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.

Table for four

I had dinner at an Italian restaurant in Oxford last night with one of my (many!) pregnant friends.

‘Table for two?’ asked the East European waitress in a thick accent and barely audible voice.
‘Yes,’ answered my friend, N.
‘No, table for four,’ I whispered, smiling at N.

Ah, pregnancy bliss! The pleasure of being able to imagine and, now, to know that there is someone in there, a real person, who is growing stronger by the day, kicking harder every day...

Soon, there will be three of us in this household, but I can already feel that we are a family now. It is a wonderful feeling, one that I had not anticipated. Roll on third trimester!

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).

Courage

Last week, I finally plucked up the courage to erase my grandad’s address and phone number from my palm top. I had wanted to do it several times before, but I just couldn’t bring myself to take out his details from my most private piece of engineering, from my life in names and numbers. It seemed so final.

Last week, I came across his name as I was looking for my uncle’s number. I only have one uncle and he’s my dad’s brother, so my dad, his brother and my grandad all share the same family name, and so it was inevitable that I would come across my grandad’s name in my PDA, every now and again...

Nine months after his death, I was finally able to click on ‘delete’, and pfffiiiu, he disappeared again, just like that. Lost for ever. But always in my memory. His smile, the little dimples on his cheeks getting deeper when he laughed, his large, solid, perfect hands, the little lines on his fingernails, his white wavy hair, his light blue eyes, his strong calves when we went up a mountain, the way he had with words (did I possibly inherit that from him? I’m not sure I’m as talented as he was...), his gentle swearing (‘Et meeeerrrrrrrrrddddddddde alors!’), the way he loved my grandmother, the games we played, at home and in the mountains and at the beach.

This week, a page is being turned. My parents are completing the sale of my grandad’s flat in Nice. It makes us all very sad. Nice will never be the same again. The pebbles will never be as shiny, the sun never as bright, the sky never as blue, the sea never as calm, the mountains near by never as ragged and grey, never as good a refuge as they were for us all, the blue chairs on the Promenade des Anglais never as comfortable, the salade écureuil at Le Squale in Juan-les-Pins never quite so tasty, the sand never as soft...

Nine months – le temps d’une grossesse, as Jean-Jacques Goldman says in one of his songs. I have often seen the link between pregnancy and death, and I see it and feel it this time again. Nine months to accept death, nine months to close that chapter of our family book, nine months to create a thought and feeling inside me that doesn’t make me want to cry every time I think about him.

There is one thing I’ll always be grateful for – it’s the day I went to see him in October last year. I was in Paris to celebrate my engagement to Monsieur l’Anglais and was fortunate enough to see my grandad one last time, three days before his death. He knew he was not going to last much longer (he just didn’t want to), so after a very long silence, in his room, while I was withholding my tears unsuccessfully, he took me in his frail arms and said ‘Je t’ai tant aimée’ – I have loved you so much. He said it as if he were already dead, but I heard what he really wanted to say – ‘Je t’aime’. Nobody in my whole family had said anything as close to ‘Je t’aime’ as he had just done. It made me cry even more. These words will stay with me for ever. ‘Je t’aime aussi,’ I replied.

If there can be such a person in a family, he was my favourite person in my whole family. He was wise, he was funny, he was incredibly intelligent and knowledgeable about many different things, he was brave (he was an army officer before, during and after the Second World War), he was witty, he read widely, he could draw and paint, he loved photography (he definitely instilled in me his love of cameras and pictures), he travelled the world, he was a practical man as well as an intellectual, he was the most complete person I have ever met (along, perhaps, with Monsieur l’Anglais, if I may say so myself). And very importantly for me, if there was one person in my family whose love I was certain of, it was his. He loved me, no matter what, and despite the absence of words, I knew he did, simply because I could feel it. It was the most wonderful feeling in the world, and I needed it throughout my childhood. Luckily, I spent many summers and Easter holidays in Nice with my paternal grandparents. And many Christmases too.

I miss him, but I have so many memories to remember him by that I don’t feel his absence so much any more. I am just grateful that I knew such a great man, and that he was my grandfather.