BOOB FAIRIES, BREASTFEEDING AND BETTER OUT THAT IN!

Totally lame and pathetic, but today has been busier than planned.
She says, like that's different to any other day.
So in a complete cop-out, I'm reposting the blog I wrote this time last year.
Last year, when I was carrying my little peanut safe inside, enduring the 6 weeks of pre-labour and starting to wonder just why I thought I was up for this gig in the first place...
Enjoy and apologies,

Happy Monday!

WHAT DO MIRANDA KERR AND I HAVE IN COMMON?

Nothing, except we were both in David Jones today.

I know it’s a rubbish photo but I didn’t want to get any closer for fear I caught some of her foundation.

She was wearing A LOT.

Then again her face was completely unblemished while I was sporting a bloodied scab from a squeezed pimple right on the end of my rather substantial schnoz.

I don’t frequent DJ’s too often and that is not going to change as long as I’m accompanied by Q and her chariot, because every entrance of their street level begins with a set of stairs.

Of course they have that annoying drive-on lift thing for people in wheelchairs, but I’m shopping with the double handicap of a/ hating shopping and b/ lacking patience, so I just pick up all ten kilos of Q plus a few for her chariot, lug the thing up the stairs and continue on my way.

I don’t know what Miranda was doing in DJ’s (she looked a little irritated and bored if you ask me) but I was there to buy Miss Q a new hat because the one she currently wears is dually successful in both completely blocking her vision and simultaneously providing absolutely no protection whatsoever.

It is a total design FAIL.

I think they styled it on a butternut pumpkin instead of a human head.

Imagine a hat on that.

While I was there, I also picked her up a pair of sunglasses because she has Welsh-Irish-Melanoma-High-Alert heritage and as a responsible parent I felt compelled to do so.

But I’ll tell you something for nothing, they don’t do much for her looks, (They bamboozle her a bit - she doesn’t know where to look, so she rolls her head around a bit like a blinded fly) and I suspect the wearing of such things will cause an immediate cessation to the current stream of compliments I receive about my girl.

Although let’s be real, no one’s actually going to come up to you and tell you your kid is ugly.

Are they?

Miranda had gone by the time I’d finished my shopping, which was a shame, I would have gladly shared my table while I breastfed Q in public, because upon closer consideration, I do have something in common with Megan Gale.

No, no, it’s not the breastfeeding in stilettos, she stole that idea from me.

Nor is it the drug-free labour. I did that too, although that could also be because it happened too fast for me to even ask about medical intervention.

Ditto getting back into her size negative clothes.

Yeah, same.

I didn’t even have to move out of mine. I just wore my designer hipsters and an extra-long singlet made for me by the same designer Heidi Klum used when she was pregnant.

No, no, the thing we have in common is far more significant.

Real life changing stuff…

Our kid’s names rhyme.

Oooooooooooooooooh folks, what do you think that means???

THE AUDREYS WROTE A SONG JUST FOR Q

When G and I were preparing for the arrival of our human, we packed our ‘labour bag’ with all sorts of goodies we would be told we would most definitely need.

·               spray bottles to cool me down

·               prunes. To prevent any difficulties resulting from the downstairs trauma I presume

·               jellybeans for sugar hit

·               takeaway menu for nearby pizza joint.

·               Large underwear. (It was a matter of extreme vanity that I got back into my g-strings and out of those horrendous grannie-panties just as fast as I possibly could).

·               Heat pack. Nice idea. No chance it was ever being used.

·               Ural or other such UTI-preventer. This labour gig is so not classy.

·               iPod to keep us company throughout the long ordeal

Except ours wasn’t a long ordeal. In fact that bag didn't even leave the car until after Q arrived.

But after the family had left, the midwives had done their duties, Q was soundly sleeping in her little Moses basket, my husband lay in an exhausted post-adrenalin slumber on the bed, I plugged in that iPod and put it on shuffle, and as I gazed down at my two favourites, this is the lyric I heard…

you want her all over again…

It’s a song by The Audreys called Pale Dress, and while the rest of the lyrics - in fact the entire story of the song - are completely inappropriate, every time I hear it played, my heart leaps back to that Teflon moment late on that shining summer’s night.

Nothing could touch me. 

Not the adrenalin, the fatigue, the pain, the exhaustion, nothing penetrated but the unfathomable love and joy I felt for the man who gave me the human I had just met.

My most glorious human.

Invented, manufactured and produced by Llewellyn Hart Productions.

Happy 9 months Q,

I would, I could, everyday I know...

