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.

*

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.

Ah, New Year’s Eve 1999. You whippersnappers are too young to remember the Y2K bug but we thought it was a big deal. I worked in IT for a bank and we were all rostered on to work overnight and through the next day, just in case. The people who worked from 10pm to 6am got $6000 for their efforts. I only had to work from 6am to 2pm on January 1, so I just got $4500. I used it to put air conditioning in my old house. It was good.

(The guys who had to work overnight had it better as everything was laid on for them and they had a prime spot on the floor to watch all the fireworks. One of them told me that at about 5 minutes to midnight there was a power surge in the city and all the lights went out. “We thought, oh crap, we’re in for a long night.” Heh, heh, heh.)

Anyway, I was also on call just in case there was a problem, so I had to stay home (I don’t know why, we theoretically could log in from home but it was on shitty 56K dialup and anyway how would that work if everything had turned to shit?), so me and my then-husband Andrew stayed home, ordered pizza, and watched videos. Yeah, partying like it’s 1999 is really quite lame. At 10pm we turned over to watch midnight celebrations in Wellington, New Zealand. I always thought they really missed a great joke by not turning off all their lights on the stroke of 12. Seriously, how funny would that have been? The first major place to tick over and it all goes black. Hee!

So eventually it got to midnight and I poured a naughty half glass of wine (I wasn’t supposed to drink on call) and we went out into the backyard to watch the fireworks. I was overcome with emotion, and the booze (this was also before I discovered wine; now it takes a full glass to get me drunk). Here we were, the clocks were all ticking over to zeroes, it was a brand new start. I love new beginnings. I was going to be a better person from now on, nicer, kinder, everything good. I could just tell this was it.

“Happy new millennium, world,” I whispered to the night sky.

“Happy new millennium,” Andrew replied. “… Of course, it’s not really the new millennium yet…”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, will you JUST LET IT GO?” I snarled. And thus ended the shortest resolution attempt ever.

We split up a year and a half later, are you surprised?

*

And now here we are, ten years later. I’m back in the same city, married again, once again not doing anything for New Year’s Eve. And yet in the meantime I’ve been all around the world, fallen in debt, fallen in love, got out of debt, got married, got pregnant. I’ve travelled so far. It might look like I’m in the same sort of place I was that night, but really I’m a completely different person.

I wonder where I’ll be ten years from now?

I could definitely have done without the second text an hour later with a photo attached. Yep, it’s a baby! Looks pretty much the same as the photo of her friend’s baby she showed me on the weekend! Look, I am just not maternal. I am really hoping that everyone who says it’s different when it’s your own is right, though on the other hand I don’t want to turn into a squeaky babytalking ball of goo, I do that enough with the budgie as it is.

Shortly after the second text I realised that crap, this is going to be us in less than four months, and I told Dave, and then neither of us got anymore sleep. This is why my phone doesn’t make a noise for texts.

But I am really happy that baby girl Name To Be Determined is with us at last, and I’m really looking forward to going and seeing her tomorrow night. Hey, at least there’s someone for me to watch and learn from over the next few months because seriously, about babies I have no idea.

*

And then this morning I got an email from a good girlfriend. I’ve known her for almost 12 years, we met when I did Jenny Craig and she was my consultant, and I used to distract her when I hadn’t lost any weight by talking about books. We haven’t seen much of each other in the last 8 years, after I moved to London in 2001 we discovered we were both really crappy at emailing, but I still consider her really close. In 2003 I was her bridesmaid, I came back for it specially, and I was so honoured that she chose me over people she’d known longer and spent more time with. She was my bridesmaid earlier this year, and then she moved straight up to Queensland with her husband. I couldn’t get mad at her because hey, I went across the world, she was still only a few hours away.

Anyway, over the last couple of months we hadn’t spoken or emailed, both still being crappy at it, but it was her birthday on the weekend so I thought I’d better email and also tell her all the news of the last few months (including the pregnancy). And this morning she wrote back and told me she and her husband had separated. She was sorry that she hadn’t been in touch to tell me sooner but she hadn’t wanted to tell me while I was still in the honeymoon period. And it’s just so sad. Partly because they were such a great couple, so loving and relaxed that I thought they’d make it for sure (but who knows, what with the stress of moving and losing their dog and whatever else goes on between couples) but also mostly because I wish I’d been there for her. If I’d not procrastinated on emailing her she might have told me sooner, and I could have helped. God knows, I know how it feels; my first marriage broke up one week before I went on the 3-month London business trip that ended up taking over 7 years, so I know what she’s been going through. And I might be bad at emailing but I’m really good at empathising and helping people, and I wish I’d done it for her. I guess I am still a really shitty friend.

