Category Archives: Pregnancy

Pregnancy: You’re Doing It Right!

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That’s it. I am absolutely sick and tired of reading the most terrible horse shit about pregnancy and birth.

Every five minutes, it seems, I read an article or a tweet, see a YouTube video or hear some “parenting expert” handing out crappy, one-size-fits all advice. One size doesn’t fit all when you’re talking about gardening gloves, for Christ’s sake. Why on earth would it work any better on actual, tiny human beings?

The bombardment of expectant mothers with unadulterated nonsense is breath taking. I noticed it the first time around, but now I’m on Baby Number Two, I’m truly infuriated by it (can you tell?).

Pregnant women are disempowered at every turn, being given totally unrealistic expectations of labour, birth and motherhood, fuelled by the media’s ridiculously unattainable images of perfection. We are constantly advised on how to avoid stretch marks (just because you’re pregnant, don’t forget to drive yourself insane worrying about how you look!); how to achieve a zen birth (epidural? So last decade dahling, it’s all about the natural birth now!); why you should be babywearing (pushchairs turn your children into serial killers, obviously); and a million other stupid, trite idiocies. I’d like to think that most of this advice is ultimately well-meaning, but I can’t: most of it is designed to sell you something – and then perpetuated by people who have no idea how to actually evaluate whether something they hear is even true, let alone helpful.

So, if you’re pregnant, do something for yourself today. Take your clothes off and take a good, long look in the mirror.

You are beautiful. Your body is beautiful. Every mark on it is a story about your life’s journey. Every mark of pregnancy is a badge of honour: wear it with pride.

No cream you use will change whether you get stretch marks or not, so who cares if you forgot to moisturise? If you don’t feel zen in your labour, scream so loudly you shatter the windows instead, and then demand an epidural. It’s your birth experience. You will still have a baby at the end of it. How you get there only matters if you let it.

Shout in the face of anyone who tells you what should be important to you. Call out pregnancy bullshit whenever and wherever you see it. Smile, because you are fantastic just the way you are.

Make It Up

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I’m a make-up kind of person. Not to the extent that I won’t go to my local Tesco without my face on or anything, but I usually wear a bit of concealer and some mascara during the day and a face full for a night out. I’m not going to pretend it’s all for me; I do care what other people think (and I’ve never really seen anything wrong with that, as long as you keep a healthy sense of perspective), and I still think it’s nice to look presentable around my husband when I can. He has, after all, seen me at my very, very worst and so deserves to see me at my best sometimes too.

Mainly, though, it’s because – for better or worse – it makes me feel good about myself. I’m not unhappy with my bare face; it’s plain and not too pockmarked after a lot of rock and roll although, due to a hereditary case of rosacea, it’s usually an interesting shade of pinky orange. But if I’m ill or tired, or having a bad skin day, or feeling down-in-the-dumps, putting my makeup on instantly gives me a lift and makes me feel a little bit special. And it’s all the better if it’s just for sitting around at home. I love the idea that someone could pop round and think that I just look that put-together all the time. They never do, but feeling that put-together cheers up my day anyway. For ten minutes’ work, I think it’s worth it some days.

I stumbled upon an interesting forum topic a few days ago about wearing make up during labour. I was quite shocked by the ferocity of people’s response. They variously referred to the original poster as vain, deluded, shallow, naïve, stupid and anti-feminist(!). I couldn’t – and still can’t – see why anyone would find fault with wanting to look better than shit-on-a-stick on probably the most monumental day of your life. Make up, for some women, is empowering and if that’s the case for you, why shouldn’t you feel free to make yourself feel stronger and more beautiful as you enter such a huge rite-of-passage?

Yes, if you haven’t slept for forty hours, just spent thirty of those hours pushing a baby out and don’t have a scrap of make-up on your face, you will still look as earth shatteringly beautiful as all new mothers look in their minutes-after-birth pictures. Happiness and a sense of monumental achievement will take care of that. I may well not have the time or the inclination to make up my face when early labour starts; by the time I’m finished in the birthing pool, anything I did put on will probably be long gone anyway (although perhaps not…you get what you pay for with make up, and I’m fairly sure mine could survive a nuclear blast). But I at least want to feel that I can make myself look better than I feel if I want to, without being judged as shallow. Will it change anything practical at all on the day? No. But if labour is heavily influenced by state of mind – and I think it is – then making sure that I feel the best I can when the time comes is going to make a huge difference to me.