I want you all over again.

CELEBRATING DYSLEXIA, AUTISM, HAEMORRHAGING AND EPISIOTOMIES.

In honour of Q’s 9-month anniversary, I’ve decided to keep the celebrations going and celebrate some of the crazy, odd, rude, weird and funny things people have said to me during the growing, delivery and earth-dwelling moments of the divine Miss Q.

In no particular order…

‘Are you a natural redhead?’ a shoe saleswoman says to me when I’m 39 weeks pregnant and decided I really needed to buy a new pair of shoes.

‘Yeah, I’m way too lazy to dye it,’ I reply, I get this question reasonably often.

‘You’d better watch out then. Redheads don’t clot well. Be careful you don’t haemorrhage to death.’

I sure don’t get that answer all the time.

‘If you want to do everything you can to avoid a miscarriage,’ says the doctor I saw for the first and last time after this comment, ‘avoid spicy food and running.’

I had already run 60k’s that week.

By the way, there is absolutely no scientific evidence to support the theory that exercise can induce a miscarriage.

So there.

‘You’re definitely carrying a boy.’

WRONG WRONG WRONG world. 

The only person who was right was the old bloke who works at the funeral parlour on the corner.

‘Oh no, you won’t feel an episiotomy,’ says the midwife who took us through our antenatal classes, ‘they do it at the height of a contraction.’

Excellent.

Contractions hurt more than having my clacker snipped without anaesthetic.

Is there any way out of this?

‘It looks like you got at yourself with a whipper snipper,’ my husband proclaims when he sees the home-job bikini wax I performed on myself mid pregnancy, when I couldn’t see the offending area.

‘Miso soup is excellent for labouring women.’

No idea why. I think the midwife that told us that just likes it.

‘Try some nipple tweaking and rigorous sex,’ my godmother alarmingly informs me during my final weeks, which were full of brutal pre-labour, ‘that ought to bring this baby on.’

It didn’t.

Nor did running ten k’s.

My girl came when she was good and ready, but when she came, boy did she come. See point below.

‘Is this normal?’ Gregory mouths to the midwife halfway through our very fast labour.

‘No,’ she mouths back, ‘but she’s doing an excellent job.’

‘Eat an egg a day and the baby will slip right out of you.’

Boy am I glad I didn’t do this. She would have flown out.

‘Oh, your daughter likes to get around naked,’ a mother comments to me when Q was rudee-nudee in the middle of last year’s sweltering summer. ‘Careful, not liking clothing is one of the first signs of autism.’

‘Wack a cabbage leaf inside your maternity bra to prevent mastitis.’

Enough said.

‘Hmmmmm,’ a concerned child worker said to me a while ago, ‘you really want to encourage Q to crawl before she walks. If she doesn’t she may be dyslexic.’

And my most recent favourite…

‘Isn’t it nice you had a daughter,’ an old lady says to me at the swimming pool last week. ‘You’ll have your daughter for the rest of your life. But not your sons. Daughters-in-law are like the war, they take your sons away.’

Happy 9 months Q.

Without you, I never would have known any of this.

And then where would I be?

UNASKED FOR ADVICE FROM A TRUE PROFESSIONAL

My cousin has spent most of this year growing her first human and has no doubt been inundated with unhelpful advice and opinions from all and sundry.

So as I am now a professional human-raiser myself, I thought I'd enter the fray...

      ·               If you’re going to use a dummy get one that is similar in shape to your own nipple.     (Never would have occurred to me but it makes perfect sense).

·               My cousin is a no joke athlete. Seriously, she was in training for the Olympics. So (since she is hoping to breastfeed) and if she hopes to be able to get back on her bike and ride for longer than half an hour, I suggest she start expressing and giving the bottle a go sooner rather than later. There’s no science behind my theory, I just wonder if we started too late and that is why Miss Q bottle refused. Either that or she’s just a punk. (I am well aware the latter is the most highly likely theory).

·               Further to that…get them familiar with a posse of people early on. Then as soon as the breastfeeding is longer than every two hours (yes, yes I am well aware a lot of babies go longer from the get go) you can leave them and go for a delicious, solo, sanity-saving run.

·               Be aware that this may not happen until they are five months old or longer.

·               Every time you decide to risk it and not take a back-up outfit is when you will need it most.

·               Those ultra groovy leather nappy bags are very, very fabulous, but unfortunately a backpack seems to trump them. Much easier to have a pack on your back and a baby on your front – you may look like a double-sided tortoise, but at least you’re well balanced.

