Week 26 is greeted by a supremely late morning and a mooch about the house dressed in my dressing down wrapped just below my bust, listening to The Flaming Lips and the second Divine Comedy album with a hope that sprog will respond to how musical they are - listen - cellos! Pianos!
I'm aware I've been watching a lot of TV this week to stave off the loneliness - aimlessly channel surfing on my own in the house feeling a bit too jetlagged and grumpy to sort out going out any evenings. I might go to the cinema later just go get out of the house. On my own. Eeesh. Anyway, what worries me is pre-conditioning her to TV watching as a primary calming activity. Nooo!
Having said that though, I did in fact go out. An an evening in Windsor yesterday was lovely, before Owen & Paula buggered off - and Mackay sent me a funny Salon article with a nice message. Although the article was about "why do women pick at their mates" (the clue's in the species, I feel) and apparently it reminded him of me! Cheeky bugger.
God I've really hated being on my own, frankly. In retrospect, (almost) regardless of the good experiences Mackay must be having, flying seperately and him staying on an extra week was a really bad idea. For me, anyway. Lumping round the house with him missing a whole week of her kicking and growing, and with no feeling of support for a week other than two or three snatched phone calls. It's got nothing to do with him being a bloke or anything, it's just I'd much rather we were together at the moment. It's no wonder I've been a bit emotional this week.
I had to go shopping yesterday to get clothes suitable for a funeral, and it was handy being in Mothercare without feeling exhausted after work, really looking at the different cots and stuff. But, looking at the tiny new baby clothes, booties and the like I had an enormous welling up of tears for... no real reason I could fathom other than almost... hmmm.. it was a strange, strong emotion almost akin to grief, in that it was like a sledgehammer in my heart. Just... the enormity of it. Of her, an independent person and all that. But not just that - aware of the heavy duty emotional umbilical cord that will still be there after she's born. That kind of attachment or relationship is almost frighteningly intense. It happened again in the Early Learning Centre (which has some fairly neat stuff in - as well as some right old cobblers). I had to leave the shop so I could stop looking at the wooden ABC blocks and shape puzzles.
I think it's possible that there's also a remembrance or familiarity that kicks in from very deep down. The pleasure of the tactile nature of things like that. I can remember what my small pink rabbit, "Charlie" looked like hanging down in front of me in my pram. Don't ask me to make any more of that memory because it's only a flashed snapshot, but I loved that bloody rabbit. Other strong flash memories I have from being very young is the feeling of being in my playpen and looking through the bars (it seemed to be enormous), and pushing the wooden brick trolley around. So there you are, this grown adult human, who is about to pass on to a questioning, brand new person all these experiences, these loves and tactilities.
Aaaanyway. All very "everyone's been there before" I've no doubt.
I've put up the useless bunch of photos I took.
Sometimes I'm in the mood to take the camera out all the time and sometimes I'm just not. I'm currently in a bit of a "just not" mood so consequently, barely any photos really.
Extended entry gubbins for the full run down.
Air Canada
Do not fly on Air Canada. Particularly when pregnant. Seats have no width, they didn't give me a bulkhead seat despite the fact that non child and no pregnant people had the bukhead seats, and it was company policy not to upgrade when the plane isn't full.
I don't know about the jobsworth at the desk, but if I were the airline, I would think right. How often do lone pregnant women fly with us? Right - just upgrade them. Don't sit on your fucking hands. Not only all of that but they're more expensive than Virgin and they give less service overall. So, my advice is - stick Air Canada up yer arse.
Gastown
Gastown is strange. Half of it is a tourist haven, the other half is Hastings - a drug addled mess of the poor and wretched. Owen's house backs on to the service railway, which means he has amazing views of the harbour (big bruise ships, boat planes and Grouse mountain - pretty spectacular) and clanking trains full of "beef tallow not for human consumption" going about 3 feet past his window at 3am!
It's a lovely place he's got though. And a good collection of DVD's. They do what we (tend) to do - use the TV as a means to watch films.