Do I think everyone should wear make up? Nope. In fact, I’m always quite in awe of those who never wear any (and more than a bit jealous or their glowy skin and the novels they write in all that free time they have). But make up has become an integral part of my everyday life and I don’t intend for D-Day to be any different. And if I look like a drunken panda in the pictures, you can feel free to say “I told you so!”

Adventures in Hair Cutting

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I am definitely practicing being a mum. I looked in the hairdresser’s window today on my way past. Thirty-five quid for a bloody trim, I thought, I could cut my own hair for the price of a decent pair of scissors and spend the rest on custard doughnuts.

And so the seed was planted. I didn’t buy any scissors, but I knew before I got home that I was going to cut my own hair. Even as I was reading on the internet how you should never, ever cut your own hair (and on your own head, literally, be it if you do), I knew I was going to cut my own hair. Once I get an idea in my head, it’s going to get done. I think I get that from my mother. Yes, the same mother who subjected me to the dreaded Bowl Cut for the first nine years of my life.

I couldn’t have any Dutch courage since I’m pregnant – or at least, not enough to make it worth having. So I had some soup instead and then got to work. “Nice and slow,” I said out loud to my reflection, enormous fabric scissors poised beside my jaw line, “Just a couple of inches off. Little cuts, one at a time.” I made the first cut. Six inches of my hair lay in the sink, looking at me wetly. Shit. Oh well, no turning back now.

Here are some things I probably should have done:

  • Measured the sides to make sure they were the same length.
  • Cut in straight lines. Or any kind of lines.
  • Used a mirror to do the back.
  • Bought some hairdressing scissors, or at least some scissors that were sharp.
  • Started cautiously. And continued cautiously.

Instead, I have created a masterpiece.

Alright, it’s a bowl cut. But you know what? I’m bringing it back. That’s right, you heard me. And if it’s good enough for me, it’s good enough for my children…

Hurrah for home hair-cutting!

On Being Made a Fool Of

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I visited the antenatal day clinic today, a bit worried about Tinysaurus.

Me: “I’ve hardly felt a movement in the past couple of days. It’s very unlike her. She’s normally very active.”

Midwife: “Okay, hop up on the bed and we’ll measure her heart rate a bit and check everything’s okay. Your tummy seems to be wriggling a lot for an inactive baby. Ouch. She doesn’t like my monitor very much, does she?”

Me: “Oh. She’s awake then.”

Here’s the graph she made with her tiny heartbeat. Each tall peak on the top line represents her giving me – or the midwife, or the heart rate monitor – a really good, solid kicking. (The bottom line is my uterus, doing whatever uteruseseses do.) Needless to say, Tinysaurus is fine, and I feel like a prize winning tosser.


She’d clearly been asleep for a couple of days straight. Then when she woke up, she turned over so that she’ll be born in the most awkward, painful position she can manage. She clearly takes after her father.

Maternity Leave. And Not a Moment Too Soon.

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I woke up this morning at 5.30am in a cold sweat from a dream where somebody forced me to smoke sixty cigarettes one after the other. By 8.30am, I had been for a swim at the local pool and eaten half the confectionery aisle in Tesco.

World's Most Complicated Baby SlingI got home to discover that the Amazon fairy had brought me a baby sling, some bottles, a sterilising kit and a Very Scary Breast Pump. (That’s not its brand name, if you’re looking to buy one. That would be an epic marketing fail. It’s actually a Phillips Avent. I can’t say whether it’s any good yet because, obviously, I haven’t tested it.) Cue forty whole minutes of attempting to put Bun-Bun (child-sized stuffed rabbit bought by my mother) into the World’s Most Complicated Baby Sling. In fairness to BabyBjörn, I do have a dreadful case of pregnancy brain, so it’s probably not as tricky as I’m making out. I only have a handful of brain cells left, and most of those are preoccupied with where the next cake is coming from and just how the hell you fold up the inner bit of a reusable nappy.

