I have a new app on my iPhone called Timehop. A nifty little gadget that shows you your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc posts from anything up to (in my case) 7 years ago. Today, a post came up with a picture of me at a party 2 years ago and it is safe to say, I was muntered. Hideously drunk, a complete mess and a raging hangover followed the next day that required me to stay in my bed all day and wallow in self pity.
Flash forward two years and I have spent the morning wiping jam stained fingerprints off of the coffee table, hollering at my toddler to get away from the tv, and collapsing upstairs in the study to write this in the approximate 20 minutes of peace I will get whilst she has her morning nap. Yes, my life has taken quite the different direction in the two years since that party.
When the little blue line turned up on a test I took one morning in October 2012, I felt an overwhelming panic, nearly resulting in me screaming 'CHANGED MY MIND' and bolting out the door. Instead, I took a deep breath and told my partner who smiled and said everything would be ok. He's remained that resilient ever since! It must be once you know for definite, but straight away I started feeling sick. Although, that might have just been panic. Anyway, off I trotted to work, carrying with me this big secret that I didn't want to tell anyone about until we had had the first scan at 12 weeks. My lord, those 12 weeks were probably the longest of my life! Every birthday invitation we got filled me with a sense of dread, I am known for drinking at gatherings, so I was sure people would suss me out! Eventually though, we had the pictures in our hand and had seen the little moving blob on the screen and everything was fine. We could shout it from the rooftops if we wanted to. We settled for uploading a picture of a pair of baby Jordan shoes on Facebook as our announcement to our friends and the responses were overwhelming. And so was to begin our journey.
I'm not going to sugarcoat it, I didn't really enjoy pregnancy. I am self conscious at the best of times so when my body started changing, I was not really up for it. There were numerous occasions that I discovered something didn't fit anymore and burst into floods of tears. I even cried in the middle of a shopping centre in Cardiff because all of the maternity clothes seemed frumpy to me. Hormones have a lot to answer for! The day I felt the baby move for the first time though was pretty awesome and it turns out all those 'bubbles' I had been feeling before hadn't been trapped wind, who knew! As my bump grew and grew, the compliments I received from friends and even strangers sometimes, boosted my confidence. I had back ache, my bump itched in the evenings, the horrendous heartburn made me feel sick and I was up and down all night to the bathroom because my baby felt the need to use my bladder as a trampoline, but tummy up I still looked relatively like myself, just a little chubbier. My friends organised me a gorgeous baby shower and we received loads of beautiful gift and whilst this is traditionally an American way, I'm glad the Brits are embracing it. Its an awesome way to make a fat, hormonal woman feel a little bit special for an afternoon.
On the day I went into labour, I had been to a midwife appointment in the morning and I remember telling her how fed up I was and that I was in a really bad mood. She smiled at me and told me that a change in mood can often be a sign that labour is about to start. How right she was!! After eating a massive lunch and having a browse around Mothercare, my waters broke at 4.10pm when I was led in bed watching TOWIE on iPlayer. I was completely on my own and totally freaked out, it was the weirdest feeling ever and its so funny, I can remember it so clearly even now. A visit to the hospital at 5.30pm told me everything was looking fine but no major action to worry about just yet so off home I was sent. Later that evening I was back in at 10.30pm and my cervix was dilated 2-3cm so they gave me some gas and air and started the birthing pool filling up. 2 hours later I was only 4cm and everything was slowing down so out I got and opted for some Pethidine in the hope that I might be able to sleep. 20 minutes after being injected, I was 10cm and ready to push!! Talk about speedy stuff! Now, I am not going to lie, I was a complete mess even with all my 'research' from watching OBEM, nothing had prepared me for what labour actually feels like. How women do it at home with hardly any pain relief (or none at all!) I will never know. It was horrendous. And I know this might sound stupid but when they were telling me to push, I had no idea what to do. When my tiny little 6lb 13oz baby finally made her appearance, it was definitely not like they show you in the movies, which naively I was expecting! There was no fluffy white towel, I looked like death rather than the bronzed, manicured goddess I was imagining (seriously, our first picture of us as a family will never see the light of day if I have anything to do with it) and I HURT. I was in all honesty completely traumatised and even when I looked up to my lovely boyfriend who had tears of joy streaming down his face, all I could think was that I couldn't believe that had just happened to me. I even thought my daughter looked rather alien like. Surely this wasn't normal? I was supposed to be overwhelmed with love and fuzzy feelings of joy? Where were these feelings? I've since realised, these feelings can be completely normal so don't fear, pregnant friends!! It's not all bad, I promise but that's for the next instalment.......
