Labour: just like building your dream house

One of my favourite British TV shows, which I missed the most when we were in the US, is Grand Designs. (Gratifyingly it has become one of TLOML's favourites too.) Grand Designs follows interesting home builds - unusual restorations, eco-friendly new builds, and so on.

A Grand Design house (image pilfered from Channel 4)

Most weeks the people building their dream home liken it to labour. As in 'this house is our baby and building it is like giving birth.'

I have a new perspective on any use of birth as a metaphor. I now know that nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, is anything like giving birth. Giving birth alone is like giving birth, and it is like nothing else.

Having said that, I noted a couple of interesting parallels with the dream-home building process.

1. Naive optimism
The happy fools who are turning their grand designs into a home are always unrealistically optimistic. Kevin McCloud, the presenter, scoffs at their budget estimates and their idea of a reasonable timeframe. He is always right: in a dozen series I've never seen a home built on budget, or on time.

And yet the owners always think the impossible can be done, no contingency will be required, and the build will be weatherproof before winter. Just like I thought, when we arrived at the birth centre at 4pm, that I was very far along and would doubtless be delivering Lady P in an hour or so. (She arrived 8 hurt-y hours later) The same kind of naive optimism that lead me to ask the midwife, after a couple of pushes, 'do you think she'll be born on the next push?' (In the event I had about an hour of pushing ahead of me.)

2. Foolish pride
Often the owners decide to despatch with specialist support from professionals like project managers, quantity surveyors and even architects. And even when the windows arrive on site completely the wrong size, or the entire building team quits en masse, and Kevin McCloud raises his eyebrows and says 'Are you sure you can manage this build without help?' the foolhardy owners are too proud to admit defeat and hire in the experts.

Similarly, even when it became apparent that I had many hours of labour ahead of me, and the pain was hugely more than I had anticipated (for who could anticipate such pain?!), I bit my lip, banished thoughts of an epidural, and said to TLOML 'this pain is totally manageable'. Pure pride.

For what it's worth, I'm glad my optimism and pride won the day. Lady P was so alert, and calm, swimming up to meet us, and I felt pretty much 100% within a day or two of giving birth. So taking the natural (optimistic, prideful) path paid out for me. Still, if I'd know beforehand quite how much it would hurt and for how long, I wouldn't have been quite so bullish.

I'm like those chumps at the end of the Grand Designs episode, sitting in their dream home, laughing at the fact they went £100k over budget and they nearly had a nervous breakdown in the process, saying 'If I did it over again, I would do it just the same.'

They usually go on to add 'I'm not sure that I would do it again though.' That's where we differ... two weeks in and we're already confident we'll be doing this whole birth and newborn thing again some day. Only next time, I'll know how much pain to expect.

Taxpayer funded pins and needles

I'm fortunate to have always enjoyed good health. Which means I've never really got great value out of the NHS. I'm okay with that, being as I am a total leftie. But still, it's nice to feel like I'm clawing something back now. This pregnancy is proving to be a great opportunity to get my money's worth.

It's not just the basic care I'm getting - all those check ups, my flu jab, the fact I can give birth in a lovely birth centre. That's an excellent start. But I'm enjoying the extras too. Remember all those extra scans we got? And I'm going through an industrial size bottle of Gaviscon every week (free, on prescription). It's all gravy.

My Gaviscon bottle - shown here next to a regular London townhouse, for scale

Today I scaled new heights. Who knew you could get acupuncture on the NHS? Well, you can. And I did.

My hospital, the Whittington, offers acupuncture in the maternity unit, for pain relief, to turn breech babies, and to induce labour. I was a little bit sceptical, I'll be honest. Research on the efficacy of acupuncture is patchy at best. But I figure, if it's NHS-funded that must mean someone who knows more about healthcare than me has decided it is worth a punt. According to the practitioner I saw, they believe it's saving them money in reduced C-sections and fewer chemical inductions.

Anyway, even if it doesn't work, it gives me something to fill another long afternoon of maternity leave with. So, at 6 days past my due date, I checked in for my first session. Pins were placed in areas which will apparently help 'with descent' and send extra blood to my uterus. After I mentioned a couple of pregnancy symptons she chucked in a few extra needles to combat heartburn and water retention. My scepticism began to dissolve as I felt weird sensations, almost like electric shocks. Goodness knows what it's doing, but something is definitely happening around those needles.