Animals
So up on grouse mountain there's a reasonably large enclosure in which 2 eighteen month old grizzly bear cubs live. Their mother having been shot or killed. Going up to grouse on the skyride, we looked around their enclosure (it's huge and full of trees - it's as natural as it could be) and they weren't around, then looked back later to find both of them scrumbling about and jumping in to their pond play fighting. So i said cubs, right. These two were bigger than any living person I've ever seen, when they stood upright. They're teeth were very much on display when they pretended to fight each other and good God they were frightening. someone near me said something like "oh they're so cute!". Cute? What is there cute in this picture? They were fascinating and terrifying. They has no fear of humans at all. One electric fence between us and them. It was all very strange.
Black squirrels were of course very much in evidence in Stanley Park, and grey squirrels everywhere else. They are far too cute. And they're not going to rip your head off whilst roaring in your ear, either.
In the acquarium, we were both struck with feeling very uncomfortable at the bigger, smarter animals being stuck in these small cages. What struck me was, the undersea tanks full of fish who can't understand anything other than food and swimming direction were fascinating - they have no need for dolphins and Minky whales. One sea otter seemed very loney in a tiny area, but later on we saw him, almost unbearably delightfully, asleep on his back with his mate asleep next to him... holding hands.
Otters came up again twice, but thankfully these guys were wild and happily splooshing about in open water. Having a failed trip up to Whistler, on the way back before the sun went down completely we stopped off at Alice Lake. the kind of place with an organised campsite for familes.. you know: Hey! Look! Camp here! No bears, see? They know not to come here! The lake itself was a gorgeous glacial calm mirror sorrounded by trees, with what looked like rain spits and spots coming down until we realised they were flies landing on the surface. And watching, it became clear that there were large fish jumping at the top of the water to grab the flies.
We walked around the edge of the lake, and heard a large sploosh sound close to us. Standing still, I saw air bubbles and thought "that's no fish".... waiting to see what happened.... and then, to our amazement a little way away by the shore, up slops a silvery form and sits on a log, sniffing the air. An otter, reflecting the sky in it's greasy sodden fur who realised only seconds later we were there, and slipped itself back under, in to the clear depths of the lake, to be seen no more. Gorgeous. As dusk wore on along the other side of the lake, the fish grew more impatient with the light and one could see many of them literally jumping out of the water to reach the flies. I don't think that wee otter would have been short of food.
another otter appeared whilst we were walking through the "Galleria" on Gabriola Island. it's all sandstone, so the bottom of the sandstone cliff had eroded away in to an arc-ing overhang, next to a gorgeous, clear and deepish bay. as wwe stood gazing at all this calm beauty, a very young sea otter came bounding down part of the galleria, saw us, panicked and dove straight in to the bay. Joanne pointed him out and we could see his head bobbing through the water, until he reached the other side, where he scrabbled out and ran, undulating along the shore.
Eagles flew over our cabin, seals lived on an island you could see from a bench outside our cabin door and one night, switching the light on in the bathroom, a small green treefrog stood perfectly still on a chair, knowing he was a little vulnerable all of a sudden. I took a glass to hold him in so I could take him outdoors as gently as I could, and instead of panicking and bouncing against the side of the glass, he very sensibly clambered up the inside. So there was no need even for carboard underneath, I was able to just take him outside and lay the glass in some dampish undergrwoth in the hope that he'd be ok.
And then there were the whales - a grey whale and two humpbacks - a mother and kid. And while we were out watching, about a mile and a half off the shore of west Vancouver Island, huge fish, tuna sized, ovvasionally sped out of the water and fell back in again close to the boat. They weren't dolphins or porpoises, they were too erratic. But - they felt lovely, alive and real.
More later, I'll update this one. A bit knacked and running out of steam now!
You know, this pregnancy thing is beginning to take a downturn.
