Becoming a father is at once a uniquely personal and yet almost universal experience when our daughter was born at 03:30 on Saturday 27th October, in a procedure that dates back to Roman times, and which is still a breath taking event. 
If ever a couple want to discover a level of shared and mixed emotions, then being together in a surgery theatre during child birth has to be one of the most powerful ways to do that. The medical staff at the Beijing United Family Hospital was quick to install an IV drip on Wei’s wrist within 15 minutes of our arrival, but as our birth plan called for minimal intervention Wei bravely had it removed. Suite #7, softened by oil lamps, Buddha bar music and flowers, was a tender place for us to decide at 02:00 that we had no choice but for Wei to have a Cesarean having laboured for 24 hours. I sat at Wei’s shoulder while the 8 green-clad staff followed the masterful instructions of Dr Brooks, although I was unnerved when he implied certain parts of the procedure hadn’t been done prior to his arrival; in fact the nursing staff all avoided calling the imposing Dr Brooks until 02:00 when midwife Sarah eventually insisted that they do so - he wasn’t happy at being called when our baby, LP, was already in distress with a heartbeat racing at 175 bpm, nor I suspect because we had woken him. The Cesarean section is an ancient procedure, one that delivers over 30% of all Chinese (and British) babies. The name Cesarean is credited to Julius Cesar who was reputedly taken from his mother Aurelia’s womb – a story later discredited. Cesarean certainly comes from his ruling that babies were to be taken from the mother who had not survived labour. The first written record of a mother and baby surviving a cesarean section comes from Switzerland in 1500 when a sow gelder, Jacob Nufer, performed the operation on his wife. With Wei under lower body anesthetic, I held her hand and watched Dr Brooks and his Chinese staff use steel equipment that could have come straight from Herr Nufer’s stable; 30 cm long stirrups for pulling apart the cavity, 20cm long forceps for pushing apart the cervix, and snauser nosed scissors for cutting. Wei was shrouded by a green tent behind which she bravely withstood the dull pulling and lifting sensations, until miraculously a fully formed and remarkably calm LP was lifted into the bright white theatre lights. After all that labour, the operation was quick. We had expected our baby to be a boy, and I had a hard time looking for my familial genitalia, and I thought that it was my emotions that shrouded the surely large tackle, only to ask quizzically, “Is it a boy?” – Against all the wisdom of every mother and nurse we had met, Wei carried a 48cm, 2.95kg beautiful girl. We had names for a boy, ‘Ghenghis’ was one of my frontrunners, and in the event our daughter does carry what is known as a Mongolian birth spot on her right foot. Naming a girl is tough for a Dad. How to pick a name that is special but not a liability for her; anything rhyming with two wheeled conveyances, fat, pee, smelly etc. are definitely out. So too are names of girls Dad had a good or bad sexual experience with no matter how long ago. Of course one can’t say why one doesn’t like a name, “it just doesn’t suit her,” is the non committal reply. Boys’ names are easier. Apparently some 3,590 Chinese have adopted the name that sounds like ‘Olympic’, “Aoyun” while many are trying to time their delivery for 08:00 on the 8th August 2008. In the event we decided on Huan Huan for the Chinese name which means ‘happiness’, and is part of Huan Ying – “welcome,” because she just smiles so much. Her English name is Amity, for friendship and harmony – virtues she has displayed in her first week in the outside world. See Amity's first week Next in the wonderful turn of events is a mixed culture household, in which I realize that western medicine does baby delivery well but Chinese post partum care nurtures the wellbeing of the mum better. There is a traditional one month confinement period that Wei and I had dismissed, but having Wei’s mum here cooking all manner of ‘mum recovery’ meals noted in a special recipe book I can see why this ancient culture proscribes that time when the mum is not supposed to leave the house or even bathe. One morning Wei was tiring of boiled fruits in sweetened condensed juices and so I prepared a bowl of muesli, manfully warmed in the microwave. Wei’s mum followed me around the kitchen eventually asking me in Shanghainese what I was making – shaking her head she took Wei a bowl of long boiled fruits in sweetened condensed juices. I have to confess we both preferred her recipe. “Chinese mothers are tireless in their care and absent in their demands,” commented Chris Baron, the director of the British Chamber of Commerce, and so it has proven to be as I start to get used to passing my daughter at 03:30 to a pajama clad woman with whom the only common language is our love for this soft bundle of sleep and innocence. As we are now some 260 days away from the Olympics my life has been transformed, and this is also the case for the City, and we are all trying to find our feet. The pollution continues to be appalling, and in response new rail lines are promised. The computer system supposed to manage the 1.5m ticket sales fell over last week as 8,000,000 page views were registered on the website in the first hour, the system surrendering only 9,500 tickets before collapsing. The call centres were no better and eventually queues formed at banks overnight to get tickets. The 8 foreign torch bearers have been selected creating a PR opportunity for the Chinese, and I have been elected to the British Chamber of Commerce Exco which means that I may have a chance to be at a function with Tessa Jowell MP, Secretary of State for Culture, Media & Sport; a solace for the hours in committee meetings. To celebrate EASTWEST reaching 1 million RMB in sales I commissioned a commemorative mug with a modified 100RMB note; but none of the printers would take our money to make them. Marches without prior approval have been banned, and the third runway at the airport which could fly extra protestors in has been opened. Beijing continues to be a place of rapid growth and interesting contradictions. In all of this, for Wei and I, Amity’s healthy birth has truly meant huan yin lai Beijing. Welcome to Beijing. Manzou
