Wishing strength to beautiful baby Scarlett…

There is a little premature baby who is fighting for her life as I write this, her name is Scarlett and she was born last week at 24 weeks and 2 days, which is what Owen will be tomorrow… I am thinking of her every day and wishing her stronger, and anyone who reads this I ask them to think of her and send love. I have cried every single time I have looked at her pictures, she’s such a perfect little tiny girl… she’s nearly a week old now and every day is a major hurdle crossed, I’m guessing.

My brain has been on overdrive for over an hour, this morning. Mornings can be tough. I quite often have a low around half an hour after waking, when, for no clear reason, I will just cry like the world’s ending. It only lasts a very short time – maybe five, ten minutes max. But it’s horrible while it lasts, it’s a dark place. And afterwards I feel shattered, like I’ve run a marathon. It’s been that way for years, not just during the pregnancy. So I think maybe it’s a chemical imbalance that happens in the morning, like some sort of a delay in getting the ‘awake’ chemicals into my system, so that for that ten minutes in the morning I’m literally running on empty.

I’m at my mum’s now, in the room where I’ll be staying when Owen is born. I’ll be here for about four months, if all goes well and we don’t drive each other up the wall! Then Owen and I will move to the flat, in June, just in time for summer and beach walks! The flat is only about 30 seconds from the beach, so it will be really lovely! The swimming pool is also just up the road, which is great because Owen is going to swim from as early as I can get him in the water. He’s quite good at swimming, actually sometimes it does feel like I’ve got a little fish-baby in my tummy! (sometimes it feels like I’ve got a little boxer-baby, though!)

I realised on Friday at work that if things had worked out differently, it would have been my last day at work. I would have been clearing my desk, and preparing to go on my world trip! I suddenly felt strange, disorientated, and a little sad. But not for long. How could I compare a world trip to a new baby? There is no comparison at all! My baby is going to be my life, my heart, my everything - literally for the rest of my life. And we will travel the world together, I will do everything I can to make that happen. I want him to see the world and to have a thousand hair-raising adventures, to explore and see things I have not seen, to go places I won’t go. Maybe he’ll prefer to stay and home and raise a family, but that’s fine too… how peculiar to think of my unborn child as a grown man – I’m wishing my life away, here!

In a poking contest, Owen will win hands down.

Hurray for Thursdays! Although work was hard and deadlines were tight, I was perfectly calm and unflappable. In the morning, I was severely tested by certain doctors’ receptionists, but I passed the stress test with flying colours. Maybe the David Attenborough Effect lasts for longer than I thought…

It could have been a bad day. It didn’t start too well, at the doctors. The receptionist was possibly the cross-patchiest old hag I’ve ever had to book an appointment with. She also virtually accused me of lying later on when I went back for the actual appointment. I held my temper like a cobra poised to strike. You really don’t want to mess with a pregnant, hormonal woman. I think she kind of realised that…

Finally getting to see the GP was therefore a major triumph. Having completely forgotten to turn up to my midwife appointment yesterday, and having been severely reprimanded by a very cross midwife, I wanted to be a perfectly behaved, model patient. She had a poke at Owen, who responded by poking back. In a poking contest, Owen will win hands down. I feel sure of it. I treasure every single poke! The doctor was very pleased with him, she said that he is just the right size for his age. She had a feel of my tummy and said that she could feel his head on one side, facing down, and his bum on the other. So he is lying sort of across me. I asked if that was a problem and she said no, that he will probably change positions quite a few times while he’s still got room to manoeuvre. I guess he’s got his favourite positions where he’s comfy, and he’ll just naturally do what he feels is right at the time… he’s the one calling all the shots, for now!

A very nice surprise also awaited me when I got back to work. I got my bonus! After tax and student loan have been paid out, it comes to around £5200. Which will go straight into my savings, and add to my nest egg. I am feeling much less worried about coping financially now, and I think I’ll be able to take a year off work easily, which is fantastic news for baby and me! Financial independence is a massive issue for me. I’ve been skint and lived in a permanent state of financial panic before and I don’t want to be there again. I don’t want that for my child, either. But I think we’re going to be okay… in fact, I know we will. I have this warm, good feeling about our future!

The David Attenborough Effect

Surely Sir David is immortal?

Work. Is. Shit. No. Further. Comment.

