Love is...

... sleeping on a wet patch of infant puke so that he doesn't have to.

Music should be heard and not seen

The babe and I have resolved my gentle agoraphobia and we’re out and about almost every day now, Hartley strapped to me in a front-facing carrier, fulfilling social obligations like tea with a friend, a check up at the health visitor’s or our meet-up with the postnatal group.

At some point it dawned on me that I am really no different from anyone else– i.e. not especially brilliant, but nor am I lacking fundamental qualities that would make me any less adept at handling new situations among strangers, baby or no (it only took me 32 years).

And so I am ploughing ahead with my resolve to join play groups and swimming lessons (for Hartley), and the pram-pushing group and infant-friendly film screenings at the local cinema (for me, mainly). I plan to approach these intimidating scenarios in the same manner that I’ve become accustomed to, which is with the confidence to at least show up and if something doesn’t work out, to not push myself to do it again. If I end up looking foolish somehow (which isn't likely, as we're all too busy focusing on ourselves to worry about what someone else is doing, unless we are very petty, which I suppose some of us can be at times), well, it's not the end of the world.

Who knew that it would take having a baby for me to finally grow up myself?

Bruce has taken him to the comic book store and once again I’m faced with the same dilemma as last time, which is that one hour isn’t quite enough time for a stress case like me to unwind properly. I usually end up wasting about twenty minutes contemplating various projects I could embark on before embarking on about four or five, poorly (like so), and then standing in place to scarf down a handful of Easter chocolates before putting in a load of laundry without actually starting the washing machine, tidying half the flat half-heartedly, putting the memory card from our camera into the computer without looking at the photos, making a cup of coffee I don’t really want and then watching ten minutes of an hour long programme while I force myself to drink that cup of coffee.

Next I plan to lie in bed and familiarise myself with the first sentence of a new baby book meant to help me decipher what went wrong with our son’s sleep, namely that he won’t do it unless he is on top of me or in bed pressed up against my belly. I will read that first sentence over and over again until Bruce comes home and then realise that what I really wanted was a long, hot bath. Ah well.

Daddy's Home Movie

We'll be sending this along for Hartley's 'show and tell' one day (requires sound).

One turntable and no microphone

Back in my final year of University, shortly before I started the Friday Films blog, I took a class on creative writing to top up my nearly completed English Honours degree. The only thing I managed to write of any substance or import that semester was, as it turned out, a poem I’d knocked-off in about twenty minutes and which I’d thrown in with my week’s portfolio as an afterthought. I called it ‘How Dark Was This Night’ – a half-hearted tribute title to a film I’d never actually seen but which shared a similar theme, or so I imagined.

So when Bruce announced the recent release of a compilation album of original songs called Dark Was The Night - one that includes not one or most of but nearly all of my current favourite artists - I experienced a kind of full-circle serendipity that is probably best described with a single Latin expression I’ve no time to search for (Bruce is holding a growingly impatient Hartley in the next room), perhaps vainus familiarus or something similar. It’s like someone looked inside your head and made a compilation, he said, and I couldn’t have put it any better myself. The digital download format (the proceeds of which go to an AIDS charity called Red Hot) contains thirty six tracks, but we also plan to buy its trimmed back vinyl counterpart, it’s just that good.

If you’re wondering why the triple-vinyl acquisition, we’ve recently decided to purchase a B&O Bang and Olufsen sound system and have found one in pretty good knick that’s also being sold with its original speakers. I’m not an arrogant prick so I won’t even intimate that music sounds better on vinyl, always has done, because that is obviously a load of rubbish. But there’s something satisfying in the thoughtful interaction, and even mild effort, that record playing requires, and anyway we’re having a lot of fun compiling our wish lists and ransacking eBay in our attempts to find them.

You thought you could get away without having to read about my offspring but you would be WRONG. He’s seven weeks old today, and to celebrate (no, I lied – we were just very hungry and nobody wanted to cook) we took him out for brunch, where he sat sleeping on my lap like a good little sleeping thing while I tried not to drip hot porridge onto his head. We're updating Flickr with images of our little poser donning and sometimes rejecting the gifts that many of you so thoughtfully sent over the last few months, so get ready to click that badge in the right hand column. Or not, as you wish.

I wish these things could name themselves

Heaven knows he's miserable now

For the time being I have a snoring baby in a front-facing carrier, and although we’re indoors and still in our outdoors clothes, I thought I’d let him wake up on his own while I pottered about online.

This morning I fed him and changed him and got him ready for our very first postnatal class, which took place in a massive house about twenty minutes on foot from where we live. I thought I’d be freaked out at having to spend time at a posh woman’s house with posh mums, but it wasn’t like that at all. Everyone was very friendly and we all had so much to say that the class ran over by about a half hour.

I decided right away that even though she seemed a bit shy, I wanted to make friends with Morag because who wouldn’t want a friend named Morag? But after my positive first group experience, and topping this with an impromptu lunch with one of the other mums at a local cafe, I got to thinking: why stop there? I think I could probably befriend everyone in the class, so long as they had an hour to spare and a bus pass.

Gosh, when did I get so brave? It’s really out of necessity though. My new friend Effy said that by three months there’s no question about whether or not you should leave the house, as by then your baby needs so much stimulation and so little sleep that it will be impossible to entertain him at home all day on your own. So I guess it’s a good thing I’m finally starting to join in with this little community of first-time mothers.

All the things I used to be judge-y about and think were really lame are actually . . . well, probably really lame. But this is the world I belong to now, and if you don’t embrace it and get on with things, then you will have to be that cool, cynical person all by yourself in your lonely little flat with nobody to laugh about it with.

I am becoming very adept at these five minute posts. Sorry, but it’s quantity over quality until someone else is equipped to settle this screaming kid of mine. Bye!

Stealth update

Our boy turned six weeks old on Sunday. Supposedly this is about the time he will start to settle, if not in himself then at least into a routine. We shall see.

This weekend was brilliant, against all odds (I was sick and sleep deprived). We became really brave and took Hartley to an exhibit at the Photographers' Gallery in their new location off Oxford Street, which necessitated a trip on the underground and of course many stops along the way so mummy could buy soap and try on clothes and get caught up in all the fabulously expensive baby gear most stores have on offer (we conceded and bought him a wee American Apparel hoodie in navy, which he’ll be able to fit for the next ten minutes, and a few more sensible items at H&M).

In retrospect, the trip was a bit overly ambitious maybe, and we were like the walking dead by the time we got back to Muswell Hill (Hartley in disarray being carried in Daddy’s arms, scrap the baby carrier and warm layers, let’s just get home already), but at least I finally got to experience the joy of public breastfeeding, which we did over lunch, in a private change room at the department store and on the bus ride home. It wasn’t too mortifying, and the loud sucking noises caused an amusing stir among certain nosy onlookers.

And somehow, after a Sunday diet of pain au chocolat and chocolate and cheese puffs and more chocolate and pasta and chocolate sponge, I managed to drop another .5 lbs. I’m already nearly back to my pre-pregnancy weight with nary a stretch mark to be seen, so in truth, this childbirth experience was not without its mercies. I say this, but I’m still unable to put down my infant for more than ten minutes without paying a terrible price. Hence: hello and goodbye.

A real boy

Bruce is currently out on his first independent excursion with our son, which means that for the first time in six weeks I have the place all to myself. They’re only going down to the comic shop, so in lieu of inviting scads of local teenagers on Facebook to come over and trash the place, I’ve opted for the simpler pleasures of writing and sipping a hot cup of coffee. I’m sure there are other, better activities I could be engaged in that require both hands and the absence of screaming (showering, cleaning, sleeping, eating a messy curry) but I’m a creature of habit, so.

The day before last, Bruce took some banked time off work and we went out to have Hartley’s hearing tested (passed!) and also to register his birth. Lately we’ve been taking him out for entire afternoons, and so long as he is in his front-facing baby carrier, we’re able to board busses, browse the shops along the high streets, sit down to lunch and return home with nary a peep out of him.

He picked the registrar’s office in Islington (the furthest he’s been from home, in other words) to spark a debate about our little agreement, however, and Bruce and I regarded our screaming bundle in mute astonishment as he exercised his little lungs in the chilly air and passersby scanned our faces for telltale signs of a deviant or neglectful parent.

