Sleep isn't a life choice

What nobody tells you about having children is that it’s likely your first child is a sleeper agent. Sent from goodness knows where to lull you into a false sense of security. Really what they’re doing is paving the way for their sleep thieving sibling. Oh I was so smug before I had child 2. “My kid slept 12 hours from day 1.” Elise really did but if pre-Wynter me was to say that to post-Wynter me, I’d kick her in the fanny. Smug bitch. I both detest and envy pre Wynter Dannielle. I was the type of well-meaning fool who would give an exhausted mother advice on how to get her baby to sleep actually having had nil experience of struggling to do so. Elise was literally a dream baby. I mean at first it was because she was too jaundiced to wake up but you get my meaning.

Wynter has taught me the meaning of exhaustion.

Post Wynter 

Pre Wynter 

There have been nights I haven’t closed my eyes once because the only place she will sleep is on my chest, I’ve paced our bedroom floor during the early hours singing Time to say goodbye in Italian until I’m hoarse because she once fell asleep while the song played. I have cried countless tears thinking I’m such a bloody failure of a mother because after the hellish nights I don’t want to leave the house because I’m either too exhausted to or I’m completely unfit to drive. I’ve also snapped at my husband, friends and parents out of sheer frustration that once it gets dark my baby decides that she can’t abide me.

So now she co-sleeps. Which definitely wasn’t in my parenting plan, but my little Wynter is fierce and likes to stay in my bed. And there are some good nights, where she sleeps for more than an hour. There are some bad nights, after which the drive to work feels like the scene from Wolf of Wall Street where Leonardo Di Caprio drives after taking Quaaludes. I have a new level of appreciation for the times my husband manages to spend an entire night upstairs without the baby banishing him to the conservatory and I have a whole lot of gratitude for the friends and family that have offered cleaning and babysitting or just to listen to me moan.

I didn’t know it would be this fucking hard and I’d done it before! Oh, and my baby is called Wynter....in case you didn't get that.

Though she is but little she is fierce 

That time I got de gooched

Today is D- Day. Naturally I’m writing this after, believe me if you manage to write a blog post during labour you’re a better woman than I am.

So me, hubby and my mum all traipse off to the induction ward at the arse crack of dawn. The midwife puts the pessary in and then we wait. Obviously overwhelmed by the focus on my under-crackers the husband decides he’s going off into town to do a bit of shopping….. which actually worked out well- despite all my obsessive packing of my baby bag, I discover I’ve only brought jeans to labour in. So he gets sent off to buy me something that isn’t jeans to wear. The day part was pretty peaceful to be honest. The hospital food didn’t look great so we sent Ste to Wok’n’Go on his way back from town and we all sat in my cubicle scoffing Chinese food and generally having a lovely old time. Ste managed to spill his all over himself, which sent him into a spiral of madness over grease stains. Naturally he scarpered off to clean it and came back looking like he’d vomited all over himself.

Obviously Chinese food and labour are incompatible because about an hour after eating my contractions started ramping up. The midwife had (as I saw it) the barefaced cheek to offer me two paracetamol. No love, I want gas and air- this whole time I’ve been promised the good painkillers and now I’m being fobbed off. Muuuum tell her.

When my pains got to two minutes apart the lad in the cubicle next to me made the fatal mistake of ringing his mum about his, also labouring partner. “Her contractions are every 15 minutes and she’s doing so well” I accept that it was probably out of order for me to loudly hiss “we all know they’re every 15 minutes from the pants and wails”.  It was at this point they decided to transfer me to the labour ward- probably to stop me being lynched for making snide comments about Moaning Myrtle next door.

The delivery midwife introduces herself as Pam- this has bearing on my story later. Pam offers me an epidural but sweet summer child that I am I insist that gas and air is more than sufficient for my pain. Of course it was Dannielle you fucking imbecile, you’re only 1cm in. So I’m happy chuffing away on my gas and air and all is right with the world. Now since Pam very first said her name I’ve had the song “black betty- pam balam” going through my drug addled mind.

