When Eggs Go Bad...

Prayer?

This time last year I was terrified. I had just discovered that I was pregnant, and the godawful waiting to see if this one would survive had begun. I remember so vividly the ice that would run through my veins every time I went to the loo. Working up the courage to pull my knickers down, in case I saw blood. And the couple of times that I did see blood, the gut-wrenching grief. Grief in anticipation; grief in memoriam.

I remember each visit to the Silver Cervix club, getting up on the table and shutting my eyes. The chilled gel (do they refrigerate the stuff?), the pressure of the scanner, listening for the telltale sound of the doctor catching her breath, or clicking her tongue. The sound that might indicate that all was not well.

I remember the doctor putting her hand gently on mine and saying, "You're terrified. What can I do to help you have confidence in this pregnancy" and knowing there was nothing she could do. If she couldn't guarantee a healthy baby, then I would remain afraid.

As my pregnancy progressed, the terror lessened in the second trimester only to return full throttle in the third, when my thoughts turned to cord accidents and unexplained stillbirths. I sobbed on my midwife's shoulder as I confessed to feeling no joy, no excitement, only dread.

And when I gave birth, my body shook uncontrollably. I knew it was the epidural that I'd been given to facilitate an external version and ventouse delivery of my stubbornly posterior baby, but the shaking reminded me of fear, and so I was frightened again. When my son finally emerged, the firs thing I said was "He's not crying, is he OK?" Even in the face of medical personnel who were clearly not at all worried, I fully expected God or fate or whoever to be reminded of my presence and thus of the need to hurt me.

My son is now 4 and a half months old, and I sobbed secretly last night at the thought of losing him. What used to pass as prayer is now a half-formed, primal chant: pleasedon'ttakemybabypleasedon'ttakemybabypleasedon'ttakemybaby.

Please don't.

Keeping Abreast...Or Not

Six weeks have flown by. it's amazing how quickly they have passed. My little 7lb 7oz newborn is a strapping 11lbs (I'm estimating) and is becoming more aware and interactive by the day. The growth is a particular achievement given that the poor child has a good case of Gastroesophageal Reflux and therefore honks up much of any feed he is given. With baby Gaviscon he is doing much better, but he can still do a fairly impressive puke, and it almost invariably lands on the one bit of clothing that I have not covered with a burp cloth or on my freshly laundered sheets. Such are the rewards of motherhood.

One consequence of the need for medication is that I weaned the small one onto bottles for all but two of his feeds at 3 weeks. I went cold turkey. All the websites and books tell you to cut out feeds gradually, but patience has never been my strong suit, and I decided I wanted it over and done with as quickly as possible. Cue two days of a couple of b**bs like boulders and wearing cold cabbage leaves in my bra to stave off mastitis (it really works!!).

I maintained a morning and evening feed for the next 3 weeks, but every time he would bring massive amounts of the milk back up, usually soaking himself in the process. So, today, we had our last ever breastfeed. He fell asleep looking like a little milky drunk, happy and peaceful; I sobbed my heart out. I will almost certainly never breastfeed a baby again, and I thought my heart would break with the grief of having to let go. Oh, I know I could keep it up for longer, and Lord knows the tit Nazis would excoriate me for not nursing him until he's in his twenties, but my son and I have mutually decided that this is the right time. He isn't terribly interested when he breastfeeds, whereas he can pile back 5 oz in a bottle with aplomb; and I am looking forward to carrying around something slightly smaller than twin cantaloupes. But, my God it is a poignant decision. Still, I had Mr B take some lovely photographs, for my eyes only. Something to look back on and smile.

I know there will be many other milestones where I will weep at having to let something go. One day he will go off to school, stop wanting mummy cuddles, as me to drop him off round the corner so his friends won't see that he has a *gasp* mother! That's the buggery of parenthood: we are forever bound to our children, but from the moment they are born, they are moving away from us, becoming ever more independent until they need us only a little bit.

So I am going to go watch my sleeping son while I still can.

