It's just under five years since I wrote my last 'closing weeks of pregnancy' blog and I never thought I would be doing that again. Ever.
But here I am, with seven weeks left and am starting to feel the full weight (pardon the pun) of what I've elected to put myself through again, as well as recalling all the stuff I'd conveniently forgotten.
In the early days of this pregnancy I was filled with wonder and awe that my body was still capable of an activity mainly reserved for women at least half a decade younger than myself.
Feeling a baby squirm and kick inside you, while your ageing eyesight causes you to you squint at small print through those £1 glasses from Poundland, feels a little like rearranging the furniture on the doomed Titanic. At once my body shuffles towards its inevitable decline, while simultaneously prodding me daily with evidence of this last bloom of fertility, as each new stretch mark and quivering belly confirms new life within. In all honesty it's been the first pregnancy where I didn't feel aggrieved from start to finish at the restrictions placed upon me. This time it has absolutely felt like a privilege.
But these feelings have started to wane as the pregnancy approaches its final weeks and I'm now being reminded of the many and varied drawbacks.
The simple task of bending down to pick something off the ground is fraught with guilt since inevitably I forget until it's too late that there's a human in there who doesn't like being squashed in the act and I find myself yelping, "Oops sorry baby!" about a dozen times a day.
I do hope he's OK in there...
Drinking so much as a cup of coffee results in a good two hours of heartburn as my body reminds me I'm not permitted the simple pleasure of a caffeine hit every now and then, since my sole purpose on this planet currently is to serve as a one-woman incubating pod for child number six - my own selfish needs and desires no longer relevant.
My cravings are an odd mix of short term comfort followed by long term discomfort as I'm compelled to repeatedly munch my way through entire trays of icecubes, followed by bags of rocket leaves, leaving me feeling bloated and bilious and requiring at least two Rennies to counteract the effects.The other day I was forced to drive to Daventry after a scout of my local shops turned up not a single bag of rocket. I wondered briefly during the drive home what fellow drivers made of me as I sped past, shoving handfuls of leaves into my mouth and chewing them in bovine fashion.
In previous pregnancies I've enjoyed a glass or two of wine of a night but I'm finding this is neither appealing nor worth it due to the aforementioned heartburn and I'm desperately trying to recall why I love alcohol so much in real life...it scarcely makes sense to me at present although common sense and a deep self-knowledge assures me I'll have rekindled my former love affair with a chilled glass of white within days of the Grand Exit.
And as before, breathing has become a luxury I can only expect to fully enjoy during daylight hours, and sleeping in any position other than on my right hand side has become an impossibility if I or the baby are planning to actually survive the night since lying on my back, my weekly emailed pregnancy bulletin assures me, will cut off the baby's oxygen supply, and lying on my left leaves me feeling as if I'm having a stroke.
Not that sleeping is a huge concern; the hourly trips to the loo ensure I'm kept nicely alert during the night which is useful as it gives me many hours to ponder the massive arrears on my Irish mortgage or whether DH is going to drop dead on the commute home from work one day soon, from the stress of having so many dependents, leaving me destitute and penniless with six children. (Note to self, google life insurance policies.)
As I wrote last time, I'm convinced women are hard-wired to forget all the unpleasantness which goes along with pregnancy and childbirth, otherwise only a drugged up sado-masochist would have more than one baby. The early months can be tiring and nauseous, but nothing is as incapacitating as having an almost fully grown human baby living in the front of your body, no matter how charming the maternity wear ads make it look with their docile looking mothers gazing smugly at their perfect bumps, dreaming of a drug-free, orgasmic birth, surrounded by Joe Malone scented candles and a sensitive husband.
Anyone who's actually been through childbirth knows that this image bears as little resemblance to real childbirth as Boden's Christmas catalogue resembles actual Christmas and a more accurate comparison would be 16 hours spent hanging upside down on a hook at the local abbatoir, for example, or something worse.
