What to expect when you're expecting - not much apparently

The start of week 15.
I still don't 'feel' particularly pregnant. I'm thoroughly enjoying not having had my period for 3 and a half months but that's about it. Even morning sickness didn't really bring it home. I just felt hung over and there's no novelty value in that for me. I peer at my stomach regularly to see if I can spot a baby bump but there's so much 'me' bump in the way I can't tell any difference.
Here's what other people think should be happening by this stage -

• Abdominal pain - nope. I did have some implantation pain during the first 5 weeks though which triggered minor panic attacks each time.
  
• Leaking breasts - not yet. I'm kind of looking forward to this. I've heard when you orgasm they go off like a sprinkler system. What's not fun about that? :-)
  
• Nosebleeds - what? I'm worried about everything else bleeding but my nose? Really?
  
• Hair changes - nope. I think I've noticed I'm getting a few more grey hairs but that might be because I'm an old married now.
  
• Skin changes - nope. Still looks the same old skin to me.
• You can probably feel your uterus about 3 to 4 inches below your belly button - what do they mean below? Do they mean going towards my spine or moving down towards my pubis (oh settle down - this is a pregnancy blog after all. Some words just have to be said.) Either way, poking around just makes me want to wee.
• You can easily tell that you are pregnant now. Yeah. Nope.
  
• On an average most women gain around 5 pounds of weight - no, thank goodness. Just the Easter egg weight. I'm not worried as I'm not planning on laying down any maternal fat stores. I'll just use the ones I prepared earlier.
• You might feel the ligaments stretching in your abdomen as the uterus expands and this can cause cramps, twinges or pulling sensations on one or both sides of your abdomen - ooh!ooh!ohh! I've got that one! I get a very slight pulling sensation on my sides every now and then.
• Urinary tract infection, bacterial vaginosis and yeast infections - no and gross.
• This is the week when the baby can listen to sounds so you can start listening to soft music or try conversing with the baby which might seem odd but is a great way of starting the bonding process - look, I'm a huge fan of bonding but Trogdor is attached to my uterus. How much more bonded are we going to get?
  

I'm assuming I have all this, and more, to look forward too.

Secrets

Week 15 + 1.
There's a lot they don't tell you about being pregnant.

• They don't tell you that subtly, with no conscious effort or decision making on your part, the world starts to separate into two distinct groups - 'those who will support you and your child' and 'expendable'. This rule is universally applied by your brain and extends to friends, family and lovers alike. And you don't feel any guilt or regret for thinking this way. And any-one who might think that's a cruel way to view the world either a) has no children or b) doesn't really love their children.
• They don't tell you that on a bad day an 'expendable' can be downgraded to a 'potential source of protein'.
• They don't tell you begin to suspect that if push really came to shove, despite every-thing that you've ever believed about your own capabilities for self sacrifice, you might well come to see yourself as expendable.
• They don't tell you how condescending people can become when they give you their huge list of what you must/must never do while pregnant. Any powers of intelligence or common sense that you might once have been attributed with are suddenly wiped from every-ones score boards. The desire to shout "Fuck off, I'm having an infant not becoming one" can be over whelming.
• They don't tell you that you find yourself looking at the list of everything that is strictly verboten during pregnancy and then at pictures of an entirely normal looking Frances Bean Cobain and thinking 'how did she get away with that?'

Just when you thought it was safe to go into the hospital again...

The Butcher of Bega

The thing that disturbs me most about this article is that these women would have had nurses, midwives, partners or parents with them and it seems that no one intervened to defend the mothers or their babies. Obviously I don't know what really went on, or what sort of complaints were made but comments like

"They [doctors] didn't particularly like him but they didn't interfere."

and

"They were all worried about their jobs and it was silly really. They should have just said something. They used to all talk about it in the tearoom and no one did anything about it."

indicate that people knew something bad was happening and chose not to get involved.
It strikes me as a sample of what the psychology behind Auschwitz must have been like. A person in authority says 'do something' and good people (or people who think of themselves as 'good') do it.

On another note why in this quote:

"She recalled a woman who had such a "traumatic" delivery that she refused to allow Mr Reeves back in her room."

is traumatic in ""? It could possibly be a quote from the midwife, or from the mother but it seems strange to quote a single word with out clarifying who said it, or what the rest of the comment was. All the other quotes are sentences - this is the only individual word to be ""-ed. What it manages to do - intentionally or not - is to call into question the use of the word 'traumatic'.

Do we believe that it's impossible for a woman to have a traumatic birth? Are we still at the stage where we think women can experience a doctor who

mutilated their genitals, botched procedures and sexually assaulted them

but still leave the hospital saying "At least I've got a healthy baby and that's all that matters"?

Because if that's true, then women's health care has come no-where since year dot.

