Long post.

So, it's been quite a while since I last posted. I can't believe I have been pregnant for half a year already. The first 8 weeks seemed to take so long. I didn't blog in those first months because I couldn't bring myself to believe I was going to have a baby and it seemed like such a sad thing to have to stop blogging if the pregnancy ended unexpectedly. I thought I would remember what it was like but in the past two days I've been flashing back to that time and I'm surprised by how many sensations and feelings I had forgotten.

This is what I remember - Every thing was new and even though Trogdor was planned, and I was extremely chuffed he turned up so quickly, I felt completely bewildered and over whelmed. For a good six months prior to trying to fall I had voraciously read every book and website I could find on the subject of pregnancy and birth (so I can tell you how relaxin works on the pelvic ligaments but don't ask me how to change a nappy) but for those first weeks I felt as though I had been given a 1970s Lonely Planet guide to some exotic location in which I had just woken up. I knew it should be familiar but nothing was quite what I had imagined it to be.

Each morning I would wake and wonder if this was the last morning I would feel well for the next nine months. Then I'd eat a mint slice from the pack I kept by the side of my bed. I remember feeling that it was such a dangerous time. Every little twinge seemed to herald doom. Going to the bathroom was fraught - each time I expected the dreaded spotting (that's blood for people who aren't familiar with menstrual euphemisms). I would wonder if I had given up alcohol soon enough. If my bag was too heavy. If the pre-natal vitamins were 'good' enough. If I could be sure the cheese on the pizza I was eating had been heated to the right temperature for the right amount of time to kill all the listeria that was no doubt festering inside it. If I would ever enjoy fish again.

Each 'main stream' book I read told me to go and get tests done to find out 'how things were going', to find out if 'something was 'wrong'' regardless of the fact that no-one could do any thing at that stage even if there were something 'wrong'.

I wanted there to be something I could 'do' to make sure the baby would be well. Of course, there are many things a woman can do to help protect her baby from harm but there's nothing any one can do to guarantee a happy or healthy child.

Those first 12 weeks became a time of letting go and acceptance. I couldn't control what was happening to my body. I couldn't make sure everything was going to be fine. There was no expert, no doctor, no piece of advise that was going to 'save' us. The best I could hope for was that I wouldn't get in the way of what was happening within me. And then a very simple thought occurred to me. It wasn't particularly deep. In some ways it wasn't even particularly helpful. It's also not something that every-one is going to accept, agree with or like. But, for what it's worth this is it - Babies are born because God wants them to be. And sometimes babies aren't born and that also fits in with His plan. We don't know why and it's possible that we'll never know. Yet every woman who accepts her pregnancy has to make peace with that knowledge and then move forward trusting that every thing will work out for the best and that, in those cases where the best still seems pretty awful, they will have the personal strength to keep going. At that point I relaxed.

Pregnancy is a strange waiting time – the 'now/not yet' period. People congratulate me but I don't feel I've done anything yet. I am becoming more assertive in my day to day life but I don't have anything to protect. My milk (well, colostrum) is starting to come in but I don't have anything to feed – unless I tried the cat but that would just be wrong and icky. It's such a short time but at the end of it an entirely new human being will arrive. A new person who is already with me but who I haven't met.

40 years in the desert. 40 days in the wilderness. 40 weeks of pregnancy. Coincidence? At least at this rate they'll be a land with milk if not honey. I can buy honey.

Keep on training Sydney

I was traveling on the train to work this morning when, a few stops after mine, a pregnant woman got on. My guess was that she was a couple of months further along than me (but she was also thinner so we might have been at the same stage). Any-way, it was a crowed train on a Monday morning and no-one got up to let her sit down.
I and all my fellow commuters hunkered down in our seats and refused to raise our heads in case we caught her eye and were forced to notice she was standing there. Finally, thinking 'this is ridiculous', I got up to offer her my seat on the basis that she looked more pregnant than I did. She refused my seat - I didn't exactly press the point either - and then finally some older man who had, up until that point, been reading the Bible stood up for her. NB - If you're going to advertise your faith like that you'd better be prepared to give up a seat.
I don't know - I can't drink, I've got backache and now no-one will stand for me on public transport. Is there any point?