Halfway through Coronation Street Pam decides she’s going on her lunch. My uterus decides that now would be an opportune time for all fucking hell to break loose. I don’t know if it’s the same for everyone in labour but the pain reached a level where my body was so outraged I lost the ability to even think. That might explain me roaring at my mother to “get Betty and her magic glove in here, I need an epidural”.  Sadly the nurse who answered my dulcet bellow wasn’t Pam. She was however far too cheerful to be allowed in the room, so I made my poor mum throw her out.

Unnamed nurse- I sincerely apologise.

Pam decided to bring in what must have been the world’s most nervy anaesthetist because I swear every time I huffed that gas and air he jumped. Epidural goes in and some semblance of calm is restored.

 Ste decides he’s sleepy and needs a nap to fortify himself for the long night ahead. So off he goes to sleep in the car….returning about 30 minutes later declaring he’s frozen. So he took himself off to the bathroom. I drop off to sleep to be woken up by my mum and two nurses howling laughing at my husband, asleep on a pile of bags on the toilet floor wearing….wait for it….an eye mask.

Ladies and gentlemen- my husband, phantom of the labour ward.

I don’t know whether to be genuinely impressed at the level of forethought that went into bringing an eye mask into his child’s birth, or terrified at what the display of such evil genius holds for my future.

Post eye mask the rest of delivery was a blur of blood and howling (mostly mine) and my husband came out of it with the thousand yard stare of a veteran of a dreadful battle, for quite some time afterwards. When questioned on the worst bit he says the episiotomy  “the sound- it was like when you cut the head off a fish” obviously the savage de-gooching had an effect on both of us.

Welcome to the world baby girl! 6lb 4oz of love. Sorry you don't have a name yet because your dad want's to name you after the woman in the Alien films.

35 Weeks

It is a fact that from week 32 of pregnancy onwards absolutely everyone you see will say something along the lines of “you still here then?” Why yes Kathy I am still fucking here.

My womb squatter hasn’t had her marching orders yet- she’s not quite cooked so I don’t expect to see her for a little while yet.  I do however feel like I’ve been pregnant for approximately 938475763 weeks and am clutching my industrial sized bottle of Gaviscon with the fervour of Gollum clutching the One Ring. My husband tried to suggest he had heartburn the other day and I actually growled at him when he tried to take some. Swig some milk you bastard and leave my precious alone!

Some other news is that I’ll be having the baby induced at 37 weeks, I’m just not well enough to continue to 40 weeks so an early arrival it is. This has meant I’ve become even more hysterical and maddening to my family. My hospital bag has been packed literally since the end of the first trimester but I’ve taken to packing and unpacking it obsessively in case I’ve missed something out.

Sleep has become something of a rare commodity in this house recently too. Between my hips and my bladder it’s like a military operation to hoist my fat carcass out of bed. When I finally manage to get out I usually trip over something and set the dog off barking, which means no one has really had a good night’s sleep in weeks….my heart bleeds for them.

As much as my posts suggest otherwise, pregnancy isn’t all bad. I particularly enjoy getting onto a full train and glaring at people until someone gives me a seat- yes I am entitled, no I don’t care. I’m also enjoying being able to eat my own body weight in pickles and crackers without anyone judging me for the first time in forever.

My dreams have gotten strange lately too. I dreamt I gave birth to a little yellow chick and Ste refused to accept it was his. We spent the entire dream arguing about his paternity of my tiny winged child until he accidentally sat on it which upset me so much it woke me up. Whereon I was mad at him for crushing my dream baby and he was confused “I only offered you a brew, why are you so angry?” The poor man is going to end up with anxiety before I give birth if I don’t manage to rein myself in.

Hospital Visit

In recent weeks I’ve spent some time as an in- patient in hospital. Not on a maternity ward, oh no. My pancreas, prompted by some sweet and sour chicken, felt like it wasn’t getting enough attention and so I ended up in hospital. I was taken into A&E, by ambulance. I know, it all sounds very dramatic- it wasn’t.

Anyhoo, they good doctors at A&E decide to admit me, and we trail round to a little side ward off the emergency department. By the time we actually got to a bed it was about 11pm as we’d waited a fair while for meds to be set up etc. The ward had 8 beds and most were full- turned out that it was a feeder ward, so you stay there whilst you wait to be admitted onto a proper ward or discharged home.