I always imagined that when my kid lost his shit in public, my Super Mummy persona would emerge and I would intuitively jump into action, which I was mostly right about, except the actions mainly involved grinning and shrugging and digging around impotently in the change bag for some magical hush potion, none of which solved the problem. Luckily he managed to calm himself down by the time we reached the bus stop, but it will be a dark day in North London when it’s for real and I am alone with him on some form of packed public transport during rush hour. Because he can really belt it out when he puts his mind to it.

Look at me here, an adult alone and in possession of two or more sex toys, a television and a cupboard full of hot drinks and what am I doing? Writing about the baby. It really is an all-consuming role, though, this parenting thing, and some days I wake up and wonder if I will ever again be able to eat breakfast and take a shower in the same morning, or watch an entire episode of Big Love without turning to Bruce and giving him the Is that the baby? look or, hell, go out for an afternoon or evening on my own.

But by then he’s already squirming and grunting and indicating that I should feed him or pick him up or change him already for heaven’s sake and I don’t have long to ponder these things. Though I finally understand what it was my mother was trying to protect me from all those livelong teenaged years. How on earth do teenage mums and single parents do this? Don’t answer that, I’m just being silly. I’ve come down with the flu again, which will add another challenge to the week ahead, as though I needed one.

Bruce just called to say that he was minutes from home, so I guess that’s time. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to write here again, though I suppose half the fun of having a blog is finding the time to write in it, yes?

Bruce bet me 50 quid this wouldn't work

What shall I spend it on?

Hartley: One Month

I can’t believe that it’s been a whole month since the three of us began this terrifying, wonderful journey.

If you’d told me back in December that, within a few short days of meeting the little human whose gestation caused me months of sickness and pain, I would discover a new and intense kind of love that would have me jump out the emergency exit of a plane at 60,000 feet without a parachute if I thought that it would save him from harm, I might have been a bit dubious.

But here we are, high above the earth without the customary safety features, and I finally understand that nobody is born with a maternal instinct, or perhaps all women are, but it is not something you can teach a person or prepare for yourself because it will not kick in until it has something (someone) to kick in for. And I’m holding on for dear life, except this time it’s not my own – it’s his, and I would fashion him a parachute from my own skin if we suddenly went plummeting towards the earth and there was no other way to save him.

Quite often as he’s falling asleep, he will throw his arms out stiffly and bring them trembling back to his body with a whimper, as though he is falling from a great height. I try not to visualise a thousand perils, an infinity of ways the earth could take him from us. I try to harden my heart, because it is much too soft now, almost liquid, and while it takes the impression of every hiccup, every sigh, every discontented chuckle and near-smile, it also traps the debris of imagined catastrophe, of extradimensional grief.

Fear and joy are two sides of the same heart, though, and he has brought us so much joy. He is the inventor of ‘rooty tooty’ and the Anaconda song (sung to ‘I Want Candy’); his soiled nappies and pouty-lipped wailing the cause for celebration and laughter; his wonderment fodder for our own renewed perception of the world, which has never seemed so incandescent, so furiously moving, so mutable and transient.

Our arms have found new ways of holding, of handling and doing - our bodies the very means of transport, of shelter and sustenance. From ourselves this incredible thing has emerged, and into him we continue to pour our entire selves, because he is here and we love him and can do nothing else.

Parenthood does not get worse before it gets better – it’s worse the moment you take off, and then over time, somehow, it does, mercifully, get better.

It has been one month since I first held your warm, solid, shivering body against mine and saw your strange, beautiful face through a fog of fear and exhaustion, Hartley (my darling, my insatiable anaconda), and you’ve grown more beautiful each and every day since. I love you very much.

Milestones

Hartley turned 4 weeks old today, and we are so proud of our little mite: for sleeping through a 3-hour-long shopping trip on Saturday - one that included three bus rides (and two quick jogs to catch said buses), a stop for lunch and several stuffy shops, including a spontaneous trek along the Broadway for coffee, jewelry and a much-needed bag of Percy Pigs.

I also managed to take him out for the first time on my own this afternoon, though I had plenty of assistance from Amy, who helped me dress him in his awful new winter clothes that he hates, got him buckled into the baby bjorn, saved me from perilous sidewalk slush and pot-holes, and generally settled us in for a brunch at the noisiest, kid-friendly restaurant this side of North London. Bless him, he didn't make a single peep, even though a much older baby one table over kept shrieking at irregular intervals, and seemingly for his own amusement.

This week, he has learned how to spend periods of time awake and content, and will either focus on elements of his environment, like our faces or his cot mobile, or listen intently to music we play him (Cat Power was an instant favourite). And although it's rare at this age, I swear that sometimes when he meets my gaze, he breaks out into a full-on, non-gas-induced baby smile. He was holding his own head up and sucking his tiny thumb at one week though, so I wouldn't be surprised.

It's a cliche to be sure, though I can't help but think that he is the most beautiful baby I have ever laid eyes on. Thank goodness for that, because he still does his fair share of screaming when he's not building his public reputation as a complete angel.

First in a series of one-finger-typed posts

Taking care of a fussy infant is seriously hard work - taking care of a fussy infant when you have a flu is seriously much harder though.

Some of you from the old journal may recall the harrowing tale of my brief stint as assistant to the tyrannical producer of a Hollywood film. I've been reminded of this undistinguished period the last few days simply because it dawned on me that the needs of my newborn son are only slightly more discernible than those belonging to that Worst Ever Employer, and his mood vastly less predictable. And if you ever find yourself comparing your child to the man who once threw a gold-plated pen at your head suddenly and without warning then you have my sympathies and I won't try and talk you down, as that ledge you're currently teetering on probably feels a lot more secure than the nursery you likely just fled from moments ago.

Yesterday, I finally managed to eat my lunch at four, scarfing it down within the precious few minutes between feeding him and when he noticed my nipple was no longer in his mouth, which, let me tell you, is cause for great hysterics in these parts. Sometimes he will fall asleep mid-feed and come unlatched and I can sneak off to relieve my aching bladder or refill my water bottle. If I take any longer than two minutes though, from the bedroom will emanate the most outraged squawk - one that directly translates as: HEY! YOU WITH THE CRACKED, SHREDDED NIPPLES! GET YOUR ASS BACK IN HERE, I WASN'T FINISHED WITH THOSE!

Because he is only small, he often forgets that actually, yes, he was finished feeding and so I have to latch him back on as you can't really argue with that kind of logic - the kind of logic that shatters glass and wakes the dead and temporarily deafens the neighbourhood dogs if you let it continue building its argument for too long.

As I've explained to people who have never given birth to such an inconsolable creature as Hartley, caring for him is a little like holding your finger on the trigger of a live grenade that you are not allowed to throw (though the council of Haringey might be a bit more lax about these things)- no matter how exhausted you are, no matter how much your arms ache from all the rocking and holding and winding and carrying, you can't for a second let go of that trigger or the consequences will be devastating.

And the only way to diffuse that bomb for a even short while is to plug it with breast tissue until it stops fussing and falls asleep. Even then, you must lie very still and try not to breathe too loudly, like so...

The Kindness of Strangers, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Wail

They say that babies don’t come with a manual, but that isn’t entirely accurate. After a few sleepless nights and senseless worrying about completely normal infant behaviour (sleeplessness, crying for seemingly no reason) I begged Bruce to order us What to Expect in the First Year. I suspect it will serve much the same purpose as that initial pregnancy bible, What to Expect When You’re Expecting, which I only referenced in times of extreme uncertainty or distress. It didn’t always help, but it does give you a momentary sense of purpose, and the fleeting impression that you’re in control - even mothers need security blankets, see.

My sister-in-law is over and I’m stealing a few moments to check emails, drink a cup of decaf and do a few basic things hands-free before they are once more filled with infant need. Starting Monday, the two of us will be left to our own devices when Bruce goes back to work, and rather than panic about it, I’m just going to go with the flow and do what I’ve been doing all along – feeding, changing, settling and then co-sleeping away those hours of down time when he needs nothing else except rest.

