s better! It’s got nothing to do with any idea of myself really, I’ve come to realise! Christopher delivered it that afternoon.

A few weeks later came another profound dose of wisdom this time from Mary. 

Isa and I arrived early to the Community Health centre and took two seats on a row of blue plastic chairs. A few other people came in and sat down. We smiled and shared some words on pregnancy, due dates, where we lived. The room began to fill up and after about another ten minutes Mary came in; maybe 60 years old: “shall we get in a circle?” Chairs got rearranged, moved forward and back – “that’s better”. 

For me, something came over the room at that moment; a kind of warmth – we were about 15 people and Mary. As we went around and shared our names and due dates – hands on bellies and eyes on each other we arrived. “My name is Mary”. Mary knew everything. A midwife lead at the local hospital, we spent the next 2 hours hanging on every word. This class was about the birth, what would happen when, what it might feel like, how to prepare as you can and also, how not to worry. Sat there I felt like we could have been in a village 1000 years ago listening to an elder, and for a moment, time disappeared – I wonder if that ever happens to you? For me I get a feeling in my chest, nothing changes on the outside as such but I just sense clearly the something that’s always been there – we are bodies born of bodies I thought and later I wrote in my journal – what was then is now re grown-
So in that way time collapses – The Hindu text the Bhagavad Gita describes that there are events and at the same time nothing ever passes away, so you have oneness and variety at the time. 

A lot has changed in 1000 years (the first English hospital recorded was 1123 in London) childcare is touchingly, so important to people in ways that I hadn’t imagined – I’ll share more on that another time, and through it all, this spirit of passing a message was present in the room.

“One of the most important things you need to learn how to do, is relax” said Mary. She went on to tell us how beneficial meditation can be, which I loved hearing her say.

The circle closed and the chairs were put away but Mary’s love remained! 

– my Mum and Dad liked that there were brothers in Bible called Benjamin and Joseph; and so we became Ben and Joe.

Choosing a name is a responsibility Isa and I put off! That was until we felt that, well, anyday now we are due to meet them- we better get our act together.

We had a few lists – names that we both liked: they were all different. Both lists grew a bit but still no heartfelt yesses! We got it down to saying we wanted 3 letters – that was a big moment Isa, Joe and *** – then we left it for another week – occasionally trying a new one out to sounds of …”mmm maybe” … “no sorry”.
As with other moments on this story of creation, existential insights came with choosing a name. The first one: we all have a name (!) and before we had a name we were… …for a fraction of a second the youngest being on the planet – a holder of the key to everything. Some babies don’t have names for a while even – I love to contemplate that – there’s something spacious in the namelessness.

The next insight was about affection and attention. If I think of my Mum (we call her Mum) that word contains every smile, every song, every kiss on the cheek; the warmth of her hugs – it’s all there. If i hear the word Mum in a different context – much less.

So it’s context. In one of our conversations we started talking about the band Coldplay (not as a name option!) but more about how two random words (I believe they were just taken randomly from a dictionary) come together to be …if you like their music a feeling of warmth arises – if you don’t, maybe there are some other feelings – but context makes a name – and repetition of course.

At somepoint in a recent conversation, laughing that we just couldn’t find the name and suggestion funny ones: – we broke it down to letters and sounds we agree we liked – walking in on that seen would have been funny; two friends say making funny sounds at each other!

Somewhere in the midst of this something emerged, “mmm that kind of works, let’s look it up”. What came next will stay with me forever isa read something like: “*** an old english word, meaning someone who believes in the power of love”. It also has some brilliant urban dictionary meanings.

There’s a few clues if your interested though otherwise we share with the first picture, the reveal – something Isa picked up from a friend in Germany.

Middle names: we are sharing those – here goes *** Hilder Swan Meier-Holtaway. Let me break it down! Hilder is after Isa’s grandmother – an amazing force of love who lives in Baden Baden in Germany. Swan is my mum’s family name – and is also in my name. And double-barrelled surname of both of ours.
The child could change it if it wants; that’s ok in time. Like anything – this child is the one who knows best identity wise. Though yes, there it is, a sound, in the universe, *** ready to be woven with a body, a mind, a smile, a life. I let it sit on my tongue, I whisper it, I write it down – it’s ready.



he passed this week, many of us gathered yesterday evening to remember him, sing, share and carry him, his love and principles forward. So the circle of life continues. I remember reading once that birth and death are opposites – life though,  exists beyond that, I liked that. Karim will make wonderful uncle, we spoke about this and through my memory of him, he will be. 