Actually NO – I DO have further comments. I worked my arse off today till 8pm trying to get book proofs to a print-ready state, in order to meet a print deadline tomorrow. I could feel my stress levels slowly rising through the day, as I gradually admitted to myself that we would either have to cut a few corners and meet the deadline, or miss the deadline. By 7.30 I was tired, tense, irritable. By the time I got home at 8pm I was mean, moody and downright miserable. Fortunately, David Attenborough’s gentle, hypnotic voice and pictures of lovely tigers lulled me into a pleasant state of relaxation. I felt at one with the world once more.

And what if we miss the deadline, anyway? No one’s going to die, or even catch a nasty cold. Some people will have to wait a little bit longer for their books, but again, they won’t die through a delay in their intake of ICT textbooks. And on the other hand, if I push myself so hard that I have a nervous breakdown at this stage, it’s my baby who suffers. And me, of course. But I’m not so important. I’m just a vessel carrying the future inside my belly – and it’s a feisty, fighting fit little future at the moment!

Anyway, I’ve kind of decided that I am NOT going to stress out over work anymore. Let others stress, I shall be an island of peace and calm in a raging sea of stress… hmmm. We’ll see how long THAT lasts, as the David Attenborough effect wears off…

And come to think of it – what will we all do if/when David Attenborough decides to shuffle off the mortal coil? I can’t quite believe that it will happen. Surely Sir David is immortal? How will we all survive without him in our television viewing schedules? What will be the point of nature programmes without his soothing voice explaining exactly what those two jellyfish are up to over there? I envisage a day of national mourning… but no, it’s too terrible to even contemplate…

Super Mario and the Twenty-foot Troll King

I have started thinking about pregnancy as one of those platform computer games, like Super Mario. The first six weeks are easy, you could do it with your eyes closed. Then it suddenly gets harder. There are nasty, icky surprises when you least expect them. You can lose everything and have to start all over. Then you reach a ’safe’ platform – 12 weeks. Afte that it gets easier for a while, there are a few major hurdles to get over (bloods, Downs tests) but you’ve gotten better at this game by now so you negotiate them with relative ease. The next safe platform for me is next week – 24 weeks. If the baby is born prematurely at 24 weeks he has a 44% chance of surviving. This week his chances are much less, around 16%.

Like in a computer game, there is an end goal that we are working towards, getting progressively more experienced and ‘getting the feel’ of it. Of course, the hardest bit comes right at the end. A final fearsome battle between Super Mario and The Twenty-foot Troll King …. or a precious new baby making his way out of mummy’s tummy into the big wide world. Methinks I am over-stretching this analogy…

This weekend I joined the Elite Mumzilla Elbow Corps at an NCT sale. It truly was an eye-opener, although the mums weren’t actually as fearsome as I had feared. The lady helpers were a little intimidating, though. I was warned before I went in to just grab stuff if I thought I might want it, because hesitation would mean failure. I took this advice, but then unfortunately forgot to take stuff OUT again, so have bought a load of stuff that I’m not sure I want, let alone need. But it cost me all of fifteen quid, so it hardly matters. I am going to stop buying baby clothes now. I have stacks. He’ll probably end up wearing none of them! My wee man. He’s been jumping bean again today, poking and prodding and generally making his presence felt!

The strange cult of baby-wearing

Okay, this cold is OFFICIALLY the worst cold ever. Nevertheless, I made it into work today. Am I some kind of hero, or what?! I think I may be. I am coming up for six months pregnant, single, suffering the worst cold in the entire history of colds, dealing with insane amounts of stress at work due to imminent and unmoveable deadlines, and I still (just about, by the skin of my teeth) have a sense of humour. And to anyone who whines, ’stress isn’t good for baby’ I say, ‘he’s got to learn sometime. Life’s not all about hanging around in amniotic fluid, chewing on an umbilical cord.’

I did nearly lose the plot when I managed to delete all the files we had been working on this morning and had to redo them. But I think that would probably have made me extremely stressed regardless of anything else! I took myself off into the cemetary and sat on my favourite grave for five minutes to calm down. I even briefly thought it would be great to smoke a cigarette. But only for the briefest of moments. I truly am a non-smoker. I can survive stress without cigarettes!

By the end of the day I felt in control again. And I felt well enough to drive out to a village and pick up an ill-gotten eBay gain – a very fine baby carrier which will allow me to participate in the strange cult of ‘baby-wearing’. I was completely unaware that such a cult existed until I started to look into buying baby carriers. I just always assumed that it was just another way of carrying your baby. How wrong I was! It is a serious business. There are cult meetings called ’sling-meets’ where enlightened reproductive successes meet other reproductive successes, all proudly wearing the products of their successful reproduction in an endless variety of interesting ways. I wonder if any of them wear their baby on their heads? It could be done, I’m sure… well anyway, I’m going to the next meet. I wonder if I shall become a baby wearing convert?

