Quick weekend update etc.
Without going in to it too deeply, someone at work cocked up and caused me to have to dump everything and work exclusively on clearing up theri mess. Was at it until midnight on Friday so am working at home today to try and get the bloody thing over with so I can actually do what I'm paid for (person X is now on holiday, y'see).
Meanwhile, seemed to do lots of stuff over the weekend. Went on the London eye with Corey on Saturday before heading down to the Tate Modern and eating bad things, packing him off home to pack and meeting Mackay to see the X Men 2 movie which we hadn't seen. (curiously, one of my first thoughts when I came out was mistakenly, how you didn't notice the special effects - before slaping myself and saying...duh. But, the mark of the film then was to make the special effects so smooth and integrated that they all seemed perfectly valid and not stupid cgi nonsense etc, etc). It's a really great action movie with a surprisingly large amount of sexual tension thrown in which is curious - there was almost no blatant "woman becomes limp, man snogs" - er... well there was none of that at all, in fact - unlike The Matrix, which the more I think about it the more abysmal it becomes. Anyway, the point is Ian McKellen has a great time, and you really dig his character for it, he almost laughs his way through, he's enjoying playing the baddie so much. And the script is very good. Shame they killed Jean though, I mean... seems a bit daft given the strength of her powers - that was the only plot point that made you go "eh? if you thought about it too hard.
Ah and once again Huge Ackman had that rough and ready shag look down to a T. I saw what he actually looked like at I think it was the MTV movie awards and was most disappointed.
Anyway. So I've told you a bit of the plot so I hopw you've seen the film. Sorry about that.
Suffered an excrutiating headache coming out of the cinema which I could only put down to dehydration after pottering about all day in the heat with one small bottle of water. For a while I thought it was Migraine heavy and felt like someone had caught a spare thread running through all the muscles in my head from my eyebrows up and tugged. Hard. Nausea, shaky, loss of balance... the works. A short while later after emergency paracetamols (sorry sprog) and a walk in the air I managed to sit down in a dark, quiet restaurant and drank a litre of water. Almost none of it came back out. Ulp. Must be more careful.
Consequently whilst sitting in the sweltering ICA on Sunday, I drank about 3 pints of iced water in the same number of hours! The Comica festival talks - well, two of them were ... well, the first one anyway, a wasted opportunity. The first one was DIY, web and grow your own offline comics, basically. The people on the panel either didn't really do much on the web, didn't use it to it's full potential or got other people to do it for them; the talk moderator cut off questions and stopped anything sensible coming out - and even worse didn't really know how to operate the computer!
The second talk was really just a short conversation with Mike Carey (seems like a nice bloke, doesn't really write stuff that's my cup of tea) and in the second part, Warren, who "played the crowd". Which was good fun. He was being talked to by thing, whatsisname - the bloke who'd managed the session before so they did a lot of reminiscing, whereas Carey was more "interviewed" - by a bloke who began everything he said by stating "But I mean... what's it been like in the last couple of years?... But I mean... how do you go about your writing?". But I mean WHAT! Grrr.
After Warren's talk I came over so hungry I needed to eat NOW so didn't hang out and chat / drink etc but went to Melati's with Tom Coates and had a very good meal before coming home completely knackered.
So now we're officially in to week 17. By the end of the week sprog should be 6"'s long. Which is nearly a handspan. Er, well... nearly. Waren told me to stop being so paranoid about feeling him but you forgot, dear heart - this is the space where I let out all my paranoia so I can *not* be paranoid everywhere else! Anyway, I felt very tiny bumps and nonsense yesterday when I lay with my hands on my belly for about 20 minutes, all quiet like.
It's no wonder people imagine there is a telepathic link between mother and child... it feels as if there logically be one, given that you are linked up by a fairly hefty piece of biological machinery to the wee bugger, who is alive inside you. I must say, I find myself trying to send messages to him. My mother swore she remained quite telepathic with me for years and I have no reason to doubt her other than rationalistic logic. Ok, that's a fairly big reason but I will dig my heels in, in a non earth-mothery way and say look - we still don't really know everything, by the by. There's always the possibility that it could be true.
Aaaaaanyway. the large and horrible workload awaits.
c/o JPC. Thanks for pointing it out, this is, again, a reason to love what I do for a living.
http://weblog.greenpeace.org/iraq/.
So tootled along to the Doc's this morning and it appears that I am completely free of Factor V leiden. God love the bloody interweb if for the only reason that it allows sites like fvleiden.org to exist, and empower people with knowledge and support about their own conditions. It makes me so happy.
Anyway. As for you Factor V Leiden people - hope you're all well on your Warfarin (including my bro) but, and you'll forgive me I'm sure for saying this: PHEW. I do not need to have bloody injections of Heparin in my belly every day throughout the pregnancy and apparently it isn't even recessive so I can't pass it on to sprog either. HOORAY!!!
Because of the family history, Dr Whatserface warned me it was likely that the ante-natal people would be very grumpy indeed about having sprog at home, but we'll just have to see. I'm not going to make some kind of earth shattering stand about it but it is highly preferable.
Anyway. generally speaking - tralala!
So after groggily listening to yet more excuses and tears welling up in the ole' eyes the other day, the blood clinic people felt crap enough to get it together to arrange an appointment for me to see the Doc at 10am tomorrow morning!
Hooray!
Er....
That is all.
So I *think* I've worked out why I felt so ill.
But the answer is fairly .... hermmmm... biological. So I've put the answer in the click thru. If you don't care about slight "ew" bodily functions, then read on!
(If you're reading this through a link or something, genuinely, this is where the real "warts and all" stuff comes in, so beware)...
Well it looks like I have food poisoning, but I was so blocked up that the horrible stuff couldn't come out until it had built up enough! Eugh.
So after feeling pretty bad all day, and having pains across my abdomen more or less every time I moved (very horribly worrying), it suddenly became IMPERATIVE that I went to the loo about 2 hours ago.