Last night at some ungodly hour, I tore open the poppers on the legs of a new little sleeper our neighbour gave us as a gift recently, and a massive black spider scurried out from inside it and across the covers. Rather than lose my shit as I’m wont to do around spiders, I scooped it up in a soiled baby vest, crushed it and tossed a shirt over the minor massacre, reaching instead for the adorable ducky vest that my excellent internet friend Lass sent through the mail (thanks Lass!) (Well I wasn’t going to put him in the spider sleeper, as it will henceforth be known - at least to me, and until I’ve washed it a few dozen times to be sure there are no remnants of spider or microscopic spider eggs).

*Also in the package from our kind Lass was an incredibly cool little bib that will come in handy when he’s older and onto solids, and some lovely burp cloths for when I’m able to fit back into the tops I actually care about (having breasts isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be, especially when they have the potential to win you the wet t-shirt contest you didn’t intend to enter).

I’m still amazed at how something as uncommon as a new baby - especially in the virile, ever-multiplying district of Muswell Hill - can inspire kindness in the most unlikely of people: namely neighbours we’ve never met or ones who’ve expressed no prior interest in knowing us.

But then it’s not until you’ve had one that suddenly, all the things that once pissed you off about crying, weird-looking potato-headed little people start to become the very things you grin your face off about, such as when you’re in a restaurant and someone’s offspring suddenly bursts out into a chorus of Waaaaah, waaaaah, waaaahs. Even in the middle of the night, there’s no denying that this is the happiest, most life-affirming sound you will ever know.

*photos to follow when His Sleeplessness properly wakes from his fitful nap

Getting to grips

You know how sometimes you go to a fair and see a ride and think to yourself, Hey, that doesn’t look so bad – in fact, it looks pretty tame and you get on and the ride starts up and it’s everything you thought it would be; that is until it suddenly shoots about a hundred feet into the air and tilts at a crazy angle that makes you feel as though the worn out old seatbelt could at any moment tear away from your hips and you’ll go spiralling over the heads of those poor sods queuing up for that other ride about twenty kilometers yonder and just then it starts to undulate in such a way that your stomach isn’t sure if it wants to explode or implode or maybe jump ship out your ass and you’re like, Actually, MOTHEROFCHRISTGETMEOFFATHISFUCKINGTHING! except that you should have thought of that earlier, because now it’s much too late and you know you’re going to have to suffer this horror for at least another five minutes?

Except that parenthood lasts a wee bit longer than five minutes, and involves something very small and vulnerable that you can’t help but love with your whole entire being, and he’s on the ride too except fortunately for him he hasn’t the wherewithal to retain bad memories and will root around on your chin, the edge of a cushion, a duvet cover or whatever because he hasn’t figured out yet that only mummies and not faces or inanimate objects have nipples, and for this reason you need to make sure that you stay firmly in the seated position because otherwise neither of you will make it through this thing alive.

Bruce and my dad have nipped out to Mothercare for a few essentials, and both our mothers are out there in the other room with our sleeping infant, who seems to have become more unsettled by this whole Being Alive in the World condition than he was last week. He refuses to nap until you feed him and then joggle him around a bit and then feed him again and then change him and then give him some gripe water and then joggle him around some more and then sacrifice a chicken when the moon is in the seventh house and then feed him – every two to three hours. But then he sleeps like an angel.

This mixture of love and concern, joy and sinking despair can be very overwhelming when you’re onto a third day where none of you have slept and you find yourself sniping at the very people who are there to help take him off your hands and your husband is stumbling around like the living dead and trying to get you to have a nap instead of chewing your fingers into little stubs or possibly saying something that will forever fracture the delicate relationship you’ve managed to foster with your parents who, might you add, have not yet clarified whether they’ll definitely help finance a whole year of maternity leave or whether that was just something they said and maybe even meant but only in the moment. Not quite yet.

Then this tiny mite starts to cry and I feel my stomach sink a little bit but I’m up like a hero and taking him into my arms and he roots around on my cheek and my chin and my nose for a nipple, stabbing his little face at me like a tiny anaconda and going Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah until I have him lying on his side in bed next to me, my boob out and in his face, and he tenses up and makes two fists which he pulls back like an angry little man winding up as if to say Why, I oughta . . . except that instead he stabs around at my breast with his whole face until his mouth finds a good latch and he gives an almighty suck that makes both of us go quiet.

And then there’s no denying that it’s all worth it somehow. I’m not sure why, but that’s the honest truth. Motherhood is so much harder than I thought it would be, and so much better too.

Batteries not excluded

Thanks to all of you who stuck it out for so long when things went silent here. I apologise in advance for the paucity in both words and depiction, as the experience of labour and ensuing baby-ness is more than I can adequately describe.

I had my first contraction at 8 p.m. on Friday 9th January (my due date!) and finally delivered our son on the 11th of January at 11:46 a.m.

My ‘natural childbirth’ scenario was deftly revised after 19 hours of difficult contractions, when my extensive list of birth plan thou shalt nots went swiftly out the window and I heard myself whining pitifully at the new midwife on staff, But Comfort said I could have both the Pethidine and the epidural! Thereafter I was sucking back as many different kinds of pills, gas, air and injections as the antenatal and labour wards had on offer.

Towards the end, it came down to whether or not my labour was progressing quickly enough for a truly natural childbirth, and even though staff and family maintained an optimistic outlook, doctors and midwives were meanwhile confabbing about the possibility of having to conduct the dreaded ‘c’ word, which is something no first-time mother should ever have to consider.

But my next internal determined that baby seemed to be quite happy where he was for the time being; meanwhile I was 9 cm along and so was instructed to push. It took only seven minutes of pushing before the doctor finally lifted a real, warm baby onto my chest and the room broke out into ecstatic mayhem, though the exhaustion and shock of what had just happened rendered me fairly numb.

We were in hospital for far too long recovering from our respective minor ailments, and during this time I struggled to fill the enormous shoes of motherhood, which require you to not only be there in body but in soul as well. It wasn’t until we escaped that chaotic environment for home, however, that the bonding process truly began to take place. Since then I have been perpetually buffeted by a feeling that I can only describe as love, though it’s much different from any kind of love I’ve ever felt before.



Bruce thought I’d be able to aptly describe the process of labour, and until last week, I was pretty sure that I could. But just as ‘period pains times a million’ barely touches upon the real experience of labour, so does ‘love for your favourite cat times a million’ poorly illustrate the overwhelming mixture of sadness and joy I experience every time I look down at his sweet little face and wonder how something so beautiful could possibly have anything at all to do with me.



I envision so many different scenarios wherein I fail him completely as a mother that paranoia infiltrates my dreams and turns me into a nervous wreck when he’s not completely at ease, asleep. Bruce has taken to fatherhood quite naturally and is very good at settling him when he cries at night and also at reassuring me that I’m doing a good job (though my only weapon against distress seems to be the boob).

He’s been in our lives for just over a week, which isn’t very long at all, though already he’s changed us profoundly - as a couple and as individuals. Things won’t ever be the same again, but I’m not sure that such comparisons hold any meaning for me anymore.



I will try to write here as often as I can, though babies really do take up as much of your time as everyone says they do. As scary and consuming as it is, though, I truly love this new role and can’t imagine wanting or needing to do anything else right now.

An event

This morning I woke at an ungodly hour to stumble to the toilet for something like the fifth time, when all of a sudden . . . POP.

A snap came off the maternity jumper I was trying to dislodge myself from.

And that is truly the only thing of note to have happened in this pregnancy since I last wrote here. Yes, well I’ll see your disappointment and raise you an agonising bout of acid indigestion.

When you take everything else into consideration (heartburn, pelvic dysfunction, carpel tunnel, insomnia), traumatising my reproductive organs by passing a live human being through them starts to feel like the lesser of many, many evils. Why it took me so long to recognise just how evil this particular proposition is likely to be, I can only guess (denial?).

I decided that in preparation for the big day, I would read birth stories to familiarise myself with the general way in which labour progresses. What I discovered is that these generalities don’t exist and that, actually, there are many, many different potential worlds of fear and pain to experience in the labour room, and even within the hours leading up to hospitalisation.

