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.