Sometimes Things Work Out After All

Rory was born on 23rd December, 7.02 pm, weighing 7lb, 7oz. Full head of the most gorgeous golden-brown hair, and blue eyes that will almost certainly stay that way. The Badeggs Daughter has made it her sole aim in life to make sure that his little baby buttocks never rest on anything other than a lap.

Mr B and I are overjoyed and under-rested.

Full delivery story to follow. It was a doosey, but I think he's worth it...

Something is Afoot

Bad Boy is fractious. And restless. He moves. A lot. His favourite time appears to be after dinner when I sprawl in beached-whale fashion recline in a ladylike manner on the sofa, when my stomach starts to look like that scene from Alien. Even Mr B can see it from across the room (he doesn't come too close these days; I wield irritability like a weapon).

About a week ago, I'm sure I felt a small baby head protruding on my left side. And two nights ago, I actually grabbed a foot.

I remember when I was pregnant with the Badeggs Daughter, I commented that I was carrying either a future ballerina or a future footballer. So she must have been active, too, though I don't remember any such roilings as the post-prandial ones I've described above. I do recall once being able distinctly to make out an elbow, but that was at 36 weeks or so. (Incidentally, with the Badeggs Daughter, I got neither Fontayne nor Rooney. What I have instead is quite the most surly teenager on the face of the planet, who if she moves her legs at all does not so so to attempt a grand jete or hammer home a goal but instead to carry her to and from the fridge so she can decimate my stash of diet coke before resuming her MTV vigil. And I am doing this again because...?)

In other news, the nursery is now pretty much done. We are collecting the cot/crib on Sunday, and already have the matching dresser full of cute little jammies, blankets, booties and hats. (This is where I start watching for lighting bolts or other signs that Fate is a bitch and has it in for me.) It is a tiny room, but Mr B has done an amazing job on it. It has wainscoting panels up to a height of about 4 feet, and these are painted in Antique Satin, a lovely biscuity colour, while the top part is painted light blue. Mr B laid some oatmeal coloured carpet that is lovely and warm. And the whole thing goes perfectly with the bedding that I bought in the States this Summer. It's really brought it home for us that we are, on balance, fairly likely to have an actual living infant this winter. Real lump in the throat stuff for us. Next step is to buy some baskets and accessories to really make it cozy and tidy.

I shall also be equipping the nursery with a CD player so that I can play the Classical Baby CD that was given to me yesterday by...wait for it...the person I had to fire last month. If I say so myself, I think it says a lot about me that I handled it in such a way that not only does she not hold a grudge against me but actually bought a present for my bump. It says a hell of a lot about her, too.

So, until next time... a bientot!

Exes and Ohs

Did you miss me? (What do you mean was I gone?!)

Had an excellent vacation (with huge apologies to those of you with whom I had tentative plans to meet up; it just didn't happen for various reasons including em being sick with a cold the entire first week!). It threatened to start out badly, as Mr B and I had to tell the Badeggs Daughter that her father had been arrested.

We knew it was coming. He has harassed me for 9 years now with awful, upsetting letters and the occasional phone calls, and Mr B has been on the receiving end for the past 4 years. It has got much worse in the past couple of years, culminating in police involvement during 2004, when our wedding was preceded by several letters commenting on everything from our choice of wedding day (11th September) to whether I was entitled to a church wedding seeing as I am a liar and a cheat. More recently his parents started sending things to me, and his letters became increasingly upsetting, and that's when we decided to involve the police again. He was asked by them to stop writing; his response was to start writing letters to the police! He was asked to stop again; final warning. He wrote a letter to me that actually threatened me (smart guy, eh?). So on 23 July at 11 pm he was taken into custody and interviewed for a few hours. His parents bailed him out, apparently, and his mother telephoned mine to tell her how depraved I am. Yeah, cry me a river.