The next thing, I’ll be weaving baskets whilst in the lotus position…

Darth Vader having an asthma attack.

Tonight I am just going to whinge a lot. I am ILL. I am so bunged up I can barely breathe. I sound like Darth Vader having an asthma attack. I feel like shit and my nose is driving me insane. I woke up in the middle of the night last night to a nose that was almost totally blocked on one side, which always irritates me so much I spend the entire night turning to try to shift it the other way. The only way I was going to shift this snot was by walking around my room, which I did for a while, but I was exhausted so had to lie down again, at which point the snot just all congregated on the left side again. Grrrrr. Friend suggested that since I am having a man-baby, its a bad case of man flu.

The man-baby seems perfectly happy though, he’s been kicking and squirming away ten to the dozen today! He kicked me so hard in a meeting this morning I threw the notebook I was holding straight up in the air and yelped! I was quite taken aback by the suddenness of it and felt a bit embarrassed. I thought people must think I’m over-exaggerating or something, but sometimes it really does take me by surprise. I’m typing this in bed, relaxed, and he’s just kind of flexing his muscles in a macho sort of way, which is more of a gentle movement. Oh, apart from then – he just did something very strange!

Driving into work today, I was driving up the road towards work, which is what I would describe as a haven of middle-class pseudo-hippy families, where dad is an academic with his head up his own arse and mum used to be before she gave birth – at which point her brains fell out of her bottom and she became a yogic basket-weaving therapist. Gwydir Street. A whole army of Gwydir Street mums on bikes with their precious, precocious piano-playing offspring were winding a slow procession up Gwydir Street. I was stuck in my car (the horror! the horror! I’m a petrolhead!!) behind them. They did not stop or move over to the side of the road but ostentatiously sprawled themselves in some kind of battle formation across it. One of the flanking Mumtroopers kept looking round, giving me evil looks. I was slightly worried in case she suddenly brought out a sub-machine gun (from Freecycle, only using biodegradable ammunition of course).

I survived the experience. But who do these mothers think they are? What benefit are they giving their children by allowing them to cycle all over the road, and forming protective chain gangs around them? I absolutely do not want to be a Gwydir Street mum. Please someone shoot me if I start showing any signs at all that I may be interested in yogic basket-weaving.

Twice as alive!

SNOT! I am full of it. My nose has been bunged up on and off for the entire pregnancy so far… it drives me crazy. Sniff, sniff sniff, all the time. And sneezing. Sneezing is very ucomfortable because it pulls on my tummy muscles. Oh well – it’s all worth it in the end… so they say!

I have had a very athletic little boy in my tummy the last couple of days. Whatever he’s doing in there, he’s certainly doing it with energy and enthusiasm! He was very busy this morning, disrupting a schedules meeting and then squirming around for the rest of the day too. It tickles me sometimes and I have to laugh out loud! But it’s lovely. The best feeling in the world.

I am taking 2 weeks off in October – around the time I would have been flying off to India on the first leg of my world trip. I am dreading the 5th October actually. That is the actual date I would have been going. I’ve managed to not think too much about it so far, but then Jo had to go and bring it up tonight and I had to grit my teeth. My trip of a lifetime! India, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Australia, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, USA. All those adventures that I won’t have – a future that is closed to me now. It does make me sad sometimes to think about what I gave up.

But then I remember the reason why I gave it up. My little, sweet, energetically kicking reason! And I know that the journey I have chosen is far greater. The world won’t go away, I can see it all another day. A different future opened up when I made this choice.

I have a new meaning in my life now. I feel more alive than I have ever felt. Twice as alive, in fact!

Dads. Who needs them?

Today I have either, 1) a writhing soup of hormones taking over my brain Or 2) a valid reason to be upset and angry. 

It’s my dad. I feel like he is completely disinterested in his future grandchild. He still has not replied to my text or my email telling him he is going to have a grandson, and the scan pics. At work today at about 5pm I decided to message my brother to ask if he had heard from dad at all. He said, yes I’m on the phone to him right now. Apparently dad received my email and the pics but forgot to reply.

Forgot to reply. Picture of his unborn grandson, and he FORGOT TO REPLY? Is that normal behaviour? Is that acceptable? What sort of man would you have to be to forget to reply to an email telling you you were going to have a grandson? Pictures showing his little face… Words cannot express how upset I was. My brother sounded evasive and on edge. I felt like he was not telling me everything. I came off the phone and burst into tears. Again. This is not good. I need to calm down and not get so upset by stuff.