It's hard to create anything like a calming, spa-like environment in a curtained hospital bay. So on one side of me I heard a long discussion about bowel movements, and on the other a woman made a noisy phone call to her aunty to discuss a funeral. Despite that, I was so relaxed that I almost fell asleep. Not sure if it was the effect of the needles, the hospital warmth, or the fact I could do nothing but lie still and breathe. But for whatever reason I came out of there feeling like I was walking on air.

And did it work? Well, given that I'm 41 weeks pregnant, the chances of me going into labour in the next few days are extremely good - with or without the needles. Still, I got out of it what I wanted: a diverting and pleasant experience. And the satisfaction of enjoying another health service, thanks to the good old NHS.

My deaf ears

I can't help it. For months I was absorbent as a sponge, I really was. Because I'm constantly blogging or tweeting about pregnancy, I invite more than my fair share of pearls of experience from others. Until very recently I was eager to hear about others' experience, and keen to learn from those who've been through it before.

But as of now any advice that comes my way falls on deaf ears. I think I'm just so stuffed full with it all that I can't take in anymore. TLOML says it's my fault for banging on, tweeting and blogging about my pregnancy so much: no wonder I get a lot of feedback.  And as I said, until just now, I've been gobbling it all up eagerly. So no wonder I'm a little overwhelmed with it all.

Or maybe what's putting me off the barrage of advice is the fact that a fair chunk of it is just kinda doom-laden. By well-meaning friends who've been through it before, I am told I might as well book my epidural now. And that rarely will we have the time or energy to cook a nice dinner. Our hopes to travel, or occasionally go out on a date, or even read a magazine once in a while are gently scoffed at. Meanwhile TLOML is told he willl be feeling left out (as he won't be involved in babycare). And that we will argue a lot and I must be placated at all costs.

It sounds miserable. Will our baby really be such a tyrant? Will I? And are our lives over? Yikes! I'm pretty sure it's too late to take this baby back.

Fortunately, I'm optimistic naive enough to believe that, while it will be very painful, giving birth will ultimately be very rewarding. And that although we will of course, be tired beyond all reason, we will also be happy. And in it together. I want to go into this whole thing feeling upbeat, positive and excited - rather than tensed and expecting the worst.

I've stopped reading the weekly 'your pregnancy' emails from NHS, Bounty, Babycentre, Babycenter, HiPP, Aptamil and Cow & Gate. (On reflection, perhaps I signed up for too many.) I've even stopped watching One Born Every Minute, the ultimate source of birth horror stories.

The only kind of birth stories I now want to hear are positive, 'I didn't even notice I was in labour & then the baby slipped out like a bar of soap' stories. The excellent Tell Me a Good Birth Story site has plenty of good ones and I've read them all many times over. Similarly, I only really want to hear from friends who say things like 'Yes, it's tiring but motherhood is wonderful', or 'The sleep deprivation is tough but my goodness it's worth it'.

So if you've offered me any advice in the past few days, and I seem to be glazing over, forgive me. I'm choosing blissful ignorance, or vague positivity. Life as an optimist is really much more pleasant.

Relinquishing control

Being mentally prepared for labour and birth is a good thing. Taking time to consider your preferences, and to document them in a birth plan, is a useful exercise. But it is generally recommended to keep any open mind. Anything can happen, and it's important to be able to go with the flow. Accept that the birth may take a different course than what you have planned, and don't freak out if you can't get into the birthing pool, or have an epidural, or it turns out to hurt way more than you expected.

Well, that's all very sensible. But I'm just not sure it's achievable.

I live a highly structured, fully itinerised life. I write things on lists and then I do (or buy) them. Things don't 'just happen' to me, and I rarely go with the flow. Sure, I like a bit of spontaneity - but only if it doesn't interfere with my plans.

So my plan for labour and birth is really quite fixed. I really want to use the pool, and I hope to avoid medical intervention. I have created several itunes playlists for different points in my labour and have written clear instructions for TLOML about which ones to play and when. (Yes, I know.)

Too specific?

I have also been quite particular about when I want all this birthing activity to happen. I'm trying to make a meeting with a literary agent early next week. Plus the cleaner comes on Wednesday morning. And my sister is in town next Thursday and Friday. So my ideal is for labour to start on Wednesday afternoon and be over by Thursday morning.