- My back is beginning to inexorably curve beyond my control
- I have muscle pain in the sides of my groin and down my right leg which, to be honest don't affect me whilst I'm standing up or walking, but the second I'm lying down are so uncomfortable, I woke up about ten times last night
- My heartburn is now excrutuating at times. So bad that whereas - ok, I'm making the assumption that you get heartburn. But when you do, what tends to happen is that you get a sharp pain then it dies away in a sort of burning sensation for about 5 - 10 seconds top whack, right? Ok. Imagine the sharp pain bit not stopping for about 2 minutes. It hurts so much I've nearly been sick in the last few days. My Mum, bless her heart picked me up from the airport and realised what was going on. Sprog moves in to breach position, and basically ends up standing up in my belly with her head pressed up against my stomach. So it doesn't matter what I eat. It's basically irrelevant. Anti-acids are going to do fuck all either. So. Tod, I love her said, "Well move her round then". Eh? She showed me how to gently massage the top of my belly and basically push the wee cow away from my stomach. She's not quite big enough for me to feel completely but I can sense her moving as I get better at it. Bless Tod! She's a godsend. This is what we need in life - more practical Mums who have had 3 kids.
- Lastly, the flight has finally caught up with me. I woke up with a catch in my throat and looked in the bathroom mirror - back of throat currently resembles chopped liver. Get to work, turns out one guy's off sick and two other people in the office also have the sore throat. I really should have taken extra vit C and garlic and immune system boosters coming off the plane. What an eeeeediot.
Ew.
So - here I am at work to have a meeting and pick up a bunch of stuff and take it back home with me. Meanwhile, two friends in The Grauniad this morning:
Danny gets to be his blessedly optimistic self properly in paid print:
...and Tom gets to ramble on about the usual ;)
I promise I will ramble on about the holiday later.
...from British Columbia. But, I am still battling jetlag, extreme heartburn and a newly fucked up set of muscles along the bottom of my belly going in to my right leg. God knows what she's doing - maybe twanging them for a laugh.
And I'm big. Hooooooo boy. Anyway. A BC update will arrive probably by the weekend repleate with many slightly over the top phrases and gushy outbursts.
Meanwhile getting back in to work, etc and trying to get my head straight for sleeping correctly takes precedence.
One bit of sad news - although ungrateful cow that I am it's not as sad as it should be for me personally, probably - my last remaining grandparent died when I was away. My Irish Grannie. She's the one I haven't seen for well over half my life and who got down on her knees to pray that we'd all be born mongoloids when John married out of the religion. I feel a bit crap that I never attempted a reconciliation (my want to make any effort to see her more or less stopped dead in its tracks after I heard that piece of family history) but it goes nowhere near as far as regret. I'm just hoping that it now paves the way for much better relationships with my lovely Aunt and the ability to reintroduce myself to my Uncle Martin. I will of course go to the funeral but I'll be going for them - and my Dad, obviously, rather than any other reason.
The fact that I'm having a baby out of wedlock will I've no doubt be a subject of great and somewhat tedious interest at the funeral. My Great Aunt & Uncle (ish, they're sort of cousins) were informed I was having a baby along with the news about Anne dying. Their first words, "Oh! When was she married?". John hummed and ahhed through "Ohh.... er.... a while ago, it was a quiet ceremony, you know".
Catholics!
Go shopping after work to the one remaining Mothercare in central London, Marble Arch.
Opposite side of road - M&S. the Oxford Street M&S people said the Marble Arch one had a maternity section so I go on. Apparently they don't but they do sell tights - so I'm thinking - hmmm..... plane flight, support tights - could be better than knee highs that could fuck my legs up a bit... go upstairs.
Sitting down crying softly to himself with a pair of crutches is a little boy. Poor wee thing, I think. His Mum must be getting something for him. He starts to cry harder and an M&S person goes by, he sobs, "Can you get my Mum, that lady, can you get her, it hurts... it hurts..."
