I came across an email I wrote to my family 366 days ago. It has unintentionally become the blueprint of my mamahood journey. It’s a sketch of what we want and are doing for our little baby. 

The email was addressed to my extended family about our twenty week scan, the scan that checks the baby and the time when you can find out the sex of the baby. This is what the email said…

When we went in for the last scan, the sonographer asked if we wanted to know the sex. Tim and I looked at each other, smiled and said yes. So he moved the little dongle over my belly, didn’t say much and then goes “well, the baby has one hand playing with their umbilical chord, and the other covering their parts…” Our little baby is too modest! So we have no idea what he/she is, hehe. This doesn’t change a thing of course. In fact, it makes it so much easier as we’ve been wanting to dress the baby in gender neutral clothing (mostly yellows, whites, browns and greys). So by being so shy, our little baby has saved us all the trouble!

This has been such a blessing as we also want to follow the Montessori approach to child rearing, which involves setting up an environment for the baby to grow and experiment with objects depending on the phase of their development. So we’re planning not to have traditional toys and instead just see what the baby is interested in. It kind of reminds me of the Philippines and making the most of the surroundings, going out for walks and taking it easy.

As for the actual birth, I would love to have a water birth, but will see how it goes. We have a midwife and are in the Birth Centre Program as part of the Canberra Hospital (Woden). This means at the birth it will be me, Tim, the midwife and a student midwife. The Birth Centre is just around the corner from the maternity ward so if there are any problems, doctors and help isn’t far away at all.

We of course want you to be part of our baby’s journey and are keen for she/he to learn Tagalog (maybe even Illongo!) You will no doubt see plenty of pics and videos and we look forward to introducing you to the next generation of Aguilar/Riley 🙂

I share this with you because today our little baby is nine months old. And today is the day that SUBTLEbaby is born.