The warmth of a daughter’s hand

I never expected to feel love for my daughter in such a physical way.

You know how your heart jumps in your chest when your new boyfriend calls you, or when your husband comes home with a single red rose or a huge bunch of lilies, or when your best friend announces that she is pregnant?

Well, holding your daughter in your arms and getting that hug back from her feels just the same – it’s the feeling of love. Physical love.

It also happens when she caresses your face, or your arm, or your hand as she suckles your breast or as you give her her bottle.

Then there is also the times when all you want is kiss – no, eat! – her tummy, her legs, her feet, her cheeks, her nose, her neck. That also comes from a place of physical love. You just can’t resist it. Just like when you want to kiss your new boyfriend all day long, and then again all night long, or just like when you want to kiss that precious space in your husband’s neck.

But what always takes me by surprise is the warmth of her hand in mine. Not when we’re about to cross the road. No – in a quiet moment. When we’re looking at a book together, or when she is upset or ill and I am about to take her in my arms to give her the biggest cuddle to make her feel better. That tiny hand provides so much warmth, I can never quite believe it when I feel it.

PS: The picture is from when my daughter was 2 weeks old!

Back in business!

It's a scary thought, but for the past few weeks I have been musing about my blog. How I've been missing it. How, wow, now, it looks like I really may have the time to write a post every now and again!

It's not a scary thought at all, of course. It's a blindingly wonderful thought!

Just yesterday, I had an idea for a post. I can't remember for the life of me what it was, but it doesn't matter. The fact is: I'm thinking about my blog, I'm thinking about what I want to write, and best of all, I'm thinking that I can do it! I can write again! I thought this would never happen!

So just in brief: yes, motherhood really is the hardest job on earth, no manual, no preparation, no anticipation possible, but YES YES YES it really is worth it! I'm only now convinced of it, it took so long (my daughter is now nearly 21 months old), I know, but hey, I got there in the end! My daughter is so funny, now that she can say quite a few words, in both French and English, and so loving, and so sweet, and so cuddly, and now that she sleeps well consistently, it's a whole new experience. You can't compare it with the sleep-deprived nights and hazy days. No wonder some of my friends have been relishing motherhood since their babies were tiny - because they were sleeping well (both mummies and babies). Now I can too!

So thumbs up to having a baby!

The realities of motherhood

This was written on 20 August 2009!

If you want a baby, you have to be prepared to have your world be ruled by Sod’s Law.

Here is all you should know before making the decision to have a baby. You probably won’t hear or read it the way you should ― your desire to have a baby anyway will be too strong, you won’t care about what you read, you just want A BABY, I know, I was probably like that too, but I feel the need to tell it like it is, because every woman deserves the truth about motherhood and because women lie to each other. They don’t have the TIME to tell you exactly how it is ― they just say ‘Yes, I’m fine, it’s a bit hard, I’m tired, but we’re fine’, when really, what they want to tell you is THIS:

1) You can’t spend any quality time with your husband/partner.
2) You can’t spend any quality time with your friends, mum, dad, family.
3) You can’t spend any quality time with yourself.
4) You can’t spend any quality time with your baby, even.
5) The demands on your time are excruciatingly... demanding. You don’t have time to brush your hair, to put on make up, to go to the loo, to make a phone call, to send that email, to drink that glass of orange juice, to eat that piece of toast. All these little things you didn’t even know you were taking for granted Before Baby (BB).
6) Looking after a baby is relentless, you keep doing the same things over and over, day in, day out, without respite, especially if your family live far away and can’t relieve you of a few chores every now and again.
7) It gets better, but it gets a lot worse. You get used to interrupted sleep, you get used to not having a life any more, you get to appreciate that little being, but at the same time, as you do less and less for yourself, you need to do more and more for that little one ― more cooking, more looking after, picking things up, tidying things ― and my daughter is not even crawling yet! I know it will get worse! But I’ll do even less for myself and my friends and so I’ll have that little extra time to do those new things...
8) The minute you finally hit the pillow, your baby wakes up and needs a cuddle to go back to sleep. Not every night, but definitely the nights before the days you work. For sure.
9) She always naps for 2 hours in the morning. The day you absolutely need a nap yourself, you tidy up the kitchen and prepare the next bottle and send an urgent email and make a crucial phone call, you go and lie down ― five minutes later she wakes up. Today, she only needed a 30mn morning nap. You have to get up again, go and see her, pick her up, smile to her, change her nappy, feed her, carry on for the next three hours, until she needs another nap. And then you won’t do anything, you’ll just go straight to bed. You don’t get bitten twice on the same day.

