I'm Screaming Writing This,

I'm so mad, because I've been doing so well writing these posts and scheduling them because I know finding the time is impossible, but it's been a super busy weekend and whilst I took my laptop with me to London to go and see My Chemical Romance for the second time, I didn't touch it once! Why am I screaming? Because the schedule I made for myself is to post these at noon and it's already 11 am and I'm working against the baby having been down for a nap for a while already, juggling wedding admin that needs to be done by our last wedding meeting with the venue (which is so soon!) and also my inability to type very fast because I'm still getting used to having gel nails and they're great, they look fabulous, but my God do they seem to get in the way of life. I wouldn't mind, but they're not even that long!

This weekend has been the best in a while though, because my partner has been home since Thursday evening and we've been able to spend it together. 

Friday was a family event and we got to enjoy that as a little family of three, even though I managed to forget to bring bottles and had to try and get Little Man to have his milk from a cup. He's hated cups for a while and seems to either cry at them, drop them or try and throw them, so that wasn't really going to plan for a bit, until he realised it was his normal milk just in a different type of container and then he calmed down... as we were organising an emergency trip to the supermarket for a new bottle...

Then Saturday was his first sleepover. In the heat. We decamped half of the contents of our living room down to my mum and dad's place so that they could look after him whilst we went to see My Chemical Romance again and I cried my little emo heart out screaming along to every song, because there will never be a point where I don't absolutely adore The Black Parade in its entirety. The little guy was fine, but holy hell he didn't make it easy on himself with refusing to sleep, crying until he was so red in the face it was impossible to tell if he was too warm or just on strike from sleeping, and then clearly wasn't impressed at sleeping somewhere different.

Sunday was all about the drive home, and yes, I could have had my laptop on my knee, tapping away whilst I wasn't driving, but I was doing *redacted wedding prep activities* instead and given how close it's getting, that was more important at the time! 

So that's life. Still busy. Still messy. Still disorganised, but making it work as best as possible, and still getting this blog written and published by noon, because contrary to the opinion of the doubting voice in my head, I can do this.

The Unfinished Nursery,

Whilst I was still pregnant, I kept seeing photos and videos of people who were due at around the same time as me, or just before, or just after!, having finished their child's nursery. At the time I was naively thinking we would have plenty of time to sort it when we moved, then when we moved and I was basically useless for anything it was thinking that we would have time when he arrived to get the nursery done before he moved in there. Now when I think that the only thing I think  is about the bit in Billy Elliot where the dance teacher says 'The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow. Fat. Chance.'

This isn't to say that nothing in the nursery was done. The cot was put together well in advance and we had an over the cot changing mat in place as well as the obligatory IKEA changing table. There's a slight difference in height which makes a big difference to my back in terms of pain and thankfully the separate table is better for my back, because the over the cot one has had to come off now he's sleeping in there and I'm not picking it up every time he needs a change, because he needs a change a lot...

We got an IKEA cabinet in there as a second wardrobe, sorted out the first wardrobe and have changed it around a few times too depending on where we were up to with different things we were trying (like having to have the wet bags handy when we were still using reusable nappies), but the walls are still white, the wallpaper is still half torn down and the carpet is still full of marks and splashes of things that happened before we bought the house.

Our nursery is far from picture perfect, and it's actually far from functionally perfect. There's a few steps between the nursery and the bathroom, and a long way between the nursery and the sink in our room, so any messy hands take a while to get clean. It's also a long trek through the majority of the house in order to get to the bin with any bags of nappies. Honestly I have told my partner that I would love to put a sink in there, which wouldn't be too hard really, but it's not something we're going to do immediately. The thing I would love to do immediately though is put something of a very small slide tube down from the window... and then park a bin under it. Maybe it's just me and having something against the Tommy Tippee bin that Amazon seem to think every parent wants, but I don't like them and there are some things even scented bin liners can't fix or help. On those days, I wish it was possible to just throw everything straight out of the window into a tube that passed down right into the outside bin.

The problem with this, of course, is a lid, and the fact we live in the country side and near a river so foxes, rats and other rodents... 

I don't think the nursery will ever be 'finished' until we are done having kids, and therefore done having a nursery in our house at which point it won't be the nursery that's done, but our nursery era, partly because of how we both are and our need to reorganise, but also because our son is young and developing and that constant growth and change means what he needs from the room is changing and evolving. We have to change things to keep him safe, move things so he can get to and use them, and move other things because he's either past them or bored of them. Some things are there waiting for him to be ready for them and some things are just stored because we don't need them anymore, but we're planning to, or at least hoping to, have another kid at some point, so we need to keep them somewhere and ideally not forget we have them!! 

