Not My Mother

The last few weeks have been All Baby, All the Time. Now I’m 31 weeks and my feet are getting further away it’s getting hard to ignore that there will be an actual baby at the end of this. And not just as a hazy something that might happen in 2 years, like I’ve always thought, but in, like, two months. The way I procrastinate, that will be here next weekend.

So there’s been a fair amount of lying awake in the middle of the night fretting about things while someone does star jumps in my belly and tries to get her feet up over my ribs.

Things are moving. The nursery has been painted and we’ve been researching and getting the list together of things we need. We did our hypnobirthing course over the last couple of weekends, and it was brilliant. Beforehand all I really knew was that I’d learn techniques to stay calm and relax during labour so the fear was removed, and Dave would learn things he could do to help me, and things he could say so he didn’t piss me off. But it was so much better. We learned what actually happens physically during labour, which helps to understand the sensations you are feeling, and also how fear and tension interrupt that process, and therefore why relaxation is so beneficial. And then we spent the rest of the time learning relaxation techniques and visualisations to help. And Dave is instrumental in the whole thing. Far from just learning how to pat my back in a way that won’t make me want to rip his head off, he learned how to put me in a state of deep relaxation very quickly, and how to keep me there with gentle massage and affirmations. Then we watched some videos of some hypnobirths, which just underscored how different the birth process is to what you get from media and people’s horror stories, and talked about the kind of things that are useful to put in our birth plans.

I think it’s really easy to be sceptical about this sort of thing. I still feel a bit embarrassed and hippyish talking about “hypnobirth” because it sounds all sorts of flakey. There’s another system called Calmbirth which comes from the same theory and is very similar, but with slightly different techniques. Our instructor is currently studying to become qualified and even she said she was looking forward to it because the name doesn’t have the same connotations of swinging watches and clucking like a chicken.

But it really does feel effective. And really “hypnotism” is really only putting your brain into a deeply relaxed state, like meditation. Anyway, I’m really glad we did it. It’s a really great technique for helping me relax, and like Dave told our instructor, “everything’s better when Nicky’s relaxed.” And if nothing else, the classes and our regular practise sessions are helping us get closer and for me to trust Dave. I don’t feel like birth is a great unknown thing I’ll be enduring on my own, I feel confident that I can do this, and probably very well. In fact, I’m almost excited about doing it, and about the baby that we’ll have afterwards.

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Here’s something I’ve not told many people: I’ve been dreading being a mother. It’s not something I ever really yearned for. Well, maybe in my early 20s, but back then it was because that was sort of what everyone expected you to do, not necessarily what I wanted to do for myself. When I first married back in my mid 20s I’d have little fantasies about having a family, but I soon realised that the me I was picturing in those happy little fantasies wasn’t me at all. I was controlling, and unhappy, and prone to deep pits of depression. Plus all those times mum would spit, “you’re just like you’re father,” to end an argument, they stuck. How often do you need to hear that before you believe it? He was a horrible man. I still have nightmares. And my mum, well, she’s not exactly the best parent either. I’m bound to be like one or the other, so why the hell would I want to perpetuate that?

Then I got divorced and moved overseas, and then a few years later I met Dave. And I told him I didn’t want kids and he was fine about it. Then one day he said, “I think I’d make a good dad,” and I knew he was right. And then I realised that in my journey I’d changed. I was happy, I was at peace. I was in a situation where I could see myself being a good mother, and so I agreed in theory that having a family would be good. You know, in a couple of years.

And then I got pregnant, and it was really exciting, but it still seemed unreal that there’d be a baby. But like I said, suddenly it’s dawned on me that everything is changing and I suddenly thought, what the hell am I doing? I’m 38 years old. I love our life. What if I’m a shitty parent? What if I’m stressed and disorganised and everything is a struggle? What if all the sleep deprivation puts me back into depression, what if I do end up like my mother? What if every day is a financial struggle and we end up miserable? This is for years and years and years, it’s not like I can back out of it, everything is changing forever. What if we break what is good about us?

So yeah. It’s not been good. Not all the time, just occasionally, and it’s not something I’ve wanted to talk to Dave about because I don’t want him to feel like he’s pushed me into this. But enough that it’s been sitting at the back of my mind and taking any excitement away.