I know, I know, it's ridiculous. There's at least a two week window now in which my baby could make her appearance. And all sorts of circumstances could arrive which render my playlists completely redundant.

But I'm just really hoping for a like mother, like daughter scenario. Fingers crossed she'll be as keen on structure and plans as I am.

On babies and punctuality

I stopped work at 38 weeks, which is just two weeks before the baby is due. I figured if she comes on time, two weeks will be plenty of time to relax and prepare. Especially if I spent my last month at work mainly resting while working from home. Which I did.

Plus, people always tell you that first babies are always late.

And yet... some instinct inside me insisted she might come early. Hence our state of extreme overpreparedness: the bag has been packed for weeks, I avoid going South of the river for fear of being stranded in labour, and we are careful to ensure it's never been more than a week since our last date. Oh, and that we are never low on milk or bread.

In fact although first babies are more likely to be late than second babies, they are still predisposed to arriving a smidge ahead of their due date (week 40). Find the stats here, in this fascinating blog. To save you the detailed read, here's a chart I pilfered from it.

Courtesy of Probably Overthinking It by Allen Downey

The chances of a baby - firstborn or otherwise - arriving in week 39 is higher than in any other week.

TLOML's attitude is that since she has a date scheduled, she should just arrive on that date. He's a stickler for punctuality.

Personally, I think it would show a certain proactiveness if she arrived, say, a day early. But please, no sooner. I'm due a few more days of Special Time yet.

One thing neither of us will countenance is a late baby. There's only so long we can maintain this state of high alert and constant readiness.

Our final last ever date night

A little over a week ago, TLOML and I went for a 'Last Ever Pre Baby Date Night' dinner. I was just 38 weeks pregnant, but we wanted to be prepared and have had a good date night in the bank in case the baby came early. We are, I think, the world's most overprepared parents-to-be.

We went to La Patagonia, an Argentine restaurant in Camden, which TLOML declared mucho authentico. He should know, given the amount of time he spends in Argentina 'on business' (eating steak). They have a proper parrilla grill to cook on, which the waiter proudly told us has already started several fires. TLOML had entrana, and I had grilled vegetables with sides of morcilla and chorizo.

All week long we talked about how delicious that dinner was.

6 days passed and still no baby. Delicious though La Patagonia was, we weren't sure how much longer we could savour the memory of that date night. So we went for another 'Last Ever Pre Baby Date Night' dinner. This time we went to Chicken Shop, a ten minute walk from Fox Corner. It's a hip rotisserie chicken place from the people behind The Electric and the gaggle of hip members' clubs and restaurants they have spawned.  It was quite the buzz when it opened in Kentish Town last summer, and we've been waiting for it no longer to be the hot new spot so we can try it. (We don't like to be ahead of the curve, with all the teething problems that entails).

The menu at Chicken Shop is beautifully simple. We ordered everything on it.

Well, excluding puddings, of course. That would be greedy. A whole chicken and four sides, by contrast, is just the sensible thing to do. The food was excellent, as it should be when the menu is that small. It is up there with Porchetta for making a virtue of only selling one thing, and doing it so well that that one thing is all you want to eat.

Best of all, we sat next to the Norfolk chicken farmer who supplies their chicken. We clocked him and his friend as soon as they walked in because they didn't look like the other clientele. In as much as they were 20 years older and, well, looked a little agricultural. He proudly told us that he supplied the chicken, and that Chris Martin (the singer, they helpfully clarified, not the football player) had eaten his chicken in this very restaurant. They were very proud, and rightly so.

So, now we have another great date night to reminisce about once the baby comes. She's due in about a week. If she's late, this could be a rather expensive month.

Rooming in

Being as I am fully pregnant and obsessed with it, I have spent a lot of time reading books about pregnancy and babies over the past few months. It really is a full time job, keeping up with various symptoms, baby fruit sizes, and the many rare but terrifying things that could go wrong.

My main sources have been two very different books. The British  bestseller, Rough Guide to Pregnancy, is irreverent and funny. Every week's chapter opens with a line showing the length of the baby, which I enjoy holding up to my belly and marvelling at.

For better coverage of medical mishaps and physical symptoms I've  been perusing the US classic,  What to Expect When You're Expecting. Every month's chapter starts with a list of what 'you may be feeling', which always includes constipation, flatulence, and 'emotional'.