At this point in my life, I can only think that the only reason women go on to have at least another baby is that they have accepted that their own, old, normal life has been put on hold, perhaps indefinitely, but for at least 3 years, and they have ‘seen the light’ ― the one that shows 99% of the time the beautiful things that a baby brings into this world and into their life. I have yet to ‘see the light’, I must say. However, I know I have started to distinguish it, all the way out there, at the end of that tunnel, the tunnel that encloses the first year of a baby’s life (as far as I understand, it IS the hardest year ― but only because after that you are used to not having a life of your own and you have started to really appreciate your baby and his/her funny little ways and to accept that this is how it’s going to be for the foreseeable future).

The last few days, I’ve had a really bad virus. Today I’m at home, unable to go to work, barely able to type this up, but I’ve been wanting to write all this for so long, I just have to, while C is at nursery, hopefully not catching anything nasty. And it’s only when I was quite ill with this virus (Monday and Tuesday) and spent two days with my daughter, right next to her while she played and I rested on the sofa, that I realised how truly gorgeous she is and how playful and funny and full of life and lovely she is and how selfish I have been these past few months, thinking about me me me and my old life and how perfect it all was (yeah right!) and I have accepted that perhaps my new life is better after all and I really must erase that old life of mine from my memory and start afresh with this new life, consider only its positive points, never think back, never hypothesise about what my life would be like if I hadn’t wanted that baby.

And at bedtime, C gives me the biggest kisses and hugs that make my heart melt and my eyes water and my emotions swell throughout my body and I realise how much I do love her. It nearly makes up for everything else. Nearly.

My new job

This was written on 22 March. I didn't even have the time to post it!

Thank God I was never given the manual for my new job as otherwise I wouldn’t even have applied.

Spotless

Less than a week to go!

Yes, our house is spotless. It’s not like I’ve been nesting like mad just recently. It’s that I’ve been nesting regularly for the past 9 months. Now with the impending birth, I just keep things clean and tidy at all times, as I know that once Sprog is here, this house will never look the same again and I will never have this much time on my hands!

So in-between making photo albums (a 2-year backlog!), tidying up endless folders of digital pictures, deleting megabytes of blurred, badly framed or uninteresting shots, resting and reading lots of books, I do the occasional dusting, a spot of hoovering, a bit of bathroom cleaning, and I put things away and throw useless items out. It is therapeutic, and every day I feel better and better for it all.

Every woman should have maternity leave at least once in her life, regardless of whether or not she is about to have a baby!

Denial

Just over eight months – one more to go!

I thought I would write loads in my blog these last few weeks. I thought I would take the time to document my pregnancy. But I am already writing a journal for Sprog, and one for myself, so there is just no time or willingness to write about it all in here as well.

But here are a couple of pictures of my tummy, at 7 and 8 months.



There could be a month left, there could be 6 weeks left, there could be just 2 weeks... or less... But I’m OK, I haven’t reached the impatient stage yet (‘I don’t want to be pregnant any more, let this baby OOOOOUUUUUUTTTTT!!!!’), although I’m getting a little more uncomfortable each day now, especially at night. The baby is doing great, still growing normally, and I’m feeling fine, if a little (very!) tired at times.

Everything is ready – the room, the pushchair and carrycot and car seat, the Moses basket in case we decide to use it after all (a friend of mine gave me hers but we still do intend to put Sprog in the cot bed straight away), the clothes, the bibs, the muslin squares (ten – apparently, you can never have enough!) and the towels and bath toys and mini picture books (of course!) and soft toys...