But, she emailed me now, and she says she’s feeling good now and excited about the future, and possibly travelling overseas. And then she mentioned the new Katherine Kerr book and asked if I’d read it, so I’m going to write back and say no but I bought it for mum for Christmas, and then I’m going to talk about other books and what it was like going overseas, and I am damn well going to be there for her and be a better friend than I have been lately.

I love you, Tam.

So yesterday the Reserve Bank of Australia raised the official interest rate by 25 basis points to 3.25%. Westpac has already responded by raising its home loan rates by 45 basis points, and there’s no reason to think the other banks won’t follow suit. And I’m a bit cross about it.

(For overseas readers, Australia hasn’t had the recession issues that the US and UK have. Our Prime Minister Kevin Rudd would tell you it’s due to the government’s fantabulous stimulous package, but mostly it’s because our banks were far more conservative and didn’t get that involved in the subprime mortgage market in the first place. Not that it wasn’t tight there for a while, global finance is all intertwined so banks and companies had to scrabble to fund debt and there were some layoffs, but nowhere near the levels you’ve had overseas. So our interest rate is higher, and that’s why the AUD is doing so well at the moment.)

The rate rise was expected, but I find the RBA’s strategy frustrating. They raise rates to rein in inflation, but it’s hard to believe they have much of a grasp of what’s going on. For a start, they were still raising the interest rate until late last year – last September it was 7.25% – despite the meltdown overseas and rumblings here. Their excuse was that inflation was too high – but the inflation figures are measured using things like higher oil prices, leading to higher fuel and grocery prices, and housing costs. All stuff we can’t control, and hardly things we can do without. So they raise the interest rate, leading to higher costs to fund mortgages, and then act all surprised when we end up having to spend more? Sheer genius. Gosh, better raise rates again, that’ll stop people spending so much on bread.

They finally started dropping the rate in October, because, who knew, things weren’t looking so good. Over the next six months it plunged to 3%, and you could hear the sighs of relief all over the country.  But at the same time Kevin Rudd started his stimulus package, whereby he gave cash handouts to low income earners to stimulate the economy because gosh, people got scared and stopped spending money at the shops! It’d be nice to think that money was being used to pay down debt or put aside for a rainy day but it’s not, it’s buying flatscreen TVs and playstations and funding holidays. And Krudd’s fine with that. Hey, it keeps the retailers happy. It probably has saved some jobs. But it’s also made the economy look better than it should and that’s alarming the RBA.

The thing is, they’re not giving anyone a chance to react to the new rates. They won’t even have the latest figures in yet, so they don’t know how last month’s rate rise has affected things yet. Chances are it hasn’t, yet. They’re still looking at the artificially inflated figures caused by the stimulus package. So yeah, raise the rates, but maybe don’t do it every fricking month, give people a chance to work out what their new budget looks like, hmm? Or, do it half a percent every time, but only do it once a quarter. At least then you’d have time to run the figures and see what’s what.

But the real problem is that the banks won’t just pass on this rise, they’ll increase it. Westpac’s already added another 20 basis points on, and the other banks are likely to follow suit. Westpac has claimed it’s due to the increased cost of funding, but it’s also to cover themselves for bad and doubtful debts. NAB alone made allowances for $2.3 billion for this purpose last financial year. They have to make it up somehow. And yes, that is completely down to the banks’ shady ethics and greed, and the demands of shareholders. But why do they have bad and doubtful debts in the first place? Because people and companies already can’t afford to service their loans. Isn’t that a sign that the economy is not doing great? Raising rates is not going to fix that!

So  yes, I’m frustrated about this. As a consumer, it hurts, and it makes everyone that little bit more nervous about what next year will bring. I don’t deny that rates are lower than normal at the moment, but so is the world economy. A better indication of what’s going on is house prices which aren’t going anywhere right now, despite the low rates and the first home buyer’s grant. If the RBA really wanted to slow down inflation maybe they should stop Krudd chucking money at Harvey Norman’s cash registers instead.