Needless to say it was a long visit (and not the last) but Jaysus, the relief. And the almost... perverse pleasure in the realisation that everything was ok, whilst bent double groaning (and all the rest). Groaning and feeling terrible but more or less smiling at the same time.
No doubt I ate some dodgy egg or summat a couple of days ago. Just goes to show you though, that stuff wanted to be ejected at great speed during last night. Half the time these days it's like walking around with a cork up yer jacksy.
I've been meaning to say this for days. I can only assume it's the result of the weakened veins & progesterone or *something*, but I've been getting pins and needles in my arms / hands if I lay in slightly awkward positions, incredibly easily.
Did anyone else ever get this or is it just my strange-o physiology?
Am not necessarily feeling "better" as such - a bit weak from sleep actually, but haven't been feeling worse - which can only be a good thing.
Woke up in the night with the small pain around my right ovary having escalated somewhat and spreading across the front of my womb, accompanied by some pain going down the inside of my right leg.
Consequently, I am not at work. I think I'll be going to the Gynae unit first thing tomorrow (ie: 8am) just so they can take a look and make sure everything's alright. That's if I can't get hold of Polly, the font of all pregnancy knowledge.
I hate being this jumpy about such a natural function, but there's a big difference between the odd tweak here and there and waking up in pain. The blood clinic phoned me this morning just while I was waking up and worrying and the secretary woman kept going on, and on, and on about how waiting 8 weeks for blood test results was perfectly normal and blah blah blah. I just ran out of energy and nearly cried down the phone - loathed it.
Hmph.
Nice meal out last night though.
So Cory, my current houseguest, was dragged out of his bed at some unearthly hour in the morning (after getting lost on the way home) to talk on the Today programme about blogging.
It's the kind of painful, show filling non-story that I used to end up doing on Sky News all the time. "So, Cait Hurley, "internet expert", tell us about MP3's, how do they work then?". Oh, and here's another guest who we managed to get at the lastminute who for £50 is setting themselves up in opposition to your position for no reason other than ego, that they've been asked to go on the tele.
I sometimes think I should have made more of my whacky Sky News status while I had it (I think I got too old and a bit too anti current copyright laws for them on the whole) but then... why? What was I going to do - make a new career as a not-very-good and slightly too awkward in her skin television presenter? Feck off, as the saying goes. Anyway, listening to Edward Sturton mispronouncing Cory's surname (Doctorow) and doing faux-naive for the sake of the 60 year old listeners made me wince with recognition.
In my defence after receiving money from Murdoch-entertainment-corps, I would occasionally turn them down. For example, in a train on the way to my Mum's house... er... well no I don't want to turn around and come back just for the joy of talking about yet another non-story for £70 (sound of slight shock down the phone). I think my ego can survive without external affirmation today, thanks.
But it was a laugh though. I was fucking *terrified* the first time, I remember. When you go blank for a few moments, they seem like half an hour long chasms whereas in fact, you're talking about a third of a second at best. All very silly. And no, I didn't record a single one of them. In retrospect, perhaps I should have, but then, that's setting them up as being somehow a desperately important part of my life: Wow, look at when your Mum was on TV, isn't that great? Whereas they were so singularly unimportant in the grand scheme of things, I'd loathe them to be held up as being some kind of highpoint!
Meanwhile, in other news, I'm still having funny pains around where my right ovary is, and - this is going to sound really paranoid, so I apologise, but whereas last week I was getting rumblings, this week I'm not really receiving any news from the deep. I'm imagining that my body would know soon enough if something was wrong and do something drastic about it but nevertheless I have been thinking dark, awful thoughts which I daren't express on "paper". As I said to my Dad at the weekend - you learn to ignore the pains, given that there's always some weirdness going on you don't recognise. But it's awful the way ... what's it like... ok - it's like one of those massive mirrors or 10 foot wide lasers in movies that block out everything - *everything* from one's line of sight except "it". You have to keep desperately thinking of other things to think about because ever present in your head is this blaring, panicky alarm waiting to engulf you if you let it. (Hence me rabbitting on about Sky bleedin' News for ages, for example).
After having no sleep or about an hour's worth on Sunday I still didn't sleep well last night and am in the middle of having a drastic row with a good friend which is all very grim. It now being around lunch I must fill my face with protein immediately given that I'm beginning to flag again. Weekends are not long enough, and I am coming to the conclusion that I desperately need time off to try and recoup some energy because i seem to be burning very low atm.
Aaanyway.
Rained without end, it did. Buckets per minute coming down all night. Only to stop, wait for it, 2 minutes before my alarm went off. How do I know this? Because I was awake most of the night listening to the damn stuff.
However, that came after a - and I'll say this in a terribly English way, perfectly lovely day with Messrs Doctorow, Jones and Ellis (and latterly, Gyford) killing time in the city, the south bank (albeit briefly due to it being Sunday, and of course we all sort of forgot that on Sundays, London is officially dead, with its twitching member being Soho) and obviously, therefore, Soho.
Cory and Warren seemed determined to outdo each other on the smoking front and according to Michael Fish, it was the hottest day of the year - certainly the most humid - as you'll see from Cory's photos - I ended up with a searing headache which I attributed to the fags but I think was more likely to be the dense wet air.
(My God you can't half see my burgeoning bump in those photos - I would like to make it very clear my belly does not look like that normally!).
Generous to a fault, Cory had very sweetly thought of bringing a hardback copy of his novel as a present, as a thank you for staying at our flat. At which point I had to point out the paid for copy on the bookshelf (next to "All familes are psychotic" - which can't be bad). Warren very sweetly bought a plastic wrapped copy of Orbiter up from Southend, which I took to give to someone else given that I bought it in SF about 6 weeks ago! However, he also brought up a copy of "Haunted" which is a very stylised "Magic London" type tale which seems to be mixed with "Scars" type gruesome blood & guts. I missed that at the time so thank you for filling my brain with yet more delightful imagery of men dying with slices slashed out of their faces, or girls dying with aborted foetuses in the gutter. Sometime's Warren's just not masculine *enough* for my liking.