·               Incidental exercise may become your very good friend if you have an active baby. Some days Q and I walk for 3 or 4 hours just to tire her out.

·               If you have a bit of wine while you’re breastfeeding, you may look like a degenerate but there is no way your baby will be hit with the alcohol. Unfortunately.

·               Go to the movies when they’re brand new and total marsupials. I took Miss Q a couple of times and wish I’d done it more. She just fed and snuggled in my lap and none of the other patrons even knew she was there.

·               Feel free to consult me on any and all things baby related, as clearly Q and I have everything under control.

Relish these final few weeks, Abi. I know it’s a nervy ride, and I know you’ve probably been told way too much and far too little, but just remember, you ain’t the first and you won’t be the last. There’s a chance you may not be the best, but you certainly won’t be the worst, and just you wait till you meet your little human and love them more than this silly little blog could ever hope to describe.

That is the coolest thing to learn by far.

YOU'VE GOT TO BE JOKING

This is just not right.
Not right at all.
A 7.3 kg baby.
Ok, born by caesarean section but can you blame her?
And how the hell was she still walking around at the end of nine months with three other children to care for?
Well, they always say 'they breed 'em big in Texas'.

PREGNANCY, OH HOW I MISSED YOU...NOT

‘How are you feeling?’ I said to a newly pregnant friend of mine.

‘Great. Starving but great.’

‘It’s unbelievable isn’t it?’

‘It’s incredible, I just want to eat everything. And anything. Over and over and over.’

I nod my understanding. ‘Has the narcolepsy hit yet?’ 

They modelled this anime on me

‘Is that when you want to have sex with dead people? No, that hasn’t happened to me yet.’

Lucky for her, I’ve handed on all the books well-meaning friends gave to me.

Read a couple of chapters out of a few of those beauties and having sex with dead people will be the least of her concerns.

Here are just a few of the things I don’t miss about growing my own human:

·               Narcolepsy. Seriously. I was like a horse; I could fall asleep standing up if that was the only way available.

·               The vomit feeling. That really wasn’t fun. Reassuring I suppose, but still not very fun.

·               Forgetfulness. Although I’m surprised I can even remember how good my memory used to be, because even after I evicted Miss Q, it has never come back.

·               Pre-labour. 4 weeks of it. I was so ruined, the real deal seemed like a blessed relief. Sort of. Ok, I’m lying, not at all. But at least then it was over.

·               Fluid retention. Let’s be honest, it doesn’t flatter anyone.

·               Enduring labour stories from total strangers on buses.

·               Being told I might haemorrhage to death because I’m a red head. (Not, I should mention, by a medical professional). The problem is, you’re so pregnant you can’t run away from the crazies fast enough.

·               Soft cheese.

·               Not being able to run. Although I was trying anything by the end and even jogged 10k’s two days before I was due. She still didn’t budge. Little buggar.

·               Champagne. She is my very good friend and I miss her dearly.

·               Nightmares. They were brutal.

·               The sex-guess game. For the record, everyone who lodged a vote except for the old bloke who works in the funeral parlour on the corner was wrong. We had a girl.

Ugh. That’ll do. Anymore pondering of how Miss Q came to be, and she’ll never be joined by a sibling.

And that wouldn’t do at all.

For more stories of growing Miss Q, check out the peanut baby blog

ONE BEDROOM, HARBOUR VIEWS AND PARENTAL SLAVE LABOUR

Apparently Australians live in the largest houses in the world, so Gregory and I have decided to help lower that average by moving our little family into a one bedroom apartment.

Before you start feeling sorry for us, the balcony does have a view of the harbour bridge.

So there.

We will be the envy of all come New Year’s Eve.

Of course we’ll be lonely, because the balcony is about double the size of Miss Q’s cot so none of our friends will be able to fit up there to enjoy the view with us.

I am very aware of how big Miss Q’s cot is, because as it is a one bedroom apartment, it appears she will be sleeping in our room.

Forever.

Or at least until we can afford to move into a two bedroom apartment.

Bloody Sydney housing market.

We were meant to make this move when Miss Q was referred to as ‘the peanut.’ She wasn’t even a human yet. But the poor people who were the previous tenants had their renovation held up because someone complained about the colour they intended on painting their front door.

So now Miss Q is well and truly human and the concept of sharing the same room with her seems slightly more ridiculous than it did before she arrived.

The apartment sits above the house of a family friend, which brings about another set of problems.

Not the house, the family friend.

