By Can – mum to Mimi (aged 5) and pregnant again – 19 weeks (144 days to go…)

This Week I Am Mostly…In Denial…

“I am not having a baby. I am not having a baby. Do NOT look at the cute itsy bitsy babygros on the shelf, move AWAY from the maternity knickers…most definitely the mutterings of an insane woman…however, this week I have been out and about, doing a little bit of retail research, to see what baby/mummy delights are out there and, well, I think it may have freaked me out a little.

It’s not as if I can hide my bump anymore so the reality of pregnancy is definitely here, staring right back at me, in mirrors, shop windows, in people’s reactions. But there is a little part of me that worries if I am ready for this baby after all. Although it was a very conscious decision to leave a gap, I worry that I have left TOO big a gap between Mimi and this little one. I worry that I will have forgotten how to care for a newborn and I worry about how much of an impact to our daily lives having another child will make. What makes it worse is that no-one else seems to be freaking out on the same scale. It’s a given that my darling daughter is ready for a companion and she has taken to my pregnancy like a broody, clucking mother hen, constantly touching my bump, permanently checking to see if I am feeling okay. As for my other half, this is the man who announced that he wanted five children when we first met, something to do with watching too many episodes of The Waltons when he was younger, methinks…

He does have a solution to my hormonal madness though. It’s called Tackling It Head On. To give you an example, I will describe how he dealt with me on the morning of my amniocentesis. Beside myself with worry about the procedure and coupled with an unfortunate phobia of needles, I was heading speedily towards a nervous breakdown. So he gently suggested a little drive, to get me out of the house and to take my mind off things. I can’t tell you much about the drive itself as I couldn’t see through the streaming mascara but when we did stop, I found myself on a forecourt of a car showroom. Puzzled, if not impressed by his ability to be completely random and thereby distract me from my angst, I asked him why on earth we’d stopped here. “Well, I thought we could look at a few estate cars, you know, what with our ever expanding family – could be triplets, you never know, darling!” (a loud guffaw, followed by a little punch to my arm). Ironically, Tackling It Head On only applies to his pregnant missus, not to decluttering the garden shed OR paperwork.

I can’t knock his enthusiasm or his ability to think on the positive side of my pregnancy. I really do not have anything to worry about as I am surrounded by a support network of kind, loving family members and friends. So, with a massive kick to my ever-increasing posterior (even more difficult to hide than the baby bump), I will combat my fears and start looking ahead to the rest of the pregnancy. I may even venture back to the shops for a spot of retail therapy – although I draw the line at maternity knickers!