The Baby reality: Overwhelmed by this whole new world

Do you know what a Poddle pod is? Is this something that has ever entered your consciousness as a non-parent? Take those first few unsuspecting steps into the world of babys and it's like you've just arrived at Hogwarts only it's a whole lot more overwhelming. There's a load of strange magical objects with funny names which are apparently life saving devices for problems you never knew existed in the first place. Everyone speaks English but it's interspersed with these strange made-up sounding words like colic and iggle piggle. How on Earth will a muggle like you fit into this strange new world?

Just a day spent with two mummy friends, allowed to let loose and talk all things baby, tipped me from confident, grown up adult to feeling like the new kid at school. Tea and cake (something I forsee there being a lot of in my future) and well meaning advice about everything from buggies to breastfeeding sent me home crying like a hormonal idiot. How will I know what to buy (and what not to buy), what are my labour choices, and never mind baby sensory, what on earth am I going to do when I bring a real life baby home?

After sobbing to my husband (who really hasn't had the reality check yet) I realised all I really have to do is keep it alive and not leave it somewhere. I can learn how a complex software system works, I can surely learn how to operate a small human. My often clueless mother managed it and she didn't even have the internet. From the women living off the scrapheaps in Africa, the slutty girl at school and the morons in the queue at Asda, there are 7 billion of us on this planet, it cant be that hard?

Having a happy pregnancy

So I started this blog mostly for my own therapeutic rambling into the ether, an attempt to document and thus legitimise my attempts to lead a happier life through making an effort to do more stuff. However I don't seem to have found much time to do much exciting recently and life is changing fast. Am I still blogging about Doing more Happy or what?

Well if ever there was a time to enjoy life and get the most out of it its now. I've put off starting a family for a long time with this selfish notion that having kids would ruin any future fun in my life. Weirdly since it's become a reality I don't have that feeling at all. Maybe I have actually grown up??! I guess I am realising that life is not going to end just because I won't be backpacking through the jungle or out raving til 5am for a while (plus I didn't really do that anyway) It will just be different.

These next days, weeks and months will be made of crazy changes and fleeting moments, never repeated, and I should appreciate it. It's amazing what is happening right now- My body is making another human! Pregnancy is a transient time and we do need to make the most of the last times before a new person takes over our life.  So the ethos of Do More Happy still stands. Let's make this a happy pregnancy...

First Trimester, Worst Trimester? All day nausea, epic tiredness and insane worry

Video of 10 week scan. Baby bouncing around like a little T Rex. 

The first 12 weeks of pregnancy is something we learn about from baby books and magazines and crazy paranoid internet searches. If it's your first pregnancy then you have no other reference point. It's not like you can relate to what your friends or colleagues went through, or talk with people about what's going on. Because noone really talks about being pregnant before 12 weeks.

The high risk of miscarriage in the early stages of pregnancy means it's still somewhat of a taboo to mention it before you get to the 'safe zone'. But here's something new and scary and weird as hell happening to you, and it's disrupting your life already, and you feel ill all the time. But for some crazy reason, do not tell anyone why.

Before I even took the test, even as early as 3 weeks I had a suspicion that I was pregnant because I was mega, mega tired. Like so tired I was sleeping on the sofa as soon as I got home from work. And tired every day, not like when you need a lie in after a late night, because no amount of lie in's was getting rid of the tiredness.

Then the nausea came with it. Morning sickness is a stupid name for it. All day, low level of bleughhhh. Feeding the cats, emptying the dustbin, I didn't even open the fridge for weeks because every food smell would turn my stomach. It wasn't even like I was actually sick that often, but the nausea and gagging and total loss of appetite was hard to deal with.

It seems pregnancy, even in the earliest of stages, comes with a whole list of 'normal' symptoms besides sickness from bloating and headaches to cramps and spotting and all sorts else. And there's a fine line between a normal symptom and something more worrying. And god do you worry, especially if it's your first and you haven't been through it before, and even more especially if you've had a previous loss.

Irrational worry, raging hormones, tiredness and sickness but YOU CAN'T TELL ANYONE. In your fragile state of mind you also have to construct a complex web of lies to explain it all away to anyone who might notice. From why you can't make it to the Christmas party (because your colleagues are a bunch of dicks normally, it's too hideous to see them drunk while you are sober), why you drove to the pub that's 10 mins walk away (driving's an easy excuse), why you missed the early train again (puking), why you aren't coming out on a school night (sleepy), it just gets to be hard work.

The end of the first trimester brings a huge relief and not just because you are into the 'safe zone' where the miscarriage risk drops off a cliff, and that the worst of the nausea and fatigue will ease. (Have faith, it will and you'll appreciate how awesome normal really is) Finally you can share your joyful news and also share your woes- explain that you aren't intentionally such a flaky friend or worker, and grumble with others who've been through it.

Suddenly the secret is shared and you have a wide group of concerned friends, coworkers and family who actually ask how you are and want to talk about this amazing, exciting news and nothing else. Nothing else at all. Just about the baby, and your wellbeing (only with regards to the baby) Actually though, you feel fine now and it would be quite nice to just get on and talk about other stuff for a bit. What was all that drama about anyhow?

2015: A Big Scary Adventure

We're having a baby! Yeah yeah, millions of babies are born every minute, standard life event, what's new. Well just because nearly every adult goes through this, often several times over, doesn't mean that on a personal level this is not a momentous, life changing, scary, exciting and massive thing for us. (and probably anyone else going through this too)

It's 12 weeks today, the 1st January 2015, and it's beginning to feel like it's actually really happening. We've known for 8 weeks now, a little secret, a lot of worry and not thinking much beyond there being a little thing in there starting to grow. In the past 2 weeks we've had a private scan and seen it kicking about and a miraculous heartbeat and reached the end of the risky first 12 weeks with no substantial concerns. We've told our families on Christmas day and our friends on New Years Eve, and suddenly it is not just 'I am pregnant' but 'We are having a baby'. Arghhhh!

Hello 2015

Blimey I started 2014 with some good intentions. Coming back a year later to the little blog I pretty much abandoned after 4 months has been refreshing. A lot has changed, and lots has not changed (good and bad) but it does feel like the positive intentions I set out with last year have made some impacts.

We start 2015 in a very different place, poised on the brink of a big adventure that will change our lives completely. So I'm coming back to try this blogging thing again. Forget that big empty gap in the timeline, it doesn't mean I shouldn't pick things up again and carry on. Here goes...

Busy busy busy

Should remember this...

Its been a while...



Been busy

 

New jobs for us both (good and bad), new people, new car, new adventures. Change is good, however it works out.