Week 38: still pregnant January 25, 2008
Yep. Still pregnant.
I am ginormous. Utterly ginormous.
This week I had to check the BBC’s pregnancy calendar to work out exactly how pregnant I was. That’s because my brain has turned completely to mush. Last night The Beloved was very excited to show me his new computer software that enables him to (literally) make beautiful music. I stared somewhat vacantly at the screen, muttered various words of encouragement and all I could really think about was returning to the loungeroom to continue playing MarioKart (look! bright colours! funny creatures! whee!).
As befitting a mammal of such large proportions, my capacity for movement has also slowed down considerably. We have just moved into a three-storey terrace and I have become very proficient at going up and down the stairs the minimum number of times possible. Stairs - they’re hard work, man. Seriously.
The baby’s room is now almost ready for the Wee Wriggler, due really at any time from here on in. We are still trying to decode the puzzle of the disassembled changing table, however. Still, the kid will have somewhere to sleep, and if we have to we can change nappies on the floor.
The Beloved and I started birth classes two weeks ago and they have proven interesting in some respects and quite horrifying in others. I have seen a pair of forceps. I do not want them near my body. The birthing pool, however, I baggsied on the first week. It’s even bigger than the bath in our house, which takes some doing, and if the midwives really will fill it with hot water and give me gas to make me high at the same time while I squeeze a rather large object through a relatively small hole, then, so be it. I can probably live with that.
You can say what you like about gender stereotypes fading into insignificance in this modern age but it all goes out the window when it comes to birthing classes. The midwife leading the class says things like ‘vagina’ and ‘anus’ and ‘10 centimetres dilation’ and the blokes sit there with this frozen expression on their faces, which basically translates as, ‘ohhh … shit … are they going to make me look down there?’. All the while the pregnant people sit there looking slightly tired but interested and clearly wondering when the proceedings would be arriving at the ’session break with chocolate biscuit’ part, and whether said midwife would notice any sly reading of trash mags left on nearby tables.
Yesterday I went into a very large chain store to purchase washable nappies. I’ve talked before on this site about how the maths and the ethics don’t add up for disposables, but when you have £200 in your hand one minute and then a recyclable bag laden with a few bits of absorbent cotton and Velcro the next but minus the cashola you do begin to question your sanity and wonder whether one person’s preference not to add to landfill is really worth it. Interestingly, I did not question my sanity when I dropped £180 on a sexy iPod a few months back before I got pregnant. Priorities, huh? I ended up exchanging a large wad of cash for these particular nappies that are made of bamboo fibre. They are almost guaranteed to give my kid that cute overly big and round baby bum. As well as do all the other things, you know, like not leak poo all over the bedding.
Life currently feels a bit like we are heading towards a (possibly pleasant and vastly rewarding) nuclear meltdown. We are in the process of battening down hatches, in preparation for the arrival of the Wee Disco Dancer, which involves doing truckloads of life administration - organising direct debits for bill paying, buying bits of furniture, practising putting up the pram without losing my temper (harder than you think!!) - and making sure we have everything as ready as we can for said meltdown.
Now the nappies are in, I’m doing the last of the gazillion loads of washing of all the baby’s stuff, and buying the last few bits of things I think I might need before getting around to packing my labour bag and choosing the sproglet’s very first outfit in which it will travel home. And, of course, battening down of hatches involves watching lots of Buffy and Angel and eating very nice reduced price desserts from Waitrose, conveniently located within waddling distance of my house.
It’s weird to think that the next time I write I might very well be a parent. I think that’s about as big a life change as you can get, other than a sex change.