Looking at his leg, he has an horrific looking lump on the front of his leg that looks frighteningly infected, swollen and awful. I stand with this woman watching the scene in dumb shock. We talk about what we can do - there's nothing we can do surely, my God, I can't stand this.... woman walks off in horror.
I begin to walk away thinking "Jesus, there must be something..."
I can't walk away. How could anyone walk away. The little boy is desperately upset and in a hell of a lot of pain. I mean you can tell, when someone's crying whether it's real or emotional. I go and hold his hand and say firmly "What is your name. I will get the shop to put out a message so your Mum will come". He stutters his name and I mishear it, so I repeat it back to him and he nods his head, weeping.
I go to the counter, and wait a moment - the boy's cries can be heard all over the shop now. He's started to get in to that terrible spiral of hysterical crying.
"There's a little boy here in terrible distress, his name is XXX (can't remember) and I want you to put out a message for his Mother to come and collect him imediately"
By some amazing chance, his Mum is there at the counter. She says with some irritation "He's mine, it's alright" - she's been buying underwear!!! She begins to saunter back to the boy, looking at products as she goes - frankly, I've never seen anything like it in my life. She eventually gets to the boy and stands in front of him screaming.
"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!!".. and so it continued....
At which point I HATE myself, hormonal tears start pricking innto my eyes through sheer amazement and horror. Damn it. Damn it!!! I wanted to take that woman by the shoulders and say to her - what the hell do you think you are doing? He needs to be at home with an ice pack on his leg! Get him home! He needs your love not your abuse! Instead there I am walking away with tears pouring down my damn face.
I also had a strong wish to just slap the stupid bloody woman round the face and wake her up. What made her react like that - embarrassment? What the hell was she doing taking her poor kid shopping for fucks sake? On a sweltering day, in the west end! Anything, ANYTHING with the exception of medicine for him should have waited until he was safely at home with pain killers and at the very least a packet of frozen peas on his leg - he'd obviously just been to hospital or something.
And me being so bloody weak. It made me curse myself. Although not one to think this kind of thing normally, I really wish Mackay had been there with me. Together we could have controlled that situation, got them in to a cab, paid for a fucking cab, I don't care, and got him home. What sort of woman.... what sort of mother. Jesus.
Whatever happens in my life, I hope to God if I ever got to the point of abusing my child in a situation anything approaching that, someone would intervene and make me realise what I was doing. And I'm damn well intervening if I ever see anything like that again.
Look. I know I shouldn't say it and I sincerely wish everyone else to have lovely lunch hours or days off getting bright lobster red under this sun and in this scorching heat but can I please be allowed to live in a little autumnal, cloudy, cool zone of my own, with a small light grey "cloud cover" type cloud overhead and a cool breeze but no chance of rain?
Can I?
No sleep last night. Misery today. 34 degrees tomorrow. That'll be higher, without a doubt. They said 30 yesterday and it went higher than that. Depressingly, the erstwhile sunny but fresh Vancouver area appears to be 29 degrees today - no, I am completely wrong and should not reply on the BBC. Vancouver waether says it's 22 degrees today and will be hmmm... slightly more bearable than here, 24 degrees on Friday. 22 is goooood however. I like 22.
Liz Stevens, the Community midwife came over last night. She reminded me a lot of Polly actually. Very practical, down to earth and knowledgeable.
And now I'm having her at home. Yay!
Not only that, but... it was just such a relief someone just... taking over a load of post-decision making actions. Nearly everything I've done so far has been off my own bat, fighting indifference, inefficiency and overworked people. Last night, she said - oh sure, I'll sort out the home birth pool, the this, the that... I nearly burst in to tears with relief.
As I said to Liz, I'm not going to "Earth mother" it and dig my heels in and regfuse medical treatment when it's self evidently obvious I should be in hospital (if that is the case at any point), because the mighty "she" is more important than my ego. But, I just so wanted to be able to have her in a home environment, all nice and calm (as much as possible), watching old films as long as possible, putting on some calming music, my Mum making cups of tea...