‘What is that hanging at the end of the closet?’ I say to this friend who’s name shall be George.

‘That is my Spanish cape.’

‘Your Spanish cape.’

‘Yes. It is an original Spanish cape. It’s very precious. I need to keep it up here because it doesn’t fit in my wardrobe downstairs.’

‘It takes up half the closet George!’

‘I know. It won’t even fit in mine.’

‘Where am I meant to put my clothes?’

‘Up the other end.’

‘How does that help? Where will Gregory put his?’

At which point my father butted in and said; ‘it’s your bloody cape George, you want it, you take it with you.’

Which was very helpful but fair enough because George is his friend to begin with.

George is also very lucky because nothing has been done to this apartment for thirty years, including cleaning, so he is getting some serious cheap labour in the form of…my parents who spent all weekend scrubbing, sanding and painting the place while Gregory and I worked and attended Miss Q’s closest friend’s naming ceremony.

I’m beginning to wonder if there’s something to my parents’ willingness to help. Perhaps they’re not as sad to see the back of us as they’re telling us they are… 

CONTRACTIONS, BACK LABOUR AND BANANA FLAVOURED CONDOMS

“Oh, you’re in labour. I just thought you were having really loud sex,” says our upstairs neighbour inviting herself into our living room where I was dressed only in undies and a singlet, bent over the couch and moaning my way through a ‘this is happening WAY faster than the baby school said it would’ contraction.

“Here. I brought you borscht,” she says, heading for the fridge. “It’s beetroot soup. I don’t suppose you want it now though do you?” I manage – just – to shake my head.

Am I in a farce? Did I just get offered traditional eastern-european soup while in the throes of a labour moving so quickly there is some doubt that with peak-hour traffic we will even make it to the hospital on time?

“We’re heading to the hospital,” Gregory informs our neighbour calmly as he comes in from packing the car with a birth bag filled with ‘essential items’ that we didn’t even bother to take in with us. So much for comfy shoes, jellybeans and yoga breathing to get me through this endurance event. No one mentioned it could possibly be a sprint.

“Yes, that’s probably a good idea isn’t it,” she says patting me on the back. “Off you go then. Good luck. We’ll see you later.”

And less than two hours later, we became parents. And that’s all I’m going to say about that birthing biz, because now I too am part of the club that keeps the covenant. None of you ladies told me the truth about evicting a human through your nether regions, so apart from saying that my darling child came out like superman with her fist alongside her head, and that had she consulted me first I would have politely asked her not to do that as there wasn’t much room for her head as it was, my lips are sealed. Although I did appreciate the ingenuity of the midwives who afterwards handed me an ice filled condom – no, not as a metaphor for me to put a freeze on my sex life – but rather to shove between my legs to help with the swelling. My friend (who beat me to the finish line and gave birth the day before) asked her husband to go out and buy her some so they could continue the treatment once they were home. Diligently he did just that, returning with the only variety they had…flavoured condoms. Can you imagine your hoo-ha smelling like a tropical fruit ice block?

The peanut came out very nice and clean and smelling like a salami. But a nice salami – one that had been aged forty weeks and one day. Cleverly, she had managed to grow all the correct parts of her body in all the correct quantities and I am pleased to report that so far her nose looks great…ie not mine, at least not yet. But that’s not to say it won’t morph into the honker I have, because you see, mother nature designs baby’s noses so that they are the perfect shape to fit over the mother’s nipple and boob while still allowing them to breathe when they’re breast feeding. Good thing too, or I wouldn’t have made it past day one if I’d been born with what I eventually grew. It hinders me even now – drinking champagne for example, (which I quite like to do when I’m not growing or breastfeeding a human) is almost an anatomical impossibility for me – my nose is so big it gets stuck on the opposite rim from my lips making it nigh on impossible for me to get any liquid from the glass. Drinking champagne out of a red wine glass is just fine at home, but no one really understands that request when you’re out in public.

So, a day later we brought our little human home and discovered she’s not really a human after all. She’s really more part marsupial part pterodactyl. She certainly defies the statistic that babies her age are only awake 10% of the time, and sleeping with her is like camping in Jurassic park. She screeches and squawks so loudly she startles herself out of sleep thereby forcing us to start the settling process all over again. Still doesn’t manage to wake her father though, and his snores don’t seem to bother her, so it’s just me, sandwiched between my very own family orchestra – percussion, brass and a fair bit of wind. Thing is, as tired as I am, it’s still music to my ears.