Matt took us on a detour to St Batholomew's Church, which I really don't remember visiting as a kid (see previous blether). I always remember the amazing entrance way, some distance from the church but astounding that we never went in (maybe we did but I don't think so). It's a beautiful little church, rich and throbbing with London life and history. Doing that lovely thing where, placing your hand gingerly on a hand-sweat blackened pillar, you feel an energy drawing from the stone. The energy of the presence of people over the centuries. Of the building, slowly breathing and exhaling its memories.
Anyway, lots of yawning. Warren didn't leave until very late so I can't imagine him getting back to Southend much before midnight.
Even more yawning now.
On a slightly different tack, yet more intrigue surrounding Soya / Tofu which has not been fermented. John C Dvorak is doing the guest blog at Boing Boing and he's been discussing the Isoflavones in Soya, which can be a real boon to women going through "the change" - however, soya is used in so much food, the detrimental effect of having these oestrogenic actions happening in everything even non-vegetarians eat could be interesting to scientists, but strangely, not a hell of alot of research is going on as yet. The only link that was handy and seemed sensible though was this one which seems to be a very sensible rebuttal to the OTT western consumption of Tofu.
The old research done on Hawaii examining the elderly Japanese community and finding an increased number of Altzheimers patients amongst those who ate non-femented tofu on a hyper regular basis (as opposed to "every so often") is a link that I can't seem to find now but has also yet to be substantiated, but of course worries me.
I am *slightly* concerned - and have been, about the increase of tofu protein I've been having during the pregnancy but it's a short term thing so I can't imagine it doing that much long term harm. So. God Knows, frankly.
We're going to need a bigger pair of trousers.
Sprog complains loudly if he feels restricted by my clothing squishing my abdomen in a bit. It comes out as feeling like a cross between wanting to go to the loo and just... rumbling... er... something or other. you can't call it kicking, but he definitely moves in there.
Also, an unnamed benefactor has chucked over the MP3 of the Beyonce Knowles single, which sadly cuts out just before the end but I do think I am going to be forced to purchase this item. After listening to it on rotation for the last 2 hours, it doesn't piss me off yet. It makes me want to dance and wander round the house, belting out bits of it. She's got a damn fine, solid voice that woman, I mean, if the lame-ass world of pop musak gives her the opportunity to develop and not just remain this (image wise) sex-toy singer, she'll have a career for years. The rapper lad, Jay Z I do believe, as usual sounds lame and pointless like all hyper-commercial rappers (with about 2 exceptions). But in the same way that people would secretly actually rather liked some Destiny's Child singles, I think I should bite the bullet and just buy this article. And you should listen to it once or twice, it sounds almost Gladys Knight and the Pips good.
Ah... Gladys Knight... this is the peril of vinyl. You never bloody listen to the old stuff you bought years ago because it's such a faff to put on, clean, etc, etc. I'll have to zap it on to CD at the weekend (along with The Four Tops and all my bloody Pixies albums).
I've been seized recently by an overwhelming desire to get in touch with my only 2 ex's that matter to let them know that I'm in the middle of a massive life change. I'm not really sure why, or whether the need really stands up to close scrutiny.
Is it that because we shared emotional intimacy, I want to blurt this new incredibly intimate shenanigans to them? is it that I have the unconscious psychological need to tell them "I'm so over you, look what I'm doing now". Is it that I think *wayyyyy* too much about this sort of thing?
Ahem.
There are two of consequence, as I've said and strangely, both are blokes that I fell in love with and it turned out, they didn't fall in love with me. At least the first one, Mr "Came from Ashton Under Lyme" thought he was in love with me for a while. He was the first bloke I'd fallen in love with (I'd been smitten with several ladies before then but not really quantified what that all meant).
Anyway. Regardless of the fact that he didn't fall in me and is therefore obviously a twat, he was actually a very nice bloke, and I've often on an off wanted to find out where he is now - I'm assuming Manchester given that he was such a homebody.
The other person I rather stupidly fell hook, line and sinker for, it took about 2 or 3 years to get over ie: admit to myself that actually (whisper it) he wasn't terribly nice to me, ultimately. A terrible thing to have to admit to oneself, that you chose to fall in love with someone who in fact, was an arse*. One would have hoped that one's personal taste would be better than to do such a thing. However, he presented a heady mix of loving good films, good music, reading, good TV, comics and comedy, as well as being tall with black hair, which was always a type I ended up going for. It was almost inevitable I would prostrate myself before him. Anyway, I discovered at the weekend that he's actually engaged to be married. With characteristic ex-girlfriend bitchiness, I have to say that I am in fact really surprised that he let down his barriers enough to let someone in enough. So good for him, and I hope, good for her too. Attempting to make up for the inevitable "spurned ex" negativity, I will take the non-grumpy stance of saying that he was very overtaken by events in his twenties, and as such that might have made a difference to the way he behaved, whereas now I'm sure he's a much more settled person.
There. Aren't I good. It is weird but I suppose relevant that I really would like to see these two and tell them the news. If I imagine myself doing it it's a very joyful sort of "Wow, you'll never guess what" type event, as opposed to the second given reason I said earlier in this blether. For that reason I think it's ok to want to let them know. Of course, it's extremely unlikely that I'll actually even see either of them again ever! In which case, boys: sorry for bringing you in to this, but - guess what!
*The difficulty is here of course that he was an arse to me. Of course I would think that. During the same time period I'm sure that other people he knew well would look bemused and say "Uh? He was a really nice bloke then, you're completely wrong". Never trust anything an ex-girlfriend says about a person, that's my advice.
I really don't care about swearing, but I do care about the word "nice". I should be made to put £2 in to a box when I use it. Hopefully there's only be a tenner in there by the end of the year, I dislike the term so much.