Yes, my maternity leave has started. You’ll remember from my last post that things weren’t going well at work. In fact, they weren’t going at all. The largest part of my day was spent gazing out of the window, wondering whether 10am is too early for an afternoon nap, or arguing the finer points of child-rearing on Facebook. Last night, on the way back from our last antenatal class, Hubby suggested that I stop work a bit earlier than planned. I was at once so relieved and so disappointed that I cried. I feel a little betrayed, if anything: I always thought it would be my whale-proportioned body that would stop me working in the end, not my brain. But I’m willing to accept that I need to place my priorities elsewhere at the moment, and I firmly believe that shopping for tiny duvet covers and stockpiling frozen food as if the apocalypse is coming is as noble a career move as any other.

So, expect more blogging and less whinging in the coming weeks…

Motivation

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Glow-in-the-dark stars: motivation!Lordy, it’s getting close now! Technically, I have around six weeks to go before the big day but instinctively, I feel that it’s closer to four. There’s no indication as to why this might be, beyond the fact that Tinysaurus has already dropped into my pelvis. Perhaps I’m going to have a caesarean section after all (I won’t know until the last scan in two weeks’ time), or perhaps she’s just eager to get out. She certainly seems to be building some sort of escape tunnel in there. Or perhaps it’s just wishful thinking.

One thing I do know for certain is that I should’ve booked my maternity leave to start much earlier. To say that I hate work now would be misleading, since I barely care enough about it to have an emotion either way. I woke up one morning a few weeks ago and discovered that work, and all its responsibilities, had ceased to register on my scale of priorities. These days, it’s right down there below putting up cup hooks in the kitchen, unpacking the washing machine and defuzzing my winter jumpers.

I have, in short, been bitten by the Nesting Bug. When it comes to whinging customers, mounting emails and writing content for my website, dragging myself out of bed before 10am seems like a Herculean mission. But give me a paintbrush, a set of sticky, glow-in-the-dark stars and a screwdriver and I’m bouncing out of bed before 7 and DIYing away.

I should’ve booked my maternity leave at 34 weeks. I should’ve been more organised and got everything ready weeks ago, so that by now I could be wallowing in daytime TV and eating custard doughnuts. Instead, I’m still here at my desk, writing long-overdue blog posts in an attempt to avoid the bone-crushingly dull task of writing web content that doesn’t mention babies; not even once. Sigh.

94 Little Days

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Though I can’t quite believe it, I’m coming to the end of my second trimester. It’s not so much that it’s gone quickly (the bigger the bump gets, the slower time seems to pass), but the milestones are definitely mounting up and the reality of The Big L has dawned enough that I’ve spent the weekend packing my hospital bag. It probably seems a bit premature, but after being diagnosed with a low-lying placenta at the 20 week scan, it seemed expedient to be prepared for all eventualities. Besides, I feel that if I can get all the organisation out of the way while I’m still quite trim – relatively speaking – then I can spend my third trimester getting on with the important business of lying around like a slug and eating custard doughnuts.

So, being that Tinysaurus is almost two thirds cooked, I thought it’d be a good time to share some of the insider tips I’ve picked up in my first twenty-six weeks…