It's a balanced diet of pregnancy info.

I'm also enjoying spotting the discrepancies between US and UK approaches to pregnancy. 'Rooming in' is one that, as I contemplate the hospital trip that is ahead of me, leapt from the pages. Keeping babies in a nursery while mum overnights in a nice quiet room is still apparently fairly common, judging by this What to Expect story.

I don't think it's nearly as common in the UK. Unless your baby needs special care, they usually do 'room in' with you. In fact, it's not really usual for a woman to stay in overnight in the UK, unless there's something wrong, or there's a need for longer observation of the mum or baby. A few hours after any straightforward birth, once the baby's had a feed and the mum's had a cup of tea, the NHS like to pack you off home asap.

In the US, I gather, it's much more normal to stay in hospital overnight. But then, the whole event is a lot more medicalised. Midwives deliver babies in only 8% of US births - the rest are delivered by obstetricians. By contrast in the UK midwives, armed only with gas and air and pethidine, deliver the vast majority of babies in the UK.

I've  become aware that most of my US readers think I'm a little nuts for imagining I can go into hospital, give birth without a doctor to 'help' me, and be home the very same day. It's fairly normal behaviour over here. So like the crazy Brit I am, that's exactly what I'm hoping to do. Watch this space....

Special Time

Today I entered Special Time. Special Time is a concept, or a practice, we were introduced to at that brilliant Active Birth class. It is the weeks before birth, when the expectant mother simply rests, indulges herself, and stays calm and peaceful, ready for the trials of labour.

So far, I like it a lot.

In Special Time there is plenty of time for sleeping, and for gentle exercise. I can bake to my nesting heart's content. Plus I get to dedicate a couple of hours to important matters like Pinteresting celebrities wearing bad - or good - maternity outfits, Twittering about pregnancy stuff, and surfing What to Expect. Oh, and writing.

(I'm working on a writing project to do with pregnancy, so my interest is strictly professional. And by the way, that's why I've been so socially media active lately, and why the blog is almost entirely pregnancy focussed these days. I'd like to say that normal transatlantic service will resume soon, but to be honest, this whole baby thing is quite absorbing, so I think it will continue to dominate my posts.)

Anyway, in addition to all this productivity, I also have time to indulge myself. Today, for example, I had a long hot bath, listening to my birth playlist and thinking happy thoughts. After my bath I put in a solid hour napping. I awoke to the smell of the delicious Colombian soup TLOML was cooking up for our dinner. All that on top of a decent walk, a dozen Tweets, and a couple of episodes of 30 Rock.

AN AFTERNOON OF SPECIAL TIME:

Bath time (melting bath cupcake courtesy of Babes with Babies)

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Nap time

Dinner time (courtesy of TLOML)

Because I only began my maternity leave two weeks before my due date, I reduced the amount of time available for Special Time considerably. I now think that was plain stupid. So while most women at 38 or 39 weeks pregnant are eagerly drinking raspberry leaf tea and eating curries, I am stroking my belly whispering 'stay in, stay in' and hoping for a good stretch of Special Time before the noise machine is born.

Adaptability

Life isn’t what happens to you, it’s how you respond to what happens to you. So said my wise entrepreneurial friend, and so say I. The key to happiness is the ability to adapt to your conditions.

I pride myself on my ability to adapt, whether it be to the supreme sacrifice of moving to Malibu to be with TLOML, or the grand experiment of our spell in Manhattan. TLOML has had a harder challenge, moving to London in the wettest summer ever and unable to leave the country. But he’s adapted well too (albeit with the odd shaking of his fist and shouting ‘this country!’). As soon as he’s identified his local coffee place, and a purveyor of quality meat, he’s happy. For me, once I’ve established a storage system in a place, I consider myself at home. And that never takes long.

Likewise Jack. He’s adapted very well, being moved from my old flat into a new, bigger one with my activist friend. And then moving back into Fox Corner, and getting to know TLOML. Once he knows where his food bowl is, he’s happy. He also likes it when you put something flat (like a newspaper) on the floor so he can sit on it. He like to be able to go where he likes, when he likes. And that includes jumping on the bed at any time of night he wants some attention.

Jack, happily sleeping on a bag.

