Daisy En Route- Part Two

So here we where, back home, Matthew conked out on the bed and me…I had this fear that if I fell asleep I’d wake up to find my baby’s head poking out. Thankfully I did manage to sleep but not for very long as my contractions had started to kick in. How to describe contractions…I imagined this is what Superman experienced when general Zorg zapped him with cryptonite. But at varying times my Zorg was just toying with his cryptonite…I wanted zapped regularly, preferably 3 minutes apart not 16 minutes.

I finally rang my mum to tell her that I was in labour…albeit snail on a tortoise back labour. ‘What do you mean your eating crumpets and watching Beetlejuice! Get to the hospital!’ she’s shouted at me, panicking enough for the whole family. 

I gave up the crumpets and ordered pizza.

Daisy En Route-Part One

 

I woke up this morning with two chubby legs hanging over my face, and a small padded bum pressed against my cheek. This small bum proceeded to trumpet me a very loud good morning, and so began my day. At just over three months old and a little drool genius, Daisy is not only the apple of our eye, but the whole fruit basket. So I’m going to go back to the beginning and tell the tale of our fruit baskets arrival.

My waters had popped at 11:15pm on the 16th of May. It was nine days before my due date and I’d felt iffy since 5am that morning. Having called his boss to tell him the baby might be on the way, my partner had supported me in my ‘ I think this is it’ pacing of the house and eating dominoes until 6pm,when we gave up and decided our baby was too comfy and staying put. We’d climbed into bed at 10:40 by 10:55 Matthew was asleep. I was just in the process of rolling over when I felt the dull pop. It was reminiscent of water balloons from my childhood and the wet thud of them hitting the ground. I’d never rolled out of bed so fast in my whole life…as I stood on the towel ,which luckily had been hanging  over the radiator, both Matthew and I started to laugh… ‘You’re definetly not going to work tomorrow honey’ I said.

The bumpiness of the drive to the hospital felt like some otherworldly terrain trying to shake the baby free…also no one had told me that when your water breaks it’s not the whole thing  that goes. There’s quite a few more miles left in the baby tank that will make its appearance felt with various bumps and movement.

I remember my partner and I arriving at the maternity hospital and thinking ‘this is it, I might be going home with a baby tomorrow’ shortly followed by the thought ‘ I hope my vagina proves to be a worthy exit door’

Too many stories of said exit doors blowing off their hinges had me worried for its sturdiness.

So here we where, gearing up but no contractions, sitting in the assessment room waiting to be told what to do…I could hear Daisy’s heartbeat as they’d hooked me up to check it out along with my own. That’s when I spotted the spider making it’s way along the top of the curtain. It came to a stop directly in view of the bottom of the bed. In that moment of early labour clarity and curiosity all I could think was ‘That spider has its own live, One Born Every Minute show’

‘We’re going to send you home and book you to come back in 24 hours’ said the friendly midwife. With no contractions in the vicinity I was being sent home to see if they would start on their own and if not it would be the hormone drip to induce me. I felt disappointed…as i waddled off the bed…dignity abandoned,there’s something about having a large light beam into your cervix that’ll do that, i decided some snacks where in order. ’24 hour Tesco it is.’ said Matthew.

Bidding a silent farewell to the spider we exited the room to what sounded like an animal being tortured alive-

‘It’s just the girl giving birth next door.’ said the still smiling midwife as she walked us out.

 

My ten funny things when being pregnant

Tags

babies, motherhood, Mums

1. Poop catchers

Walking past a stand of nappies and then rushing to my work friend saying ‘I just realised I’m going to have to buy nappies!’ Definetly made it more real and unless I was carrying Tarzan and planning on giving birth in the jungle, buying that item wasn’t escaping me.

2. I was meaning my belly! 

Standing in the toilet cubicle at work, desperately needing a wee, and unrolling my massive maternity trousers down my belly. It was as if I were properly seeing it for the first time and what comes out of my mouth next? ‘Oh my god it’s so big and hairy’ I despair to think what the ladies I’d spotted at the sinks reaction had been to hearing this.

3. Matthews moment

My partner thinking that being 10cm dilated meant that my lady door was the part that got wider.

4. Delivapoo

I wanted to throw up on the Deliveroo guys every time I spotted one. I was convinced their cologne was eau de BBQ. I remember my partner driving past one and having to look away. ‘Delivapoo’ became my name for them.

5. The pop chips incident

Again we revisit BBQ. One week I couldn’t get enough of the things. Then  one Saturday morning it became Van Helsing to my Dracula…it clawed at my nostrils with its smoky talons…overpowering the house with its pungent demonic stink. I’d innocently made my way downstairs unbeknownst to me that the BBQ beast had been freed overnight by my partners little brother who’d stayed over. I remember fleeing up the stairs and opening all the windows. Matthew had found me a few moments later, huddled in the covers sobbing uncontrolably. ‘Darling what’s’ wrong?’ he’d asked, looking really concerned.  ‘P-pop chips.’ I’d sobbed, clinging to his shirt ”I can smell BBQ pop chips everywhere!’