So today I had my first experience of being picked as pregnant out in public. Well, apart from that time a few weeks ago when the train was crowded and an older woman offered me her seat, but that doesn’t count because I was wearing a skirt that has always made me look pregnant and holding a pregnancy book, so that was a bit of a giveaway. (I didn’t take the seat, by the way. She was older and I didn’t really need it, so I would have felt bad.)

But today counts! I was out buying lunch and out of nowhere the girl behind the counter said, “is it a boy?” It’s a good thing she also pointed at my stomach because otherwise I wouldn’t have had the faintest clue what she was talking about. I said, “A girl,” for Lo! It is so, and she had a little squee, and then she gave me my lentil soup and that was that.

It was pretty cool. I mean, also I think she was pretty brave, because I’m a bit on the lardy side anyway and to me I just look fatter than normal. I guess the flowy peasant top I’m wearing helped. There is a baby bump there, if I prod my abdomen it’s alarmingly tight and round, but it’s pushing out my existing belly fat so I still look wobbly rather than having that nice curve. I’m looking forward to it getting bigger and more obvious because I’m getting tired of catching sight of myself naked in the mirror and thinking holy feck, you’re getting fat! Then I remember, but I still have to go through it every time. It’s not good for my self-esteem.

So at this point I am 23 and a half weeks along and I can feel the baby move every now and then, but mostly I don’t. It does feel like bubbles, or weird gas, or sometimes it doesn’t really feel like anything but I’m aware. This is good; I was starting to freak out that I hadn’t felt anything, even though my obstetrician and my friends and Dr Google all said it would take longer, this being my first pregnancy and the placenta being on the front (and ahem, me being of portly disposition) and all. Plus right now I feel fine, I don’t feel pregnant at all, and I keep forgetting, which is why the mirror always comes as a shock.

It still feels so unreal. I’ve never been a maternal person, so having a baby wasn’t something  I’ve known I’ll do. I don’t feel qualified for it. I’m not exactly a crafty person; the handiest thing I’ve done lately is knit Dave one of these Daleks, but that had instructions and even then it came out a bit lumpy. How can I possibly be growing a human being right inside me? I have no idea how to do that; it shouldn’t be allowed. Yet here she is, growing away, doing all the right things exactly when she should be, and I have nothing at all to do with it. It’s very strange.

This is why I’m looking forward to getting bigger, even though it will be over a sweaty hot summer and I shall waddle and be uncomfortable, and for her to start kicking, because then it might start feeling like I’m not making it up. As it is right now I keep prodding my belly and turning all wide-eyed to Dave to say things like, “I’m pregnant! You knocked me up!” and I think he’s getting a bit sick of it. Or maybe he just doesn’t believe me yet.

Woah, sorry, didn’t mean to disappear like that. We’ve had an interesting couple of weeks over here at Chez NMM. The Sunday after that last entry Dave had an accident on his bike. He was happily riding along the bike path when he went round a blind corner and ran smack into a group of four riders coming the other way. They were spread right across the path even though it’s a two-way path with the lanes clearly marked… anyway, they were right there at the corner and Dave had no time and nowhere to go, so he couldn’t do anything but run into them.

He was so lucky. His helmet was shattered and his bike written off, and we spent eight hours in Emergency waiting for the results of xrays and CT scans but all the ended up with was scrapes and bruises, massive back cramps from lying in one position for eight hours, and a mild concussion. They let him go home that night. The girl he hit wasn’t so lucky, she’d thought hr cheekbone was broken but we don’t know anything more because she went to another hospital.

I suppose the lesson here is if you’re out cycling ALWAYS wear your helmet (they are mandatory in Australia), and if you must run head on into someone try to hit them with the helmetted part of your head rather than your face.

I don’t really know how to react to this. I mean, he’s FINE. No broken bones, no brain bleeds or scull fractures, everything was clear. He was very lucky and it could have been so much worse. To be honest, apart from a pang when I first saw him in the hospital (and for a second thought the blanket was up over his face) I wasn’t all that concerned. I thought if the scans were clear then he would be perfectly fine, and the week off work was nice but he’d just spend it playing computer games and having a grand time. But he wasn’t. He was sick and sore and for most of that first week he couldn’t concentrate at all. The most he could do was lie onthe couch and watch DVDs, and even that wore him out after an hour. Everyone who spoke to him in that week has told me how vague and not-Dave he sounded. I took him to see our wonderful osteopath and she said she could sense the trauma in his body and head so I guess that’s understandable but still, this was him being lucky and getting off lightly, what if it had been worse?