Things I Have Learnt While Pregnant

  1. The location of every single public toilet and/or understanding pub within a 14 mile radius of my house. Google Maps has earned a new respect.
  2. Everybody else in the world is a terrible parent. *
  3. I am much, much braver than I ever thought possible. I even caught a spider in a glass and put it outside. And I didn’t even cry.
  4. Most people need to Just Calm Down. There is something beautifully serene about being the composed one while everyone else runs around fussing.
  5. Stuff doesn’t matter. If your mum hates the name you choose, or you ate a couple of runny eggs for breakfast when you couldn’t face anything else without heading for the toilet, or you bought a buggy that turned out to be on offer because putting it up is akin to a challenge on the Crystal Maze…just relax. In a few months, you won’t be able to remember your own name or when you last had more than 45 minutes of sleep, so try to realise that everything is relative.
  6. Periods are rubbish. I don’t care how rubbish pregnancy gets; periods are always worse. Even my husband has commented on how “easy to get on with” I’ve been since my hormones stopped dipping up and down every thirty two seconds. It’s been at least twenty weeks since I last threatened to strangle the cat. Hubby and I agree that the only answer is for me to stay pregnant for at least the next two years. The only downside to this is that we’ll end up with three children under five.
  7. Camping is for fools (see previous post).
  8. Do not consult the internet on matters of any importance whatsoever. Finding out that you have just bought a cot which is guaranteed to kill your baby within twenty seconds of placing them in it is not good for your stress levels. It is also, of course, not true, but that won’t stop some imbecile with a keyboard and an ill-informed opinion letting you know what they Reckon. In fact, throughout pregnancy, you’ll be bombarded by ad-hoc Reckoning from all quarters (just the other day, a woman in the street told me off for eating a cheese sandwich. No, really.). Just watch this video and remember not to take them too seriously.
  9. Dignity is a thing of the past. I have to keep reminding myself that “Charlee almost wee’d herself a little bit in Tesco today!” is not the sort of status update people want to read. Not that it matters, as by this point I’ve no doubt been hidden from everyone’s news feed for updating three times daily on the progress of the Buggy Hunt.
  10. People are basically lovely. Pregnancy seems to bring out the best in everyone else, and it’s brilliant! The fact that Tinysaurus seems to spread a little joy wherever she goes warms the cockles and restores my faith in all of humankind. There, I even managed to finish on a high note.
* This is, of course, completely untrue. I simply can’t allow myself to believe that children really do behave like that, even when you tell them not to.

Camping Fail

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Camping.  I love camping.  I love everything about it, from cooking fry ups on The Beast (our double ringed, single grilled, gas fired monster) to drinking beer in a field and then listening to the rain drum on my tent while I’m cosy inside my sleeping bag.  I’d go as far as to say that camping is my favourite thing about the summer.  I have many wonderful, beer-clouded memories of happy nights spent under the stars.

So imagine my surprise to find that camping is actually shit.  Well, camping when you’re knocked up, anyway.

If you’re pregnant and planning a camping trip, you probably have some rose-tinted ideas about bringing your in-utero bundle of joy closer to nature, getting plenty of fresh air (and maybe even a healthy glow) and taking a well earned rest from the daily pressures of pregnancy.  And that’s exactly what it’s like, if by “closer to nature” you mean on the floor, besieged by curious bugs and possibly sheep; and by “healthy glow” you mean sunburnt; and by “well earned rest” you mean three hours of sleep in twenty minute shifts.

Camping When PregnantIf this doesn’t deter you from your mission to the wilderness (or if you happily bought your child-free festival tickets without due consideration), then I have two more words for you: camp bed.  Actually, make that three: double camp bed.  Buy the biggest bugger you can squeeze into your tent, and if you still wake in the night to find that your pregnancy pillow is sleeping soundly in the bed while you’re on the floor with feet like icebergs and a crick in your neck, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

As for sharing your tent with your significant other, don’t.  Well, not unless you really don’t have any secrets from one another.  You may think that you’d never wee in a bottle, but I’m telling you now that after six trips to the distant toilet block in the freezing cold, you will.  Oh, and you might think you’ve seen the last of morning sickness by now, but the smell of a chemical toilet at sunrise is likely to put you off breakfast just as efficiently.  To be brutally honest, sharing your campsite – never mind your tent – with other people is likely to result in varying degrees of nighttime irritation, ranging from exaggerated tutting to stabby retribution.  Console yourself with the fact that the people who disturbed your beauty sleep at 4.30am will be catching up on their zeds by the time you get up, at which point you can exact your Dale-Winton-on-Radio-2 revenge.

If it’s a festival rather than just a common-or-garden camping holiday, there are plenty of other mild inconveniences which, to a pregnant woman, can easily be inflated to the status of Reasons To Go Home.  What if the rice you ate from that curry shack was a bit dodgy? (It wasn’t.)  Are you going to catch some bizarre sort of death from those sheep in the next field? (Not unless it’s lambing season and you make a habit of getting up close and personal with sheep you just met.)  Who will look out for you when your Significant Other has passed out in a pool of his own vomit? (You will.  Everyone else will be too busy telling you how they love you, man, and it’s not the drugs.)  Will sitting on the ground give you toxoplasmosis? (No.)  What if the hand brake on the car parked behind your tent fails and it runs over you in the night? (That’s sleep deprivation.  Go home and get some rest.)

