Looking back

An entry from my journal. As you can see, I was pretty damn excited to discover I was pregnant…

Thursday 14th July 2011

Today is Bastille Day - time to celebrate all that is French! And there are more reasons to celebrate. Though chilly, it is a beautiful, clear, sunny day outside; it’s still school holidays; and beautiful Peppy is sitting on my desk batting pens and various other items onto the floor. therefore, all is well with the world.

But wait! I almost forgot! This week something happened that has never happened before:

You’ve got it - I’m pregnant! My darling little baby is on the way! First things first, though. Don’t be alarmed. I’m not pregnant with triplets, nor am I pregnant to three separate men. Nor is there something wrong with your eyesight. You are seeing three test results. But I just took three individual tests because the first one was so damned easy to pass that I thought I must have missed something, so I did it again. Second time around I was even more surprised at my glowing result. I’m a good student, but I hadn’t even studied for this one! Perplexed, two glowing positive results had me tottering down to Bridge Road to the pharmacy to ask for some expert advice. I felt like some sheepish, embarrassed 15 year old trying to read the boxes when no one was looking. Except I wasn’t doing anything I should not have been at that age, and neither should you be, baby, if you’re listening! These tests are the easiest tests you’ll ever pass, so much so that I passed the third one in record time - around 1 minute - powered along, no doubt, by the lithium battery that made this final test cost 18 bloody dollars!

It was an eventful 24 hours - there must also have been an earthquake as there were a few moments where I began shaking uncontrollably and feeling quite sick. So much so that my first instinct was to reach for a valium. Except I CAN’T! Because I’m PREGNANT! Then it dawned on me. This shit was for real. This shit was FOREVER!

You may be wondering where Les was through all of this, and rightly so, because I’m pretty sure he’s the father. Well, he was blissfully unaware at work during the first test. I’m not even sure why I did one at that exact moment - midday on a Monday afternoon after a delightful breakfast with Kate. Just to prove to myself it’d be negative I think. I fully expected it to be so, even though I’d been unnaturally tired for well over a week and that intermittently it felt like I’d stood too close to a radiator and caught my boobs on fire. They were burning like Vika and Linda Bull’s House of Love, which was indeed a suspicious sign.

Anyway, the pharmacist advised, in hushed tones, that I should wait and try the third test the following morning as you have higher, more accurate levels of some baby hormone when you first wake up. Usually, I like to wake up and eat some vegemite toast in the mornings but that morning I had to instead collect my pee in a jar and stick random bits of magical paper in it which I hoped would reveal an invisible message, much like lemon juice would to secretly scrawled letters in primary school. It was a bit of a comedy of errors because a) it was 5am. I’d been really thirsty the night before and drank more water than usual. I awoke with an unexpected conundrum. If I went to the toilet now, did that count as the ‘first urine of the day’ as the chemist had advised, or because it was still technically the middle of the night, was it the ordinary kind? If I wasted this one and tested instead at 8am would I have already missed the magic ingredient?

After much leg crossing and internal debate I decided this indeed counted as the morning based on the logic that although it was still dark, bakers, train drivers and garbage truck men were already probably up for the day, and therefore would already have had their first morning pee.

Les was there for this part (except for the part where I spilled the mini bucket of wee on my PJ pants…hey it was early and I hadn’t yet had any caffeine!). The tested confirmed what we really already knew, and after a few minutes of staring blankly at each other we went back to sleep as if nothing at all had really happened!

I’ve since been to the doctor, which is always highly amusing. My doctor has a very well-developed sense of humour and I knew he would appreciate my opening line: ‘I made this appointment to see you because of a cluster of weird symptoms which all seemed to point towards a terminal disease, but in fact it turns out I have a different sort of lifelong condition - I’m pregnant!’ He was very excited at the good news and proposed the question ‘so what are you going to do now?’. My brain ticked over and came up with nothing. I thought it was his job to tell me what to do next? He got out a little paper dial thing (that looked very much like my French verb wheel) and calculated that the baby would be due around 19th March 2012! He commiserated with me having to be pregnant during the summer and I told him I was only happy not to be pregnant with an Aquarian - the one star sign whose annoying water-bearer characteristics I have never been able to bear. Instead we’ll have a lovely, dreamy, pisces, or if there are delays in the birth canal (down to 60km/h and one lane closed) perhaps an aries. 

I made another appointment with a different doctor at the practice for next week. Her name is Dr Nanette Presswell, and whilst her name might make me think of a nanny goat, she is very thorough and kind and I trust will care for us well. I’ll be having shared care with her through the Royal Women’s Hospital, which means that she looks after most of my antenatal appointments and I only have to go to the scary hospital once or twice. 

My doctor left me with only a few pieces of very pertinent advice: don’t eat soft cheeses or deli meats, don’t find out too much information, and don’t listen to anyone’s advice. These are the mantras that will become my motto over the next nine months…oh wait, I’m already one month pregnant, so does that mean there are only 8 months remaining? Holy christ! That’s not very long, is it?

PS. Baby, apparently you are currently the size of a poppy seed, which is really not that exciting. You are currently ‘burrowing’ your way into my uterine lining, however, which sounds more than sufficiently sci-fi/terrifying, you little termite monster!