Anyway, you can imagine how difficult it was to tell my daughter. We decided to do it ourselves, rather than risk having her hear it from her father or grandparents, who would of course skew everything so that it was all my fault (because the police are always arresting people on my say so, don't you know). It's hard for her because she hears her father say that he's only trying to start a dialog with me about her. She can't understand that his letters are nothing to do with creating a dialog or building bridges but are simply a vehicle for abuse. And of course she wants to believe her father is a decent person. Mind you, deep down I think she knows that he has problems. About a week before we left, she came down and spoke to both Mr B and myself (unusual; it's usually just me) and spoke of how her father is always talking to her like she is a stand-in for me. "I am worried he's going to end up in the loony bin," she said, "He's so paranoid."

Daughter cried when we explained about the arrest (hell, even I cried; I never wanted it to end up like this) and I told her it was OK to feel angry and upset with me and with the situation and even with her dad. She went to spend some time on her own, but within hours she was talking to me and acting normally. She had a lot of heart-to-hearts with my younger sister who has the gift of being able to temper bluntness with humour, and my daughter shared the content of those talks with me (or at least some of it). By the end, she was happy to simply let it be the grown-ups' problem. In fact, when her grandmother called towards the end of our trip (yes, they can never let the child just enjoy her time in America) she took the call in full earshot of my sister and mother and was heard to tell her grandmother: "I don't want to hear it, Grandma. it's not my problem." What a kid!

She's now in France for 10 days on a school water-sports trip. By the time she's back, we should know whether her father will actually be charged with harassment or just given an official caution.

Arrgh! Enough about the exes; now for the Oh!s. Yesterday was my 20-week scan (and I am officially 20 weeks' pregnant tomorrow). I've made it to the halfway point and baby has all his/her fingers and toes and everything else it needs. And the kid yawned, I kid you not! RIght there on the monitor. I guess we were boring it. (Ha! Just wait 'til you're born, kid; we're the most boring people on the planet.) We did have the gender 'confirmed' (they never give you 100% certainty, but they were fairly confident in what they saw/didn't see) but we're not telling. Only my sister and best friend know! I will try to get the photos scanned so that I can post them via a link, but our scanner's shot, so I have to find someone at work to do it for me. Don't hold your breath! (But I do have the cutest shot of his/her little feet!)

It was all very emotional. I didn't cry, but I kept thinking about all the babies we had to lose to get to this place. And though I know that they simply weren't 'compatible with life', as they say, that something in their genetic make-up had gone wrong and they simply couldn't have lived, it still makes me sad to think what might have been for those sons and daughters of ours. And it just kills me that there are mothers and fathers going through the agony of repeated loss or inability to conceive right now. I just wish so much that I could fix it for everyone.

It's good to be back. Work is busy and the broadband at home is down, so I may not be able to post very much for the time being. But you know where to find me.

Blessings

Just a quick post...

I thought this post, over at Knocked up...Knocked down, was amazing. I've never stopped to think of it that way. And while I  believe that being more fortunate than some does not mean I can't grieve my own tragedies, it doesn't hurt me to stop and think about what I do have:

A loving husband

A fantastic daughter

A job that I love

A warm, lovely house

Supportive parents and sister

Good friends, both real and 'cyber'.

And hopefully, tomorrow, an 8-week-old foetus.

Thanks

You guys are the best. Thank you for all your lovely comments. I've been on such an emotional roller coaster today (not helped by the fact that I had really bad cramping this afternoon. Touch wood it seems to be better). But Mr B went out to get me all the fixins for tacos just because I had a craving. And if that doesn't make me smile, what will?

I'll keep you updated.

Stranger(s) Than Fiction

Sometimes, you search and search for answers. You spend days, months, years without them. You begin to believe that your questions will never be answered. You make the assumption that because you have yet to find an answer, it must mean that there is none to be found, or if there is, the answers are complex, unfathomable, meant for someone else.

And then a stranger from a Baptist Church somewhere in America speaks directly to you through another stranger.

And suddenly you have answers. Simple, humble answers that reverberate in that place in your heart you thought was dead forever: You will live with your loss, love with your loss; you need not have the faith that moves mountains, because your brothers and sisters are keeping the faith for you while you hurt.

Flicka and Chuch Lady: thank you from the bottom of my heart.