One night of camping was more Nature than I had ever wished for, so I went home early to get some kip and a shower.  If you’ve read this and still plan to camp when pregnant, you’re a braver woman than I.  Or, more likely, you’ve gone a bit mad from the pregnancy hormones.

Just call me Mary Poppins

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Ta-da!

That was me making a triumphant return, by the way.  Yes, I have been MIA for a number of weeks; sorry about that. Blogs, it seems, are a bit of a commitment, and like most projects I start in a blaze of glory, it quickly becomes a chore. Especially since I’ve now been lumbered with keeping the work blog up to date as well. You try finding fifty-two new and interesting things to say about homewares every year. It’s a toughie, I can tell you.

While I’ve been away, I’ve discovered something rather unexpected. Being pregnant is…(drum roll please)…loads of fun! Yes, there’s some puking and a fair amount of irritation (when asked to estimate the chances that I might stab someone before I reached my third trimester, I put it at 60-70%); people will poke at you, uninvited, and the whole of the first trimester is like having a particularly savage hangover (especially irksome when you’re not allowed to have a single sodding drink). But when you come out of your cocoon at about thirteen or fourteen weeks, suddenly everything is awesome!

People give up their seats in droves. I can clear the entire front section of a bus just by rubbing my belly and/or the small of my back and pulling a face. Queues magically dissolve if I tell Hubby in a stage whisper that I rather need a wee. It’s a struggle to get any exercise at all because people keep offering to give me lifts everywhere, and stuffing my face with doughnuts – or indeed anything else I can get my hands on – is positively encouraged. Well, by everyone except my midwife, who pointed out the dangers of gestational diabetes while I shuffled in my chair a bit and looked at my shoes.

I also have super powers. Yes. I’m a regular goddamn Doctor Doolittle, for one thing. Animals seem fascinated by me. It must be the hormones or something. Every time I sit on a park bench, I half expect to have a Mary Poppins moment with the local birdlife, although on my last visit to St. Anne’s Well Gardens, someone’s dog tried to mount me, which ruined the scene somewhat. I can also smell if you’ve been smoking, even if the last cigarette you had was last Thursday and you’re inside a lead box forty feet beneath the surface of the sea. The good news is that this super power also works on good smells: if there’s a jam doughnut within a mile radius, I’ll find it and eat it within forty seconds.

But by far the nicest thing about being pregnant – and those of you who follow the blog regularly will be very surprised to hear me say this – is the belly rubbing. I do like people to ask first (that’s just good manners), but whereas I thought I’d find it terribly invasive to be touched, I actually find it sort of…magical.* The fact that one tiny life has the ability to make so many people smile and coo, even before it’s out in the world, is nothing short of astonishing. It makes me smile, and that’s got to be good for Tinysaurus, right?

* Tinysaurus, on the other hand, has personal space issues. Poking, leaning, lying down and wearing fitted clothes all cause fits of stroppy-teenager-esque thrashing around in there.

Growing a Wooly Liberal

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I agree with NickElection fever has arrived in the Bump household.  Or, more accurately, Cleggmania.  Not that this is a new thing; I’ve been voting Lib Dem since I turned eighteen, but always more in protest against the old guard than because of any real belief that they might get in.

But here we are, in the year that my first child is going to be born and, unbelievably, there’s a real, tangible sense that things in government might change for the better.  A Liberal prime minister; imagine!

In the early days of my pregnancy, I found it hard to square things with myself.  I felt so disillusioned with the direction in which our country – and our world – is moving, that I wondered how I could willingly bring another life into it, knowing that things might not change in my lifetime, or theirs.  I wondered, more than once, whether I was making the right decision.

Now, it seems, everything could change after all.  I realise I’m being exceptionally optimistic but, hell, why not?  Wouldn’t it be amazing if my baby was born into a world where we finally woke up and realised that it is the people who really hold all the power?  How beautiful it would be if my children grew up knowing that they could take action and really effect a change in the world.  More thinking like that – and less of this one-person-can’t-make-a-difference apathy – is what will ultimately save the human race from a climate-related fiery death.

So be optimistic.  Believe.  Change things!