Frankly, this is brilliant news.
I've just discovered AskDrSears.com whilst quickly searching for anything that will help with my workfriend who has excrutiating headaches to deal with at present, poor love.
It just utterly rocks. It's got loads of gubbins in that I haven't read elsewhere (and why not? Why is it you have to go to 3 or 4 info sources to get the right answer? Or any bloody answer?). So here it is talking about ligament pain which would explain a *hell* of alot of weird tweaks and nasty pains I've ben having all the damn time:
"The tissue surrounding and supporting your uterus has more work to do now that your uterus is bigger and heavier. This brings new physical sensations. Large ligaments, called round ligaments, on each side of your uterus attach your uterus to your pelvis. Round ligaments must stretch as your uterus grows. This slow and steady stretching does not itself cause discomfort, but because they are being taxed by change, round ligaments can suddenly become sensitive to normal actions. The most common offender is a sudden change of position. When you twist, or get out of bed in the morning, round ligament strain can cause a gripping pain along one or both sides of your lower abdomen, or even toward your back. While not harmful to baby, this pain can sometimes be excruciating for you. "
You're telling me!
I haven't looked up in my lovely Queen Charlotte book what should be happening in week 22 but I can tell you what *is* happening.
She was awake *loads* yesterday and she seems to favour head on right, feet kicking away on left. Sometimes now I can feel the lump of her head but I'm wary of stroking her when I do realise it's her head, in case I'm squishing her nose or something.
Other news: no midwife on Friday night. Some inconsiderate woman decided to give birth which ballsed up the appt. So she may see me tonight, or Wednesday.
Mackay's parents came over on Saturday - they are very nice people indeed. They admired the handiwork of Rich and Mackay on Friday who between them completed nearly half the patio. Which was quite amazing. Rich stayed on Friday night and played bad chaos monkey in a game of Monopoly which I basically had to give up on and therefore lose because it got started too late. My brain really shuts down when I'm tired these days. I can't remember things, I can't add up or think, it's like waiting for a really old slow computer to do things when too many applications are open. So I basically gave up when it got to 12.30 and went and slept.
When I do sleep, I sleep good and hard.
Anyway. Back to Saturday. Ended up going for a long walk around the strange semi-wilds of Streatham Common (much more strange than you'd think) and dragging our asses down the early to mid-twentieth century architecture of Leigham Court Road to Westbury's mad "open all night with dayglo neon" Chemist emporium and Blockbusters to eventually decide upon "City Of God" which I failed to see at the flicks and is a great film. It may have been based on a true story, but you knew that Kenny was doomed from the moment you saw him with bleach on his hair.
Sunday morning woke horrifically early for a Sunday (7! Are we crazy??) in order to take a train ride to a new place and go for a country walk. The new place was Walton-On-the-Naze, about 40 miles above southend, near Clacton (where I went to Butlins as a child).
We actually wanted to get to The Naze but thought Walton looked quite nice. And it was... ish. Rammed with Essex familes, lobstering in the baking heat with their children digging holes in the beach very intently. I was reminded in a flash of the relative communally accepted safety of beaches. 7 year old decides they are going to look after 3 year old and they go off and paddle for a bit, and dig - then come back to show parents how brilliant they are. Parents awaken briefly from slumber and frying in the sun to mumble encouragement... and children skip off again for their next sand and seashell related adventure.
I've rarely heard so many east London / Essex (which is in fact a stronger accent) accents in one place - or indeed, fat people. I'm not suggesting that this is an Eseex phenomenon. Far from it. But, all the discussion ergarding obesity really comes to life when you look at a town full of half naked people baking themselves near-purple in the heat, waddling, carrying a full trunk load of far on each extremity and even more on their bellies. It cannot be just the fault of these people. If it was, the beaches would have been filled with fatsos when I was a kid. It has to be a combination of terrible shop bought convenience food (that's relatively cheap), filled with all manner of shite, and the bits that are their fault. Like never getting off their fat arses. (looks behind...) Errr... let's move on, shall we...