All I want is for my child to have a loving and supportive family environment. He won’t have a father, so he needs other male role models to look up to. He needs to have this from as early in his life as he can. Where have all the good male role models gone? To be honest, my dad removed himself from our family 20 years ago. Since then he has become remoter and remoter, found religion, threw himself into the barbershop. Church and community replaced his family. So maybe it is too much to ask that he suddenly gets excited by the prospect of a new member of a family that he is no longer a part of.

I feel drained and numb now. Writing all this has helped diffuse the emotion. Again, my priorities take over. My child is my first concern. I cannot allow myself to get so upset or angry, it’s not good for Owen. I have to be his mum and his dad. I have to love him and support him enough for two. I have to make sure that he never loses out by not having a dad. I can’t expect anyone else, not even family, to take any responsibility for that. I am the only one who will ultimately take responsibility for my baby, my child, his growing up, his life as a human being. 

Dads. Who needs them?

Old, blobby and unglamorous…

I feel like Mrs Blobby today. I tried to go to yoga at the new posh gym. One of the reasons I was excited by the gym in the first place was the fact that the classes are free to members, and I really wanted to start yoga. But after fifteen minutes of me struggling through some kind of sun worshipping ritual with my tummy getting in the way, the very slim, blonde, pretty teacher came over and whispered kindly but loudly so that everyone could hear that perhaps this class wasn’t suitable for me after all.

I don’t quite know what I expected beforehand – to be standing on one leg chanting ‘om’ in a room with scented candles, or something? I’d forgotten how strenuous yoga is, and how many agonising, impossible positions you are expected to bend yourself into. For the first time in my pregnancy I felt vulnerable and different. I felt like everyone in the room was staring at me and thinking, who does she think she is, trying to come to a yoga class for normal people? Taking up the instructors time… I walked the length of the room to the door feeling somehow like it was the walk of shame, and went and blubbed in a changing cubicle. I realise it must be partly hormonal (yup, it’s that old ‘hormonal’ excuse again, I drag it out every time!). But the result was that I came out of the cubicle all red-faced and blotchy, and blobby, and miserable, and had to try to ignore all the tall, waif-like scarily young-looking women wafting around the changing room, making me feel even more old, blobby and unglamorous. I felt a low growl rising in my throat: ’yes, darling, I used to look like that, once upon a time…’

I did 30 lengths of the pool which made me feel a bit more normal. As I walk out past the hot tub I catch a couple of young guys looking furtively at my bump – do they think that I should not flaunt it about? Do they think it’s ugly, or silly-looking?! I don’t care what they think, anyway. It’s my bonny baby in there!

I also felt a bit anxious and miserable because afterwards I could not feel any movement from Owen, and I hoped that I hadn’t hurt him with the small amount of exercises that I had managed to do. But he’s fine, he started moving after I had some soup this evening when I got home, and just in the last hour while I’ve been on the computer he’s been wriggling around quite a lot in there! It’s an amazing feeling, I can’t describe how happy it makes me feel every time he moves or kicks me! I’ve been warned that soon I’ll be wishing he would stop though…!

Baby product spreadsheet heaven

We come bearing variables, formulae and stuff...

I’ve managed to control my tendency to start sliding off the rails when confronted with too many baby product choices. I’ve made a spreadsheet.

Spreadsheets are a bit like beatific gridded angels bearing golden formulae that help solve all life’s crises. (That’s a ridiculous thing to say and I think I will erase it before publishing this post.) But actually, a spreadsheet can turn a messy, over-complex problem into a lovely colourful. tidy table with numbers in it. Like magic!

My spreadsheet is basically two lists. One is the list of things that I have to buy, with prices from various major babycare retailers next to each, plus a cost per unit (cunning!). The other is the same list, but showing what I have bought and how much I bought it for. It’s a bit obsessional, I know, and if I had a partner I would probably have better things to do of an evening than create spreadsheets… but it’s one way of passing time, at least.

I’m dreaming of one day publishing my spreadsheet. And a million other anxious, slightly losing the plot new mums, will, in their lowest moment of indecision over which breast pump to purchase, find my spreadsheet and be saved… I will be worshipped and revered as Duffy McDuff, Patron Saint of Baby Product Spreadsheet Heaven.

PS. Bump is getting mega big now – and it’s wee occupant is kicking like a goodjun!