Week 41.5: V Day February 16, 2008

V-Day to me usually means rolling out the usual answers to questions about whether The Beloved and I actually give a shit about a day nominated by a card company to make them more money than usual.

This year, V-Day took on a different meaning altogether. This year it became VAGINA DAY, and forever shall be known as such, not least of all because if there’s one thing I cannot stand, it’s a multinational corporation telling me when to tell someone I love them, and calling their nominated day VAGINA DAY is my little way of subverting yet another dominant stereotype but also my charming Australian way of shocking these slightly repressed British by using the word VAGINA on a day commonly associated with wee tiny cherubs and misty lighting. VAGINA DAY is now also known as that day where the midwife stuck two fingers up my jacksie to try and get El Laidbacko in there to shake a tail feather and actually come on out and deign to meet us sometime this century.

And so it was on a nippy day in a valley somewhere in the north of England, we waddled along to said V-Day appointment, cracking jokes about how it was time to start asking for refunds on this whole kid idea, then being distracted (me) by the shiny trash mags in the waiting room.

The procedure by which the midwife does indeed and literally stick two fingers up my jacksie is more professionally known as a ‘membrane sweep’ and just before she gloved up to do it she warned us that there was only a 50 per cent chance it would work, assuming the sproglet’s head was far enough down the downstairs department to complete the procedure in the first place.

The head was not. The midwife seemed indifferent to this fact. The midwife indicated that just having some traffic up that way might trigger labour anyway. The Beloved and I knew differently, we knew differently because this kid is never coming out and I am on the way to holding the world record for Longest Gestational Period of a Human Ever in the Universe.

So, in an effort to prevent me from holding my first ever world record, we are due at the hospital tomorrow, wherein another midwife will again stick two fingers up my jacksie and leave some labour-starting hormonal gel in there. And if that doesn’t work, they try it again, and then if it STILL doesn’t work, they get out the crochet hook to break the waters.

You read correctly. I wish I was joking about that part.

All things considered, The Beloved and I will be parents, godammit, however much this kid doesn’t wish it so, by Tuesday at the absolute latest. Stay tuned.

Week 41: the waiting February 10, 2008

Feb 5. Official due date according to the dragon midwife (now sacked) and own calculations. Get very excited at one sign of vague stomach ache at about 3.30pm.

Feb 7. Official due date according to the dating scan done when sproglet was 12 weeks old. This is the date, according to Dr Budgie, fabulous GP, that health officials place the most belief in. No sign of child, other than still expanding belly.

Feb 8. Official due date according to the BBC’s parenting calendar. No sign of kid.

Feb 9. Take long walk trying to get kid’s head further down into pelvis. Begin gruesome task of tweaking one’s on nipples. Take advice from lady in fish and chip shop, who insists that a red-hot curry ought to do the trick. Consider buying pineapple to stick up one’s jacksie.

Feb 10. Official due date according to the hospital midwives who filled out my MATB1 certificate. Arse red-hot from remnants of last night’s curry extravaganza; boobs too sore to continue touching; pineapple idea nixed. NO FUCKING BABY.

Feb 11. Appointment with Dr Budgie. Realise at last appointment the previous week, neither patient nor doctor thought appointment would be necessary, but there you have it.

Feb 15. Official due date according to company paying me money for being pregnant until I go back to earn money for them. As company is utterly incompetent, pay no heed to this date but continue to give thanks for money plonked into bank while sitting on couch watching Buffy re-runs.

Feb 18. Overdue appointment at hospital. Seems like an eternity away but cannot come soon enough.

Week 40 and a bit: where are you? February 8, 2008

Dear pikelet,

We were just wondering, your parents, why you have decided to be late. given that your parents are consistent over-estimators when it comes to working out how long it takes to get anywhere, and have been late for a sum total of about ooh, three things in their whole lives, our question to you is this: WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?

I, your mother, cannot talk on the phone any more, which is like your father voluntarily electing to never again use computers (but the day that happens is the day the world will end or men will suddenly develop the ability to bear a child, so no fear there), because I know every fucking time that phone rings it’ll be yet another well meaning friend or relative agog with excitement about your ALLEGEDLY impending arrival, screaming ANY NEWS YET? ARE YOU A MUMMY YET? To which my response has been thus far, no, and no, but if you want news cop this: I’ve watched five episodes in a row of Jamie Oliver’s home cooking/gardening show, which is more TV than I’ve watched in one hit for over two years. Take that. Pow, ANY NEWS IN YOUR FACE.