However. A "nice" surprise at work, where I have been awarded a bottle of champagne, which I patently cannot drink. It was for this period of time - only part of which I believe I knew I was pregnant for (I think). Anyway, in retrospect, I would say that given the early weeks extreme-exhaustion, I did indeed earn a thank you for staying up until midnight deleting fuckhead remarks.
In fact, only yesterday, I was thinking of champagne. specifically the vintage Krug we have in the fridge. A good vintage champagne - not so old it loses the freshness of youth, but old enough to attain that lovely yeasty, crumbly taste. Makes me think of those delicious, crumbly melt in the mouth little Italian biscuits. Amaretto? I think so. You unwrap them individually and they break up in to your gob. That and champagne... delicious.
I've been fantasising about cocktails again. Oh, drinking the syrupy strong kick of lime juice and mashed up mint leaves at the bottom of a good Mojito. I have bought myself 6 limes this week but forgot the mint. I'm hoping I can concoct something that's kick-ass enough to not actually miss the alcohol. Bash up a load of ice cubes before putting them in the blender and squishing a load of fresh juice with a little sugar syrup over it... (sigh). All this is most peculiar since I still don't really fancy wine, which is a great misery to me I must say.
But still - nearly a whole year before I can go out to the Match bar. I think this is actually a more important deadline than the Dec 7th one. Until I discovered "proper" cocktails I always thought they were very... er 'nancy' or something. But then I discovered Pisco Sour and didn't really turn back. Howzers.
Danny - do you remember that evening at mine, drinking pisco with Anno and Phil? and Stef turning up late? Heh. Deeelicious.
Ok. I'll caveate this because it's all going to come out wrong anyway. Partially because I just read a link from Die Puny humans about a boy in India who is currently pissing beetles. (This was in the Yahoo "Crazy but true" type news section. Yahoo! Boy pisses beetles!).
So ignoring that for a moment, what I've been thnking for the last couple of days is how similar this is to a slightly different situation. It must be primarily because I've never had a sprog before, but anyway.
Once, walking on the top of a large hill in Kerry, I realised that rain was approaching from the sea, and we were some 6 miles away from home. And it was getting dark. And we couldn't see the path any more.
At this point, I thought: "Enough. Look, I've proved I can do this nonsense, can't I just sit down, close my eyes and it'll all have finished, and it'll all just be '4 hours later'?" I bemoaned the fact silently that I was with the stalwart walker, Mackay, instead of some girl friends - if we were together we could have a good whinge as well as struggle home through the cow shit, bog and mud. Instead it was just struggle and misery for the next four hours.
...and that's sort of how I feel now. Ok, I've proved I can do this fertility thing. It's in the bag. Can we just skip to the bit where I'm yelling my head off in the last 5 minutes of the birth, and magically just review the next (or rather, the last) five months? I may have said this on here, but I've said it offline - it's like crawling towards the biggest change in your life at the pace of a tortoise. Alright, already! Can we just, like... be over this pregnancy thing, please?
As they begin to really start growing, they continue to grow overnight, in those eight hours.
Consequently, at present, I cannot get up in the mornings. I am drugged with tiredness until I've had my breakfast. He's sapping my energy like a wee alien!
Maybe he *is* a wee alien - his scan picture would certainly suggest it.
Katie's comments from yesterday lead to a whole flurry of new information gathering including the purchase of the London Baby Directory, which was very handy and full of good, middle class pursuits to develop your gifted baby. Actually some of them look rather good - French lessons from 9 months old! And music workshops. Interestingly, (as in: what a surprise) they don't actually tell you how much these things cost but I do love the idea of having a few hours free, calming down and going to have a cup of tea and reading the Saturday papers before picking up slightly tired child who has had a great morning. I mean, sod all the personal improvement angles, it's more to do with personal sanity.
The Women's environmental network is a great, great thing.
After looking on it a while ago for laundry services, I just looked again and found one that does SW16. It's £1.50 a week more than the other one, but then the other one now doesn't exist, it appears, therefore I would say that the harsh reality of economics has played some part in this.
Meanwhile, CottonBottoms who for some obscure reason seem to have their whole site as https are £9.99 a week. it actually works out over 3 years only marginally cheaper than disposables but it's worth it for the whole green thing and the overall decrease in household strain, methinks.
Meanwhile I have been dreadfully useless at work today, unable to concentrate... the works. Therefore it is now my intention to go home early-ish and sleeeeeeeeeep.
And why no input over the weekend?
Because it was lovely and sunny, so sitting in front of the computer typing "And then I did this... and then I did that" didn't really appeal.
I did however graduate on Friday, which was a very peculiar experience for all concerned. I haven't bothered to get the photos sorted out yet so I won't bother talking about it now.
Ok, so the point in this update is merely to plonk this material somewhere useful for *me* so when I go and see the Midwives I'll be able to look it up. Otherwise, I know what I'm like - I'll lose the piece of paper.
So.
BP - 98/64 (I really do have to learn about blood pressure a bit, I genuinely have no idea what that means. I know it's normal, but I also know that my blood pressure "normally" is naturally low, so is this normal low or normal high end of normal? If it's either then my BP is higher than normal. This is me just putting down my most paranoid thoughts; I actually feel completely fine about it!)
No ankle oedema. So no signs of pre-eclampsia all round there, which is good.
FH 16/40 FHH. No, I have not got a clue what that means! Basically, I write down what he'd written up in my case notes while he was out of the room! Anyone got any ideas?
Protein and sugar = negative. Although I hadn't had any breakfast, which would have affected the sugar count a bit. But, what the hell, it's not like I'm gonig to go out and eat a bag of doughnuts, is it.
Aaaanyway. So there were a whole bunch of blood tests too, for Rubella, syphillis (hmm - lovely!), anti-bodies and so on. No HIV. Yet another blood test measuring my blood group.