I get settled into the bed with some painkillers and the next thing I hear, in a low sinister whisper, is “how many people have you killed?” erm….looked round and there is a little old lady sat in my visitors chair in her nighty. I swear to god, I nearly gave birth there and then. She then follows this up with “they’re watching you” and my personal favourite “you’ll come to a bad end you will” bear in mind, all this is said in possibly the thickest Wigan accent you can imagine. By this point I’m sat up in bed with my head swivelling round like a meerkat looking for a nurse…in the end I resort to pressing my buzzer and trying to work out if I’m hallucinating or she’s real. Why of all things I would hallucinate an elderly Wiganer I don’t know. Tom Hardy in a loincloth is more my style.

So the nurse toddles up and goes “ooh Annie, you naughty thing, everyone’s been looking for you”. Annie gets carted off to her own bed, under protest, and I assume that’s the end of it.

Oh no. Annie decides that she wants “a good old fashioned sing song” and starts belting out Oh when the Saints. I’ve come to the conclusion by this point that a) She has dementia/ Alzheimers or the like and so should be humoured and b) I’m getting no rest in the near future. When the nurse comes back to my bed to reset my drip, I asked if Annie had dementia etc. No, says the nurse, absolutely nothing wrong with her mind. She wants to go home and has decided to be a pain in the arse so they will discharge her early. And a pain she was…some gems from Annie;

To the nurse

 “I want a cup of tea” the nurse gets her a brew “whats this? I didn’t ask for this. You’re trying to poison me”

“I’m freezing” screeched in the manner of a wounded animal. She gets extra blankets (bear in mind, everyone else on the ward has a sheet each) then “You’re suffocating meeeeeeee”

“I’ll be telling my daughter about you, she’ll see you’re trying to kill me”

To a police officer (wandered in from A&E in response to the howling)

“You’ve come in to molest me”

“That’s right, run away- I see your bad intentions”

Howled into the night at no one in particular

“I’m soooooooooo collllllllllllddddddddddddd”
 
 
Eventually around 4am, the nurses got Annie’s daughter to come in a taxi and pick her up, so the wily old coot got her own way because as soon as the very harassed and tired looking daughter walked in, she became all smiles and skipped off home quite merrily.

And we all went to sleep.

31 Weeks

 

Today I lost it. I actually tasted madness- all over some nasal spray. Yes, it is just as petty as it sounds. Did I mention I had pregnancy Rhinitis? If you don’t know what that is, you basically lose the ability to breathe through your nose. I am a nose breather. I can’t sleep with my mouth open, and mouth breathers drive me insane.

After harassing my GP for most of my first trimester I managed to get hold of a list of decongestants that are safe for pregnant hypochondriacs to use. I’ve never had any trouble buying any of these things, but I’d never sent the husband for them, and I must admit I completely forgot about his habit of substituting items I ask for. (Kind of like a shit version of Tesco home delivery- you know when you order shampoo and they send you a litre of vodka?) So, I send him a copy of the doctors list and asked him to swing by the chemist on his way home from work. He comes back an hour later than planned, like a conquering hero with a bottle of “purest French seawater”…….not the Sudafed he’d been send for. Fucking seawater. I tell you, in that minute, I knew how Jack’s mother felt in Jack and the Beanstalk when he swapped the cow for the magic beans. The fuck? “The girl on the checkout said Sudafed isn’t good for the baby” I’m sorry, pardon me, what??!!! At this point he twigs I’m about to heft my fat-self up off the couch and ninja kick his balls.

“Is she an obstetrician? A doctor? The pharmacist? A nurse? In possession of any GCSE’s? What? You don’t know…then why would you allow her to dictate to me, when you had a screenshot of the f’ing doctor’s letter?!?”

By now he’s retreated to his tried and tested method of dealing with my anger- defensiveness. “I’ve just drove round for an hour to get you that and it cost me £9, you’re so ungrateful. I’m never doing anything for you again”. £9 for a bottle of French seawater- they saw him coming! If I’d wanted to squirt seawater up my nose I’d have gone down to Crosby beach- it would have had the happy side effect of making me glow in the dark AND I wouldn’t have had to pay £9 for the privilege.