In fact when the midwife recently asked me during a check-up if I had a birth plan yet, I automatically replied without thinking - 'yes, to get the child out as quickly and painlessly as possible!' much to her look of confusion. I think my plans were supposed to include scented candles and an Enya CD but, I mean, what else is there to say?
Childbirth didn't get any easier for me as I clocked up each child, it remained steadfastly ghastly right up to child number five and I don't anticipate this one will be any different.
Several hours of agony, weeping and indignity await in the not so distant future and as always, I try not to think about the attention this child's portal into this world will receive. I'm always struck by the irony that the one time - THE ONE TIME - it matters what my ladygarden looks like, i.e. when there are a room full of people looking at it, is the one time that I can neither see it nor tend to it for maximum attractiveness beforehand.
Not that this is of great concern after 10 hours of labour when you've reached the pushing stage. I always imagine this stage is not dissimilar to having a large chicken bone wedged in your throat. Logically you know it has to come out, it can't go back in as it would kill you - and besides, it hurts like hell - but you wish desperately there were some other way. I've never understood those women who feel aggrieved at having a C section, claiming they've missed out on something magically maternal and natural. There's nothing natural or magical about crouching on a table in front of a bunch of strangers, trying your best to push a human through a filter usually reserved for a tampon, hoping against hope that you're not propelling your bowels into any sort of activity while you're at it.
It's not pretty or fun and the male equivalent (for any male readers who are curious) would be like placing your balls on a table while someone dressed as a nurse repeatedly pounded them with a mallet while exclaiming 'good boy, that's it, just one more!' over and over again, while you wept and prayed for death to come quickly.
Journalist Caitlin Moran puts it best when she writes in her brilliant memoir, 'How to be a Woman' -
I simply can't add anything meaningful after that brilliant summation, so I won't even try....
But here I am, with seven weeks left and am starting to feel the full weight (pardon the pun) of what I've elected to put myself through again, as well as recalling all the stuff I'd conveniently forgotten.
 |
| I feel a little like this woman... |
Feeling a baby squirm and kick inside you, while your ageing eyesight causes you to you squint at small print through those £1 glasses from Poundland, feels a little like rearranging the furniture on the doomed Titanic. At once my body shuffles towards its inevitable decline, while simultaneously prodding me daily with evidence of this last bloom of fertility, as each new stretch mark and quivering belly confirms new life within. In all honesty it's been the first pregnancy where I didn't feel aggrieved from start to finish at the restrictions placed upon me. This time it has absolutely felt like a privilege.
But these feelings have started to wane as the pregnancy approaches its final weeks and I'm now being reminded of the many and varied drawbacks.
The simple task of bending down to pick something off the ground is fraught with guilt since inevitably I forget until it's too late that there's a human in there who doesn't like being squashed in the act and I find myself yelping, "Oops sorry baby!" about a dozen times a day.
I do hope he's OK in there...
Drinking so much as a cup of coffee results in a good two hours of heartburn as my body reminds me I'm not permitted the simple pleasure of a caffeine hit every now and then, since my sole purpose on this planet currently is to serve as a one-woman incubating pod for child number six - my own selfish needs and desires no longer relevant.
My cravings are an odd mix of short term comfort followed by long term discomfort as I'm compelled to repeatedly munch my way through entire trays of icecubes, followed by bags of rocket leaves, leaving me feeling bloated and bilious and requiring at least two Rennies to counteract the effects.The other day I was forced to drive to Daventry after a scout of my local shops turned up not a single bag of rocket. I wondered briefly during the drive home what fellow drivers made of me as I sped past, shoving handfuls of leaves into my mouth and chewing them in bovine fashion.
In previous pregnancies I've enjoyed a glass or two of wine of a night but I'm finding this is neither appealing nor worth it due to the aforementioned heartburn and I'm desperately trying to recall why I love alcohol so much in real life...it scarcely makes sense to me at present although common sense and a deep self-knowledge assures me I'll have rekindled my former love affair with a chilled glass of white within days of the Grand Exit.