So the whole thing was such a relief just to get it out of the way and find nothing out of the ordinary. He also had a wee ultrasound machine with which we hears the placenta plugging away like something you'd hear in a steel works or something, and for the briefest movement, a tiny little rat-a-tat-tat heartbeat which belonged to sprog. He didn't much like being poked about so he squiggled away quickly and I do believe, kicked me in the bowel by way on being a bit pissed off.
However, since he is 4 inches long, I don't think he had much of a kick, and I'm not going to treat that as the first official "Kick" type thing because it could well have been just my body complaining at being poked about.
I still can't help but feel that this is an entirely surreal experience in which surely someone is going to snap their fingers and magically it will all disappear. You thought you were what? Pregnant? Are you nuts?
Now I must phone the blood clinic to find out why I haven't heard anything for 2 weeks. (update ten minutes later: Having just done that it didn't really get me any further forward - the Doc isn't in today. But they are phoning me tomorrow with any news).
Oh, and after discussing things yesterday, we have decided we are not going to go private. Basically, around at Andy & Polly's yesterday for Sunday lunch, and a friend of Polly's who is also a midwife was round there, so both of them didn't beat around the bush and said: look, go private, it's worth it.
Well. Yes. If you have 5 grand to spare. So I took that home as a discussion item with Mackay, and because of our current status of being partially broke, the whole thing was a bit of a mare. We could sell the Mac, sell the things I inherited from my Granny, not go to Canada...
...and suddenly, instead of the private option being something reasonable, and nice, with continuity of care, it becomes an option which will leave us in penuary and feeling unutterably miserable, not really being able to afford to get sprog decent things either. So in weighing up the continuity / penuary option versus the strain of rubbish pre-care on the NHS but otherwise being relatively alright (and let's face it, if things go wrong, what are you going to do - go to the NHS, basically) and whilst Mackay very graciously left it up to me, I thought - bollocks. I'm not so worried about continuity, as long as the midwife that happens to be there at the time is good. I mean, it's not as if she's going to become a family friend, is it?
All I really care about is blood results, then sorting out the referral to St Thomas's for a home birth, if feasible.
And in other news my sleeping is still relatively crap. I'm waking up later at present though, thank God. 6.20 this morning, about the same time the day before. Still can't really sleep on my side. Yawning like a bugger today.
He's really growing. My need to eat protein seems to grow by the day. Tried smoked salmon again last night and really didn't enjoy it. Damn.
10th June
10th June
Sitting on Eurostar, ten minutes outside Paris. Nearly destroyed a toilet earlier (it was one of “those” days) and had to execute some powerfully horrible manoeuvres, whilst various tetchy types pulled at the door.
The “P” button on this keyboard has begun to not work properly unless you hammer it down, which I’m sure isn’t very good for it.
I’ve noticed more regnant women in the last week than I have probably ever in my life before. It’s a mini baby boom in London right now, I’m telling you. Perhaps brought on by various celebrity pregnancies or more likely just a certain generation of women thinking “Oh shit!”
Meanwhile, I have discovered a conspiracy in women’s shoes. There is a train of thought I read vrecently somewhere or other that Chinese foot binding in women was not simply a fashion (ie: how cute and tiny your feet are, I love you, marry me) but that the practice also restricted the movement of women. They found walking very difficult unless in small, insipid steps. Power was therefore reduced.
Having just bought a pair of backless sandles for posh (so I can look halfway reasonable in Paris today, in fact) I can testify that the reduction in women’s power through footwear is still going strong. How do women walk in these bloody things! Slipping off my feet, slapping around, blisters in all direction, Jesus. And as I was struggling down the road, eventually taking them off for a stretch (bliss) I realised that stilettos do the same job. Not only do they permanently damage women’s legs, but can you imagine belting down the road after a mugger or more importantly away from a mugger in a pair of Blahnick Manilo’s or whatever his name is? No – in fact, you would stand on the pavement completely powerless rather like that 1 episode of sex and the City which I seem to have watched, when Carrie is in fact mugged. Not only can she not run away but the objects of her imprisonment are actually stolen as desirable items too! Meaning she’s doubly stranded, standing like a powerless wimp, treading gingerly from bare foot to bare foot, whining on the pavement. Now if she’d been wearing a sensible pair of trousers and a pair of boots not only would she probably not have been mugged but she could have either a) run away, b) run after him or C) given him a good kick in the bollocks.
I find it genuinely quite sad that even though my interest in women’s shoes verges on the utterly non-existent, the trivialisation of the media means that I know the name (approximately) of a very popular stiletto manufacturer. I do not wish my brain to be polluted with this crap.
Meanwhile, it is now not 6 in the evening and I’m stuck on Eurostar, it is now 7.45 in the morning and I’m writing a presentation after an horrific sleepless night (I never sleep in hotels, remember) during which I did have a nice dream which was very 1996. Danny was putting on a semi-one man show in which for some reason I had to be in bed asleep for the whole gig on the stage whilst he ranged around making silly slightly geeky jokes at the front of the stage. This was fine and indeed, rather charming, until the whole thing morphed in to a kind of invasion of the body snatchers escape movie deal which had something to do with the ingestion of giant sized garlic, and attempted escape in a very bad cayak-esque boat using a giant wooden spoon as an oar.
No. I don’t either.
Back to the presentation…
Update later...
My God. It is hot. It is so very, very hot. I’m sure it’s no hotter than it gets in August or something but very unexpected after the comparatively “warm” (ie: in the UK, hot) London.
Meeting went ok-ish. More strikes misery today meaning the journey to work was hilariously slow. I took the metro to St Michel, then the C RER came along with Versailles Rive Gauche written on the announcement board (I duly get on and wonder why the many, many passengers standing there do not) only to find that it starts veering off and going over the river after Champs De Mars to some station or other. Get off, drag luggage, go back, drag luggage… and feel terribly, terribly guilty about the nice middle aged American tourists who dutifully I imagine got on this train because I’d previously explained the whole system to them.
