narrating kayoz

Can I get into your bed Mummy?

Liam said to me tonight "And if I feel like snuggling with you in the night, I can just get up and come and get in your bed."

Uh, what? Noooo. I like my child free bed (after 24+ months of co-sleeping with a restless, wakeful infant, who wouldn't?).

Up to now Liam has called out when he wants someone in the night, rather than getting up to come to us. And we've been at pains to keep it that way. He never slept in a cot, so he never went through that freeing experience of suddenly not being behind bars, which helped I think.

When Liam wakes up in the night these days Chris goes in to him and either resettles him or lies down with him (the latter usually only after about 4 or 5am). But lately Liam's been sleeping right through the night by himself a lot. And then getting up (by himself) when he hears me in the shower. So I guess the idea of getting up by himself and just coming into my room suddenly seems more accessible. Damn it.

(okay, and now it's back to my task of the night - cleaning the house for our weekend visitors, one of whom, unexpectedly, is already here (but watching the cricket right now) - what a sad Friday night!)

Twins? I think not.

Every time someone asks Liam whether he thinks the baby will be a girl or a boy (or which he wants) I cringe slightly inside - I don't see the point in making him settle on one or the other. But every time he is asked he answers "Or maybe both?" with a hopeful little smile on his face. I have told him this isn't very likely, and yesterday he said to me "Or maybe we'll have to wait a little while for the other one."

But it's nice that he wants both, I think. It always makes me smile.

Pregnancy symptoms I keep forgetting to mention

• The horrible taste in my mouth - I've had it since early on. I remember last time someone calling it a metallic taste, which is sort of right, but I'd describe it more as a sour taste. Yuck. I don't remember it being so strong last time.
• Light headedness. I may have mentioned this already but it's come on more now - supposedly I now have 40% more blood pumping around my body (I'm 16 weeks today) and I notice it every time I stand up suddenly.
• I know there are other things I keep forgetting to mention - oh, like the gagging every time I try to clean my back teeth (sometime to the point of puking) but that's starting to fade now, thank god,  - and I will come back to this post and add them when they come to me, just for my own future reference.

Back at the desk

Tomorrow is my first day scheduled to get back to studying/writing, and surprisingly I am looking forward to it. Or maybe it's not so surprising - after all I was really enjoying it before I deferred. But the truth is that only a few weeks ago I was dreading the thought of it.

As soon as I got pregnant I gave myself permission to quit writing for the first trimester. I knew I'd probably still feel nauseous a bit beyond that even, so I planned to start back mid January. That'd be now. And yes, at 15 weeks pregnant I still feel nauseous, but it is definitely on the improve. And in the past week or so I've started to have a little more energy too - mental energy especially.

So it feels good that I'm going to be getting back into studying now. I am planning to spend the whole year, moreorless, on one subject - Fiction Writing B - which I started last semester. I've already got the lectures, readings and assignments, so I can start now, even though the class doesn't officially start until second semester (ie 2-3 weeks after the baby is due). My aim is to get as much as possible done before the third trimester, and to have the first assignment complete and a draft of the second one ready for workshopping before the baby's born. I'm going to re-do all the reading I did at the beginning of last semester. The lecturer is on maternity leave with her second child this semester, so I'm not thinking she's likely to change the course very much between now and then!

I'm only going to have Sundays to study, and aside from maybe when I'm working on the story I don't plan to do anymore than that - I want to still have some time and energy for Liam, and with working on four days now (and being pregnant) that's limited as it is. I am enrolled in another subject in first semester as well, but I'm expecting to defer from it (on the basis of having a baby due right at the end). I haven't done it yet, because once I do I lose all access to the library etc which I might need for the other subject, and who knows, maybe I will find that by the time uni starts (in March) I am so far advanced on the fiction writing subject that I can do both. But I doubt it.

Either way, I'm looking forward to a day of reading and writing and thinking about writing tomorrow. In fact I can hardly wait.

Heartbeat

We saw the midwife for the first time today. (The Birthing Centre here isn't funded well enough to take care of people for their whole pregnancy, so I've just been seeing my GP up until now.) We'd met her before - when I was pregnant with Liam - but only briefly. She took one of our prenatal classes, and we'd really hoped to end up with her on the day of the birth, but no such luck. Now the birthing centre has a case loading system, where you have one primary midwife, plus a couple of back ups in case she's not available (eg if she's been up all night with some other mother).