Nappies,

I don't know if I am behind on this or not, but recently I realised that despite a lot of effort into being super prepared for the whole life of nappy changes etc, we messed up and were running out of nappies in the right size. Now, I've been a bit obsessive in terms of making sure that when the little guy moves up a size we have something to move on to or move up to as it were, but when you're not ready to move up to another size putting on something too big is just bulky and uncomfortable. Now, we were in an okay position because if all else really failed then we would have been able to use the reusable nappies we had originally planned on using full time, but we've done the reusable nappy thing and I found it too difficult to keep up with the changing and the washing and the drying etc which comes with them, which is why we stopped using them.

Anyway, obviously we're not stupid, so when we were getting to the point in the stack of nappies where it was touch and go of how long they would last us, my partner suggested going to Costco for a box, but it's not near us at all, and the amount of money saved on a box of nappies would be less than the amount we spent on the fuel to get down there, especially since it would have been a rush after work, so instead my partner went to Aldi. I told him to get the size that we needed, because if the baby is a size 2 in nappies, they're a size 2 in nappies, right? Wrong.

When I looked at the nappies we had in the house, which were a few different sizes across different brands, I realised that each different brand seems to come up with their own different sizing. Little one was still a size 2 in Costco nappies and could wear a 2 in Pampers, but also fit into a size 3 in Pampers, is a 3 in Mum and You's and needs a 3 in Mamia Aldi nappies as well, so I had more nappies in the house that I thought I had which fit him, but it wasn't until I was putting him into the Aldi size 2s that didn't fit that I realised that they didn't fit him. Now that we've been able to get to Costco for the nappies we use the most, I've also realised he's not going to be in the size 2s in that for long either though and I'll be surprised if we make it to the end of this box, because he seems to be going through a growth spurt right now.

There seems to be a big thing at the moment about whether or not some nappies are day or nighttime nappies according to the picture printed on them, and I honestly hate the fact nappies seem to be getting more and more complicated. I kind of regret not sticking to the reusables for longer, but then they weren't as easy as I wanted them to be, and now that baby has started weaning, it means that changing poop nappies, or rather cleaning poop nappies, is even more messy than it was when he was breast fed, on formula, or mixed fed.

One of the other reasons this is such an issue is because babies don't get weighed all that often. The health visitors and midwives come and weigh them at the house in the first few weeks, but then the six month visit is something that can happen over video chat, so obviously they don't weigh them then. I considered getting a scale, but it's just another big thing that I would have to store in the house which I really don't need. The best I can do is get on a scale holding him, then put him down and get back on the scales and take one number off of the other in order to get a rough idea, but it's not brilliant and given that postpartum is a rough time for me, my body and my weight, getting on the scales regularly isn't exactly doing me any favours on that one. Basically, every size change is a best guess, just like the change of size of clothing is a guess, because he really is a little one for his age, though at least most of the clothing runs to practically the same size or at least a lot closer than the nappies do! 

What We Don't Know,

This might be a little all over the place because I'm working on very little sleep and trying to get it typed up whilst watching over my little boy in his bouncer, and also eating my lunch, because nothing teaches you to multitask like becoming a mum. Or a parent in general really, but when I think of it in terms of myself I always think of it in terms of becoming a mum instead of becoming a parent. Maybe that's just me?

I realise there is a privilege to being a parent these days. I'm not talking about the privilege of a relatively easy journey into being a parent and whether infertility rates are going up or we're just hearing more of it because people are more open about it, society is more accepting of discussions about it and because social media means when you've seen one video about something you see ALL OF THEM, but the privilege of the fact that when something seems... off?... you can do a quick search on Google (*other search engines are available even if it doesn't feel like it sometimes) or go to specific places such as communities on Reddit, forums on Peanut or similar apps for parents or even the NHSs own website(s) to reassure yourself that everything is fine or find information about what to do next. I've said a few times that these things aren't perfect, but then all babies are loveable little individuals, they're all different and none of them come with an instruction manual, so I get that most of these places are just full of people doing their best.

That being said, research is done with an idea in mind of what we don't know; it's a specific question being asked and hopefully answered whether it's a quick Google search, hitting the text books, medical journals with case files of things which have happened before or work in labs where there is a particular scope or question and the research is the journey to finding out the answer. So what happens if you don't know what the question is? Or what is you have what you think is an answer, but it's wrong? Well, nothing happens, which I think is why I love Tim Minchin's Commencement Speech when he says (I'm paraphrasing slightly) that opinions differ from arseholes in that, whilst everyone has one, yours should be constantly and thoroughly examined, because it's true, and also because it's Tim Minchin so it's funny. Unfortunately though people are very often only dispossessed of their erroneous facts and opinions when they're mocked for holding them in the first place, or upon being forced to be because they have been proven wrong, and honestly, it seems a little harsh. Is this a tangent? I promise it is not.