After a while started the walk to the Naze bit, which was perfectly amicable and interesting, but the strangest and most perfect part of the day was seeing a hawk, perfectly balanced, watching for mice or even large insects along the end of the clay cliffs, hanging in the air perfectly still while the wind rushed passed it. Its head down and searching, every so often it would change its wing balance, unfan its tail and shoot down ten feet to stare even more intently at a spacific area of ground, its legs now poking down like an undercarriage. Then a quick bomb to the grass before an irritated climb back up to the 30 foot level to resume its surveillance.
Gorgeous.
And, I wish I'd had my camera in my hand, because I looked around, and some ten or more people were all standing, staring in admiration, almost silently, at this beautiful and deadly animal. I'm amazed it went about its busines basically ignoring us completely. So after paying our respects, we moved on.
The trains were screwed on the way back and I started getting a very strange non-threatening but not very nice pain in my left side inside - as if I'd pulled a muscle just below where my ovary is. So I became very slow on the way back to the Walton train station. Stuck at London bridge for just over an hour on the way back I began to wonder if 3 hour (minimum) train times then longish supposedly country walks are in fact something I should be doing right now. Didn't make me feel good about long walks in the Vancouver forests I have to say. Which aren't really that flat either.
Huge forest fires in Alberta, DC currently. Which is very sad. Shouldn't affect the Van area but it's rotten nevertheless. for the locals, the wildlife and of course the ancient rainforest.
End. This has been a bit Jeffrey Archer. I apologise for the lack of insight in to what has been, basically a list of events one after the other.
It was spitting with rain when I woke up this morning, and was not what I'd call very August-like. When I got to Farringdon, a water main had burst and was flooding down the road.
There's something vaguely anarchic about burst water mains. No, not anarchic... when they burst, they crack the road, a huge hole appears and the water, bubbling joyously out of the whole in abandonment is silty and brown. The water is so entirely Out Of Context, breaking the solid monotony of a road's dark grey surface, with it's own petite variety of a thunderous waterfall. No doubt it will be fixed when I return to wend my way homeward to see the Midwife who is coming over tonight (yay!)
Woke up at 3 wanting to go the loo and managed to get back to sleep to stave it off until about 5.20, during which time I had what looked like it was going to become a horror-dream so was quite glad for the more pressing problems to wake me from the building anxiety (I was at that stage, with unnamed colleagues, looking through old brown books in an old stone building surrounded by - surprise surprise, water). As well as desperately wanting to rid myself of what felt like several gallons of pee, I was also desperately thirsty.
I think I'm entering the stage where my vital organs are becoming compressed enough to mean I will be awoken in the night with a need to pee regardless of whether the dark curtain liners are delivered or not. Of course, what *I* do is close the door and not flush because you can do that just as well in the morning. What Mackay does is keep the door open so I can hear his sonorous stand-up sprinking, then flushes, guaranteeing noise for the next 5 minutes.
I hope you enjoyed this brief interlude into our lives.
Oh and hello to a friend from work who has been secretly shown this URL (I have about as much faith in anyone from work finding this as I do that we'll be walking on Mars by the end of the decade) because she - HUGE CROSSED FINGERS is pregnant to the tune of nearly 7 weeks, and I thought she might want to see what gibberish I've come up with to talk about during the last few months of hard labour.
Feel free to leave notes at the appropriate points in my past where you are now. Hopefully you won't have as much early grief with the NHS as I did. Nasty.
Oh - her movements are becoming more focused. I can feel her growing almost daily. She feels so different to just last Sunday, for example. Her bashings and scrapings are clearer, with more weight behind them. She scrambled around last night for an hour or so. Probably less, but I think that the short bursts of energy she has tires her out quite as bit, since then she does nothing for hours and hours (or during the entire day, which freaked me out yeaterday).