Bar none (okay, bar one), the consensus seemed to be that this horrific ordeal was really nothing compared to the joy of seeing that smushed up little face for the first time, and that Project Reproduction would be going ahead for a second and possibly even third trial just as soon as their mangled lady parts were up to the task.

Though to be honest, it’s a bit difficult to take heart when most of what you’re reading is along the lines of:

I begged my husband to claw out my eyes so that I’d have something else to focus on. In retrospect, I now wish that I’d asked for the epidural much sooner, and that I’d asked them to put it IN MY BRAIN. Like, THE WEEK BEFORE.

It was the happiest day of my life.

So a slight sense of panic now accompanies each new twinge or movement in yonder netherparts, and I’m trying my darnedest to tame this wild stallion of terror before I too find myself having to climb up the walls of an unfamiliar room wearing nothing but a backless gown and a grimace.

Last night, as I was falling asleep to the dulcet tones of a tech-head from Holland who was giving Bruce a video tutorial on how to turn our EEE PC into a touch-screen, radioactive, six-piece dinette set that can save lives and makes toast, I started to feel these wild undulations from the tip of my womb to the base of my pelvic bone and vaguely thought, I think it might be happening.

But it hasn’t, and now I’ve nearly eaten all the snacks out of my labour bag, which has been packed and ready by the front door for the last few weeks, though I'm starting to doubt its relevance. Tick tock, little one.

Not nesting, but baking

Nesting is a phenomenon common to pregnancy, though it’s one I’ve yet to experience. Bruce and I were watching an episode of Gilmour Girls (restraints and the promise of fried egg sandwiches can accomplish just about anything) wherein the character Lane alludes to a ninth-month cleaning frenzy. Bruce turned to me and said YOU! GET NESTING ALREADY! Because oddly enough, I feel not even the slightest urge to pull out all our dishes and wipe down the insides of cupboards, or attack our baseboards with a toothbrush. I know, right?

I am, however, becoming more prolific in the kitchen, and find that meticulously following a recipe from beginning to end accomplishes a feeling similar to what I imagine nesting might engender. I know it’s not exactly the perk he envisioned, but given that I somehow managed to skip the honeymoon period, cravings and happy hormones altogether, I think this is probably a good (and tasty) compromise.



We’ve got a lovely New Years Eve lined up, with sparkling juice and cheese roulade and gourmet jelly beans and DVD thrillers – a veritable smorgasbord of non-alcoholic activity, which I think I’d prefer to the champagne nightmare of sub-zero London even if the pregnancy wasn’t an issue. For years I’d been unsuccessfully trying to fool myself into believing that putting on a nicer outfit and paying more money to spend the night in a bar you frequent anyway somehow constitutes an event.

Speaking of events – last night we were in bed, deciphering the erratic Braille of my belly with a note of panic because we were certain that the baby had somehow flipped right around and was now breeched. This is not a good scenario in pregnancy, because although it’s possible to deliver a breeched baby naturally, more often than not they will opt for a c-section, which is somehow safer for mother and baby overall. Luckily we had an appointment with the midwife today and so hadn’t long to wait on that verdict.

She spent a long time feeling the contours of my distended belly, frowning and not saying much, until she pinched my abdominal area, where the head usually sits. “There’s usually a head there,” I said uncertainly, and she said, “Yes, it’s still there, and it looks like . . . it’s fully engaged.” With first pregnancies, the baby will drop into the pelvis and engage within the last few weeks leading up to the birth. Really what it means is that all systems are go, and D-day could come at any time, which we knew already. But at least he’s made a firm decision about which way around he’d like to greet the world.



If I don’t talk to you beforehand, I hope you all enjoy the transition into 2009. Send me a note or an email if you want to be included on the list of people who receive a puffy, red-faced photo of me and the little grub. Otherwise, I’ll report back here once we’ve all recovered and give you the real skinny on labour and motherhood, as I see it anyway.

Love,

Friday Films

Consider me converted

Mrs. Slocombe kindly sent us a baby-sized pair of Aussie essentials – Uggs! I’d been wondering how to get our little bundle of joy home with his extremities unfrozen and intact, and these nought to six month sized booties will work perfectly.

I must admit, I never joined in the Ugg boot craze which ten years ago saw legions of young girls compromising their length by cutting themselves off unflatteringly at mid-calf with what, at first glance, appeared to be misshapen loaves of bread.

But as you can see, the baby versions are far too cute to be believed, and I will be doing my fair share of obsessive feet-checking this winter to make sure he doesn’t kick one off when we’re out and about.

Thanks, Betty!

xx Friday (and Bruce)

On my mind, or thereabouts

I’m nearing my 39th week of pregnancy, which means it won’t be long now. Sometimes I feel utterly heroic and wish that it would just happen already so that I can get this thing done. Others, the idea of leaving the security of my nest to do a 22-hour-long marathon push from an unfamiliar place in an unfamiliar room leaves me breathless, and I hope for just one more day of respite.

The last few weeks have been brilliant, with both of us off work and no obligations, and mostly we’ve been enjoying our time together as childless adults, which (provided all goes well in life) is a state we will never again revisit. Everything we do now feels like we’re doing it for the last time in this respect: our last Christmas together alone, our last mornings of sleeping in late, our last spontaneous outings into town, or even to the shops.

It’s a lot to get your head around, so best not to even try, I think. We ordered the cot - that final, essential piece of furniture - and it was delivered on Christmas Eve. I spent the morning cleaning and reorganising the kitchen while Bruce put it together, and then we basked in the strangeness of it all before heading out to our appointment with the midwife.

The head midwife of our team takes her cues from me, we now realise, and will go to great lengths to locate them if these aren't on offer, I guess because she feels she’s not doing her job if she can’t give reassurance or a scolding or uncomfortably long hugs, or mixed nuts (she gave me half a banana once, too, after she unsuccessfully stabbed me twice with a needle, missing the vein and causing vertigo).

This time we went in with the confidence of a storm, and still she eyed me critically, as though a single tear would at any moment dissolve the shoddy mask of my inimitable okay-ness. Finally, she conceded that I was looking better than she’s ever seen me and then dug around in her handbag for some miracle Australian lip balm which she then put in a specimen jar and ordered me to take home and use. Because by God, if she can’t accurately predict and stave off impending postpartum depression, she will at least cure me of chapped lips.

That’s something I’ve been trying not to think about too much, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned from my long ago stint with poor mental health, it’s that you can indeed break your mind if you’re determined enough. It would be churlish of me to imply that anyone who ends up on a psych ward could have done something to prevent it. But all the same, I can still recall how I stood by and watched the last vestiges of perspective ebb away with a kind of morbid fascination, still not really believing that it could get any worse. Though it did, it got much worse.

For all her melodramatic fussing, the midwife is spot on about something: hormones tend to upset the delicate balance of good mental health, and if you’ve ever blundered into a psychotic or depressive episode, it can take even less to send you spiralling into another one day. I know this from the many conversations I had around my release date with nurses, psychiatrists and other patients, all of whom calmly assured me that, however fine I felt now, I would in all likelihood be back.

So as self-destructive as the ensuing years might have become (at least until I met Bruce) I’ve taken silent but concerted measures to ensure that – at the very least - this does not become a self-fulfilling prophesy. And yet you can’t live out your life under the assumption that the Big Bad Breakdown is lurking around every corner just waiting for you to make a decision that will knock your physiology a bit off kilter (though having two or three drinks a night for years was probably not the best course of action, now I think of it).

I don’t know how the leap and fall of hormones will affect me in those weeks following the birth, but I do know that I’m prepared to deal with any eventualities that could arise, and that includes being mindful (but not too mindful) of at least a few.

Last looks

I’m not inspired to do much these days, and whereas at one time I would have at least tried to excuse my reclusiveness, I’ve come to realise that there is actually nothing wrong with wanting to check out once in a while. And if you can’t live in your pyjamas, ignore the phone, nap all day and watch bad television during your ninth month of pregnancy, when can you? Hmmm?

The common misconception seems to be that pregnancy loves company, however, and the more I try and recede into the experience, the more phone calls, emails and visitation threats I receive from friends, family and colleagues. Most people assume that because I’m off work now, I must be lonely or bored; that I must want to talk to someone about what I’m going through, or that I need someone to help me take my mind off it. Though the intention is both kind and considerate, the underlying assumption couldn’t be further from the truth.