Recently I met up with a group of other women, all of whom have children, but ranging from my own at under a year, to some whose children are in their twenties, so they're probably closer in age to when they will or might become grandparents than their own experiences of pregnancy, childbirth and early parenthood, but the great thing is there is a universality to the experience of parenthood, even when there are so many divisions between us and there are some things you can only understand as a mum or a birthing parent (I know the two are not synonymous) or a non birthing parent, or a working parent, a single parent, a twin mum, a c-section mum etc. Even within those groups you'll have divisions, whether it be elective or emergency C-sections (reluctant C-section mums like myself) and there are obviously a lot that can intersect as well, which can further unite and divide us depending on where we fall.

I think I've previously mentioned - or perhaps I just wrote as part of my I'm distracting myself from the monotony and boredom of waiting for something to happen in the hospital - that when I came across a video on social media that stated that when you have a "month long period" after childbirth, it's not that, but it is partly because your body has a dinner plate sized wound where the placenta has detached from and your body needs to heal it and that comes with some bleeding or something that looks like bleeding and partly because your body is doing a bunch of things to go back to it's pre-pregnancy self (or at least your uterus is, or is aiming to). 

One of the ladies I was with mentioned she didn't think you bled with a C-section, but you do, because even with the best surgeon, they can't repair the wound from the placenta instantly and they can't do everything else to heal the body that the body does for itself. She then asked if it was when you were breastfeeding that you didn't bleed, and no, you do, and you can actually bleed more, because all the clotting that your body has to do as part of that healing process can be interrupted by the hormones which are needed for breastfeeding. Thankfully, I have seen enough information out there that says you don't need to go into the hospital about the bleeding unless the clot are bigger than the size of a lemon, and let's face it, you're going to remember that because it feels pretty shocking - lemons aren't small!! - but the whole experience is pretty shocking. I remember I knocked my belly somehow, it might have been whilst putting on one of those support belt things because my scar was tender and my back was still painful, and there was this gush... And I thought I had really done myself some damage, but no, it was completely normal. 

It sounds a bit like a conspiracy theory, but I often wondered when I was going through pregnancy if the reason you weren't told about certain things which happen or the frequency with which they happen was less to do with inadequate messaging or not knowing how to reach the right people etc and more to do with not putting anyone off of having a baby that wants to, because generally birth rates (I'm just talking in the UK here) are lower than previous, although some recent records show a slight, very slight, uptick. Given that fertility rates have been dropping (at least in what I read from 2021-2024) and people are having smaller families at a later stage, anything else which is liable to make more people reconsider having children is probably seen as a bad thing.

That being said, and it might be because I'm a thirsty sponge for information, I generally think that more information is better, and even if a person is never planning to have children, can't biologically have children or whatever their situation, more people understanding pregnancy symptoms and conditions like Hyperemesis Gravidarum, severe morning sickness (because it can be severe without reaching the level of HG) and pelvic girdle pain to name only a few, there might be a little more compassion and understanding for pregnant people. Granted there also might not be, because there are people who simply believe that pregnancy is a choice and if you make the choice it's your problem to deal with what you get with it, but I'm choosing to be optimistic about people's ability and inclination towards compassion, partly because I don't want to think about the issues which are still ongoing in America where choice and pregnancy are a very problematic conversation for other reasons. 

Do You Know What You're Doing For Christmas?,

I know it's a natural question to ask at this time of year, but seriously, this has been getting on my nerves since November, because I have been saying for months that unless my son has decided to arrive early, but not too early that he's having to spend a long period in the NICU, I'm not doing anything.

I've bounced between being a lover of Christmas and a total Scrooge for years now, so maybe it's not surprising to some people that I am really not up for doing anything, but there are reasons and it's pretty much because the baby is due so close to Christmas that I don't want to plan anything because I can't commit to those plans and I don't want to make plans that I'm pretty certain I will have to break at some point. The simple fact is that if we have the baby a few days or even a week before Christmas then we'll be very much in the newborn trenches which won't be ideal for either having guests or being guests, and if he has not arrived then I don't want to be sat around all day feeling like everyone has me on bump watch to see if I'm going to have contractions and the baby might be arriving on Christmas day or at least starting to make his way out on Christmas day. Even if he didn't then decide to arrive on Christmas day, I know how I feel right now - like an overinflated balloon or a planet with my own gravity, and also very unstable so I keep walking into things and sometimes that is bump first, which really hurts - and the addition of more weeks and a heavier baby will only make that worse. All of the symptoms I am having, the exhaustion, the nausea and the mood swings don't really lend themselves to a Christmas celebration that it feels like everyone is expecting. Even before our scan where we had the updated due date, we were due right around Christmas so I've been saying since spring this year that I wasn't doing anything for Christmas and I meant it.