6. Sniffing Paper-

It literally made me salivate. Especially new print. It was as if they’d been sprinkled with a magical potion…what sorcery was this that had me scanning the corridors of work as I walked past the table hosting the new brochures that had recently been put out. Picking up a few I’d hold them just under my nose, flicker the pages, and inhale deep… I got caught once by my friend who was walking past my office…she’d stopped slowly turned and said ‘You weirdo’ before bursting into knicker wetting laughter. But having sniffed a few classics at Waterstones I’m now convinced the smell of Neverland is why Peter Pan doesn’t want to leave!

7. Stairs

Climbing the stairs to work was like trying to get the one ring back to Mordor.  I had a few samwises offering to push me up but I waddled  with determination up those stairs right until my maternity leave. At home I just crawled up them, like the rotund little hobbit I was.

8. Greggs

I’m not going to lie. The main nutrition of my gestating baby was bacon butty’s, choc eclairs, and Chicken baguettes. A girl In front of the queue once snagged the last choc croissant… with blood in my eyes I envisioned tackling her to the ground and slapping her with my 7 month pregnant belly. How dare she!! Instead I calmly asked for an eclair and tea and grudgingly went on my way. Twice a day I’d cross the street, so familiar to the lovely ladies who worked there that in the end they gave me a free lunch as a maternity leaving gift a week before I was due to go. Mistakenly they’d thought it was my last day. My colleagues ended up collecting my food for the next week. Guilt laden I hadn’t had the heart to tell them I still had a few days left!

9. Roast dinners

It was Sunday, I’d just thrown up and I was crying to the window. My long suffering partner yet again asking me what was wrong ‘I just really want a roast dinner’ I’d whimpered pathetically. He got me one. One of many.

10. Nana’s advice 

I had always planned to try and breastfeed and had appreciated any and all advice given but up at the top never to be knocked off was my Nana’s –

‘Just get Matthew to suck your nipples dear, that’ll toughen them up!’

 

 

 

Once upon a poo…

Drinking cold cups of tea, eating with one hand and peeing with a baby on my lap. I can add all this to my motherhood C.V along with poop explosion on white dress, brushing my teeth whilst breastfeeding, and having a ‘I’m not worthy’ sense of respect for the dairy cow. All hail the dairy cow.

I have learned from my mistakes. Especialy ones of the poop verity. My daughter is the most adorable little person on the planet to me. She does a great Robert De Niro expression whilst she sleeps and has an overwhelming ability to surprise her daddy and I everyday with the new skills she quickly learns. But she likes to save up a special delivery for us. One that we have termed ‘Shituation code yellow’

They say a breastfed baby can go ten days without pooping…if my daughter went ten days I do believe she would take down the house or implode. The expression on her little face is priceless and the noises she makes actually had my parents in tears, due to the fact they where laughing so hard. It’s the equivalent to a motorcycle revving up. Once her business  is done it’s a mad dash to the changing area whilst I try to take damage control. Suddenly it’s as if my baby has turned into Chuck Norris, blocking my every move as I try desperately to stop flailing little arms and legs from entering  the no go area. The clothes, brave soldiers of fibre that they where, cannot return to their day job as they bare the leaks of war, and my daughter is not happy as I change her, even mad enough to, YES, get a little bit of poo on her nose in retribution.

I feel like I have been to battle when it’s over and that cute little nose is as clean again as her bottom. A new change of clothes, and we’re happy and content as she once again partakes in her favourite thing…the booby or as she likes to call it, ‘Ninnng’ and as I stroke that little head my eyes are drawn to a touch of yellow…could my daughter be turning blonde? No…it’s just a little bit of shit on that beautiful tiny head.

 

Changes

If the month of June is a lady, then this lady is going to be a funny one.
Having lived in Scotland the past thirty-three years, I shall be packing up during this lady’s visit, as I’m moving down south to England in July, to live with my boyfriend.

I’m convinced that finding boxes to put stuff in should be awarded by a brownie badge, or some shiny object that is presented by a wise wizardly figure in robes, once said amount of boxes is achieved!
I’m all for recycling, but we have a box shortage people. You might not think it, or be aware of it, but it’s there. And when you need to move house, it will hit! Save the box creatures. They will come to your aid one day.

I never knew how much stuff I actually accumulated over the years until my last move. I even found an Etcha-Sketch.Which did not help with packing. Fourty minutes of squiggly jibberish later, my two boxes ( i was hoping they’d somehow fall in love, do the box dance, and give me an army of baby boxes) still had two unpacked belly’s. So i shook the Etcha, and got back to packing.

 

 

But back to the present. I have packing to do, a new job to find, and i have to totally annihilate my boyfriends comfortable, blokish house, with my female artillery …remember honey, i’m only doing it because I love you 😉

The cat that got the coffee.

In my haste to get to work, I made the grave error of setting down my coffee. Lucky, our long coated grumpy feline, who rules the house with a swish of her fluffy tail decided to get curious.

In my tornado state, squirting perfume whilst trying to pin the gap in my black work blouse and trying not to stab myself in the process, the cup had become the furthest thing on my mind. The curious feline however, decided to pounce, smack with her paw, in what could only be described as ninja like and send the cup flying…curiosity appeased -cup now killed by ninja strike- she reclaims her throne which is the futon. The coffee of course has decided to take revenge…my computer keyboard now catput!