And as before, breathing has become a luxury I can only expect to fully enjoy during daylight hours, and sleeping in any position other than on my right hand side has become an impossibility if I or the baby are planning to actually survive the night since lying on my back, my weekly emailed pregnancy bulletin assures me, will cut off the baby's oxygen supply, and lying on my left leaves me feeling as if I'm having a stroke.
Not that sleeping is a huge concern; the hourly trips to the loo ensure I'm kept nicely alert during the night which is useful as it gives me many hours to ponder the massive arrears on my Irish mortgage or whether DH is going to drop dead on the commute home from work one day soon, from the stress of having so many dependents, leaving me destitute and penniless with six children. (Note to self, google life insurance policies.)
As I wrote last time, I'm convinced women are hard-wired to forget all the unpleasantness which goes along with pregnancy and childbirth, otherwise only a drugged up sado-masochist would have more than one baby. The early months can be tiring and nauseous, but nothing is as incapacitating as having an almost fully grown human baby living in the front of your body, no matter how charming the maternity wear ads make it look with their docile looking mothers gazing smugly at their perfect bumps, dreaming of a drug-free, orgasmic birth, surrounded by Joe Malone scented candles and a sensitive husband.
Anyone who's actually been through childbirth knows that this image bears as little resemblance to real childbirth as Boden's Christmas catalogue resembles actual Christmas and a more accurate comparison would be 16 hours spent hanging upside down on a hook at the local abbatoir, for example, or something worse.
 |
| Silk underwear and cashmere socks are my outfit of choice for putting up the decorations...naturally.... |
 |
| Um..14 steps? Am I doing it wrong? |
In fact when the midwife recently asked me during a check-up if I had a birth plan yet, I automatically replied without thinking - 'yes, to get the child out as quickly and painlessly as possible!' much to her look of confusion. I think my plans were supposed to include scented candles and an Enya CD but, I mean, what else is there to say?
Childbirth didn't get any easier for me as I clocked up each child, it remained steadfastly ghastly right up to child number five and I don't anticipate this one will be any different.
Several hours of agony, weeping and indignity await in the not so distant future and as always, I try not to think about the attention this child's portal into this world will receive. I'm always struck by the irony that the one time - THE ONE TIME - it matters what my ladygarden looks like, i.e. when there are a room full of people looking at it, is the one time that I can neither see it nor tend to it for maximum attractiveness beforehand.
Not that this is of great concern after 10 hours of labour when you've reached the pushing stage. I always imagine this stage is not dissimilar to having a large chicken bone wedged in your throat. Logically you know it has to come out, it can't go back in as it would kill you - and besides, it hurts like hell - but you wish desperately there were some other way. I've never understood those women who feel aggrieved at having a C section, claiming they've missed out on something magically maternal and natural. There's nothing natural or magical about crouching on a table in front of a bunch of strangers, trying your best to push a human through a filter usually reserved for a tampon, hoping against hope that you're not propelling your bowels into any sort of activity while you're at it.
It's not pretty or fun and the male equivalent (for any male readers who are curious) would be like placing your balls on a table while someone dressed as a nurse repeatedly pounded them with a mallet while exclaiming 'good boy, that's it, just one more!' over and over again, while you wept and prayed for death to come quickly.
Journalist Caitlin Moran puts it best when she writes in her brilliant memoir, 'How to be a Woman' -
"The breaks in between contractions were like licking a dripping tap in a burning house - a second of relief, but, when you turned back, it was so hot that the moisture burned from your lips; the walls had gone up and there had never been a door or window in the first place. The only way to get out was to turn inside out, like an octopus, and fly out through the magic doorway in your bones."
I simply can't add anything meaningful after that brilliant summation, so I won't even try....
No comments:
Post a Comment