But now, I don’t know. After doing the hypnobirthing class, I feel calm inside. Serene. I feel like I can give birth, and that I will have a connection with this little one who is currently connecting vigorously with my kidney. If I think about having a toddler or a 7 year old or god help me a teenager I have palpitations again so now I just pull it right back to newborn, which I can pretty much cope with, and trust the rest of it to luck and positive visualisations.

Maybe it’s just because I’m doing affirmations and listening to my relaxation tracks, but hey. If that’s all they do for me, then I think they are a success.

So yesterday we had to fill up the car, as you do. We had a Coles shopping voucher so we went to the local Shell station (my research has shown that their discounted unleaded price is generally cheaper than elsewhere nearby). When I went in to pay the guy told me that in addition to the usual 4 cents per litre discount for the voucher, I could get a further 2 cents per litre off just by spending $2 instore. And he helpfully pointed out the chocolates and chewing gum as candidates for me to buy.

Look, it was the end of the day and I wasn’t up to spontaneous mental arithmetic. But I wasn’t sure it was a good deal and I certainly didn’t need any chocolate so I said no. I’d rather miss out on a bargain than agree to something that wasn’t one and be ripped off. Makes me feel less stupid, somehow.

Anyway, when I got back to the car I did the sums. We bought 45 litres of petrol, so the discount would have saved me a massive 90 cents. But to get the discount I had to spend $2 instore, so I’d end up $1.10 out of pocket. So, um, no thanks. I’d have to buy 100 litres of petrol to break even; are there any cars apart from the larger 4WDs that have tanks that large?

Obviously, if there was something I was going to buy anyway, then that would have been okay. But I rarely buy things at petrol stations unless it’s something I know has a fixed price like bags of ice or magazines, so they can’t mark it up.

I’m sure there are many people who aren’t bothered about paying an extra dollar or so for a bottle of milk for convenience of not having to stop again (but then why would they get excited about saving such a small amount?). But it made me wonder,  how many other people jump at the chance to buy stuff, just because they see “2 cent discount”, without thinking about it? It wasn’t so long ago I probably would have been one of them.

Would you buy something for the discount?

So this morning I had to go to the pathology place to do a Glucose Challenge. That  sounds like an episode of Iron Chef (special ingredient Shu Ga), but it’s not as much fun. It’s a first check done at 28 weeks gestation which measures your levels of insulin to see if you’re at risk of developing gestational diabetes. If your results aren’t good you have to go in for the more formal Glucose Tolerance Test, which takes longer and needs more blood draws, and generally sounds unpleasant.

I wasn’t looking forward to this, partly because I kind of forgot about the test and have pretty much lived off mince pies and toblerone for the past week, and partly because my obstetrician made it sound so enticing.

“They’ll give you a drink that’s sickly sweet,” he said as he printed out the form. “It makes some people throw up. Do sweet drinks make you feel sick?”

“I don’t think so, I’m usually fine with sweet things,” I said, thinking of how I’m singlehandedly funding the social club at work through the chocolate cupboard.

“It will be like cordial,” he warned.

“Oh I love cordial.”

“Undiluted cordial?”

Well, who the hell can answer that question? I said something about thinking I’d be fine. Afterward Dave asked my I didn’t tell him I could eat a whole bag of jelly bellies in one sitting, but I didn’t think he needed to know stuff like that.

In the end it wasn’t so bad. The drink was lime fizzy, a bit like Gatorade. I’ve had worse cocktails. The only problem was having to skull such a large glass of it. Then I sat around in the waiting room for an hour or so. After about ten minutes the sugar rush hit; it was massive but again, no worse than some self-inflicted ones. It made me feel a bit weak and I wanted to lie down. By the time she called me to take blood I was pretty much back to normal. She warned me I’d feel tired afterwards but I actually feel pretty perky. Maybe I should have one of those drinks every day. Better than Berocca!

Anyway, I’m hoping the results will come back okay and I won’t have to do the glucose tolerance test. You have to fast for that one and it takes three hours, and those waiting room chairs aren’t comfortable enough to be doing that. Also, if I do develop gestational diabetes I’d have to give up pasta, and that’s just mean.