But, he’s fine. He will be fine. He’s feeling more like himself but this whole thing has been a sobering experience. I’ve been hearing an awful lot of stories from other people and it makes me shiver, how very fragile are these little shells we keep ourselves in.

*

So all that happened, what, two and a half weeks ago? It seems a lot longer. Needless to say, my FLYlady routines went right out the window. I worked from home most of that first week so I could take Dave to appointments and with the two of us being home the whole house turned into a war zone. My sink was definitely not shiny! But that’s also coming good. I gave the house a really good clean the following weekend and am sort of back where I began, and nearly ready to start tackling things which is good because a few things have come up. For a start, we don’t have income insurance, and we should have. Must get that organised. Also insurance for the new bike. The old one wasn’t insured, because when we looked no one would insure it for damage while in use, but I’ve since found out that you can do that now. Ironically the way I found out was through an ad that popped up on Facebook next to Dave’s pictures of his poor broken bike, which I suppose proves Google Ads work… And of course there’s FLYlady. So much for my month of FLYlady in May! We’re what, three whole weeks behind now? Oh well, never mind. I’m sure the mess will wait!

I am feeling thinky tonight.

I’m learning (again) that it helps to write every day. Writing more begets more writing, see, and it’s easier to find things to say if you write every day. Whereas if I go a few days between entries then I feel like I have to write something important, and that’s hard, you know? I don’t know why I’m surprised; I’ve been blogging for 8 years, I should know this by now.

I’ve been thinking, and I really am a mess over here. Not in any major ways, but if I sit here dwelling on my todo list Im ignoring my fitness, stress-handling, finances, personal development, career… there’s a lot to think about here, and probably a lot you could help with. And yet I don’t want to be scattered all over the place. I mean, I started with a post about my weight and fitness and now I’m doing organisation stuff, what happened there? (Answer: nothing. Nothing has happened there.) I have all the focus of a butterfly in a stiff breeze and don’t want to feel like I’m obsessing on one little area while everything else falls apart., but I also don’t want you to be wondering what’s going on. So I’m thinking of having theme days, like Finance Tuesday or whatever, where I pick up on a topic. It won’t be every day because I need to do stuff as well as talk about it. But every second day or so would be the aim.

(I’m going to file this under navel gazing even though I’d need a mirror to do that properly.)

In theory I love my life. If I were to tell you about it, you’d say what’s not to love? I live in Melbourne Australia, in a cute little house with a wonderful boy and a budgie. We both (well, the human ones) have stable jobs. We love cooking and drinking wine and snuggling on the couch. Sometimes we go on drives or walks through to bush and it is wonderful. There is a lot of wonderful.

But that’s the chick flick version, the glossy stuff. You never see people in chick flicks with unshaved legs or cluttered cupboards or wasting an entire weekend watching stuff they don’t even like on tv. You don’t see them with grotty floors. Any mess they do have is the attractive kind that can be easily tidied up and transformed in time for the hero to sweep them off their feet in act three. It’s not the whole story, is what I’m saying.

I’ve known for a while that for all I’m happy on the surface, there’s a current of sadness underneath. And I think I’m not unhappy with my life, but with myself. I waste a lot of time by being lazy or procrastinating. I don’t put things back where they belong, and keeping up with housework is a mystery to me. I am not as healthy as I could be–I’m certainly not fit enough–and I’m sometimes not very nice. In fact, sometimes I’m kind of a bitch. And I don’t like it, and it makes me sad.

We’ve been on holiday the past two weeks. Actually it was our honeymoon; after four and a half years we figured it was about time we got around to getting married. It was fantastic but towards the end I started looking forward to doing domestic stuff at home again. It was a bit strange to be sitting by a pool in a tropical paradise thinking, “gosh, I can’t wait to get home and do some laundry.” Maybe it’s a sign that I was rested and refreshed, or maybe it’s just because everything in my suitcase was starting to smell. Anyway, thoughts about the laundry led to thoughts about catching up with the filing, and then on to all the other things that I’d like to do differently. And I thought, why not? Why not now, take this as a fresh start and begin to make the changes I want? I know it’s not going to be easy, there are so many bad habits and it will take a long time, but if I don’t do it now, maybe I never will.

So here I am. Thirty seven years old, freshly married to Dave, and all refreshed and determined to be a better person. A better kind of me. Lord knows there is plenty of room for improvement. Read along with me, maybe we could learn from each other.