All growed up

When Spidermonkey and I left the house yesterday morning the soft dew of youth was still upon us. Wild, unfettered and free we met the new day.
By the time we returned that night we were all growed up. Yes gentle reader, we have become home owners. And when I say 'home owners' I mean mortgage owners. Huzzah. The Great Australian Dream.
Our Great Australian Dream takes the form of a nice, new unit with two balconies and a lock up garage with storage space. (You know you're all growed up when the idea of storage space sends you into silent, blissful raptures. "We could put our winter linen down there!")
There is room for us, there is room for ALL our copious amount of stuff (we hope) and there is room for baby. There may even be room for Cat if we can't find his owners. There's even space for a dining area to be set up so we can have the high chair next to the table! (I have previously explained the importance of this.)
Regardless of the fact that we stayed within our budget and have kept borrowing to a minimum we both had some sleepless nights any-way. I guess it goes with the territory - and it's good practice.
Now we just have to pack. Damn.

Photos will follow.

Ring down the curtain

Prospero:
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

The Tempest. Act 4, Scene 1.

Peter Ryan - missed and missed and missed.

More random thoughts

1. We may have been adopted by a cat. We met this cat for the first time 10 days ago. He was initially very nervous around us but was gradually convinced to come over for a pat. Although I kept an eye out for him I didn't see him again for about a week. On Easter day, however, we were walking back from the fish and chip shop when we heard a meowing behind us. There was the cat, following us and obviously keen to be invited over for dinner. That night I set him up with a cat box on the veranda outside. He was gone in the morning but turned up again for food and company that evening. Because he is a 'whole' male who is just reaching adolescence, I haven't been brave enough to keep him indoors at night. Male cat spray might just lose us our bond. We will try to find his owners and after that try to find another home for him but if not... we have a pet.
2. I have been able to start eating fish again. Hooray for the second trimester.
3. On Monday I have my first appointment with the midwives! I have spoken with my midwife twice on the phone and she sounds very nice but she concluded the conversation by saying "we'll ask a lot of questions and then we'll try to find a heartbeat." Try? For the last week I have had Frank Oz's voice in my head "Do or do not - there is no try." I think the Jedi master might be right on this one. Spidermonkey has taken the afternoon off work to come in with me. I'm excited but still resistant to the idea that I need to have people poking me and scanning me to see what's going on. There hasn't been any indication that anything is wrong and even if something were wrong they can't do any thing about it at this stage any-way. Still... it'll be nice to hear a heartbeat.
   
4. I put on 0.5kg over Easter. I think that's chocolate rather than baby weight. Should go for a walk. Should... go for... a... walk. Can't... be... bothered. Meh.
   

Disclaimer

A common piece of advice from baby books is "when telling other people you are expecting* remember their reactions are about them not you." Which I guess is good to keep in mind when you're suddenly bombarded with stories along the lines of "My Aunty Kath had an 8 day labour and gave birth to a 15lb baby who came out sideways laying on a deck chair. And this was before any one realized there were twins in there."
Fortunately every-one we have told so far has been lovely. My parents are very excited - this will be their first grandchild. I wish I could have told them face to face but I guess that happens when you're living 2000km apart. Spidermonkey's parents were thrilled - I thought they might have been a bit over it all considering this will be their sixth grandchild! SM's mum has already brought me some maternity clothes for when I start to need them.
The few friends from the theatre we have told have been wonderful. Tyd is more excited than we are I think, and has been more than happy to spend hours talking about Trogdor related issues. Everything from the importance of folate to the effectiveness of nipple stimulation to establish labour.
But then I have also found I get a variation of this comment quite often:

"Of course it's lovely for you but it's not something that I could do just yet. I'm too busy/starting my career/with out a partner/allergic to small children. Even though my friends/sisters/cousins/neighbours/mum all had kids by my age"

And they look at me. There's generally a pause. Then I say 'fair enough' - which is clearly not what they were hoping for.
I listen to whatever they want to say and I try to be empathetic because primarily, I think, they just want to be heard by some-one who has faced the same sort of questions they are grappling with and come out with some sort of answer.
But really, what can I say? They don't want a child, they may or may not ever want a child and they don't have a child. Whoopie. I know 'count your blessings' is cliched but of all the possible scenarios arising from wanting/not wanting a child and having/not having a child it's one of the better outcomes.
And I know - societal expectation, family pressure, biological clock etc etc but whatever you choose some-one out there is going to have an opinion on why you've done exactly the wrong thing. And whatever you chose you're always going to wonder if you've done the right thing. It's life and to quote the great American philosopher Denis Leary "Life sucks, get a fucking helmet."
I don't say this.
Honestly, simply because I have chosen to fall pregnant doesn't mean I know the answers. Maybe I should. But carrying a child - like the start of any relationship - is a leap of faith.
At other times I feel people are being defensive about their own choices - as though I am some how attacking them by taking a different route. I ran into this attitude a lot when I became engaged. (The best comment was 'why would you want to cook and clean for some-one for the rest of your life?' My response - 'well, why would you?')
So I have devised a disclaimer. I may have cards made up. Or not.