Anyway, today was our official first appointment. She came to our house, and Chris came home from work (just as well because Liam was not in his best form at first), and spent over an hour going through everything with us, as well as taking my blood pressure and getting me to pee on a stick (I'm a bit dehydrated, but I pretty much knew that, but otherwise all is good). Then we got to listen to the baby's heartbeat. She warned us that at 15 weeks it could be hard to find - they usually do the first appointment at 16 weeks, but she's going on holidays next week - but there it was, straight away. Good and strong too. So they baby is still alive, and all is well with the world.

Feeling vulnerable

Just before Christmas I started wearing maternity clothes sometimes to work, simply because having anything tight around my waist contributes to the nausea/reflux, and I am somewhat lacking in work appropriate dresses that aren’t maternity dresses – I don’t usually wear dresses to work.

The Wednesday before Christmas was the first day I wore a really obvious maternity dress, and it made me feel quite vulnerable.  A few people there already knew I was pregnant, but I figured others would now be working it out – it made it all so public all of a sudden, and I found that I wasn't all that comfortable with that. Sometimes it bothers me that I fade so easily into the background, but as soon as I don’t, that bothers me even more!

Now, three weeks later, almost 15 weeks pregnant, it is getting pretty obvious, and in fact I hardly have any 'normal' clothes that fit me at all. And I am remembering the feeling I had last time of experiencing something very publicly, that for me is very private, and not enjoying it. Just like then, part of me is reveling in the fact that my shape is becoming unmistakably pregnant, in wearing maternity clothes, and in the thought that soon now, maybe a week or two even, I might start to feel the baby move. But another part of me hates the way it opens me up for public comment. I don't want people I don't know  to congratulate me - if I wouldn't talk to them about my personal life usually, then I don't want to talk about this either.

I don't really understand it fully myself - I'm sure I wouldn't have minded virtual strangers congratulating me on getting married or something - but this is different. It's about my body and my most personal hopes and fears. I can't explain it really - I think I said it better last time.

More on families

I just came across this draft post from last June - not sure why I didn't post it, but I'm thinking maybe it was just an oversight. So here it is...

I’ve been thinking about this conversation that went on a while ago at Personal Political about only children. Susoz has an ‘only child’ and although it wasn’t by choice she seems fairly content. For herself she says that now, as an adult, she is closer to friends than siblings, and those friends are more a part of her child’s life than her siblings will ever be.

Wanting more children for me is definitely partially about providing Liam with siblings. Since I’ve become an adult I have felt more and more the importance of family, or maintaining contact with siblings and cousins and aunts and uncles (as well as parents and grandparents of course). I’m not totally sure what drives this need. If I were in a crisis situation, aside from my mother, I would most likely turn to a couple of friends here in Canberra.. Of course depending on the level of crisis it might be possible for my sister to take time off work and come to Canberra, but it would have to be something pretty awful for that to happen. If it was just the need for some ad hoc child care, maybe some dinners or other simple help, than it would be friends (and my mum) who would be most likely to help. I have several cousins in Canberra, and I do try to keep in touch with them, but they would certainly not be my first or even second point of call if I were in need. Still, if I did call on them I am sure they would help.

I think part of the thing with the whole ‘blood is thicker than water’ idea is not that family will necessarily be more supportive or available than friends, but more that they will always be family. Friends come and go – some friends you keep in touch with no matter what, no matter how far away they live (and email sure helps with that), but many friend eventually become past friends – people with whom you once shared something, but who you haven’t spoken to now in ten or twenty years and do not have a current address for. Family move about but they are part of a larger network – if a cousin doesn’t happen to send you their forwarding address you can always ask their parent or sibling or child where they are - or you'll be told without asking, or catch up with them anyway at family functions.

I would guess that for people who grow up and stay in country towns this might be more true of friends also – they are all connected by a network that keeps them in touch. Where as those communities in cities tend to disperse as people move on to different cities, jobs, countries.

Keeping strong family ties has become even more important to me since Liam was born – I want him to have a solid place in the world, a real sense of his place in an extended family. But realising that my relationships with my cousins – while important – are not the ones that give me a strong sense of security and support, I also want him to have siblings. I mean, I’d love for him to have cousins of his generation (at the moment his only first cousins are my generation, but he does have one aunt working on it), but lets face it, they are not going to live in Canberra.

On the other hand, it occurred to me this morning that perhaps the most important thing I can do for him, in terms of providing him with a support structure for his adult years, especially when (hopefully in the far distant future) both his parents are dead, is to teach him to form strong and lasting friendships. Now if only I knew how to do that, we’d be ‘right.
(orginally drafted 27 June 2005)
(Edited to add this disclaimer: Maybe the reason I didn't post it was that I meant to go back and make sure I wasn't miserpresenting Susoz. I haven't done that (at least not today) so you'd better go read her post yourself to be sure.)