A pregnant pause – before all hell breaks loose
This week: A ‘pregnant pause’ seems to be something of an understatement
The term “pregnant pause” was invented for the last few weeks before giving birth. Though “pause” doesn’t quite do it justice. “Pregnant in-hale-in-terror-and-choke-on-own-saliva” would fit just as well.
The days crawl by more slowly than a heavily pregnant woman trying, understandably, to run for the hills, and simultaneously so fast you can’t believe how quickly the whole nine months have gone by. All this, mixed with an internal siren of screaming awareness that your life is going to be smashed into a billion exhausted pieces – any moment now.
It feels like being underwater, in slow motion, at hyper-speed, in a tumble-dryer, carrying a Fabergé hippopotamus. As relaxing times go, it’s not the best.
In my previous three pregnancies, I found these last weeks a strange period of reflection – largely to help pass the endless days of hauling my belly around like a giant, kicking water balloon, but also to avoid looking at my reflection, which by now resembles nothing even vaguely like the me I once knew (and I’m feeling more and more certain by the heart-burn-filled minute that I will never see again).
Most of all, though, I am reflecting on relationships, with everyone and everything and how they are about to change. My parents, my partner, my work, my friends, myself … and my children.
They have been incredible throughout, and I’ve been amazed by how well they’ve taken to the idea of having a baby sister, now that they’re all teenagers and far more interested in their mates and Netflix. Sharing a house with nappies and colic is probably not high on their list of things they expected, or wanted, to be doing at this point in their lives. And they have all handled it in their own way. My eldest daughter, 20 and away at university, has wanted to know all the way through how I am, how the bump is, and texts to ask me about it all.
My middle daughter, at 17, was ecstatic about the new sibling, but where my bump was concerned I believe “gross”, “bleurgh” and “yuck” cropped up. I think she was not too keen on the idea of there being a human inside me, and, quite frankly, I’m not that keen on touching anyone else’s bumps either, so I respect her wish not to come hand-to-bump with her sister, for now.
My son has perhaps surprised me the most. At 14 years old, six feet tall and well and truly in the Too Cool For School stage of life, he has asked to touch and feel his sister kicking and thrashing about more than anyone, and seems enthralled.
When she gets hiccups, he will sit with me for ages, feeling her hopping about. I never expected this, and it makes me pretty happy, relieved and excited about how well he might bond with her.
The imminence of her arrival has suddenly stirred a lot of deeply buried memories in me about how much easier it is to have a baby inside, rather than out. Having cursed almost every minute of my pre-term labour pains, heartburn, backache, headaches and inability to run, now I want the baby to stay in as long as possible to give me the freedom to do such madcap things as walk up escalators, and pop out of the house. I’m spending a lot of time in a local hipster café – not only because the coffee is exquisite, but because it has a small, beautiful room upstairs. Anything small and upstairs will be out of bounds for months after the baby comes.
These long, slow, fast, strange days of being a mother of three. Before that becomes four…
Next time: It’s almost time to meet our baby.
‘It feels like being underwater, in slow motion, at hyper speed, in a tumble dryer, carrying a Fabergé hippo’