I am pregnant.
My husband and I are happy to be pregnant. I hope you are happy that we are happy.
I am not saying every-one should have a child. I am not saying you should want to have a child. I am not saying every-one should aim to have their first child at the same age as I have mine. The ultimate number of children we end up with may not be ideal for any-one else. None of the choices we have made may be right for you. (Or us - let's face it.)
I do not assume that you would some how be happier if you were like me as I am sure you don't assume I would be happier being like you. Every one has their hands full being themselves.
I have faith. I have hope. I really don't have any answers.
Sorry.

*Expecting? Why are we still using euphemisms for 'pregnant'? I expect many things in my life. Travel - which means I'm adventurous. Love - which means I'm romantic. Fame and fortune - which means hope springs eternal. In this particular instance I am expecting a baby. That means I'm pregnant.

13 Weeks

Apparently Trogdor looks like frozen Han Solo.

According to some calculations this is the last week of my first trimester while others say I have just started the first week of my second trimester.

I've decided to be in my second trimester.

Well, why not? Trogdor will be born when s/he's ready any-way. I'm sure my little burninator isn't concerned about dates. What are dates when Mum is obviously attempting to poison one by trying to eat fresh fish? We don't stand for that sort of thing in this womb!

Good grief. That's the first time I've described myself as 'Mum'. As in a 'Mum' to this little one not just a cool blogger name.

I'm fine.

No, really.

I need to go and lie down.

Mum.

Oh. Dear. Lord.

Simply Irresistible

Pregnancy makes your skin glow, your hair shine and your breasts swell to hitherto unsuspected dimensions - we all know this. This is the good stuff about pregnancy. This is how we get through the first trimester - "I'm dry retching at 7 in the morning but damn, I have a glossy head of hair. And look at my nails! I'm like Edward-fricken-Scissorhands".
What I wasn't told is how attractive I would suddenly become to every eccentric individual whose path I happen to cross. Apparently I have turned into a freak magnet.
The first incident was on the train. I was sitting near the window when suddenly I felt something pushing at my upper hip.
"Best case scenario," I thought, "is that it's a can or a bottle that's been left behind and it's rocking into me with the movement of the carriage. Worst case scenario is that it's a rat in death throes. If it's a bottle fine, if it's a rat I'm going to have to scream or possibly vomit and generally make a tool out of myself. I won't look."
So, without glancing down, I moved slightly into the centre of the seat and sure enough this tapping/pressing stopped. For about five minutes. Then I felt it again. This time I knew I had to look. There was not a bottle. There was not a rat. Instead there were fingers. Nasty, grimy, broken finger nails were pressing themselves against my hip.
I should mention here that Spidermonkey thinks I should have grabbed the offending fingers then and there and broken a few for the hell of it. My argument is that I had no idea of the person who was behind me, what sort of state they were in or even if there was only one of them.
So I spun around prepared to give this person a mouthful and... stopped. The man behind me was the most broken, most pathetic, wreck of a man you could imagine. White hair, watery blue eyes, disheveled clothes and a look that let you know he wasn't really all there. I couldn't tell you if he was mentally disabled but he was definitely lost in some way that I can't describe. And I knew that whatever I had to say wouldn't have any effect on him - I couldn't help him and I certainly couldn't make his life any worse. So I finished my glare, turned back around and continued listening to my ipod. No more than 30 seconds later he fled the carriage. I still think about him. I'm not angry or indignant - just a little bit sad. I hope he's okay.
The other event happened on Tuesday evening, this time on the bus. (Could it be the heady mixture of pregnancy hormones combined with public transport which creates this aphrodisiac for the afflicted?) At some point a man sat down next to me. He was probably about my age, dressed in some sort of work uniform and not obviously broken in the way the other man had been. I was happily watching a TV series on my ipod and didn't pay much attention to him until I realized that he kept looking over at me. I thought he might have been trying to see what I was watching but it was a bit... odd. At some point he let his arm slip beside him so it was between his leg and my leg which again was odd but some people aren't as picky about personal space as I am.
We were a few minutes away from my stop when I felt his fingers rubbing against my leg and then he placed his hand so it was resting on my thigh. It was at this point that I knew my prenatal powers of freak baiting had once again been at work but by this stage we were less than a minute from my stop and I thought my best plan was to get off the bus, get home and scrub myself off under a shower.
The bus stopped, he made no move to go, I stood up, he made room for me, I walked off the bus and he followed me. I played a bit of a game at the intersection - which road will I cross? And sure enough, where ever I was standing he was there a meter or two behind me. I thought I lost him as I went into Woolworths. I wandered about the confectionery section for a little while before I went down the escalator to get some salad and just as I was reaching for a Mediterranean Rocket mix he appeared in front of me. He had followed me down the escalator and around the shopping center with out me seeing him at all.
At this point I started to get nervous. The most disconcerting aspect for me was that I was very aware of how fast my heart was beating. I swear I could feel every extra milliliter of my additional pregnancy blood being squeezed through my vena cava and, to quote Suzanne Vega - blood makes noise. The more conscious I was of how uneasy this man was making me the more uneasy I found myself becoming.
"What's your name?" he asked. I was so flustered I actually gave him my real name. In these situations I usually give one of my cousin's names. There are probably a few people who still think they spent the night talking to 'Kate' or 'Penny' or, if they were really drunk, 'Ben'.
"Is that Greek or Italian?" he wanted to know. Greek or Italian? I've been asked if my name is Jewish but you really have to see the spelling of it to make that connection. I told him that it was just a very boring Aussie name, said 'Good-bye' very firmly, turned my back on him and walked away. He followed. He stared at me as I paid at the cash registers and by the time I had made it out of the shop he was waiting for me in front of the train station.
"Well, bollocks," I thought.
There was no reason to think he had a train ticket to where I was going but if he was as determined as he seemed to be he could just as easily have jumped the barrier and followed me down to the trains. If he did that the only option I really had was to create a scene to prevent him spending another trip trying to inch his way up my leg or, even worse, attempting to following me home. The problem with 'The Scene Plan' is that it's not reliable. You have to be able to pick your ground with care. Ideally, you need some-one official nearby to intervene if things get out of hand or else you're relying on members of the public coming to your aid which is never something you'd want to bet your life on.
Again, it's the interesting conundrum of life with Trogdor. Without Trogdor I could have confronted this man. It may even have been a bit thrilling. It would certainly have made a great story to tell my friends. With Trogdor - if he reacted badly, if he pushed me and I fell or if he really became violent and punched me - I risked losing too much.
I want to stress that as nervous as I felt, I never really believed I was in any serious danger. I simply felt that I was in a situation which was being completely controlled by some-one I didn't know and certainly didn't trust.
I bolted up the steps and on to the road again, with him following closely behind me, and waited at the traffic lights as though I was going to cross the street. Luckily a taxi pulled up so I dived in, told the driver to take me to central station and left as my strange and nameless friend stared into the window from the side walk.
These are not the only times in my life I've had to deal with bizarre and unsolicited attention but all the other incidents have been separated by years. This has all occurred within a month! If we average 2 a month for the rest of my pregnancy I will have been accosted 12 more times before Trogdor joins us. No one mentioned this in the baby books.