Still, I have been in denial for about 3 weeks. I can’t quite make the link between what’s wriggling inside me and the reality of a baby in my arms in a few weeks’ time. I wonder why we have transformed the guest room into a baby room, why we have piles of baby clothes, why we have a carrycot ready to go in the car, and worst of all, why quite a lot of old clothes and towels and a collection of breast pads and maternity pads are packed away in a suitcase, standing and ready to be picked up at the slightest sign of labour...

I’m pregnant now, and this is my new state, FOR EVER! Of course there’s no REAL baby in there, of course nothing’s going to come out. I’ve just got a big tummy, that’s all.

I’m a bit better these past couple of days – I’m back to reality. Maybe because it was my birthday on Monday and I didn’t do a thing and so I had plenty of time to talk to Sprog and feel him/her and tell him/her stories. But mainly, I think it’s because he/she’s growing so big now that I can feel every part of him/her: the back, the feet, the knees, the bum, that tiny little bum that makes me laugh so much when it pushes upward and looks like it’s going to pierce the skin of my tummy and pop out!

Intellectually, I know that in just a few weeks a baby will come out of me (try, anyway!), and now physically and emotionally, I am starting to feel that it really is quite possible that there is a real baby inside me and therefore it will want to come out at some point. It’s getting tight in there...

But Sprog, hang on in there. Mummy’s not quite ready, and you’re not quite ‘cooked’ either. You still need to put on a few more ounces and develop your lungs to their full capacity, so that you can give this powerful scream when you do come out...

Bruised

Six months today! Three more to go!

I am bruised.

All over.

But inside.

Mind you, outside too – I keep bumping into things, dropping things, hurting myself with forks and knives and jewellery and pens.

But on the inside, it’s not my doing. It’s Sprog’s.* I am battered, beaten, shaken, trodden, flattened and crushed. Day in, day out, and at night too.

I couldn’t go back to sleep last night. It was only half past midnight, I had been sleeping for a couple of hours, but Sprog had woken up and just used my bladder as a punching ball – the loo beckoned. Then Sprog never went back to sleep, hiccupping one minute, kicking the next. So I didn’t either. Well, until about 2.30 a.m., that is, after lying still on my back on the sofa bed in the study, resting, reading, till my eyes couldn’t distinguish the words on the page any more.

I hope that this is not the first step on the downhill slope that leads to the abysmal first few weeks after Sprog has joined the world (till he/she finally sleeps through the night). If so, it will be a long winter...

* I don’t like using the name ‘Sprog’ for our baby, but Monsieur l’Anglais likes it and it stuck pretty much from Day 1, so we carry on using it. I did suggest using the boy name we’ve chosen on ‘he days’ and the girl’s name on ‘she days’ (no, we don’t know what sex the baby is), but no, he prefers to use ‘Sprog’, so hey, I might as well use it here too!

An old wives’ tale?

Five weeks ago

When yesterday I retrieved Blooming Birth from under our bed, because my temperature was still 37 degrees, I knew it was a good sign. First, there was hope in me again. Second, there was will to start thinking about it seriously again, to prepare for it seriously.

Last night, I asked Monsieur l’Anglais what he wanted to do: wait until the 38th day of my cycle because my longest cycle had been 38 days (just two months ago), or do a test ‘tomorrow’? He asked how much longer we would have to wait if we waited for the 38th day. After a brief calculation, I said, ‘Two weeks’. He instantly looked crestfallen. ‘That’s a long time!’ ‘Yep! OK, let’s do this: if my temperature is still 37 degrees, we’ll do a test, OK?’ ‘Yes, OK!’ We were both quite excited.

So excited that this morning, I woke up early (6.00am) and couldn’t go back to sleep! Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait too long before Monsieur l’Anglais woke up too and decided to get up. At 7.30, we were downstairs. My temperature was still 37 degrees. The moment of truth. Monsieur waited in the kitchen while I did the business in the bathroom. It’s such a privilege to find out before everybody else!

It was not disappointment when I saw the horizontal blue line appear in the square window – it was complete disbelief. ‘No way!’ I muttered. I was so sure (99%) that I was pregnant that it was just impossible that the test would show a negative blue line...