Christmas just doesn't feel the same to me this year anyway, because I've not really been able to go out to go shopping and find presents for family and friends, partly because of feeling sick all of the time but also because the amount I can walk is limited by the level of pain that I am in. When people have asked me what I want for Christmas, I haven't had a clue, because it's not something I'm thinking about at the moment. The only thing I have been thinking about is what we need for the baby, because so many people have been asking us what we want or what we need. 

The biggest problem with not being able to make plans for ourselves is because our parents have then been reluctant to make plans, particularly my mum who we are planning on taking the dog when we go into hospital, but she also knows she's on call in case I need her for moral support or in case my partner isn't at home when I need driving to the hospital. Granted, on Christmas day or particularly closer to Christmas he'll be off on leave anyway, so that is a bit less of an issue. I think she just doesn't want to plan anything and then have to say she can't help with little man if I need anything and we are in those early newborn days, and I completely get that. She knows I'm going to need some support and he's her first grandbaby so I know she is going to want to be able to spend time with him as well. 

In some ways, I feel kind of bad, because us having a baby seems to be throwing off a lot of the family's Christmas plans, but at the same time, we didn't plan for a Christmas baby and it wasn't something we were particularly aiming at (granted if the choice had been Christmas baby or no baby then it would have been a no brainer and we would have chosen to have a Christmas baby, but it's not like that was what we were trying to achieve from the start) but it's not something we've hidden from everyone or not been completely open about. I can be relatively tactless and blunt when I want or need to be, so I have said it loudly for months that I'm not committing to anything until I know what the baby is doing and as I'm sat here writing this (which is about ten or so actually it's more like fourteen... days ahead of when it will be scheduled to be posted) he doesn't seem to be in a rush to join us in the world outside, so we'll probably just be sat at home waiting for something to happen. Maybe when we get to that stage I will regret having been so against making plans, but it's something we'll only know when we know, and it's not like we can't put something together quickly when it comes to it.

Okay, It's Time,

I'm currently sat with a glass of zero alcohol prosecco, under a blanket on the sofa watching something on Netflix, because I don't know what else to do at the moment. A lot of people will tell you that you'll know when it's time to go to the hospital, but honestly, I think once you've had a few false alarms, eventually you have to be right, don't you? It's not that we've had a false alarm for labour yet, but I'm sure it will happen before he eventually arrives.

One of the things I find really frustrating is the number of things which supposedly help to induce labour, but it's all anecdotal evidence, and for the most part when you read up on them, people seem to deny any of them work, and it's frustrating when you reach that stage where your body just feels too large and too lumbering and even though you know that the baby is safe on the inside, the promise of that first cuddle, and being able to walk without waddling and all the other glorious bits of no longer being pregnant are calling. 

Don't get me wrong, I am not pushing to have a medical induction any time soon, and I really hope that we don't get to the point where we need to consider that, because none of the procedures or methods sound particularly appealing, but the promise of things like raspberry leaf tea helping, or a particular kind of curry (as long as it was vegetarian) all seem more like a nudge in the right direction without being something that seems like forcing your body into being ready for something which it might not quite have been ready for. I know some people will stick by the idea that babies will come when they are ready, but some get past the point where it is safe to be on the inside and are still showing no signs of moving.

The problem is that you can feel ready and not ready emotionally, physically, mentally so much so that it almost feels like Schrodinger's pregnancy, or Schrodinger's mama.

There are still quite a few things we want to get done in the house before our little man arrives, but some of them are things that aren't really that important. Yes, it would be cute to be able to have his nursery ready, with the walls painted, all of the furniture in and everything completely ready for him, but he won't be sleeping in there for a good few months anyway, so his room is probably just going to be a place where we store his clothes and where I'm feeding him when we have guests over. There are other things that are a lot more important to get done - and no I don't mean getting on top of the garden, or even getting all of the prominent prickly stuff out of there.

Maybe the nesting instinct has gone off of me, and so I should be expecting the little guy to sit tight until at least his due date, if not beyond then, and I don't know that it counts the same if I try and convince myself to be doing things like stripping the wallpaper and getting other bits of his room ready, but I guess the upshot is that I am ready for him to be here already and it seems like he wants to be taking his time.