So into the car we all pile; him, me and the bottle of purest French seawater.  I waddle into the chemist and buy my nasal spray, without argument or debate. I don’t know if it was the look of death in my eyes or the fact that I had the seawater clutched in my hand as if I was going to drown her with it but she sold me the spray.

I’ve found café staff do the same- I ordered poached eggs a few weeks back and the waitress tried to tell me they weren’t allowed to serve me runny yolks. My daughter was with me at the time and did the teenage thing of trying to slide under the table…she saw the tic start in my eye…. “Are you telling me your eggs aren’t safe?”

Which brings me to my original point. Why, do people feel like they can dictate to you when you’re pregnant? It’s not like I was wanting 20 silk cut and a chaser of heroin. I’m still in possession of all my faculties, and given the fact that I am in theory an adult then surely I can decide what to medicate myself with- especially since I was following my doctors instructions!

I get that I’m delightfully rotund, and my bump gives you the idea you can comment on my life choices. Well you cant. A good rule of thumb when dealing with the pregnant and unreasonable would be to MYOB and sell me what I’m asking for, be it eggs or menthol spray.

I’m not always angry. Just for the last 8 months. It’s been a challenge of mine.

30 Weeks

What possessed me? After spending a good deal of time as a single teenage mum on the breadline, I am finally financially solvent, reasonably happy and I have a good job and stable home life. Add to the mix a highly disinterested and very sarcastic teenager, a husband whom I’m convinced thinks that storks bring babies, an over attached cockapoo and you have my life.

So what possessed me, after working my arse off for the last 15 years to start all over again with pregnancy and a new baby?

I do not have a clue. I want this baby. My husband wants this baby and she will be a much loved addition to our family. But by God, as D-Day looms ever closer, I am getting more and more anxious.

I’ll address some of the delusions I had prior to this pregnancy…

Trying for a baby will be so much fun….nope. It became like a military exercise. It involved temperature taking, charting, alarms, strangers peering at my pink bits and eventually 3 months of Clomid. By the point I actually got a positive test, my husband cringed every time I looked at him. In fact I’m surprised he didn’t try to buy himself a chastity belt off e-bay.

Nothing could be worse than my first pregnancy….oh you poor, naive fool. I had HG throughout the whole of my first pregnancy, and although it was hellish, my mind managed to convince me that it wasn’t so bad…and lightening can’t strike twice can it? With this pregnancy, not only have I had HG, I’ve also had Pancreatitis, SPD and chronic Rhinitis and a hostile ovary. So when I do manage to eat, it has to be low fat, non-spicy and basically mashed potato. Anyone remember Bodger and Badger from the 90’s? Yep- this kid is going to come out looking like that!

I will go to Aqua- Natal classes and yoga and mummy groups and make a lovely group of pregnant friends, and our babies will all grow up together…I severely overestimated my ability to socialise. In fact, I would go so far as to say that not only am I anti-social and pretty unfriendly, I am also socially inept and have a rather strange sense of humour. I did attend aqua natal...one of the mothers there disclosed she was naming her child Xenon, like the gas. Whilst all the other moms were cooing and marvelling at the original name choice, I had nearly drowned myself laughing and now don’t feel like I can go back there. So no, I have not made mummy friends.

Husband and I will agree on all aspects of child rearing and present a united front to our children…we can’t even agree on a baby name or nursery colour. In fact, we are almost constantly in a state of whisper fighting. You know the type where you hiss insults at each other whilst sporting a rictus grin so nobody notices you are contemplating killing him with his own shoe.

It’s always amazed me how I was originally left in charge of my daughter. I always feel like it was more luck than any child rearing skill of mine that she’s the amazing person she is today. I have always found it quite funny that people expect me to be responsible and adult when I’d quite happily still go play manhunt in the woods with my friends, well maybe not at this precise moment, I’m fat and my piles would probably give me gyp (another pregnancy gift)  but you get the idea. I don’t feel like a proper grown up. And if that’s the case, how on earth can I have been entrusted with not one, but two children? What if I fuck them up? It’s not like at work where I can blame one of the work experience kids…the buck stops with me.

So I suppose this is going to be about me, trying to navigate parenting more than one child, without mentally scarring either of them. I guess it’ll be about the difference between parenting in my teens and in my thirties- not that I’m any the wiser this time around.