B-Day Part 1

I'm in labour. Yes, right this moment...

Earlier this evening I had just finished watching Eastenders, (with its usual cheery festive themes of murder, madness and Machiavellian betrayals), and felt strangely uninterested in my usual nightly dabble into online fantasy gaming. Instead I got up from my giant inflatable space hopper and waddled over to the window, where the snow was falling once again on a frozen world.

Without warning there was an POP POP! It was both a sound and a vibration that came from somewhere half way up my hugely distended stomach. Calmly, and in slow motion, I looked down and said, simply, "...Oh."

I knelt down on the bed and waited for what must surely come next...
Sure enough, a small puddle appeared. Again, I said, "...Oh."

I heard myself call out gently, "Mom...? Mom! Um... My waters have gone. I think she's coming."
My voice seemed funny and small and quite far away.

In the dreamy four hours that have followed, I called the maternity ward, I ate dinner, I washed my hair, I watched my dad defrost the car, and around 11pm my mom drove me to the hospital. One reason this time passed with such serenity was that I had not yet experienced any contractions...

That was an hour ago. Since then a midwife has poked and prodded me "to get things going..." and sent us home again.

The contractions started before I left the hospital, and by the time we arrived home just after midnight, they were established into a moderately uncomfortable six minute pattern.

...
...
...

1 am: I just had a bath and played some hypo birthing meditation thing. Had to turn it off, that man with his calm voice was making me mad! He has no idea what I'm feeling! How dare he tell me to stay calm! Ha!
1:10 am: Called my friend to let her know that I'm in labour. Had to cut the conversation short. The pain is making it hard to talk.
1.34 am: Have to go now. Mom strapping a Tens machine to my back. Need to bounce on space hopper.
2 am: Breathing. Pain. Think I need hospital soon?




( 24/12/10 02:32:08 - The last photo taken of me before my life changed forever)

"...Have you had that baby yet?..."

...Has to be one of the most irritating questions to ask a woman who is a week overdue. I have lost count of the number of well-meaning Facebook friends who have spoken those infuriating words in the last few days.

Isn't it obvious that I haven't yet given birth, just by the fact that I am online, writing inane status updates, posting trivial messages and wasting my time playing ridiculous games designed for people who have no life?

To put an end to this in the best way possible, I posted this photo as my profile.

Baby it's cold outside...

It was a cold cold winters night. Snow had fallen, snow upon snow, and weather reports were warning people to stay indoors and "avoid unnecessary journeys..."

Unfortunately childbirth is pretty damn necessary, and if I hadn't been pumped up on mother nature's natural sedatives I might have been feeling worried. I was three days past my due date and the weather seemed to be getting worse, not better. I overheard my parents talking in the lounge earlier in the evening,
"...there's no way..."
"...have to call an ambulance then..."

I retreated upstairs for a relaxing game of Warcraft, and tried to get comfortable on my special orthopaedic kneeling chair, which was hard these days, as I weighed about as much as a baby elephant and jutted out in all the wrong places. I was just considering another plate of pineapple chunks and jalapeño peppers when there was a sudden CRACK! and a BUMP! and I was sitting on the floor on top of a pile of wood that used to be my chair. I blinked slowly in mild shock for a few moments and then rolled off the pile of chair bits, with that beached-whale fluid style that I had mastered by now.

I was mortified. I was so massive that I actually broke the chair. Now I know how Goldilocks felt.

Suddenly inspired, I checked for suspicious wet patches...
Aaaah...nothing.

Feeling heavy with the weight of disappointment (and 50 extra pounds) I decided to forgo the pineapple and peppers. If falling off a chair couldn't encourage this baby out tonight, then the forced ingestion of disgusting food was probably also a lost cause.
































(Yes, really.)

Pregnant Minnie

I attended a friend's fancy dress party tonight and the theme was Disney. So I chose Minnie because she's clearly a mouse with a hidden dark side...

Do you know how hard it is to find a pregnant Disney character? Impossible! They don't exist, because Disney is a sex-free world. In fact the only character I can think of is the mummy dog in 101 Dalmatians! Clearly the animals in Disney have a better time than the humans...

