Saturday 25 June 2011

The father-to-be

It can’t be easy to live with me right now.  I have easily spent the last few weeks caught up in my own little world of worries, tiredness and a squiffy feeling that’s not quite nausea.  It’s already a different world from our evenings before the pregnancy.  We would spend the summer evenings outside, me with a glass of Chardonnay and he with a cigarette, deconstructing our days and gazing at the songbirds in the sky or into each others’ eyes. 

I have thought recently what a lonely time it must be for him.  I have all my body changes and pregnancy-tracking iPhone apps to keep me busy between frequent naps.  My schedule is generally to wake early, feeling great.  Slowly descend into a tired funk throughout the day and end up nodding off on the sofa immediately after eating dinner.  He is left watching the DVD we picked out together as I snore blissfully.  I’m there but he is essentially alone as I sail through the evenings like a pregnant zombie.  He wakes me, with great difficulty at about 10pm so I can brush my teeth and head to bed for more sleep.

I also have the goods, so to speak.  I mean, the little tyke is with me.  I get the 9 months of him/her all to myself.  I get to, for lack of a more imaginative word, bond.  The two of us, without him.  The poor man is practically a sperm donor when I think of how much fun this must all be for him.  In the animal kingdom, all the seemingly strange practices animals have adopted in reproduction suddenly seem inspired.  After all, if I could have mated with him and then ate him, I wouldn’t be staring down his forlorn looking face each evening when I am roused from my first slumber on the sofa to cart myself off to bed for round two.  Or if he was the male lion of the pride, there would be others to keep him busy and happy.

But then I would be missing out on something fabulous.  Something beyond the logic of evolution and survival of the fittest.  That man has a nonsensical and unreasonable love, both for me and the unnamed embryo that is simply amazing.  We have had matching anxiety dreams, each of being on an island with each other and tolerating the other wanting to do something that feels uncomfortable.  But in our dreams we each go along with it, despite our better judgement, because it’s what the other wants. 

As I prop my eye lids open to write, he cooks a chilli packed full of vegetables for me, and also for baby so-and-so’s growing little body.  There is no reason why he should want to, except love.  

Wednesday 15 June 2011

4 weeks post-test

Over the last few weeks, I've told a few trusted people.  It felt needed as otherwise I don't think I would even know that I am pregnant.  There was no sickness. Feeling pretty normal.  If anything, better than normal. Energised and content.  Online articles tell me that's the hormones.  In any case, there was nothing to complain about.

Except that I wished for some kind of sign.  A bump.  A little vomit.  Something to tell me it was happening.  I have only been tired and my ability to fall asleep is verging on the hilarious.  Sit still for more than a minute in a warm spot and I'm gone.  Not just snoozing but deep, heavy sleep that feels almost drug induced.

Psychologically, there is far more to report.  Thom and I have entered into a world of worry. Well at least I have.  What can I eat is only the first question followed up by what would be the best thing to eat.  I am suddenly aware of all the things that enter my body. The polluted air, the flu-like cold of the person next to me on the tube, the chemicals in my toilet cleaner, my not-quite-organic body lotion. 

A world of worry and also of guilt.  After all, am I not responsible to make my body a safe haven for the little foetus?  I'm discovering that my body wasn't so much a temple, but a shrine to modern medicine.  I wouldn't think twice about popping a pill to control my now voracious hayfever before.  Now, I have survived the worsening symptoms until my sinuses are entrenched with goo and my throat is raw and scratchy.  

I am left to negotiate competing risks, weighing up the costs to developing junior inside and my own health, using a lot of medical advice that perches itself firmly on the fence.  I am only comforted by blogs and forums with armies of women who have trod this uneasy ground before me.  I soothe myself with the thought that this is but the first of many hurdles that will require my weighing up the risks between a range of imperfect and uncertain choices.  I might get good at it eventually.

On the plus side, being pregnant has brought cooked meals almost every night by a dutiful, culinary husband.  I am waiting my bangers and mash to be served up shortly, complete with steamed broccoli at my request.  Father-in-law has also dropped by flowers today and last week, a package of tiny baby things arrived from Mom in the States.  Not too bad, eh?

Tuesday 14 June 2011

I'm pregnant. Now what?

I get out of the shower and take a peek at the stick sitting near the toilet.   Pregnancy test reads positive.  My husband is still in bed and the house is silent.   In the stillness I apply post-shower body lotion, adding a little extra to my tummy as an afterthought. 

In my memory of that morning, I recall vividly the silence as I made my way upstairs to wake Thom with the news.  Life seemed surreal and suddenly so fresh as if I was walking up the stairs for the first time.

Thom is happy.  He wipes the sleep from his eyes and bounces out of bed.  I feel like I'm watching it all unfold as an observer. Despite our plans and protection-free sex, I struggle to define how I feel. 


On the way to work I stare out the window like a zombie.  I feel like crying at times for joy, and other times for sheer amazement that being pregnant is even possible. Other times still, for fear.  Can I do it? Can I be a mother? Unforunatley only time can tell me.  Either way its happening.  After I took the test, I sometimes wanted to rush the 9 months along, wishing them away before they even begun.  At other times, I'm paralysed in terror.

For the rest of this week I have been seeing people in a different way.  Every person crammed around me on the tube, each sweaty suit-clad man plowing down the pavement to work, every old woman struggling to cross the road - all of them have been a baby.  All of them started off like this. Small, indetectible even, inside the body of someone like me.  It's a staggering thought.

On my commute in, the train stops.  It's 8am and all the commuters peel away from newspapers or open one weary eye to look around disapprovingly at no-one in particular.  After a few minutes, the conductor announces that we are stuck in delays because of a fatality on the track.  Groans and moans all around as people drag out mobile phones to explain their lateness.  I well up with tears at the thought.  Is it the hormones?  Is it the thought of a tiny life growing inside?  Either way, I am different.  A man across the carriage looks at me strangely as a snivvel into my sleeve.  Although I don't care about him, what will I tell others?  How will I explain any differences they see?  How soon to tell?

And so begins the many millions of questions I am to answer....