Musings of a bionic mum-to-be

Recently my mother-in-law gave me an interesting newspaper clipping about the sorts of things new mums stress about when it comes to their babies. The top 10 list of worries included things like how to set up a routine for the baby, how to recognise the different types of crying, how to balance the time spent with grandparents, manage sickness, etc.

Being bionic, my personal worries are a little different to these, so I thought I’d share with you my own little list. ;-)

Long-term concern:

1. Will my son be able to stand up for himself if he’s teased at school because his mum has funny things hanging off her head?

Medium-term concerns: 

2. Just how many times is that little toddler going to try and yank my processors off my ears?

3. Will the sensitivity settings on my vibrating baby monitor have me waking up for every little murmur, hiccup and sigh? Or can I rig the monitor to just wake me up for actual crying?!

Short-term concerns:

4. They say a mum can recognise her own baby’s cry from another’s within three days of the birth. Will I be able to recognise the sound too? (Guess it depends on whether the recognition is based on pitch, timbre or basic maternal instincts.)

5. Which batteries should I use at the hospital – disposables, or rechargeables?

6. The hospital policy is that the baby stays with the mum whenever possible, not in the nursery – that includes overnight. My vibrating baby monitor will be set up at home only. So should I trust the nurses to remember that I’m deaf and come and wake me if my son is crying? Or not leave it to them and just sleep with an alternating processor for a few nights?  

Labour concerns (yikes!):

7. Exactly what program should I use for my processors during labour? Am thinking ‘Noise’ to block out the sound of my own screaming. ;-)

8. Oh and that brings me to this point – should I lower the sensitivity settings so that I don’t hear what’s going on in the adjacent birthing suites? (Could be wise!)

9. Laugh all you like, but ... are my processors going to fly off during labour??!!

And, readers, my single biggest worry of all:

10. If they do fly off, are they going to magnetically attach themselves to one of those horrifying metallic instruments that are destined to be inserted elsewhere? ;-)

Bet you won’t find this version of ‘worries’ published in the Herald Sun anytime soon!