But then, paradoxically, it was disbelief again when I saw the vertical blue line appear in the same window, crossing the horizontal line, making a perfect ‘plus’ sign! ‘Oh my God!’ I muttered this time, a huge smile stretching my lips and cheeks. I stayed quiet, finished peeing, then went into the kitchen, unable to contain a half-grin, holding the test in one hand and the instructions in the other. I had time to think ‘What shall I say? “You’re going to be a daddy”? No, that’s too soon... Just in case...’ and so instead I said under my breath, ‘I’m pregnant!’

‘So?’ Monsieur l’Anglais asked, ‘What does that say?’, unwilling to find out for himself, to read the instructions and work out what the blue lines meant. Of course, it was easier to find out from me.

‘I’m pregnant,’ I repeated, this time more clearly and loudly.

We hugged tight as he said ‘Good!’, beaming. ‘I love you.’

‘I love you too.’

I was shaking with emotion and shed a few happy tears.

Right now, a couple of hours later, in bed, resting, about to go back to sleep because I’m so tired, it feels completely unreal. Like it’s happening to someone else. Who were we talking about in the kitchen?!

But I’m talking to the tiny creature in my tummy again – our daughter, because of course it’s going to be a girl, as predicted by my aunt and as intuitively felt by me! – as I’ve been doing for the past couple of days, and telling her ‘Hang in there, stay warm, reste bien au chaud...’

The truth is, even before I found out, still in bed this morning, I was already imagining Monsieur l’Anglais taking pictures of me every month, and also telling my friend I, ‘Exactly one year after you! How do you fancy having a one-year-younger-twin for your daughter?!’ And about two weeks ago, two days in a row, I remember waking up and my first thought being ‘So how are we going to redecorate the guest room?’ – the most weird first thought of the day, when I didn’t have a clue that I was already pregnant (I can’t remember when exactly this was, but it must have been just after the baby was conceived – a completely unconscious message from her already!)

My friend T (mother of three) had told me, ‘Don’t worry, you’ll know’. She was right! But I think I only knew – I was only so ‘sure’ – because I had been taking my temperature for two months, and the last few days there was no sign of it going down. And also because my boobs were hurting already (since Sunday 9th) and my lower tummy too (since Tuesday 11th). Still, it was a calm certitude, an ‘I’ll be damned if the test is negative/if I’m wrong this time’ kind of certitude.

Once I’ve rested a bit, I’ll ask Monsieur l’Anglais to take pictures of me in my bikini – the first of nine series, till the birth. Gosh, ‘birth’ – who the hell are we talking about here? Not us, surely?!

So my friend C and I are going to share a few months of pregnancy after all (we have six in common overall, but we’ve already ‘missed’ one, so we’ll hold each other’s hands for just five). How cool is that?! It will be like my mum and her friend C, and our children will be like A and me... So cool!

Funnily enough, when I last went to see C (on 9th February), she said, ‘Well, now you’ve sat on my sofa, you’ll be all right! Apparently,’ she explained, seeing my nonplussed expression, ‘if you sit on a pregnant woman’s sofa, you’ll be pregnant soon too!’ An old wives’ tale?!

Ageing

I have aged at lightning speed this past year. I can’t believe it. That’s it, you hit 30, and your skin starts showing blemishes faster than multiplying cancer cells, your memory fails you 30 times a day, you can’t go out without make-up, your eyes have more lines than an A4 sheet of ruled paper, you find your first grey hair and pull at it like an insane woman, and you have to avoid any kind of slanting light in the vicinity of your thighs, lest it should show your by now very obvious cellulite? No no no, I am not OK with this. Not at all.

I guess it’s the same for everyone, but I thought that I would ‘last’ a lot longer. I thought I would be young for many more years. Best of all, I thought I wouldn’t notice my ageing. I thought I would just wake up one day at about 40 and think ‘Oh, dear, I’ve got a line here, oh well’ and then not think about it and not notice anything else for 10 years or so.

Well, this is not the case. And I’m in shock. Perhaps hypothyroidism isn’t helping. I look like death warmed up most days, and if I do put make-up on, I look like circus warmed-up death, complete with white-ish mask and doll-pink cheeks. Perhaps I need make-up lessons, but I suspect the trouble lies deeper.