NIPPLE TWEAKING AND RIGOROUS SEX...and still no peanut

Thursday was my birthday and my birthday wish was for the peanut to arrive before the weekend is out. It is 10.30 on Saturday morning, and apart from the now constant Braxton Hicks that accompany me wherever I go, it is showing no signs of obliging its mother’s request.

Why aren’t I using this time to write the next great Australian novel? I never have enough time to do all the writing I want, and here I’ve been handed the rarest of gifts – time to use however I choose – and I spend it doing online research into pressure points to induce labour, reading articles debating whether raspberry tea really works and whether or not nipple tweaking is a good idea. For the record, sitting on the couch playing with my nipples for hours at a time (as the study suggested) doesn’t strike me as a particularly good use of time. If however, you can incorporate it with another labour inducing suggestion of rigorous sex well then, that would be a fine way to while away the hours indeed.

All you parents out there are probably shaking your heads and thinking; ‘how frivolous she is. If only I had that time again I’d wash the curtains, alphabetise the dvd collection, and finally get around to crocheting that table cloth.’ Lucky for me we don’t have curtains, or dvd’s for that matter and I could only manage to crochet if I’d been locked in a room for a decade with no other stimulus provided.

I do walk. Ten kilometers in fact, and depending on where the baby is sitting, it can take anywhere from one hour to nearly two. (The lower the baby’s head, the shorter and more awkward my gait. I look like one of those old Asian ladies you see in 70’s films). The other day I even managed to jog. 

Jogging is defined by a period of time where both feet are off the ground simultaneously and while this wasn’t necessarily that comfortable, nor I am sure that pretty for those around me who viewed it, it felt fantastic. Abso-bloody-lutely fantastic. I cannot wait to get back out there again, the theme song from Chariots of Fire running through my mind as I stride (or more accurately plod I imagine) around the streets of Sydney, the sweat slicking off my arms, the sun cream mixing with the salt, the familiar burn in my calves as I force myself up the next hill.

Call me crazy, but apart from the obvious of falling more in love with the human we’ve created and getting to know it and spending hours just staring at it and all that, the single thing I am most looking forward to, is tying on my sneakers and going for a run. I’ve run probably on average 4 times a week since I was four years old. That’s a lot of distance. It’s my therapy. My anti-anxiety drug. And it works too – when I was desperate and poor in New York City, lonely in outback Australia, rained on in London, heartbroken in middle America, homesick in Santa Monica, everything was better when I got back from a run.

But for now, I’ll placate myself with a walk. A poor second but it’s the best I can do until this baby of mine decides to come out and meet its anxious parents. If you’re a runner, have a jog for me…

BRAXTON HICKS - A LESSON IN PATIENCE

I can now almost doze through the Braxton Hicks.

Braxton Hicks, for those of you who’ve asked, are fake contractions. Apparently all women get them and you can have them for months and months, but I only started to become aware of them when they started to HURT. Who cares what happens if I can’t feel it? 

Braxton Hicks are like a dress rehearsal before opening night. But I’m beginning to think my stage partner and I are dreadfully over prepared. We’ve had a couple of ‘ten out of twelves’ (ten hours of rehearsal in one twelve hour period) but Union rules demand that you can only have two of those, and we’ve had three at least and gone over ten hours each time. Where’s my compensation for that huh? We’ve also had several tech runs, and although I’ve assured the peanut that the rest of the crew knows exactly what they’re doing, it insists on re-running every detail, except – of course – for the main event. Costume fitting and dress rehearsal are done, (bags are packed and ready by the front door) tickets are sold out and people from the waiting list keep calling to see when they can come and I’ve turned down other contracts so I can really focus on this role.

COME ON PEANUT, WHERE ARE YOU??????

Back on the Braxtons, it’s not the greatest sleep I’ll admit, when every few minutes you get awoken by a gradual tightening in your abdomen that runs from just under your boobs all the way down to your notcha (not your girls bits and not your back bits) or perineum if you prefer the professional term. A tightening that starts out seemingly quite harmless, but quickly makes you feel that there is not in fact enough room for the human inside, causing everything to press forward and down, compressing all internal organs and stretching any exterior flesh. My stomach feels like its trying to return to its previous non-pregnant size without accounting for the three kilo human currently residing there.

I told you, I am a professional pre-labourer.

I’ve tried it all – hot chilies, sex, walks, raspberry leaf capsules, pressure points, talking to the peanut…about the only thing we haven’t tried is castor oil and that’s because deliberately initiating diarrhoea amidst all the other bodily functions that now have a life of their own seems hazardous indeed.