Now everyone is telling us how dramatically our life is going to change when the baby comes. Apparently we will be sleep deprived monsters, snapping at each other, unable to string a sentence together and with no more time for long, relaxed dinners. Our cosy, coupley life will be altered beyond recognition.

Well, call me naïve, but I’m remaining positive. So long as my storage system remains intact (and no-one puts the blankets on the swaddle clothes pile), I’ll be okay. And so long as TLOML can still walk about and get his nice coffee from Euphorium (even if he has to do so wearing a baby in a sling), I think he'll be happy.

The question remains about how Jack will cope. He’s rolled with the punches so far, but this baby is going to change everything for him. No more unsupervised access to our bedroom. And we’re imposing a new zero tolerance for being woken up. I fear for him: his cat equilibrium is about to be rather upset. I wonder if it will be enough if we just keep leaving newspapers, empty bags, and such like around for him to sleep on.

Hopes and wishes

I'm hearing lots of lovely hopes and wishes for me, TLOML and our firstborn at the moment.

Everyone is wishing a quiet final week at work for me. Friends who've done this before are hoping I get a good few days, after work and before I go into labour, to relax, nap and watch rubbish films. We're keeping our fingers crossed for a straightforward labour and birth.  And of course we all hope she'll be healthy from birth - and grow up to be wealthy and wise as well.

All these things are largely out of our control (though I'll do my best to avoid working too hard) But there's another hope someone has for us - and it's entirely in my power to grant it. It's from G, my goddaughter's little sister, the daughter of my fabulous, e-entreneurial friend - and she wrote it in a card for us.

I like the wish, and the card, so much I've pinned it up in the kitchen, right next to my birth affirmations.

'I hope you call your baby Hip'

The only thing is, I'm not sure I'm going to make it come true. 'Hip' did not make our shortlist of baby names.  How to break it to little G, I just don't know.

Never mind the placenta, what will we do with the cord?

Recently I've received a few emails via the various American pregnancy websites I've signed up for (a girl with a bump can never get too many pregnancy-related emails) promoting cord blood banking for 'just' $1300. I just did a quick Google and it looks the going rate is $2000, plus another $200 a year for storage.

I assume the cord blood banking market in the UK hasn't matured yet, as I haven't seen anything like that from the British sites.

But when we first met our midwife back in August we were given a leaflet about cord blood donation. Many UK hospitals offer this service, whereby you donate your cord blood to a public bank, like the Anthony Nolan trust, or the NHS one. They will apparently use it in transplants for people suffering from leukemia or blood disorders - or for research into the same kind of disorders.

It's somewhat speculative stuff, this cord banking. It's a medical advance that's still in the 'great idea' phase. To quote Wikipedia (so it must be true), 'apart from blood disorders, the use of cord blood for other diseases is not a routine clinical modality and remains a major challenge for the stem cell community'. The chance of your cord blood being used to treat a blood disorder (if you develop one) is 1 in 435.

So we've decided to donate our cord blood to our daughter, on the event of her birth. If there's any left, and the hospital works with a cord blood scheme, we'll donate the rest to the public good. What goes around, comes around, after all.

We're off to see the midwife this morning, to get properly registered with the nice birth centre. We have a list of questions relating to the birth. So far they are mainly about the hospital canteen opening hours and whether they have an ipod dock or we'll need to burn CDs of the amazing birth playlist I've created. We're keeping this whole 'creating new life' thing simple, and focussed on comfort above all.

Bump Size Matters

I know it matters, because the midwife gets a tape measure out  - occasionally to declare it 'too small' - every time I see her. Presumably she's not just doing it for shits and giggles.

I know bump size matters, too, because it's the reason I can no longer wear most of my baggy, pre-pregnancy jumpers. It's pure maternity wear from here on in.

But there are a couple of unexpected consequences from wearing a bump that's measuring on the small side of 8 months:

1. Getting through the slightly annoying half-width door into the Fox Corner loo is increasingly difficult.

2. On the plus side, it makes an excellent resting place for a wine glass or perhaps a tumbler of extremely weak gin and tonic.

(Yes, I know, it looks way bigger when I sit down).

Happy New Year

2012 was quite a big one for me and TLOML. The small matters of a move from New York to London, getting married, getting pregnant, and - perhaps most life-changing of all - reuniting with my obese cat.