Been dragging my luggage a long time today. Still, since the much needed “universal bloe/black luggage with wheels and a handle” purchase it isn’t much of chore. And the lass in the café at the corner in Issy looked at me askance when I suggested I might want an “omelette nature”.
No – but would I like croissants or XXXX (something I’ve never heard of). Er – croissants? Oui, merci…
A few minutes later one croissant arrives with my mineral water. No jam or nuttink!
I realised some time ago that people in Paris are not rude. They are simply using the opportunity to take up their fundamental right to push past you, sit on the stairs or simply come straight to the point in a very blunt way. I think it has its roots in revolutionary existentialism. Of course I will sit on the stairs. Do you think I care if I’m I your way? Why, I expect you to do the same, don’t be so bloody English and polite. Realising this, whether it be true or no, made me a far more confident and comfortable traveller in Paris.
So now I am again writing from Eurostar on my way back, a vague whisper of air conditioning appears to be somewhat bashfully placing the odd cool waft upon my forehead, and they’re offering me free drinks again. Champagne? (All in very small glasses, of course).
I always find it extraordinary to find people out there, other than anyone associated with Mackay, who know about Theramins.
(That piece is dreadful by the way, but there's a singular dearth of decent Theramin oriented "central points of info" on the web, so it'll have to do).
I have a strong memory of an old man appearing on Blue Peter, when I was a kid, dressed as a clown with a white outsized box painted in terrible colours, demonstrating the Theramin, picking out very wobbly tunes in the air. such an extraordinary contrast, to be a glamorous inventor playing the Theremin with orchestras in huge concert halls in the States, before only a few years later, the instrument's then sole player in the UK was an old, shaking man who played it as a seaside curiosity.
Years later, before I really knew Mackay, I was being given a lift up to the Edinburgh fringe with Stu, who Mackay was staying with at the time. Stu picked up a large, wrapped box and said "Can you guess what musical instrument is in this box?" looking smug because how could anyone possibly know. After looking at it for a few seconds I said "It's a Theremin".
He nearly dropped the box.
Now that "geekism" is more out of the closet than it was, Theremin knowledge has enjoyed something of a resurgence (almost solely due to the famous documentary that found him as an old man) but the instruments themselves tend to be almost universally bad. Mackay is the proud owner of a player built by the guy (Anthony Henk) who built Lydia Kavina's. Hmm - doesn't look like she plays his any more but it's not surprising since he retired quite a few years ago now. Lydia's a lovely person, and was taught the Theremin by Leon himself - her Uncle, from the age of 3. Lydia appeared on just about every Tim Burton soundtrack for about 4 movies in a row or something, which was excellent. Looks liek she's doing very well teaching a new generation of Russian kids!
I don't know why Mackay seems not to want to play his much because he's a decent player but he could be great if he practiced. And besides which, how is Sprog going to become the world's pre-eminent Theremin player without having someone to look up to? There's nothing for it, I will have to learn whilst kiddo is watching me from the cradle and then he can join in when he gets to 3 or 4.
What brought this on was Warren-the-writer's latest email missive in which he mentioned a player from New York as a passing reference.
I wonder if he remembers the clown on Blue Peter?
For ref:
If you can find an album called "Theremin Noir", that's some really good playing. I can't find a link for it atm, but another very good stopping point is the boxed set of Dr Samuel J Hoffman. Some intriguingly mad music on there.
It's a really great instrument. Lydia makes hers sound like a cello at times. It's all in the little finger, you know.
Oh - (update based on more linking about) the Theramin she plays now, the TVOX Tour appears to be fucking good. It's about £560 or €790 if you're talking sensible euro monies. If for some reason this has indexed and you're reading this for Theremin info (unlikely, I know) then buy a decent one like that, not some piece of junk with an uncontrollable note that just makes a wibbly noise.
It's so rare to actually feel hungry living in this country when not living beneath the poverty line that when you do feel real hunger it comes as somewhat of a surprise.
Yesterday I had the grand total of a bowl of cereal, 3 slices of bread, some cheese and hoummus. Er... that's it. Not so good if you've also been swimming for the first time in about 2 years.
So waking this morning, I was mired in headache and grabbed by a need to get to Chris' Place (a not-quite-greasy-caff relatively local to here) and eat Spanish omelette, chips, beans and toast. And fast. Rarely have I had visions of baked beans and felt that nothing would do but them but there we are. I tried explaining it to Mackay but couldn't. It Simply Had To Be Done. Got there and wolfed down half within about two minutes. Ahhhh the bliss of eating. There's nothing can touch it.
So I got the information through from St Georges which tells me I should have an HIV test (fair enough).
Turns out they can't see me until week 20 - well, nearly week 21 actually - that's July 25th. Week 18 was bad enough but now they won't even have seen me until I've had both sets of scans (I wouldn't have even got those together if I didn't sort it out myself).
I felt a bit dumbfounded opening the letter and had a tortuous and confused discussion with Mackay about it. He thought I wasn't doing enough to stop me worrying about it all, and I was trying to explain to him how much I am doing.
It's hard to remember that he has as big a stake in this as I do. I mean, psychologically. Ludicrous as that last sentence sounds, nevertheless he isn't living wih listening to the body changes, feeling it all happening and beginning to feel a bulbous lump within which a wee monkey person is actually alive, and to a small extent (presently) seperate to me. "He" has a different consciousness, he's doing things I don't know about. Disco dancing, for a start.
And I'm doing things Mackay doesn't know about. I realised today that Mackay has barely touched my belly, so I got him to push, and feel where the hard lump-ness is, and where it seems to stop (although with it pushing other stuff out of the way, above it feels pretty tight atm too).
So - lesson is, involve Mackay more than I am doing. Not sure in what form, but... er... somehow.