It’s close now. Fully formed, the baby is the size of a Watermelon. In most cases baby’s heads will move down into the pelvis and labour begins. In a 9 month period this little seed on the scene at 0.1–0.2 mm has grown 50900% to an average of 50 cm. During this time Isa’s blood volume has increased by 40-50%, shoe size increases, brain loses 10% of it’s capacity

(we notices Isa’s memory wasn’t as sharp as it usually is, meaning I could win at our favourite animal memory cards!). 

We do have some not usual activity going on though. Baby is in breach meaning not always head down as would be hoped for by now, though as we have read some baby’s only go head down shortly before birth. Babies that don’t at all are usually delivered by cesarean section – something that is more common than I imagined with last years uk stats at 42% of all deliveries. An increase in cesareans has occurred in recent years I understand as restrictions on them was lifted in an effort to protect mothers and babies. Some voices our concerned about this – and others praise the restriction lifts. Our personal decision is to only use it if necessary.

Reading about this period of the pregnancy I came upon the idea that birth can be thought of as the moment when Isa’s body is no longer providing the nutrients the baby needs – the growth rate has outgrown the body and seeing it this way brings me back to think of something I wrote in an earlier chapter, life a process, as movement, the coming together of life elements! 

The Physician and writer Gabor Mate said in a talk I listened to recently that the human lung is born in expectation of oxygen, he then said, that’s not quite right – you can’t actually separate the lung from the oxygen – they evolved together. And so I think it is with a child and love. Outside of the poetry of that statement 🙂 there’s a scientific truth also about attention, love, presence, that a child will not survive without – or at least there will be a strain as a lung is damaged if not supplied with adequate air.

While a baby doesn’t experience the attachment I imagined; to a person or persons through sight (vision is very blurred for weeks) it’s sense for connection is wired in. If distressed the best thing is skin to skin; a return to the warmth and heart beat we grew up with. The connection is felt through sound in other ways too; crying simulated lactation. A friend of mine, training to be Dula told me in some crisis situations grandmothers can also lactate. A process known as relactation – written about here where, in South Sudan grandmothers support malnourished children. In one of our antenatal classes, our wise elder told us – “for the first few months the baby doesn’t even know they are born!” So connected the body they/we grew up in the journey to self is a gradual one.

Do send your love across to us and when this little one emerges I’ll post a photo.

It’s been supportive and a nice opportunity to reflect on life here, thank you for reading, it helped me write.

I’ve been thinking I’d like to continue through the first year, writing and recording every couple of weeks, thinking there will be plenty to say I’m sure as one chapter closes and another opens.

Our bags are packed, any day now.

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At 3 am on February 15th Isa woke me to let me know the contractions had started. Hospital said to sleep on it for another few hours until the intervals were closer and come in when they were every 10 minutes or so I think it was  a few hours later Isa said ok let’s go. We filled our flasks with tea, took some food and stepped out in early morning into a taxi. The drive to the hospital is about 5 minutes; on Isa asking of we could take it slow for her sense of bodily wellbeing, the taxi driver took 15 minutes at 20 mph the whole way – with no extra charge – this is a theme that comes up again in this post(!) we tipped.

Arriving at the hospital the midwife team showed us a birthing room that in contrast to the bright lights of the corridor was dimly lit with a projection of the universe on the ceiling and little green starlight that danced on the walls. At the back of the room was the biggest bath I’d ever seen – a birthing pool, with led tea light on the rim. It nearly brought us both to tears, the care that they must go to every time someone is admitted.

The details of the next about 30hrs are surreal, dreamy, intimate; involving contractions, a routine of positions, eating, drinking resting, conversations -all witnessed by a series midwives on shifts, with care and wisdom so generously coming from them; at 6 in the evening or 3 in the morning they were kind, up tempo and supportive. At 12:15 on Sunday the 16th, dressed in hospital scrubs and “part of” a delivery team surrounding Isa, I saw a small head emerge from Isa’s body, a neck and in a second a little human being, purple-pink in colour scrunched up in the position we’d seen them on the scans. It hung there in the air from the nurses hands, eyes barely open in the lights. A midwife told us that being born for a human baby is like being in your quiet warm house, heated to 21 degrees to being in a busy bright room with strangers with the temperature difference of suddenly being naked, outside on a Winter’s day!