You might think in 2013 we'd plan for a little more stability. But no. We embrace change, the one constant in our life together so far.

Our plans for the year ahead include having this baby - well, yes, that's inevitable given my current physical state. And we think we'll move to Saltburn for a few months while I'm on maternity leave. Then back to London for my return to work. Unless I move jobs and we stay Up North. Or we decide to call time on the experiment of TLOML running his California-based business from the UK (so far it's not exactly easy) and need to move back to the US.

The uncertainty about where we'll be living 6 or 12 months from now is nothing new - it has been ever so since I first moved out to LA in 2009. I have real estate alerts running on Saltburn, London, Malibu and Manhattan Beach simultaneously. Considering my love of a highly predictable routine, I am a lot less disturbed by this than you might think. I figure wherever we end up, we'll have a lovely time together.

So yes, just a couple of house moves and a baby. No biggies.

Whatever 2013 brings you, I hope it comes with bags of laughter and happiness.

Nesting, for real

Having used the cot as storage furniture for the past few weeks, TLOML and I were finally consumed with an urge to do a little more to set up the nursery. Knowing that we were just a few short weeks off 'full term' gave us that nudge.

So in the week before Christmas we washed all the newborn clothes, toys, blankets and swaddle cloths we have acquired. Then I was overcome with a burning desire to organise them all into tidy little piles. Which involved a major overhaul of our linen drawers, a fair amount of rummaging around for cardboard boxes to store surplus sheets and towels, a lot of huffing and puffing and an immense sense of satisfaction.

Cleaned, categorised, piled up tidily. V satisfying.

I guess this is the thin end of the nesting wedge. So it seems I'm not immune, after all.

Christmas has been a great distraction. All that baking and cooking. The organising and wrapping and putting into logical piles of gifts. It's good displacement activity. Even so, on Boxing Day I did find myself frenziedly stitching little ribbon hooks onto tea towels 'so they would hang better'. I think this might be what nesting feels like.

Now the seasonal jollities are almost over I can get on with this nesting business in earnest. Hmm, I think that rocking chair would benefit from a quick going over with some Cif. 

Birthday Boozing Bonanza

We have been told repeatedly, and really quite insistently, that we must go out as much as possible before the baby comes. And we are trying to do as we are told. After all, our months in Manhattan proved that we are really quite good at that going out thing.

TLOML notched another year up on the totem pole of his life at the weekend. So we used that as the excuse for a grown up, glammed up, Saturday night out at the Proud bar in Camden. It’s part-hipster bar, part-old school cabaret club. We noshed on beef wellington and sipped martinis (well, he did anyway) while watching a steady steam of cabaret and burlesque acts. I enjoyed a whole glass of wine and some rather risqué bresaola. Living on the edge! The show was appropriately classy and fairly PG but still counts as our raciest night out since we moved into FoxCorner and got all ‘with child’. We were home by 11pm, mind you - no stopping off for a nightcap on the way home.

On Sunday we spent the afternoon drinking (water for me, beer for him) with friends in The Grafton, a new star on the already fairly stellar NW5 drinking scene. Being of the age we are, and living as we do in London where children are welcome in pubs, we were surrounded by the small children of our friends. I think at one point the kids actually outnumbered the grown ups. They brought our table’s average age down to somewhere in the early 20s. It was quite a different vibe to the New York social scene we enjoyed, and really very lovely.

Naturally, an afternoon in the pub lead to a spontaneous curry. At least, as spontaneous as such an inevitability can be. That makes two nights out on the trot, and with an afternoon of socialising in between them too. Still, we were home and watching Homeland by 10pm.

So, I guess that’s a strong indication that our days of random late night cocktails are over. Manhattan is uniquely well set up for that sort of behaviour. With so many great bars and all open late, on any evening walk home you’re always just a few steps away from a Perfect Manhattan.

London has its fair share of great bars, of course, but wandering through Camden on Saturday night I was really quite put off by the length of the queues to get in. And of course, once you get in you’ll have to wait ages, standing up, to be served. So unappealing! Especially when the alternative is a drop of single malt (for him), and a cup of chamomile tea (for me) in the comfort of your own home.

Oh, wait, is that 'middle age' talking? Shoot. Maybe it isn’t London after all.