For the first time in my life, I’m more content to spend quiet time alone in my own company than I am interested or willing to break out of that introspection and engage with others (Bruce being the obvious exception, as I think our co-dependence might constitute Siamese status by now). Whatever the reason, I seem to be on a different wavelength from the rest of the world, and I’m perfectly okay with that.

I’ve certainly done a lot of reading over the last few weeks, and it vaguely reminds me of those long, luxurious afternoons of University, when my only real commitment was a three-hour-long evening class on film theory and aesthetics or post-colonial literature. Except that in those days, I did not appear to be concealing a giant Kinder Surprise egg beneath my jumper (though I did have a pathological need for acknowledgement - one that has been mercifully snuffed out by time and maturity).

In any case, I don’t have long to revel in my deserted island experience before this journey becomes completely unrecognisable again.

It’s Bruce’s last day of work, and then we have a very small window of opportunity to pull everything together before the holiday draws us to its eggnog-scented bosom and smothers us in festivity; there’s just no way to predict when the newborn invasion will take place. Realistically, by the time we’re settled in at home again, we’ll probably have just over a week to turn the page on that short, intimate chapter of our lives when it was just the two of us and we wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Part of me feels very sad about this. But on the other hand, I can’t wait to see what comes next.

For meme

A personalised meme, just for me - devised by The Lass! If you want your own, leave me a note and I'll email you five questions. None as good as these, though, I'm afraid.

1. Of all the things you learned from your parents, what do you think was the most valuable?

If you don't regularly challenge your own beliefs - about the world, about others and about yourself - you risk closing yourself off to a wealth of experience. That lesson was inadvertent.

2. What is your most indispensable possession and why?

Our cats, quite literally. No matter how hard we try, or how logical it might seem at this point in our lives (and given the small amount of space we have to share), we can't seem to get rid of them. Yes, they are antisocial, ungrateful, petulant little things that flee from us 99% of the time and have nothing to offer except vet bills and the occasional whiff of used litter, but they're ours and we love them (at a respectful distance). Because we are suckers of the bleeding heart variety.

3. How has impending motherhood changed you? (Besides the obvious physical changes, of course.)

I'm less shy about saying what it is I want and need from others, because you can't afford to be timid when you're responsible for the well-being of something so vulnerable and so completely reliant on you. That meant saying 'no' to people at work more often, leaving the office on time instead of staying late, unapologetically taking someone else's seat on the tube if they offered, and eventually giving work an ultimatum (I can have the doctor sign me off now or you can let me work from home for the next six weeks). I will have to become even more assertive once this kid is out in the world, but it's definitely becoming a trend.

4. It's time to throw a dinner party for your favorite deceased authors. Who is in attendance? Why? What are you feeding them?

Most of my favorite authors are contemporary, but short of killing Martin Amis (who I'm not sure I'd actually want at a dinner party) and Zadie Smith, I guess I'd have to say Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath and David Foster Wallace, because I like to imagine we share a similar perspective on life and writing, and I reckon that after a few bottles of wine, we'd have several hours of incredible dialogue. Or the two women would huddle together in a corner whispering venomously into into their cupped hands while I tried to wrest a bottle of corrosive toilet cleaner from David. I think we're having take out from La Porceta, because Italian is timeless and classic and therefore inoffensive to diverse palates, and I'd be far too nervous to cook for them myself.

5. Would you rather be famous or infamous?

The two aren't always mutually exclusive in these here parts, but if I had to pick one, I guess I'd say famous. Your tenure in the history books is probably far shorter than if you were infamous, but if I'm going to be remembered for something, I'd rather that something conjured up fond feelings in others, over impassioned rage or ridicule. Or am I missing a trick?

I'm beginning to look like Father Christmas

Just a regular old update then - mainly because it’s easier to farm the thought-scum that gathers at the top of my brain than dangle a tasty line in the deeper waters of the subconscious mind in the hopes of snagging a bigger fish. What? Yes, exactly.

So I’m 36 weeks + along, which means that by Friday, I could go into labour and come out with a baby that has reached full-term. I’m not sure how I feel about that. Every day I gingerly maneuver the great hull of my midsection – towards the toilet, into the shower, between the desk chair and cabinet, the bed and the wall – and carry on with life in spite of the discomfort.

A few weeks ago we had our antenatal classes with the NCT – not quite the hippy love-fest I’d been warned about, though certainly not a clinical hell, as was evidenced by our instructor’s dominatrix-like boots and stripy underpants, which she found far too many occasions to flash.

We spent two full days and one evening with eight other very nice first-time parents-to-be and were ushered through the terror (of which there is plenty) and joy (uh...) of what it will mean to birth a dirty plastic doll through the mouth of a soiled pink toque. Oh those were just the metaphorical teaching tools, but rest assured it’s the visual I will henceforth associate with my upcoming trials in hospital.

Everyone has a funny antenatal class story I’m sure, so here’s mine:

We were asked to visualise what a gorilla giving birth in the wild would be likely to do, in terms of finding a spot, getting comfortable and even asking her gorilla pals for help. It was the perfect allegorical blend of science and fantasy. As sentient beings, we humans tend to forget that the birth-giving process is, above all, completely natural. Huzzah! We were finally thinking outside the box of modern medicine!

Well, most of us anyway. Our instructor asked, “So what are some of the predators we might encounter in a labour ward?” and before the rest of us could conjure up that intrusive orderly or unwanted mother-in-law, an overzealous incubator piped up with “PEDOPHILES?” And because this is England, nobody batted an eyelash while the instructor attempted to address this unlikely scenario.

Okay, I thought it was funny.

So here it is, weeks later, and even though we’ve bought the newborn essentials and written up the birth plan and gathered the elements of an overnight bag (in theory), I am still having trouble believing that what we’ve been talking about and preparing for since April could feasibly happen any day...no...any second now. Fortunately, belief doesn’t enter into the equation, and this kid is going to come whether I’m ready for him or not.

And I am not, so please, kid: try to hold off on the grand entrance for your poor, frazzled mother? At least until she can erase the memory of The Constant Gardiner, Snow White: A Tale of Terror and The Changeling, which, you must admit, were some pretty poor choices for weekend entertainment.

Also, the more times I hear Oh you’ll want the epidural, trust me, the more I want to shout Enough with the scare tactics, you insensitive twat! and prove otherwise. I know I have a low pain threshold, and anyone who knows me could tell you the same. I can’t even get on the kiddy spaceship ride thingy at the fair without wanting to vomit. But I will not be talked into having someone else’s experience before I’ve even had a chance to register that first strong contraction. So fuck off, you epidural-pushing veteran baby-labourers!

And, erm, thanks anyway!

I'm also meant to tell you how deleriously happy I'm feeling about this important and exciting time in my life, which I'm going through with the most amazing man I've ever met. And I am! I really am.

Another cop out

Lovingly lifted from The Lass, who tags you as well!

Where is your cell phone? Mobile phone - Missing, again.

Where is your significant other? On his way home from work.

Your hair color? Auburn.

Your mother? Crazy, controlling.

Your father? Emasculated, controlling.

Your favorite thing? A day/night out/in with Bruce.

Your dream last night? Oral sex.

Your goal? A natural childbirth experience in the New Year.

The room you’re in? Is finally organised, clean and exactly how a bedroom should be.

Your hobby? Take a stab.

Your fear? That I will go into labour whilst visiting relatives in Hertfordshire.

Where do you want to be in six years? A more spacious home with a happy, healthy child, a happy, healthy husband, happy and healthy, and preferably in a job I love (I don't want much).

Where were you last night? In front of the television.

What you’re not? Smaller than a breadbox.

One of your wish-list items? Record player

Where you grew up? Canadia

The last thing you did? Plugged in the trees.

What are you wearing? Pajamas

Your TV? Is not communicating properly with the broadband box, hence no recorded shows - we are back in the dark ages of surfing and commercial-watching until we can fix this.

Your pet(s)? Are finally starting to come around (sort of).

Your computer? Has no tension in its screen so is propped against a small pillow as I type this.