We named this little one Fye (rhymes with sky and is an old English word for faith, trust or love – new English for fire – as in that’s so fye!) The staff new this and talked about this little creature already as Fye pre-birth – and so there Fye was, inseparable from that name we chose – inseparable from our wish to love him and inseparable from the weight, height, date and time of birth recorded that day. And yet with all this said – he had the universe in his eyes, singing to him on the first day watching him quietly take in the surroundings, you could see clearly he was pure awareness: seeing, seeing, smelling, tasting and hearing (a lot of my singing!).

One song I wrote a few years ago following a conversation with a friend about closeness had me in tears as I sang the chorus (my own chorus!) to him “When a body holds a body we know we are here for love”. I’d sung it heaps of times before something about the lyrics in this moment refound me!

It’s from an album I released just this week – felt nice that these things came together.

We stayed in the hospital another night while more kind staff do checks, answer questions and let you go.

Writing from 3 days into Fye’s life there is so more to say (I look forward to writing more – let me know if you are interested) though this seems right for now to leave us in a taxi traveling back to the house with another slow driver – smiling that this was Fye’s first ride! While I was in the back stroking a hand that was barely bigger than the top of my two thumbs put together, and in turn a thumb slightly wider than a few match sticks put together; this little person looks up at me and past me into the night sky. 

Tired, a little dazed from the hospital, and carrying this utterly new being — new to the world, new to us, yet completely of the world and us at the same time!

We arrived to the house – I remember thinking this is your temple little fella – welcome.

Over ten years of attending retreats has taught me something about arriving. You come to a retreat centre, you put down your bags, you breathe. You know you’ll be here for a while — you let yourself belong to the space. That was how we wanted to begin with Fye.

We decided: two weeks in retreat at home. It became a month. Just the three of us, and Bella the cat, with only brief visits from the NHS health team. No big outings, no unnecessary trips. The house became the centre of our world.

There was a rhythm to it, even if it wasn’t always the same rhythm as the day before. Like a retreat, there was work: cleaning, cooking, tidying. Isa needed rest, so I took on most of these small jobs. And in doing them, I began to see the house differently somehow.

This building, from 1850, had held many lives before us — families, laughter, tears – everything in between. A neighbour told us that once a nun had lived here with ten cats and ten dogs. True or not, I loved imagining the stories in the walls. As I swept, or carefully walked the stairs with a sleeping baby, I noticed details: the join in the wood, the places plaster had been mended, the sunlight shifting across the same patch of floor at different hours.

I let the house breathe — opening the front door in the morning, closing it at night like tucking us all in. In return, it held us.

Fye’s needs were pretty simple — food, warmth, rest — but his awareness was pure and wide open. He took everything in: the sound of a kettle, the way the light bent through the curtains. Watching Fye watch the world reminded me to look again myself.

Eventually, visitors came — first parents, then after a month, friends. The container opened slowly, gently. But in those first weeks, the home retreat gave us something rare: the chance to truly arrive, together.

“I have arrived, I am home,” goes the Plum Village song.

During this time, another thread was weaving itself quietly in: music. Just before Fye arrived, we’d been lucky to find an old piano delivered a week ago. On this and my guitar I began writing songs with Fye beside me — sometimes asleep in the sling, sometimes staring intently at the guitar!

And while all this beauty was unfolding in our little retreat, the world outside was something else. Each day, images arrived from Gaza — of children becoming orphans, of families shattered. It was impossible to look away, impossible not to feel that sharp ache in the chest.

So I decided to release 3 of the songs as an EP to raise money for the Zaynab project, which cares for orphans in Gaza. It feels small against such grief, but small things matter I feel— a song, a home, a hand held, a meal shared. If you’d like to help, there’s a form you can fill out. And from my heart. The songs come as acoustic recordings and 3 films made close to, and in, the house with Fye in each film. £5 more or less to your means.