(Although we all know exactly what Aladdin has in mind when he asks Princess Jasmine to come for a ride on his magic carpet at the end of the movie...)

...a lovely picnic followed by a visit to the mother-in-law, of course! (What were YOU thinking!)



(No that's not my beer - but being teetotal doesn't preclude me from performing beer-based party tricks!)

A Waddling Cliche

It's finally happened. The final pregnancy cliché that I swore I would never do...

I waddle when I walk!

I did the funky penguin shuffle with such pre-natal prowess yesterday that the lady of the coffee shop chuckled out loud and gave me an extra large slice of cake in sympathy.

Now I have ticked the full contingent of maternity stereotypes.

Over emotional reactions to mundane television
Being irresistably drawn to small fluffy animals
Irritational fits of unexplained rage
Heartburn, acid reflux, gas implosions
A cacophony of audio effects: Moaning, puffing, panting, grunting
Back ache, headache, foot ache
Impaired memory and limited brain function
Inflatable breasts and a bottomless bladder
The penguin waddle










(Couldn't get through a night without these)

Yoga Rage

I have been attending weekly antenatal yoga classes since July in the hope I can truly achieve mind over matter when the big day comes. The sessions are held at a private home in a peaceful nearby village, and after an hour of guided meditation, breathing techniques and twister-style stretches, I feel like a super yoga guru, ready to embrace serenity in the face of any challenge.

That's all very well. But from the moment I leave the class it's a real struggle to maintain my spiritual harmony when I am living at home with my parents and fighting waves of pregnancy hormonal angst on a daily basis. It seems to me that every time I attempt to have my daily meditation I am interrupted, and that makes me so mad! Last night I had just settled into the bath, surrounded by lit candles and the new age trance melodies of a relaxation CD. It was tough but I really focused on breathing and positive visualisation. Then my mom shouted my name from somewhere on the other side of the house. I tried to ignore it. But she carried on shouting, because apparently that's easier than just coming to speak to me in person. After the 5th call, I snapped, and sat upright in an angry tidal wave of bath water.

"WHAT?"

"Do you want this cup of tea?"

I was near to tears. My meditation was broken. My positive birth visualisation had gone to hell. My heart was pounding and every muscle in my body was tense.

She poked her head around the bathroom door. I splashed the water in frustration, "If you had bothered to come check you would have realised I was trying to meditate, which is completely ruined now. You have completely destroyed my connection to my inner chi. Why do I even bother to try to relax in this house!"

I hooted in anguish and burst into tears. It was all too much. If only I hadn't ever started that damn yoga course I wouldn't be trying to meditate in the first place, and therefore wouldn't be interrupted, and wouldn't even be so dismally aware of my own inability to relax. I hate yoga.

(until next week when I will attend class once more and love it)

Metamorphosis

When I was 29 I used to joke that I was an international woman of mystery, a playgirl who pops over to the Caribbean, runs away to sea with handsome French men, adventures fearlessly through the jungles of Malaysia, and thinks nothing of a little sabbatical in the wilds of Alaska.
Now I am a heavily pregnant 30 year old with a belly of epic proportions, temporarily stuck living with my parents on a distinctly non-epic residential street which lies on the outskirts of a slightly dismal West Midlands town populated in most part by OAPs and townies. I am single (through choice) and my biggest adventure of last week was a trip to Mothercare to purchase breast pads and nipple cream.
This time 2 years ago I was drinking cold Coronas, sporting a golden tan, dancing in my favourite bikini on the back of a speedboat that was moored in the turquoise waters of Grand Cayman. Now I am sipping my decaf tea and deciding whether to watch the X Factor or read a book. How times have changed. It only took one heady night of careless passion and I was obliged to hang up my well-travelled flip flops and sarong in favour of sensible shoes and maternity knickers. The highlight of my week is going to be a trip to the cinema with a good excuse to order a giant tub of popcorn and an extra large sausage...







(Yummy.)