I, your beloved mother, who has thus far in your short, short life sacrificed her career, wardrobe, healthy eating regime, and any appearance of being even vaguely interested in housework in order to being you life, limbs and eyelashes, believes that YOU OWE ME TO SHOW UP. I would really like that, today, if at all possible, and even if it means going through many many hours of pain in the downstairs area or several gigantic needles in my spine combined with a lovely bit of gut splicing. Or even both. I am that desperate to rejoin the human race, the race that stands about and walks at normal paces and doesn’t get winded by the mere thought of walking up a flight of stairs. I would like my bladder back; I would like to be able to sleep in more than one position, in fact, I’d dearly love to just get some damn sleep.

We think you are a bit of a joker, and we’re cool with that, except for all the Braxton Hicks contractions you keep tricking me with. I get two in a row and I’m heading to the phone to ring your father, to say, this is IT, come home now and lavish (even more) attention (than usual) upon me and ease my discomfort, and then you in your wisdom will think it’s a tiny bit cruel to lead an excitable woman on in such a way, and settle down to a good hour of hiccupping and then a bit of a kick and a long nap.

I have already worked out that this is my first lesson of parenting: I may very much want you to do something, but if you don’t want to do it when I want you to, you won’t. You’ll do it in your own sweet time, and all I can really do is guide you and cross my fingers.

So hurry up already.

Week 39: we’re ready as we’ll ever be February 1, 2008

Dear sproglet,

Aside from the remake of the Saturday Night Fever album cover position, and the head-banging to Nirvana position, neither of which bother your father or me particularly, even while in the womb, did you have to take up the posterior position as your preference, just before birth?

At least we can count our blessings: you’re not bum first, you’re not sideways, but you are … tricky. Doing things your own way, just like your parents, I figure. And we’re cool with that. But don’t let it remain unsaid that we won’t try and guide you into a position - like, say, ANTERIOR AND EASY THROUGH THE BIRTH CANAL, BUSTER - on your way out. Or is it the way in?

And unfortunately pretty much the only way I can guide you into a better position for birth is by crawling around on my hands and knees for as much of the day as possible and reading the paper on all fours. Let me say it now: THE THINGS I DO FOR YOU, CHILD. One website I read even suggested going up and down the stairs sideways and trying to sleep on my belly. That website was clearly written by someone who has never been pregnant before.

Anyway, whichever, but consider this your official eviction notice. Your new room is ready, resplendent with decorations home made by your parents and Aunty-Lady-Jane, we’ve packed the labour bag, and we are pretty much just hanging around out here while you hang around in there. Why not come out and join us?

After spending so long in denial about what it’s going to take to get you into this world (either many hours of pain in the downstairs area, including the infamous ring of fire; OR a fucken big needle or six in my spine and my guts cut open to find you) I have finally reached a point of just being completely tired of being the pregnant lady who can’t move further than from the couch to the fridge.

I have watched as much Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, 24 (Series 1) and re-runs of the Sopranos as I can handle. I’ve played way, way too many hours of MarioKart. I grew heartily tired months ago of those conversations with strangers wherein they inquire how long I have to go, then deign to impart to me their opinion about my weight, appearance and whether I’m still carrying to high to give birth. I have even stopped caring whether I punch those people in the face any more.

I’ve stopped answering the phone, partly because I cannot have any more Have you had it yet? NO! conversations, and partly because the phone is usually at the other end of the house to my grossly large beached whaleness. Very inconsiderate for a cordless phone.

I’ve even grown tired of the fucking computer. How am I even writing this? M i n d p o w e r. Get used to it, kid. By the time you understand what that means I’ll have eyes in the back of my head, too.

My pretend contractions are increasing with each passing day. This morning I had three strong ones in a row, the first of which woke me from my futile attempt at dozing while carrying a small elephant inside my female parts. Then your father made me coffee, I remembered there was the internet and bills to pay and then it was 2pm and I was still in my jimmy-jammies waiting for labour to start for real. Not unlike right now.

I was going to write a big long post about promises I want to make to you, and ones your father will smile and nod to, because he knows who the boss is of this family, the real boss, not the one who goes out to work Monday to Friday. In the outside world. With other people. Where they drink on Friday afternoons. And stand around. Bastards.

So these promises. I had a great post about it all lined up in my head at about 3am yesterday, and then forgot it, because my brain is still all mushy from the carrying a small elephant around in my girl parts for the past nine months thing, and then I thought about writing it again and realised that I just couldn’t be bothered.

And yet, here I am, so here goes, but first with the things I won’t be able to promise, and you’re just going to have to deal with that (send us the therapist’s bill):

1. I can’t promise that I’ll never spit on a tissue and then wipe crusty bits of food from your face right before you get out of the car to go to school. Sorry.