Other lesson is try not to live in London if you want any NHS care other than for severe accidents. I'm going to have to push hard with the PCOS card at the Docs and get them to help me be seen earlier. Diabetes in pregnancy is X-100% more likely if you have PCOS. I need blood tests. I need my brain not to be whirring around with "What ifs". Sigh.
I also need not to have a sneaky cornetto on the way to the train. Aaargh.
Oh! went swimming today. Peeling off my swimsuit after a paltry 15 minutes and 5 lengths or so (had muscle pain in my abdomen so thought - hmm, that's enough for today), I discovered that it had had one of those papers saying "For sanitary reasons please do not remove your knickers whilst trying these on". I'd been swimming with that on all the time. Somehow I didn't expect that to be there on an internet purchase but there you go!
Two songs have been going around and around my head today. "Martha My Dear" by The Beatles and the new single by Beyonce Knowles which has such a glorious tune to the chorus and introduction you can almost forgive the insipid and bland verses. She almost does this incredible blast of a song justice but not quite. Meanwhile, I could happily listen to a superly funked up remix with just the chorus and the beginning in any day.
I listened to DJ Shadow to compensate for my wayward taste. I keep thinking I have to listen to more music and sing around the house more whilst sprog is in there listening. You WILL like music! You WILL involuntarily sing along to the soundtrack of The Wizard Of Oz and The Beastie Boys.
Well, remarkably, I don't feel too stressed despite the complete lack of medical information heading my way. My Mother, who carried 3 kids successfully came over last Saturday and she was so reassuring I felt a lot better about things generally. I don't mean reassuring in a "patting hand" type of way. More like - practical, sensible advice.
So the blood tests for the big blood problem still haven't come back. I'm thinking about giving them a ring today to say: well look, it's now been a month - could it be that they might have lost the results? Shouldn't we *do* something rather than just sit there?
I am having an ante natal checkup at my Doc's, but they were so overstretched that I couldn't get an appointment until a week on Monday, so I'll be in to Week 15 by then, only three weeks before the hosp can see me!
St Thomas's gave me the phone number of the local "outreach" midwives clinic at Streatham Hill which I have so far totally failed to call (but for some reason I'm not that worried about that!) and the private clinic at the hospital also said they'd send me an info pack - which they haven't!!
I don't know why I seem to be so blase about all the above. I think I was willing to do literally anything rather than feel as awful as I did last Friday, so I've gone almost entirely in the other direction.
Other items:
Managed to sleep through until 5 last night after going to sleep just after 11. Not too bad, could be one hell of alot better.
Didn't go for any longish walks yesterday since I was totally exhausted but already today I've walked from BlackFriars this morning (going through Smithfield at 7.36am. Hmmm... never have I seen so many boxes of chicken feet from Holland and Brazil).
The walk from BlackFriars takes me past St Bartholomew's hospital, where I was based as an outpatient for most of my Cystic Hygroma operations. I had a few there too. It seems so much smaller than I remember, but at the same time, that whole area still holds the mystique it did for me as a child, when everything: the church, the underground car park, the gates of Smithfield, seemed oversized and incredibly exotic. I remember feeling the glamour of being in a car and driving under the Holborn viaduct bridge, with all its gilt and iron grotesquery.
John, my Dad, put me on to a great Washington Irving essay written about Little Britain (where the solicitor, Jaggers, lives in Great Expectations), an area which is around there now by name only. When I was having my ops as a kid, the Victorian rickety buildings of the street were still, amazingly, there and the sense of place and of endless magic-realist London emanating from it was incredible. Even as a twelve year old, I felt it as a powerfully resonant place. It was bulldozed by some prick who felt that a tall featureless glass building for financiers would be more important. Duh - wrong, wrong, wrong. There's so little of the old working class housing left in London. I mean, I'm hardpressed to think of any. Grand buildings like St Pauls lived cheek by jowel not only with stern, utilitarian looking Georgian rows of houses, but also wood and brick low rise buildings where familes slept in a single room. I don't think Little Britain was quite like that but it was a terrible snobbery to demolish it.
Irving's memories of the bizarre pomposity and embarrassing social climbing that perpetuates English fiction are hilarious and of course reveal that behind every cliche is a reason for it. It reads like the basis of a good novel yet it at least has a basis in truth.
Oh, and I'm so glad I've started having comments from other women. This is why I was doing the "diary" (ho ho) in the first place!!!
Saw some friends for a little bit too long last night (getting home at 10 not having eaten yet), including Chris "Mac" Morrison, whose lady friend Bridget is 1 week behind me in the human being creation stakes. *So* good to talk to someone else every once in a while who knows what on earth I'm on about. Sounds like everything's going well at their end, they had the scan earlier this week and had exactly the same reaction to us (ie: "Oh my God! that's so totally bizarre it can't be real!").
(etc etc.... read on for blether)
Lovely Dave Green was also there who I see so rarely it's always a big relief to talk to him given that we can then talk almost endlessly about a miriad of subjects - well, ok, probably about 2 (comics and ....er.... well, comics, really) that absolutely no one else is remotely interested in. However, in keeping with a geeky gathering the general conversation amongst all present dissolved in to blogs, Star Trek, Buffy, pro's and Cons of Wiki generated social history and even Babylon 5 was mentioned.
I don't really know whether the inevitability of the above is good or bad. In a way it's slightly depressing but then it's also heartening and rather charming that this disperate group of people with a propensity to have no sun tans and wear glasses is in fact, very far indeed from being in a state of disperation.
Meanwhile, sleep is eluding me to an almost horrific extent. Woke up at 4.30 the night before last and 3.30 last night (on account of having gone to bed an hour earlier). The rest of the night spent in fruitless attempts at "relaxing" and instead feeling incredibly hot and uncomfortable, finding no way I could lie feeling comfortable. God help me as the weather gets hotter, I'm going to have to try and sleep in the bath full of cool water or something.