Your mood? Content

Missing someone? Yes, but he'll be back soon.

Your car? Ha.

Something you’re not wearing? A hair shirt.

Favorite store? Orla Kiely

Your summer? Revolved around strategic eating so that I would not vomit.

Love someone? More than he knows.

Your favorite colour? I'm not bothered.

When is the last time you laughed? Yesterday.

Last time you cried? Last week sometime.

Tagging: Bruce, even though he has nowhere to put this. I need him to give me one item on his wish list now because I'm running out of time and ideas.

No ice cream before bed

GREAT, THANKS - MESSAGE RECEIVED.

This is by far the worst thing my esophagus has ever done to me.

Yeah

(Mixwit is now kaput and have replaced all songs with this one)

2posh 2push

Over the last 24 hours, I have had one fight involving two editors, four bouts of crying and three hours of sleep. I am so wired, I almost feel like I could do it again today. A rather dramatic end to my penultimate week of work before maternity leave, and probably not the best way to usher in a weekend of antenatal classes, but there you have it.

More redundancies at work have been made, and someone I legitimately do not like - on a personal or professional level - has been given the boot. No part of me feels like celebrating though, because the axe is indiscriminate and the few colleagues that have made my life in corporate Britannia bearable are leaving too. It makes me wonder if I’ll be walking into a sea of brand new faces when I return next year.

There is so much to do and buy and prepare for before the baby arrives and I’m not sure how we’ll finish everything alongside Christmas, which we’re spending in Hertfordshire. I’ve got four baby books and two parenting ones on the go, and I’m desperately hoping that the essential pieces of information will sink in before I have to do something like, oh I don’t know, pick him up. What on earth do you do with these things?

I know what to do with toddlers – you just follow them around all day, making sure they don’t put small objects in their mouths or run headfirst into the edge of a coffee table until they exhaust themselves and fall asleep on a pile of Lego. But an infant? I vaguely recall tipping a Cabbage Patch doll out of a pram as I tried to wheel it down the grassy knolls of our front lawn, and holding my nephew Christopher as though he was a small sack of gunpowder or a spun-sugar light bulb. I don’t remember what I did next in either scenario.

They say it’s different with your own child, and by ‘it’ I do hope they mean ‘everything,’ because when I see a baby coming my way, my instinct is to hold it at arm’s length and then pass it on to the next interested party. It’s something to do with the drool and the vague waft of brussels sprouts emanating from their nappies. That and the cockeyed way they size you up, like they are trying to determine whether or not you would absent-mindedly leave them in a shopping trolley at the grocery store if this relationship progressed beyond a cuddle and - once they see that yes, probably you would - the way they tense up and scream in your face.

Even if I get past the squeamishness and the not knowing what to do, this doesn’t necessarily mean I’m off the hook. What if the baby triggers my latent obsessive compulsive tendencies and I start to panic if we’re five minutes late for his mid-morning nap or he hasn’t fed enough by my stopwatch and uncanny sense of mammary weight to volume ratio? Or worse – what if I find parenting incredibly dull? It’s a good job these fears don’t kick in until after implantation, or we’d be very limited as a species, numerically speaking.

Also good on the things list: Bruce. He’s very excited to meet the little guy and keen to get started, bless him. Last night the baby was pushing his foot into my side and making it shudder like an overripe jell-o mould and Bruce was poking back and talking to him like he was already in the world with us. I still have trouble making that leap - I guess because if I thought about it too hard, it would probably dawn on me that I am housing a small person in my mid-section that will one day want to vacate the premises. And there’s only one way out of there. Two if you’re posh.

Million little feces

I’m in my 33rd week now, and the only thing that made the pregnancy halfway bearable (holiday) is now finished. So it’s back to sleepless nights and stressful days of work, at least for another three weeks. In the meantime, I’m trying to forget about symptoms like breathlessness, a drum-tight belly that feels like it will burst, acid reflux and constipation like never before. I’d be a hot date, I tell you, if I could only fit my dancing shoes.

Things at work are bordering on farce now, with freshly redundant colleagues sending scathing emails to the entire division and a general uncertainty about Who’s on first, What’s on second and Where do I report to when he/she gets laid off. Part of me feels glad that I’m experiencing these revelations remotely, from the (dis)comfort of my sofa, but the camaraderie would certainly take the edge off not knowing what’s around the next corner.

As it stands, I am doing the honourable thing: keeping my head down and trying not to give them even the barest elements of a rope (cotton?) I could hang myself with. High branches and stepladders interest me not in the slightest, nope, not I.

I managed to accomplish quite a bit last week – apart from my visit, I also overcame my fear of city streets and commerce, leaving the house every day to buy a gingerbread latte from that coffee giant we all know and love (to hate to love) or eat lunch in a restaurant or just go for walks. I finally finished David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, which I started about four years ago and deigned to pick up again recently. Now I’m onto the latest James Frey novel, which begins with an irritating disclaimer that nearly put me off my first experience with the author.

No one ever accused James Frey of inaccuracy, so we can go ahead and dismantle that straw man. Getting the facts wrong and making stuff up entirely are two different matters, and you and I both know how a little embellishment can sometimes seem a delicious proposition for autobiography – except that we have too much respect for the integrity of truth! And also for our ability to make a tale good regardless. Events are difficult enough to interpret without the added distraction of fabrication, so let’s just call a spade a spade and see if we can keep from burying ourselves with it, yes?

It’s a good read so far, though the disclaimer has me questioning whether or not the historical backbone of the story (City of Los Angeles – an overview!) is made up, or partly made up, or what have you. (It’s your bed, Mr. Frey, so get comfortable.)

Anyway, I’m not sure where I’m going with any of this and the battery is about to drain away on my laptop, so you lucked out of a few more pointless paragraphs. Call me uninspired, but never let it be said that I’m a liar.

The good, the bad and the absent-minded

I am a bad, bad mother-in-waiting. Let me preface this by saying that over the weekend, we cleaned the flat from top to bottom, which consequently inspired me to face the mounting pile of postnatal booty I’ve been stowing next to the lovely little cabinet I bought to cheer up what will effectively become the nursery (currently our bedroom).

It was through no lack of enthusiasm that I let the sorting of wee socks and bibs, hats and scratch mitts fall by the wayside for so long, and in fact, such apparent neglect was more a reflection of my own sense of inadequacy towards the classification of such tiny necessities and the sheer momentousness of giving these a proper home. At least, that’s how I’d built it up in my own mind.

The task turned out to be much less complicated than I’d imagined though (doesn’t it always), and in no time I was tearing off price tags, untying bows, un-popping snaps from plastic parcels and tossing aside miniature hangers and cardboard shapers with the speed and irreverence of a child at her gifts on Christmas Day.

The clothes and blankets, towels and books fit perfectly inside the cabinet’s dark, woody interior and suddenly the prospect of there being someone here to take ownership of these little things hit me like a ton of bricks and I felt very strange indeed. That same evening, we read through the manual that accompanied our intimidating, top-of-the-line, power-mummy pram and assembled it with relative ease.

We lay in bed and poured over products and advice, debated over sleepwear and toys, and even picked out a few essential items of furniture. We set out a game plan for transforming the flat to maximise on space and efficiency, easily solving what seemed insurmountable issues in past conversations. At nearly thirty-two weeks along, we were finally coming into our own as expectant parents and it all felt like it was falling into place.

Then today, I was rooting through a file of letters from the hospital, the midwives and the National Childcare Trust in order to determine when our first antenatal class was and saw that it was starting…last week. At which point the first real twang of maternal failure – one that is sure to hit me hard and often in the coming months - hit me hard, and I felt like the worst first-time-mother-to-be in the whole of England.

This isn’t the end of the world, of course: we’d double-booked ourselves in advance, signing up to both the free, month-long classes offered by the hospital and also the posh, expensive crash course the NCT advised we take, with the intention of doing both. The literature the midwives gave us claims, however, that the information each class offers is nearly identical, so as long as I write the NCT dates on the wall above my writing desk in permanent red marker and set the oven timer to go off a few hours in advance, we should still be ahead of the game.