5 Random Facts

1. I've only had 10 days of feeling morning sick. Out of those 10 days I felt pretty dreadful for two. I'm generally ok but if I get over tired, or I try to skip a meal, it's all bad.

2. I haven't put on any weight yet. In fact people have complimented me on looking like I have lost weight. I don't expect this state of affairs to last much longer.

3. Spidermonkey, my Mum, Dad and Gran all think I am having a girl. Spidermonkey has never had much luck with fortune telling, Mum and Dad both thought I was going to be a boy and Gran sent them a lot of blue clothing for what she believed was going to be a grandson. For these reasons (and for these reasons only) I think I am having a boy.

4. It is only recently that I've been able to read a book I haven't previously read. For the past 11 weeks I've only been able to concentrate on my favourite novels. I have a theory that it's something to do with comforting myself with the known as I step into a huge, scary unknown but who knows? The only psych stuff I know is from reading Silence of the Lambs.

5. I would feel very Blanche DuBois if only she had said "I've come to rely on the integrity of strangers." (Obviously I don't relate to her on the beautiful southern belle/fallen on hard times/ raped by Marlon Brando front.) From dealing with doctors to eating out I feel I am at the mercy of people I don't know taking their jobs seriously. Without Trogdor I simple don't have these issues. I don't go to the doctors even when I am sick. It's not a religious/social/political thing - I just don't. If some thing I eat makes me ill well, it's unpleasant but it's happened before and I'm sure I'll survive it again. But with Trogdor? Suddenly I feel I need an insight into the work ethic of every one I deal with. "What do you mean, I might have leukocytes but it's probably fine? What if I may or may not have a violent episode and brain you with the blood pressure machine? Is that probably fine too?" Or, "How sure am I that the chef at this restaurant didn't leave the chicken on the bench in the sun for 20 minutes before partially cooking it in a stir fry?" Pregnancy and paranoia - happy bedfellows apparently.

I was made in the secret place...I was woven together in the depths of the earth...

My serene little alien orbited by a strange moon.

Trogdor at 11 weeks is probably looking something like this.