If ever a couple want to discover a level of shared and mixed emotions, then being together in a surgery theatre during child birth has to be one of the most powerful ways to do that. The medical staff at the Beijing United Family Hospital was quick to install an IV drip on Wei’s wrist within 15 minutes of our arrival, but as our birth plan called for minimal intervention Wei bravely had it removed. Suite #7, softened by oil lamps, Buddha bar music and flowers, was a tender place for us to decide at 02:00 that we had no choice but for Wei to have a Cesarean having laboured for 24 hours. I sat at Wei’s shoulder while the 8 green-clad staff followed the masterful instructions of Dr Brooks, although I was unnerved when he implied certain parts of the procedure hadn’t been done prior to his arrival; in fact the nursing staff all avoided calling the imposing Dr Brooks until 02:00 when midwife Sarah eventually insisted that they do so - he wasn’t happy at being called when our baby, LP, was already in distress with a heartbeat racing at 175 bpm, nor I suspect because we had woken him. The Cesarean section is an ancient procedure, one that delivers over 30% of all Chinese (and British) babies. The name Cesarean is credited to Julius Cesar who was reputedly taken from his mother Aurelia’s womb – a story later discredited. Cesarean certainly comes from his ruling that babies were to be taken from the mother who had not survived labour. The first written record of a mother and baby surviving a cesarean section comes from Switzerland in 1500 when a sow gelder, Jacob Nufer, performed the operation on his wife. With Wei under lower body anesthetic, I held her hand and watched Dr Brooks and his Chinese staff use steel equipment that could have come straight from Herr Nufer’s stable; 30 cm long stirrups for pulling apart the cavity, 20cm long forceps for pushing apart the cervix, and snauser nosed scissors for cutting. Wei was shrouded by a green tent behind which she bravely withstood the dull pulling and lifting sensations, until miraculously a fully formed and remarkably calm LP was lifted into the bright white theatre lights. After all that labour, the operation was quick. We had expected our baby to be a boy, and I had a hard time looking for my familial genitalia, and I thought that it was my emotions that shrouded the surely large tackle, only to ask quizzically, “Is it a boy?” – Against all the wisdom of every mother and nurse we had met, Wei carried a 48cm, 2.95kg beautiful girl. We had names for a boy, ‘Ghenghis’ was one of my frontrunners, and in the event our daughter does carry what is known as a Mongolian birth spot on her right foot. Naming a girl is tough for a Dad. How to pick a name that is special but not a liability for her; anything rhyming with two wheeled conveyances, fat, pee, smelly etc. are definitely out. So too are names of girls Dad had a good or bad sexual experience with no matter how long ago. Of course one can’t say why one doesn’t like a name, “it just doesn’t suit her,” is the non committal reply. Boys’ names are easier. Apparently some 3,590 Chinese have adopted the name that sounds like ‘Olympic’, “Aoyun” while many are trying to time their delivery for 08:00 on the 8th August 2008. In the event we decided on Huan Huan for the Chinese name which means ‘happiness’, and is part of Huan Ying – “welcome,” because she just smiles so much. Her English name is Amity, for friendship and harmony – virtues she has displayed in her first week in the outside world. See Amity's first week Next in the wonderful turn of events is a mixed culture household, in which I realize that western medicine does baby delivery well but Chinese post partum care nurtures the wellbeing of the mum better. There is a traditional one month confinement period that Wei and I had dismissed, but having Wei’s mum here cooking all manner of ‘mum recovery’ meals noted in a special recipe book I can see why this ancient culture proscribes that time when the mum is not supposed to leave the house or even bathe. One morning Wei was tiring of boiled fruits in sweetened condensed juices and so I prepared a bowl of muesli, manfully warmed in the microwave. Wei’s mum followed me around the kitchen eventually asking me in Shanghainese what I was making – shaking her head she took Wei a bowl of long boiled fruits in sweetened condensed juices. I have to confess we both preferred her recipe. “Chinese mothers are tireless in their care and absent in their demands,” commented Chris Baron, the director of the British Chamber of Commerce, and so it has proven to be as I start to get used to passing my daughter at 03:30 to a pajama clad woman with whom the only common language is our love for this soft bundle of sleep and innocence. As we are now some 260 days away from the Olympics my life has been transformed, and this is also the case for the City, and we are all trying to find our feet. The pollution continues to be appalling, and in response new rail lines are promised. The computer system supposed to manage the 1.5m ticket sales fell over last week as 8,000,000 page views were registered on the website in the first hour, the system surrendering only 9,500 tickets before collapsing. The call centres were no better and eventually queues formed at banks overnight to get tickets. The 8 foreign torch bearers have been selected creating a PR opportunity for the Chinese, and I have been elected to the British Chamber of Commerce Exco which means that I may have a chance to be at a function with Tessa Jowell MP, Secretary of State for Culture, Media & Sport; a solace for the hours in committee meetings. To celebrate EASTWEST reaching 1 million RMB in sales I commissioned a commemorative mug with a modified 100RMB note; but none of the printers would take our money to make them. Marches without prior approval have been banned, and the third runway at the airport which could fly extra protestors in has been opened. Beijing continues to be a place of rapid growth and interesting contradictions. In all of this, for Wei and I, Amity’s healthy birth has truly meant huan yin lai Beijing. Welcome to Beijing. Manzou