I’m on holiday this week, and it was a hard-won holiday at that. Sorting out who would cover what while I’m away proved more difficult than it should have been and I’m still getting copied in on emails that don’t concern me right now.

The break and the extra naps have given me some perspective, and even though I might be a psychological mess in another fortnight, I’ve decided not to play the unbalanced-pregnant-lady-in-distress card and instead suffer through the next three weeks of work. Then I will have an entire year off (provided I’m not made redundant) with no strings attached, and can start planning the next phase of my life, as it relates to this little family unit and also my own personal development.

I’ll have two significant individuals depending on my ability to cope, you see, and I want to set the precedent early.

Throwing back another

Last night we took a stroll around the Broadway to see what we could see from the hill. Tiny explosions popped and whizzed at irregular intervals, peppering the horizon and sending up small spurts of colour, while close by children called out excitedly as someone lit a succession of mixed fuses and the air sparkled maddeningly before resolving into silent, dreamy clouds.

Our own street was a friendly pall of smoke and gunpowder, regularly punctuated by the screams and crackles of unseen rockets. We’d bought some 50p sparklers, which made more sense in the context of our tiny garden and my compromised state, and we lit them up outside after tea.


It’s been almost two years since I moved to London and nearly a year and a half since Bruce and I were married. Everything is moving so quickly still, and there is hardly any time for reflection. Bruce says this is a sure sign that we’re living in the present rather than looking back or dreaming ahead. It’s a brand new thing for me, but I know that in order to catch more, I have to keep letting go of these fine moments.

Remember remember?

We’ll be setting off fireworks in our back garden tonight, though it will be for Guy Fawkes Day – an event that President Obama’s recent big win will have surely overshadowed, but hey. America is back on its meds and I think we can all breathe a collective (but cautious) sigh of relief for that.

And speaking of mental health! I need some of it quite soon, as the gap between work’s relentless pace and my capacity to hormonally cope with that is closing quickly now. It’s impacting on my ability to keep a cool head when my colleagues flail about in agony as zombies dine on their limited brain matter threaten to lose theirs, and also sleep.

I can’t sleep. I just can’t do it. I lie in the dark - exhausted, wearing earplugs to block out the distracting noise that breathing and air and photosynthesis make - and the clock goes midnight, then one, then two, then three. Then I fall asleep for five minutes and am wakened by the sound of a spider plant frond waving from across the room or a feather working its way out of my pillow and onto the rug.

I am more or less able to deal with these things, taken together or alone, but Bruce thought I should try and get signed off of work anyway. Just in case our little joke about ending it all stops being funny and starts making sense to one of us (honestly, I don’t know how he’s put up with me so far). As long as I can eliminate the most obvious stresses, we can work on the ones that are not so straightforward.

My midwife called today to say that if I had any problems getting a note from my GP she would write it herself. I guess that means it’s a done deal, but I’m not sure whether I’ll use my get out of jail free card or just pocket it for a rainy day (a monsoon, perhaps). Sometimes just seeing an Exit sign can give you the encouragement you need to keep going. It’s not much longer now.

I probably won’t be handling the fireworks myself, though.

A good case for taxidermy

On Saturday we took a slow, easy trip into Central London to have lunch, see a film and basically do what the average couple does on a weekend, because it’s been months since I’ve left our borough and I’m finally feeling somewhat stable again after my most recent pregnancy fiasco.

I know exactly how to plan and execute a day that won’t overwhelm me now, or cause massive amounts of pain, which might sound pathetic but is nowhere near as sad as spending entire weekends wrapped in blankets, napping and reading and napping and occasionally emerging for food.

It was a lovely day out anyway, and it reminded me of all the reasons I love this city. I can’t wait to tackle it when I’m back to my old self again, and this time with a new little Londoner in tow!

For now, I find the prospect of leaving the house to do anything on my own entirely unnerving. I’ve been working from home for the last three weeks, and I can no longer remember how to screw up the courage to deal with strangers in a confident manner when the last thing I want to do is come face-to-face with another human being (one I don’t share covers with, anyway).

In the next few minutes I’ll brush my teeth, put on some clothes that I haven’t been sleeping in and head out down the street to have my teeth cleaned. A straightforward process, perhaps, but one that fills me with a nameless dread that almost makes tooth decay sound like the easier option. Ditto on the yoga classes I begin tomorrow after I finish my work – it will be my first ever recreational encounter with a group of strangers, and the fact that they are all pregnant does nothing to reassure me.

My friend from back home has just moved to Wales and is planning to visit me next week, so I’ll be able to dust off my social skills and give them a bit of a workout then. I don’t think the language that couples develop together and use fluidly with one another necessarily counts as a skill, so it’s a long time coming.

Shows lack of foresight, initiative and a blatant disregard for the environment

The sun is shining, the ground is dry, and over here in England Halloween feels like a silly personal custom made up by my parents, or your parents, or some other parent who lives on a continent where adults aren’t afraid of children, and you can be sure that ‘Trick or Treat’ is shorthand for ‘Fill my pillowcase with a bounty of store-bought sweets’ and not the imminent sound of shattering glass as someone throws a brick through your window.

That said, there were crates of pumpkins at the grocery store and I’d picked a smallish one with a nice smooth surface for carving, figuring the bit of pumpkin gristle on its top was the remnants of a sickly neighbour. Not so: our pumpkin had a right old gash near its stem, in the very spot that would indicate a soon-to-be-rotting pumpkin, and rot it did, because neither of us could be bothered to go back and exchange it in time.

I briefly considered putting it out anyway, because what’s spookier: an orange grin gently flickering at the window or a moldering, faceless gourd with its head caved in, possibly swarming with fruit flies? I know which one I’d run screaming from, provided it was set aflame and poised to be thrown at me by its headless owner.

But I didn’t – I just wrapped it in a carrier bag and put it straight into the bin outside (at the equally thrilling prospect of being told off by our unfriendly, environmentally friendly neighbours, who would probably compost their own mother if they thought there was a slim chance they could end up in the paper for single-handedly saving the planet). (They are good people.)

Whilst digging the eyes out of some jacket potatoes (bwahahaa), I wondered how easy it would be to turn these into Jack-o-Lanterns instead of boiling them and slathering them with butter, except that they were for our dinner and, realistically, it would have necessitated a seperate trip to the grocery store, where we could just pick up another pumpkin. Sometimes indolence outweighs even the most primordial impulse to follow tradition, however, and nothing was done about our regretful lack-o-Jack in the end.

In the absence of something to carve, then, or even a fruit bowl of individually wrapped chocolate bars to plunder (we are on diets), I asked Bruce what we could do to celebrate Halloween, because I don’t want to lose my traditions, however commercialised and socially defiled by nubile alcoholics dressed as Gogo Yubari they might be. He said he would pick up some face paints after work and we could paint each other’s faces and then post them on Flickr, but then he doesn’t want to hear another word out of me about it.

That’s fair enough, I guess! And once the baby’s here, it will be much easier to sell him on my fervent but vague tribute to this beloved holiday, as what parent doesn’t want to dress their little nipper as a cannon ball to compliment their own pirate-themed costume, hmmm? (Arrrrr?)

I’m thirty weeks along today. Thirty! That means I have ten more weeks to go. I’m partially excited, partially horrified and partially wait-and-see about the whole thing. As I told a friend from back home this week, I am just as much of a procrastinator now as I was in my university days. Some things only get done under pressure, and most things are only done well at the eleventh hour, at least for masochists like me. I will probably start cramming for the newborn exam shortly after my antenatal courses, or possibly on the way to hospital, should this kid decide to show up for Christmas.

Atheist transport in London

“There is probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

Well Hallelujah.

Technically that bus is agnostic, but it’s not a bad a start.

Hibernation

I’ve been talking to a good friend from back home and it’s very late now but I can’t sleep because it’s snowing, and the snow is sticking to London, and it all feels magical somehow. Life, I mean, but the snow too.

Last year it finally snowed in April and in some ways it was a greater slight than no snow at all. But here it is - snow in October, just like when I was a kid and hoped very hard that it wouldn’t come until after Halloween, because then I’d have to wear a coat over my costume (some kids wore their jackets underneath, which was worse). It almost always snowed before Halloween when I was growing up.