I've already told His Nibs at work I think I might have to go home at a reasonable time just to try to sleep. If only I could have a Nightol. Meanwhile, one of the causes of my stress related insomnia awaits me (large very overdue document now reaching fear-catatonia-inducing-gnarled negative-demon-talismanic-proportions). You never know, I might actually get it finished today in which case I'm sure that the urge to kip will come flooding over me and they'll find me huddled under my desk, Danny style, snoring.
I gag when I brush my teeth.
God knows what all that is about.
Meanwhile, swimming at the Oasis centre costs £2.20. So hopefully I can go a couple of times during each week.
Other meanwhile: I can't sleep. Woke up at 4.30 again last night and dozed only afterwards. I'm wondering whether or not when I do wake up I should just get up, go to the loo and come back to bed just to see if that makes any difference. God knows. Anyway, I'm also now finding that I can't sleep on my front and it's VERY uncomfortable! Damn you sprog! I always sleep on my front! Relearning how to drift off doesn't really help matters.
"All other swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with such pretences did I cheat myself. Surely a curious thing. That I should innocently take a bad half-crown of somebody else's manufacture, is reasonable enough; but that I should knowingly reckon the spurious coin of my own make, as good money!"
Such a great paragraph. The remembrance of an older man, bitter at his younger self for the stupidity of his actions. I've been reading "Great Expectations" and it's a stunning piece of work. I mean, you know the story: the burning, the prisoner, the churchyard, Pip. But there's such a depth of humanity in the writing. Even characters who only appear for a couple of lines seem to have life and spirit about them. not only that but it reads as an intense thriller - he really knew how to do make readers want to turn the next page.
This morning, I was reading the part where Magwitch died, and Joe appears like an angel of mercy to care for his old charge, Pip, while he's sick. I cried on the train!
Anyway. I'll talk about comics again next week.
Other news: at present, taking the continually offensive "How dare you question my authoritay" line, Blair is refusing outright to countenance the idea of an inquiry in to the weapons of mass destruction evidence. It is a desperately sad thing to see someone who at one point was an idealistic and seemingly decent human being allow himself to descend to this level of lies and hypocrisy. I don't think they realise just how much damage has been done in the last 6 weeks or so. And 90% of the damage is down directly to the way Blair has reacted to criticism or questioning of his actions.
The whole thing is just sad in so many ways. I'm glad we've begun to think that maybe we might want to leave this country in the next few years. It's inexorable decline, bound in decrepit post-imperialist ego is depressing to be in the middle of. Rather to go to somewhere with barely any history to speak of.
(You have no idea what it's like trying to remember not to cross my legs. I always cross my legs. It's a trademark).
Stefan & I went to the Warner village west end or whatever it's called on Leicester Square to view the fillum, and went and sat in the front row.
It is very silly, very pretentious and fun. the fight scenes are beautiful, particularly the guy fighting Neo before allowing him to see the Oracle and the hallway / stairs deal. the cgi was at points, desperately awful but I wondered if they didn't really mind that since they wanted it to feel like a computer game anyway. Annnnd I was thinking about all the cod-spiritual-bollocks. If you were reading this as a comic book, then that's the kind of thing that, if the characters are well drawn, just keeps the series ticking along.
Anyway. It's "alright". I'd watch it again for the fight scenes but I did actively groan out loud in several speechy scenes. the Dancing scene was... awful.
Y'see, I kind of knew about this, but I'd kind of forgotten.
Whilst getting dressed on Sunday I decided to look at the back of my right leg and try and see why it had been hurting a bit.
And discovered an absolutely *horrible* nest of raised and bumpy blue veins that I really can barely bring myself to state are.... (you have no idea of the repulsion in my face as I type this) Varicose Veins.
Ugh.
Looking like something as bad as that you would see on an old lady grumping down the street. Rarely have I seen anything so gross. It's actually genuinely upsetting. I don't want to go through ONE pregnancy and come out of the other end having aged 50 years.
Fuck all in the Queen Charlotte book about it (grrreat, maybe it's a bit too offputting to actually advertise. The miracle of childbirth! Oh, and by the way? Your body will start to fall apart and resemble your grandmother's! ) so I looked it up on the other oracle, "Babyworld". So. this makes a lot of sense. I put on a *huge* amount of weight very quickly from about week 9 or 10. God knows why exactly, since I have if anything been eating less, or at the very least it's just "as healthy as normal" with no fried food or excessive lard eating (given that I don't eat sweets generally anyway, and I'm a bloody vegetarian).
But, I suddenly bulked out. And I nearly always cross my legs. I am obviously being punished.
I had those anti-DVT socks from the plane flight to SF so whacked them on yesterday (hmmm... very attractive) and sat with my feet up on the small sofa arm reading, before nipping out with Stef to see The Matrix, coming back and putting two bricks under the bottom of the bed with the help of Mackay!
That was a lot higher that 15cms. and the bed creaked. A lot. And I found that my feet felt somewhat cold, whilst my shoulders were beginning to get a little bit cramped. 1am after 2 hours of trying to sleep, I drag Mackay away from online Backgammon to pull at least 1 of the bricks away from under the legs of the bed.
Better.
Still didn't sleep much though. Could not get up this morning in the vain hope of trying to get more relaxation time even though I wasn't actually sleeping. I didn't eat much yesterday, that might have been why I didn't sleep well, although I didn't feel hungry as such.
Today I must go to Boots the Chemist and purchase about ten pairs of those DVT socks. Although perhaps I really should go the whole hog and get support tights. Oh GOD! I can't bear tights. Strapping yourself up in somethign that makes you look like a cooked sausage and gives your crotch trenchfoot NO THANKS.
Other action: Start walking more. If possible, walk from Blackfriars to work and vice versa instead of Farringdon every day. Also, walk back from Balham up Bedford Hill unless in the dark. That and, now I feel a lot less sick, try and work out this pregnancy yoga or pilates deal in a central London gym to help strengthen my back up. It's not as if it's directly related to the various veins buttttt I'm sure my general current lack of fitness hasn't exactly helped matters along.