In any case, I am not best pleased with my appearance lately and so You: Looking Young by Roizen and Oz is very welcome. It is also meant to help me deal with hypothyroidism (or whatever else it might be, e.g. ME) more effectively. All sorts of tips to feel better, not just younger for longer. On my road to recovery, I also started yoga classes three weeks ago, and I’m feeling better already. It will all help to restore my health and my confidence in life. Maybe we’ll even finally manage to create a new life... (it is not impossible that the ‘delay’ in that department is due to my thyroid problems – any tips welcome, since patience and perseverance still haven’t paid off).

Serendipity

So at least I look like I could have children.

Well, that’s something!

I’m starting to find the monthly disappointments a bit boring. I’m starting to get impatient... But never mind. At least we’re making the most of our ‘no-children’ life. DIY, gardening, going out for dinner on a whim, reading, writing, watching Desperate Housewives till late without worrying about being woken up at 6 a.m. the next morning. Yay!

I went to the gym last night. I nearly didn’t go because it had been raining like mad and because it was getting late, but in the end I went because I had worked for 7 hours proofreading some French revision cards, trying to finish the project (and failing miserably), and my whole body was starting to ache: neck, back, arms, fingers. It was time for a good walk uphill on the treadmill and a vigorous work-out on the so-called transporter.

If I had decided not to go to the gym
and if I had decided to do 10 minutes on the transporter rather than 15 minutes (I nearly stopped at 10 minutes, but then thought ‘Come on, you can do another 5 minutes!’)
and if I hadn’t realised that it was 7 p.m., when the Legs, bums and tums class finishes and all the girls rush to the changing rooms to put their decent clothes back on and hurry home to their Friday-night TV/film/meal
and so if I hadn’t rushed, myself, to be in the changing rooms before the LB&T girls’ invasion
and if I had taken that little bit longer to tie my shoelaces...
well...
I wouldn’t have met this lovely French woman who was coming out of the LB&T class.

Let’s take this further.
I wouldn’t have heard her speak French and would have been none the wiser when I saw her in front of me just about to go out the door. (I probably wouldn’t even have noticed her!)
I wouldn’t have had time to think ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to have another French woman in my circle of friends? Or at least someone to go to the gym with?’
I wouldn’t have had time to think ‘Shall I? Shan’t I?’

She was walking quite fast ahead of me. I only had three seconds before it was too late to approach her. I thought ‘What the hell? Why not?’ and then the words spilled out of my mouth:

‘Bonjour, je vous ai entendu parler français, vous êtes française?’

And this maybe was the start of a great friendship. Only time will tell.

Yes, she replied, she is French. In the couple of hundred metres that separated the gym from the car park where, presumably, she had parked her car (I can just walk to the gym, I don’t need a car), we learnt where we both lived, that we were both married, that our husbands were English. She told me that she had just moved from a town 20 minutes away, I told her that I have been in this country for nearly 12 years.

‘My children go to the international school in C.... [10 miles away]. That’s why we moved.’

Indeed, they’re now a lot closer to the school than they were before.

And it so happens that that school is in the same town where Monsieur l’Anglais is going to start his new job next month.

You see? You see the link? SERENDIPITY.

If I had been lazy, I wouldn’t have met this woman! I love serendipity. I love understanding the reasons behind this or that. I love creating my own life, too, and this is a perfect example of life creation, because it was all under my control: If I had stayed at home, if I hadn’t pushed myself a little on the transporter, if I hadn’t looked at the wall clock at the gym... and then of course, if I hadn’t had the guts to talk to the woman who had just spoken in French to another French lady...

When we were about to part ways, French Woman said:

‘Do you have children?’

It always stuns me when people I don’t know ask me that, because I still think of myself as 20 years old and therefore as looking very young, innocent and sooooo unlikely to have children already! Yet I am 30 years old, I’ve been married for nearly a year (can you believe it!?) and we’ve been trying for a baby for a few months, so it’s completely plausible that I could have children. I shouldn’t be so shocked.