2. I can’t ever promise for definite that I won’t ever say: “You don’t have to like it, you just have to it eat it” or “I don’t say no for fun, you know” or “This hurts me more than it hurts you”. Again, sorry.

What I CAN promise, however:

1. Never to negate your feelings. What you feel is what you feel, and that goes for me and your pa as well. We will deal with our feelings and emotions about issues, events, problems, whatever - together, as a family. No drama (unless you really want some).

2. To take responsibility for my own feelings, and to separate them from your behaviour as best I can when you decide the loungeroom wall looks much better covered in glitter and non-removable crayon.

2. Never to put you down for what you are wearing, even if it means gritting my teeth from saying anything. Listen, the second you can dress yourself (which will be when, you’re three? four? help me out here), you’re doing your parents a big favour by removing a chore from their never-ending list. What are your thoughts on dusting, by the way?

3. Never to bust into your room without knocking. If your door’s closed, you cute little sulky teenager you, I’ll knock. I’m sure you’ll put me back in my place if I don’t.

4. To admit my mistakes, as a human, who is continuing to learn about life.

5. To accept when I am wrong.

6. To take you to Glastonbury one day. If you’ll have me.

Week 38: still pregnant January 25, 2008

Yep. Still pregnant.

Week 37: oh, shit January 17, 2008

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.

Week … uh … I forget January 3, 2008

Posting may be a little sporadic until we’ve got the internerd set up properly in the new hoose. Rest assured said hoose is warm, dry, full of lovely light and feels like home.

I’m mighty, mighty glad to be finished work. Yesterday I met a friend for lunch and wandered around Leeds city centre (or at least a very small portion of it), then fell into a four hour nap when I finally got home.

I continue to haus-frau to the best of my abilities, which can sometimes be tough when there’s Buffy to watch, cake to eat, you can’t bend over to pick anything up and a trip up the stairs is a major mission.

But I soldier on.

More soon, hopefully.

Weeks 31-33: the confinement December 18, 2007

Well, I’m finally on maternity leave. It’s a very weird feeling, knowing that I have voluntarily left a good job to have a baby, and before the baby is born I get to hang out on the couch and watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer AND get paid for the privilege. Not a bad deal, once my hack agency sorts out my lost maternity certificates and actually PAYS ME.

Now I am officially confined, as the Brits so love to call their pregnant women, I am coming up with new and inventive ways to be the best possible hausfrau for The Beloved, what with him being the main provider of income and all. Today’s agenda has followed thus:

8.30am: Make The Beloved sandwiches. Admittedly this is not the first time I’ve made him food, but quite probably the first time I’ve ever actually voluntarily arisen before I needed to and made food for him that hasn’t involved also making food for myself and subsequently eating it. Retire to bed. Contemplate nap. Read graphic novel instead.

9.30am: Arise. Officially. Decide that as an act of defiance I will not get out of my pyjamas all day. Partake of breakfast; check blogs; consider taking constitutional before lunch. Decide instead to do some godamn housework instead of sitting around on my arse all day. Such housework, today, has consisted of:

• Yet another bloody load of washing. How can two people go through so many clothes? I ask this because since I have become the size of a small beached whale, I have found my acceptable-in-public wardrobe reduced to about two items and a heap of underpants. Yet the washing pile ever-remains.
• The dishes. Our dishwasher (the mechanical one) has kicked the bucket, so we have resorted to using old technology for cleaning dishes. Ie, the hands of a hausfrau. Our kitchen is one of those in which if any single item looks remotely out of place, or if a single dirty dish is placed within eyesight, the entire kitchen looks as though it has been heavily over-populated by first year university students. Don’t start with me, I used to be one. I know.
• Tidying of the bedroom. Honestly, you’d think first year university students had taken over our entire flat. Why does it still seem, as my late 30s gallop toward me, that the floor or a chair is an infinitely better place to store your clothes than the wardrobe? Why is that?
• Started packing for our imminent move to a slightly smaller town in just under two weeks. I have so far in one day managed to pack an entire wardrobe’s worth of stuff (linens, baby clothes, fragiles), PLUS about 1/3 of our CD collection, PLUS emptied and boxed up our bathroom cabinets (X 2).

12.30pm: Time for lunch, and a spot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

12.45pm: Take nap on couch mid-Buffy.

4pm: Awake and consider more housework. Decide on fruitcake and hot chocolate instead.

4.30pm: Begin Mario Kart marathon.

And so the days continue.