It took a very long time for me to understand the clemency inherent in winter’s final say - this blanket statement that could take all night, but which unified every city block, tore up every disjointed summer thought and replaced it with an endless expanse of fresh parchment and the open invitation to start over.

Rain can have London, but I will always belong to snow.

Just untangling

I’m beginning to settle into my sequestered life now, in spite of the fact that our midwife looks at me sometimes like I should be committed. She oscillates between telling me that everything I feel is completely normal, and (conversely) that if I continue to feel the way I do, I’d better tell her straight away.

“The way I do…”

“You know what I mean,” she says in a ‘no-nonsense’ tone which makes me feel that we both know I’m trying to pull a fast one on her, even though I legitimately don’t know what she’s talking about.

After our last appointment, Bruce said, “I don’t know if she can see straight through you or if she’s just getting the wrong impression.” When I told him I didn’t know either, he laughed and said, “I was hoping you’d tell me which it was.”

The last few months have been rife with such contradictions, and between not being able to get a handle on any of it and gaining a zillion pounds in less than three weeks, I guess it’s no surprise that I prefer to keep a muzzle on the outside world and hide out in bed with a good book whenever I get the chance.

I’m still working from home, even though it’s becoming increasingly difficult to manage - both in terms of keeping my stress levels down and finding the energy to keep up with tasks that are no less demanding than they were before the pregnancy. It’s not just the commute that takes it out of me, I’ve discovered, but the very act of sitting at a desk for 8 hours, however close that desk is to my bed.

The economy here is in real trouble, and companies are folding left, right and centre. Mainly we’re talking financial sectors, but everyone is feeling the pinch, and businesses are less inclined to waffle about redundancies. Nearly every week we get an email from one of our directors, who tells us which colleague or product or job function is now off the menu, making the rest of us feel very vulnerable indeed.

One friend from work tells me I picked a good time to be pregnant, though I’m not too sure. There’s a clause in my contract stating that if my role is made redundant before I return to work and they’re not able to re-house me, I’ll owe them back every penny of their terrific maternity package. Even though Bruce says we will always manage, the idea that I might have to look for work in this climate, and well before I’ve had a chance to help our little guy settle in, is still worrisome.

And this brings me to the next major rotation of the wheel occupied by my frantic hamster brain, which is that I can’t in good conscience go running to my parents for financial aid. Aside from the fact that they are both retired, there are also far too many strings attached to that scenario – strings that would knot themselves into one massive tangle of familial neuroses I’m not prepared to take on.

I suppose there’s still a chance that I could develop a convenient amnesia about the reality of our relationship between then and now. It was only last week that I was mentally drafting a break-up letter to my mother because I could see no other option. Bruce came up with a better solution though, and through the power of Skype, I’ll never have to be alone in a conversation with her again. In fact, she’s always on her best behavior around others, so I can’t see any reason not to keep up the happy family ruse on my end, if she can keep it up on hers. I don’t know, it might come in handy one day.

Anywhatever, I’m 29 weeks along and everything else is progressing exactly as it should.

Bob Loblaw

I just thought it was about time for an update, so here I am, updating you on stuff, as I sometimes do.

Bruce was away for three days this week, and for the full three days I did nothing but work, watch television and sleep - all of which I accomplished in pyjamas. I’ve been working from home these last few weeks, you see, due to an extremely painful collision involving a baby and my groin, so every day is dress-down day if I so choose (and I do).

They don’t tell you that having pain in your nether regions is possible long before you have to squeeze out something the size of a Thanksgiving turkey, but there are many fun facts about pregnancy nobody bothers to tell you, like that they make panty liners for your boobs. For your boobs! For when they start to leak milk! It’s just one more happy event I have to look forward to.

It makes me want to throw oversized maternity bras at the heads of those other glowing, serene mothers-to-be who prattle on about butterflies and happy hormones and how in love they are with their unborn babies. You’d think they were growing a sparkling pink unicorn in an icing-sugar palace instead of stretching themselves to unthinkable proportions to accommodate something that will one day steal money from their purse to buy cigarettes.

Never mind butterflies - the foetal movement of this kid feels more like a trapped wood pigeon trying frantically to escape, my belly jumping and jerking around like something straight out of Aliens. I am not feeling serene or glowing or hormonally happy at all. I feel tired and listless, unwell and useless, and some days I don’t even want to get out of bed. I count myself lucky to have so far escaped the horrors of skin discolouration, stretch marks, varicose veins and cracked nipples, but never say never!

That said, I’m so grateful that the pregnancy itself has so far gone off without a hitch, and by that I mean no scary bleeding, scary blood results and scary painful other things that indicate that not all is well in wombland. We lost an early pregnancy at the beginning of the year, which happens to something like one in five women (some of whom never realise it because it’s like having a heavy period), and it is as though my body remembers and is now doubly resolved to do things properly.

I’m lucky in other ways as well: I have a loving and supportive husband who I know will make the best dad in the universe, a close-knit British family that cares very much for us both and an understanding line manager who has been flexible about how and where I work. I really am in the best possible position to have a child, credit crunch be damned, and in spite of these temporary discomforts, I do feel rather blessed.

Pet shop...and grille?

Self-dipping chicken nuggets - now why didn't I think of that?



I'm glad Banksy is branching out a bit finally. Graffiti is great and all, but it doesn't pay the bills. A little bear urine and a desecrated Looney Toons character, on the other hand...

Some would call it good sense

I know this is meant to be absurd, but I totally get where they're coming from.

It sure beats letting your freeloading ex take the lion's share because you can't afford legal fees.

Self-portrait in spotty mirror

Thought it was about time I showed off the bump (click to enlarge), though this mirror is slimming and I didn't want to hike up my shirt. Though I'm sure that will happen on its own soon enough.

Split hairs and dangerous cocktails

A bit distracted these days – we’re very concerned about a friend of ours and hope that she gets in touch with us soon.

Yesterday I woke with a hangover – minus the benefits of an actual drink and maybe some regretful memories involving a greased pole and The Rapture, but hey, once this kid finally breaks out, life itself will turn into one big long party. A poopy party of sleep-deprivation and breast milk, oh yeah.

I hadn’t had anything to eat since midnight and was about to skip breakfast too. I figured I would have a steaming mug of pure liquid sugar a bit later on, and then maybe spend the next few hours sitting around doing nothing. See how that went down with the little guy.

Would you believe that this is something doctors actually encourage pregnant women to do?

It’s called a Glucose Tolerance Test, and it’s a shitty way for them to determine if I’m predisposed to diabetes, as apparently one in five women are at risk of contracting a mild form of the disease during pregnancy. And hey: it’s no wonder! Maybe if they stopped dispensing with the death-defying, blood-sugar-level-plunging tipples, those numbers would dwindle somewhat.

Unsurprisingly, my body was in complete disagreement with this new nutritional development and proceeded to try and purge the stuff not fifteen minutes later. At which point I was told to try and hold off on that, as it would have ruined the whole experiment and we'd have to start all over again on some other day. So I didn’t; I swallowed mouthfuls of whatever liquid your glands excrete moments before you vomit while Bruce and Nurse Sugarplum struggled to fix the broken plastic fan, as though the fan would somehow magically obliterate the discomfort of having ingested the liquid equivalent of 100 Mars Bars.

Two blood tests later and it was onto another appointment with the midwife, who first said the baby was measuring a bit small and then, on second thought, that it was measuring just fine. You have to trust what they say, I guess!

She said ‘So, you’re 26 weeks along’ and I said ‘Not until Friday’ and she said ‘Well, we won’t split hairs.’ And I didn’t point out that a week is only made up of 7 days, so there weren’t that many hairs to split in the first place. She then congratulated me on being over halfway through the pregnancy, though actually I’m more like two-thirds of the way through, except that in keeping with the avoidance of hair-splittage, I had to let that one go.

These days I am feeling overweight and unattractive, lethargic and ungainly, and for good reason (I am). But these things do happen, and it’s all very normal: a phrase I am well accustomed to hearing by now. I will not even be surprised when a green goblin comes bursting from my mouth to spit in my cereal tomorrow morning, because chances are, when you’re pregnant, these things happen and it’s all very normal.