Patience has never been my strong suit. Saying ‘any day now’ to a kid like me is the proverbial red flag to a bull. Plus I’m also starting to get…dare I say it…bored. I’m not a wait-er, I’m a do-er. And if we don’t do this thing soon…oh what am I saying, if we don’t do this thing soon, I’ll just wait longer. What choice do I have? I’m not the one in charge.

GETTING HIGH A SURE SIGN OF IMPENDING LABOUR

“You know when you smoke a joint,” says a woman to me in front of her two children at the local café this weekend, “that’s how you’ll feel twenty-four hours before you go into labour. That’s how you know you’re going to have your baby.”

Has absolutely anybody else in the universe experienced this twenty-four hour utopia? Because not a single, solitary person has ever mentioned it to me apart from this complete stranger. And I looked it up in the books too – doesn’t exist there either. Now, I’m not saying she’s wrong, every woman’s journey is their own, (I learned that in baby school) I’m just wondering if, now that she is the mother of two, she remembers her childless days only as a hazy, euphoric wonderland in comparison to the sleep deprived, demanding, relentless existence she currently inhabits.

Not that it sounds bad mind you. After the peanut’s second practice run, I would quite prefer twenty-four hours of chilled-out bliss in comparison to the pacing, breathing, exhausting efforts of two nights ago.

Whatever happens, we are following the peanut’s agenda. As I suspect we may be for quite some time…

BRAXTON HICKS PRACTICE RUN...DO WE NEED ANOTHER???

The peanut ran another practice session last night – unrelenting Braxton Hicks from 5pm until 6am whereupon its mother fell into a restless sleep until 8.30 before fronting up at the hospital for our midwife visit. Encouragingly, the midwife said all this practicing could make for an efficient labour, and that the effacement (that’s headbutt in the clacker for us laymen) is a good sign the peanut is getting ready to move out. She also said I did exactly the right thing in dealing with them - all I did was breathe and try to rest which wasn’t too hard since they are the two activities I would have been doing at three am had the peanut not interrupted me anyway. And so we continue to wait – we are on peanut time – and I have given myself the project of finding us somewhere to live. That’s right folks, we will be moving with a newborn…or else living on the streets with a newborn, as our lack of credit and nonexistent rental history (owing to my extended time away and Gregory’s foreign status) are proving a little problematic. Not even turning up pregnant and waddling seems to be getting me the sympathy vote. Hopefully the two eviction notices – ours and mine to the peanut – will not arrive simultaneously. May you all be having more success with your schedules than we are with ours!

MIDWIVES, DUE DATES AND DETERMINED LITTLE BABIES

Stand by for updates. That’s how I finished my last blog. I certainly hope you haven’t been doing that literally, or you’d have very tired feet by now. The peanut is showing no further signs of imminent arrival than it was the other day. On Monday the professionals told us ‘any day now’ which I’m sure is to make sure people like us scurry about the city, madly installing baby capsules, purchasing mattress protectors, cleaning the house and getting their eyelashes tinted (that was just me actually, because red heads don’t have eyelashes so we need a little artificial assistance. Normally I go for a bit of mascara, but after what could be eighteen hours of labour, I sincerely doubt there will be any left on my lashes, and forever immortalising me with black streaks down my entire face in the first pictures of the peanut’s life is not going to look good now or at the peanut’s twenty-first birthday).

Apparently the peanut is just practicing. If this keeps up, I’ll be an expert for my first labour before I ever go through it. I can now walk ten k’s with constant Braxton Hicks, eat through nausea, (lets face it, going into an endurance event on an empty stomach is just foolish) and sleep through extreme back pain. I am a professional pre-labour-er.

Is this an indicator of the peanut’s personality? Is it a planner? Someone who can’t do anything spontaneous because it hasn’t been rehearsed. Or maybe it’s a joker, someone who likes to mess with your head and let you know who’s in charge. It could be a nervous Nelly and just needs to feel reassured it has done everything it can to prepare for the event. Perhaps it has trust issues already and doubts its mother’s ability to bring it through. Or maybe it’s a stickler for details and is following pregnancy protocol as finitely as if it were reading one of my books.

I don’t know. Though I suppose I will soon enough if I believe the professionals. So far they haven’t steered me wrong. It's just that ‘any day now’ is a bit too ambiguous for a redheaded Scorpio like me. Fiery, passionate, impatient and determined. That’s us. We like to be the ones in charge. The thing is, if the peanut arrives within the next few weeks that’s exactly what it will be too…