I’ll blame pregnancy for now. And maybe the lack of great table service in London. And I promise we’ll do our best to go out at least a few more times before the baby arrives. Then we can blame her for our lack of appetite for late nights and fabulous bars.

What shall we do with our placenta?

I thought it was worth returning to the Active Birth Course. It merits more than just a mention in a post.

In summary, it was a brilliant course, with some great practical advice on managing pain and staying calm. I enjoyed saying ‘my baby fits my pelvis perfectly’ many times over, and watching videos of babies being born to blissed out Russian ladies in Black Sea rockpools.

 (Warning - this video shows actual babies being born. Do not watch if you are easily freaked out).

I was grateful for the experiences shared by Janet Balaskas, the coach, who pioneered the Active Birth Movement in the ‘70s, and the midwives there. Sayings like ‘first come the poops, then comes the baby’ are easy to retain and ensure at least I won’t be surprised if, well, that happens.

But there were some aspects which left me cold. I pretended I was into it, but when we were on all fours, roaring like lionesses, I was totally faking it. I didn’t feel like a lioness at all.

And the placenta chat, well, that horrified both of us. Who knew there were so many options? As a bare minimum, it was recommended that we take a moment to ‘recognise’ what the placenta has done for us and our baby. After all, it’s been her constant companion in the womb. Some people think it’s nice to take it home still attached to the baby. Apparently you can get these ‘lovely little bags’ to keep it in. How nice for the baby to have her constant companion tucked into her Moses basket next to her – and how lovely for everyone who comes to meet her, to also get to meet little miss placenta too. Once it is detached, you might want to bury it in your garden and plant a rose bush in it. Or have it freeze dried for your own consumption. Delicious.

While everyone else was writing down the name of the placenta drying service, TLOML and I were sniggering with disbelief.

Overall, though, it was a great course: the perfect mix of education and entertainment.

Active Birthing aka Pull Your Socks Up

TLOML and I attended an Active Birth Course at the weekend. Active birthing is the exact opposite of giving birth lying on your back. It involves moving around, saying mantras, and listening to plinky-plonky spa music whilst giving birth in a great big tub.

Active birth, hypnobirth, or just plain old fashioned ‘grit your teeth and bear it’ natural childbirth are fairly popular in the UK. Of the British babies I know, fully 75% of them were born without medical intervention and to women who had no pain relief other than a bit of gas and air. (The other 25% involved emergency C-sections or epidurals administered after hours of agony).

Those are British babies though. And I’m sure there are pockets of ladies in Venice Beach or Berkeley who give birth listening to dolphin music. But the vast majority of US births are managed less like a love-in, and more like a medical event. My US sample size is a lot smaller, but Mr Google backs me up in my instincts: twice as many US births involve an epidural, for example. Epidurals are a bit of a dirty word among the yummy mummies of North London. It’s up there with  admitting you had a MacDonald’s at the weekend.

TLOML and I mused about why this transatlantic difference exists. He has long held a theory that Brits are tougher than Americans. Brits are tough because we are used to putting up with awful weather and crummy service. But Americans will always win the day, because they refuse to put up with anything sub-par: they battle the climate with air-con, and don’t tolerate anything other than good, smiley service.

So it makes sense that most American women will not be conned into thinking that their painful contractions are, in fact, ‘surges of energy’. Nor will they miss a chance for pain relief, and the assistance of extra staff. Just as there are 20% more staff per customer in the average US restaurant, there are probably 20% more staff per birth in the average US maternity unit.

Having seen how Kourtney Kardashian gives birth* I understand the appeal. She lies, blissful and quiet (presumably doped up to her eyeballs), not looking remotely sweating or anxious, being told when to push. It looks very calm and lovely, the model of a medicalised birth.

Meanwhile, with our upper lips famously stiffened, we Brits just soldier on thinking hours of agonising pain is just all part of the process. ‘Pull your socks up, Samantha, plenty of women have pushed out breech babies!’ ‘Stop making such a fuss, Edith, it’s only been eight hours of pain!’.

I hope I’ll handle the birth stoically, if not joyfully... I will update you sometime in February about whether I stayed tough, or went all America and called for an epidural.

*Don’t judge me! It’s good telly. Also we like the shots of LA, Malibu and Calabasas. Sigh.

Nesting... or not?

I have landed safely on the shores of my third trimester. I understand there are some certainties in this land.