‘No, not yet!’ my answer came.

Maybe French Woman and I will be great friends.
Maybe our children will go to school together.
Maybe her husband works where my husband is going to work.

The possibilities that serendipity opens up!

Divided

Weeks and months of my life are now divided into chunks of roughly 13 days. The first chunk is that of freedom and carelessness. I can eat yummy French soft cheeses, pâté, raw meat (not that I want to!) and raw fish, and I can drink my usual weekly half-mouthful of white wine (I told you, I don’t drink! I’m not French [or English, for that matter] like that!)

Then the second chunk, I become saintly, extra careful, a new person, ‘just in case’... I stop all soft-cheese consumption, I don’t even have my half-mouthful of wine, I walk and bend carefully, I certainly don’t run and... I wait patiently, for the next big chunk of my life – the one that lasts a lifetime... Babies aren’t just for Christmas or for 13 days – they’re for ever...

What remains practically constant during the 26 or so days is all the symptoms I get – you’d think I was pregnant all that time! Nausea (a biggy!), pains in my tummy (ranging from sharp, short ones, to diffuse, long ones), very very very sore boobs (can’t lie on my front at night at the moment, and groan every time I turn around) and increased saliva production at times (like two days ago).

But yesterday afternoon, I had confirmation from my body that ah ah ah, it had tricked me again, yes yes yes, here’s some blood to prove it. And making this the shortest cycle ever for me: 24 days.

What is my body up to?

Oh well, at least I can go on my holiday without a care in the world! We're going to Limoges, Montpellier, the Cévennes and then to my parents' (southeast of Paris), and I will be able to eat all I want! Yippee!

Motherhood

Will I ever be ready? Sometimes it feels like I’m still a child myself. Sometimes it feels like I left France and my childhood only a few months ago. (Yet it’s been nearly 11 years, and I’m going to turn thirty soon...) So how can I even contemplate having a baby? At times I’m scared that I’ll have too many tribulations of my own to be able to cope with my child’s – I fear that it will be up to my child to help and support me, not vice versa...

I occasionally think ‘I can’t wait to be a mother!’ and I imagine what the baby, then toddler, then child would be like and how fun it would all be! ... But at other times, all I can think about is the lack of freedom, the lack of time (to write, to read, to see my friends, to go out, to rest, to sleep), the lack of peace, the worry...

I simply can’t imagine a different life – for I know our lives would be completely changed. I have finally reached a point where I’m content with my lot (most of the time), so I really don’t want things to change (or indeed, to change them, active verb, for it would be our decision to change them...). That murky, muddy, troubled water at the bottom of the lake of my life is now far, far down, my roots getting longer and driving me away from it every day, but it’s taken some getting used to – life without the murk, life on the surface, surrounded by clean air, life with joy, on my big green ‘leaf of stability’... Will having a child disturb those dark waters and send some sandy mud up to the surface?

Until recently, it felt like my life was upside down all the time. Now, it’s finally the right way up (though still a bit wonky sometimes) – why would I want to turn my life upside down again (and this time voluntarily)?

On a different note, I am terrified that the day I’m finally ready and really want a child, I’ll be told that I (we) can’t conceive. This morning, I realised I would have had all this worry for nothing.

So back to meditation again – only the present counts. In bed this morning, I shed a few angry tears at the realisation that my life was still and always wonky; that the smallest worry, the tiniest analysing thought sends me right back to instability, that imbalance that I hate so much. But suddenly, I remembered – Only The Present Counts. And as I thought about the present – my warm cosy bed, the roof over my head, the singing birds outside, my fiancé next to me – I realised that in the present, I do feel stable. It was such a relief! ‘I can be stable!’ I wanted to shout! As long as I don’t think about the past and don’t worry about the future, as long as I live in the moment, I feel pretty happy, quite content with my life. It’s as soon as I start reflecting on what was, what could have been, what could be, what should be and what I think will be that I become unhappy.

So – motherhood? Well, I’m sure it’s like marriage. You’re not ready for it for ages, and suddenly that’s all you can think about. Let’s wait for that day – for that moment, that present.