More LOLs

Bits and bobs

First of all a huge congratulations to SleepyT (thanks for the name Phoenyx) on the birth of her daughter! Great news and I can't wait to meet her in June.

Secondly... I'm not too sure. I haven't blogged in awhile mainly because there hasn't been much to blog about. I'll try to collect all the little things that make up my day at the moment.

• Trogdor grows and kicks and goes back to sleep and grows some more. Last night the cat, who is still around, fell asleep on my lap. I think the cat's purring disturbed Trogdor's sleep because suddenly I felt one of his limbs swipe very quickly from right to left across my abdomen. It was the weirdest feeling! I squealed and jumped a foot into the air - disturbing both Spidermonkey who was watching the Sopranoes, and the cat.
• A special thanks to the genius minds behind Hot Milk. Who wants to be hanging out their underwear and have neighbours enquire if Gran's paying a visit?
• I've noticed people who know I'm pregnant - especially men - eyeing my stomach warily as though it's going to explode and cover them in a sudden shower of baby. Baby shower. Heh. It's ironic - I've finally got a truly great set of breasts which, for the first time are encased in silk and lace (not that they know this) and what are they checking out? My stomach.
• I've started rehearsals for my next show and I am enjoying it tremendously. In between shows I forget how much I enjoy the rehearsal process.
• Oh yes, the most exciting piece of news! The tenants at our unit might be moving into a new unit because that tenant might be moving out and we might be in our own unit sometime soon. (You see why this piece of news slipped my mind?)

I think I'm pregnant!

I was sitting at the computer with my hand lightly resting on my stomach when... I felt a kick. Right through my stomach! (Not right through my stomach, obviously. I mean, my hand felt the kick.) I think I might be pregnant.

And yesterday Tyd gave us some little socks with football boots printed on to them. Very cute.

Weirdness and random thoughts

Conversation today with a MOCIT (Mother Of Child I Teach). I've taught her daughter for a term and all our previous conversations have taken about 30 seconds prior to class.

MOCIT: So, congratulations on your news.

Me: Thank-you.

MOCIT: Was it planned?

Me: (pause) Yes.

MOCIT: Have you thought about what you're going to do?

My thoughts: Do? With my classes? With the labor? When the weight on my side of the bed starts to leave a permanent dent in the mattress? (I thought I'd line it with heavy plastic sheets and turn it into a fish pond)

Me: I haven't decided yet. I'm still considering my options.

Nicely vague. Smile and nod.

In other news I am finally starting to show. At least, I think I'm starting to show. I haven't had any comments yet but I've been staring at my abdomen intently over the last few days (weeks) and I'm sure there is a more protrudey bit (yes, I like my new word too).
Not so much a bear getting ready for hibernation as a bear in there.
And now I've weirded myself out a bit.
My concern is that none of the weight I have put on so far is actually 'baby weight' and is rather 'me using pregnancy as an excuse to eat like a pig weight'. Which means that by the end my 'after baby body' is going to be very similar to my baby's body - soft, squishy and unable to ambulate under its own steam.

I went looking for maternity bras today. Ye gods there are some horrendously ugly undergarments for the maternal frame out there. For the next 5-ish months I'm going to have a huge stomach hanging off me proudly proclaiming that yes, I got laid at least once - and never again if these brassieres have anything to do with it.

One of the girls in the teenage group asked me what the most annoying thing about being pregnant was. I didn't have to think about it - people telling me what I'm 'allowed' to do. (On the other hand when I do do these things other people's disapproval makes it that little bit more fun*.) (Adolescent behaviour? Me?) The class looked a bit relieved. I think they were expecting some pregnancy horror story. You won't be hearing them from me girls - but from dozens of women in your future. Just fall pregnant and wait.

*Just to clarify - I'm not going to inject heroin no matter how many people advise me against it. However, recently I was told that eating prawns would give Trogdor a birthmark in the shape of a prawn! How cool is that? I'm not even sure I can stomach prawns but I'm sure as hell giving it a go now.

Vale Brian Donovan

God made the angels to show Him splendor, as He made animals for innocence and plants for their simplicity. But Man He made to serve Him wittily, in the tangle of his mind.
A Man for All Seasons.

Brian was a man of tremendous intelligence, generosity and faith. Remembered and missed by every-one who knew him.