The first is heartburn. Check. Having hardly suffered at all I am now paralysed with acid reflux every time I bend at the waist, no matter what I’ve eaten. The good news is that since it doesn’t seem to be any better if I eat like a bird all day, I’m not bothering to eat like a bird at all, ever. Given that I’m going to suffer whether I eat pizza or salad, I’m eating pizza.

Speaking of birds, the second certainty is apparently nesting. Apparently I should be seized with a compulsive urge to dust the curtain rails, make a quilt, and clear out the cellar.

Sadly the only thing I feel a compulsion for is whisky, espresso and other banned (or severely limited) delights. Maybe all nesting really is displacement energy, distracting pregnant ladies from the stuff they really want to be doing – like sipping Perfect Manhattans - with boring household chores.

Well, the nesting instinct may not have struck but I’m not totally ignorant of the needs of my unborn child. I know she, and her parents, will need a lot of clobber. So TLOML and I did a big spree - mainly so we could avoid shopping in the Christmas or January Sales crush.

For a couple of weeks the clobber stayed piled up in a big mess in the corner. Which, despite my nesting-trimester status, did not bother me one little bit.

 

Then, this weekend we went on a birthing course and suddenly the reality hit us. We really are going to have a baby, a real live one of our own, and she could be here in just a few weeks.

So TLOML got all organised and built the cot – mainly to use as storage, admittedly. So our baby’s clobber is now all neatly tucked away in the corner of TLOML’s office. We’re planning to leave Fox Corner in the spring - because we just haven't moved house enough lately - so the baby isn’t going to get a room of her own until we move I’m afraid.

I still don’t think this counts as nesting. I mean, I couldn’t even be bothered to take stuff out of boxes or categorise it properly. (And you know how I like to categorise.).

Is there something wrong with me? Will I ever truly nest? Or is our child destined to enter a world where her monitor lives in a box, she shares her storage space with a printer, and she wears her John Lewis clothes with the tags still in?

People say the strangest things

And I'm not just talking about the idiocy of TLOML telling me I looked like Humpty Dumpty (surely ill-advised?).

Like, on finding out she’s a girl, ‘oh that’s brilliant! Girls are so great!’. It makes me wonder what they’d say if she was a he. ‘Oh what a shame, girls are so great,’ perhaps?

I shouldn’t be snarky, it’s just politeness I know, and of course people say it’s brilliant whichever gender you announce. 

But I am curious about the response I'd garner if I started saying ‘yes, we’ve found out… it’s an American,’ or ‘…she’s a goat’.

My Hairy Baby

There’s a chatty lady at Big Corp who is always asking after my health and that of my bump. She usually looks a bit disappointed when I tell her (truthfully) that I haven’t really suffered any unpleasant pregnancy side-effects..

The other day I told her I had started to suffer heartburn, just to keep her happy. I had, in fact, had a smidge of heartburn. But I had eaten a massive curry accompanied with 2 pints of water, topped off with three satsumas. So it’s probably just actual heartburn, rather than the special pregnancy kind.

She was delighted. ‘Oh!,’ she cried, ‘You know what that means, dintchya?’

I had to admit that I did not. God knows I read enough Babycentre, NHS and Bounty emails and surf enough Mumsnet blogs, I thought I was reasonably well informed. But I missed the bit about the significance of heartburn. (Shame).

‘Airy by-bee,’ she cackled. Loud enough that people’s heads turned from quite far away. ‘You’re ‘aving an airy by-bee!’.

I recreated the sound for you here (turn your sound up for max authenticity - she really belted it out):

For the benefits of Northern and American readers, I will translate. She was accusing me of having a hairy baby. Which sounds disgusting to me. Like a little chimpy baby growing inside me, all matted and unkempt. Yuck.

I smiled, and said, ‘Really?’ and silently wished her to be struck dumb with heartburn.

Funnily enough at our last scan, a few days later, we were told that it was already possible to see the hairs on our baby’s head. I guess she will be quite hairy when she’s born. We were a little disappointed that the sonographer couldn’t tell us if she was blonde and fuzzy, like me, or had the poker straight, chestnut hair I dream of for my daughter. I wonder if, in the US medical system, you’d be able to find that out…

Needless to say I have not given Ms Chatbags the satisfaction of knowing she is right about our little chimp.