While I could deffo get used to this lounging about lark, the Protestant working class in me does harbour some shreds of guilt about how I’m sitting about not really doing much other than breathing, eating and taking in popular culture. Then the modern, university-educated part of me kicks in and boots the Protestant over the head, because hell, growing limbs and brains and eyelashes and kidneys is damn exhausting business, and besides which, I’ve worked a demanding, full-time job that includes a 1.5 hour commute every bloody day for pretty much every day of this pregnancy until yesterday, so fuck, I’VE EARNED THE RIGHT TO WATCH BUFFY ON THE COUCH AND EAT FRUIT CAKE IN MY JIM-JAMS.

And at least while I am at home relaxing I am in a much better position to restrain myself from punching strangers in the face who insist on gazing in some kind of weird stranger-awe at my belly and asking in supposed jest, WOW, ARE THERE TWINS IN THERE?? Instead of hi, how are you?

No, I’m just fucking big, my kid is big, and thanks for reminding me. Like I’m not already becoming vaguely nervous about pushing something THAT big out of something THAT small.

Week 30: the nest December 1, 2007

Dear mini-me,

I am busting a gut to get ready for your imminent arrival. Well, when I say ‘imminent’, what I actually mean is ‘arrival in ten weeks or thereabouts’.

Your father and I have found a proper, growed up house for us to live in, complete with a back garden and a bathtub the size of a large park pond. I fully intend to spend whatever time I’m not napping or nesting in that bath, even once you arrive.

Your movements are becoming more pronounced and it’s hard for me not to think that you’re conspiring against me, because every time I stop still, even if it’s just in a supermarket queue, you ark up in there and give me an elbow in the liver or a head butt against the bladder just to let me know that hey, you might only be 1.25kgs, but you got the power, yunno? When’s a kid gonna stand up for its right to sleep if not starting in the womb?

Yeah. I know.

So as my third and final trimester trickles towards its inevitable end (and result), your presence down there is becoming more keenly felt than ever before. I can tell which bit of you is a foot, and where your head is. And watching you ripple the surface of my great white expansive belly is akin to watching a homemade version of The Exorcist. But in a nice way.

Clothes and gifts continue to pour in from relatives and friends. Tomorrow I get to visit The Great Swede By The Motorway and pick out a few things like feeding chairs and bathmats and £1 bargains I doubt I’ll need but will buy anyway.

Time for a nap.

Love, mum.

Weeks 26-30: the text book November 25, 2007

Awesome, awesome tiredness: tick. It’s not even like it’s that tiredness you get after one too many glasses of wine and one too few hours of sleep before a workday kind of tiredness. It just pervades everything, not least of all my mind. Sleep is becoming a rare treat: I think last night I got up to wee five times. The last two times I didn’t even get back to sleep. So yeah. Great training there.

Irrational worries about the baby: will it be DEFORMED when it comes out? What if I drop it? The other day I felt a funny, regular kind of pulsing deep down womb-way. For a few minutes I worried myself sick that somehow the baby’s heart and seeped out the side of its ribcage and was beating outside of its body. Then I realised that the beat was too slow and was probably just hiccups (later confirmed by my GP, who said that babies often gorge themselves on amniotic fluid and get indigestion, thus the hiccups).

Reflux/heartburn/indigestion (sans hiccups): Jesus Christ. I never thought that one of my favourite activities - burping - would turn into such a harbinger of pain and suffering. The other night I slept sleeping up because the five Rennies and entire tub of Yeo Valley yoghurt did jack shit in my digestive system. I believe I may have dozed lightly between two and three am. I find it gets much, much worse when I’m hungry, and interestingly, when I go to yoga. Yoga is another story.

Uncomfortableness: I got this one in spades. No longer can I sit still for hours working on my photography or reading the paper. Every five seconds I think I’ve found The Spot and then two seconds later I change my mind.

Restless legs: Relates very strongly to the uncomfortableness. My legs - especially when I’m lying down - are never, ever still. They are either thinking about moving around or moving just enough to narrowly avoid leg cramps.

Rampant appetite, diminishing stomach, ever-extending belly: Increasing, decreasing, increasing, in that order. I am perpetually hungry and can often be seen close to snatching food from The Beloved’s hand. It takes about two mouthfuls of anything to make me full (and give me indigestion, if those two mouthfuls have even looked at the spice cabinet), and each day I wake up, look at my belly and think … ‘How much bigger can this thing possibly get?’

Random moments of crying: At Asda last Saturday the cashier made me cry by asking me if I was having twins. It took about two seconds for me to sob out that no, it was just one in there, and yes, I am REALLY FUCKING FAT, OK?