20-week scan

It’s a boy.

We thought it was a girl.

But it’s another boy.

If you are having problems getting pregnant at all, or have a seriously ill child, then don’t read on. (This wipes out about half of my readership.) You are right, I am wrong. All that matters is that the baby is healthy and happy.

But I wasn’t prepared to feel like this. Shocked. Upset. Unable to think about anything else. Like I’ve lost something. And terribly ashamed of feeling like this.

Here are some of the reasons for my boo-hooing:

1)      Because now we can’t call it Daphne*

2)      Ballet outfits, velvet shorts and tights, shopping for things I could never pull off as a teenager, wedding dresses. (This is bollocks actually. I hate shopping and am really bad at clothes.)

3)      Long phone conversations when nobody else wants to listen to me witter on – or even better, being on the receiving end of irrational wittering for a change. When a love life is going wrong, or university is too hard and home suddenly seems comforting. I want those witters.

4)      Because I was all set to pitch some smug magazine articles about the Shettles method, which we used to try and make it a girl. (It’s to do with timing around ovulation and girl sperm living longer than boy sperm.) And this pregnancy feels so different to the last one – I’ve had horrible morning sickness, bleeding gums, hair falling out, spots, mood changes that seem to be about hormones rather than depression. So I had a stupid basis for my stupid hopes. And everybody kept saying they thought it was a girl because of that too.

5)      I won’t ever be Number 1 Granny

I know that most of this isn’t necessarily true. That every child, and every relationship with a parent, is different. And that everybody knows example of pairs of brothers who are legendary friends and close-knit families. I know some too. I know some who aren’t. Who knows how they will turn out?

And of course this isn’t about boys per se – after all, Logie is quite clearly the best child that ever lived. And another Logie would be amazing. Hilarious, stunningly beautiful, so full of joy. And when this new little boy arrives I will love him with my whole heart and wouldn’t swap him for the world.

But this feeling of loss is something separate from that. Can you try to understand that? Because we are stopping at two, that means our family is going to be one thing, rather than something else. I have to readjust my set. Yes, we could have a third, but we’re pretty sure that would stretch us too far in every way, and we haven’t even lived with two yet. Anyway, we wouldn’t be trying for a third baby, we’d be specifically trying for a girl, and that doesn’t seem right. What if it was another boy?

It’s something you can’t control (although I can’t help feeling like it’s partly the sonographer’s fault – why couldn’t she just have said the other word?) and perhaps a little more religion would help me too. Oops, there go a few more readers.

The practical benefits are of course substantial – all the same clobber, less to pay for weddings and you can practise things on the first in the hope of getting it right with the second. Like the ‘why it’s not okay to snog a girl then ignore her’ chat.

While I was secretly snivelling on the sofa in the middle of the night last night, I looked this situation up online. Turns out there are six billion threads on mumsnet about ‘gender disappointment’. The general consensus is that it passes – it’s a very specific feeling, at a specific time. That helps. Haters who say that’s why you shouldn’t find out don’t. The advice is to find a name that you really love, and buy (the baby) a new outfit.

That’s a tough one, because I've been lusting after a colour palette of dove grey and soft pink for ages, and we can’t think of a single boy’s name that we really like. Not one. Loads of girl’s names though. Here, you might as well have them now: Daphne (Daffy Duck and Logie Bear you see – I know, a narrow escape), Phoebe (how cool is Phoebe French?), Celeste, Jemima (Mima), Cordelia (Cordy – she’s an actress I think).

They also say it’s often about recreating a relationship in your life. I can see that. Maybe it’s about repairing one too. The granny thing, which is really top of my poor-me list at the moment, is certainly to do with how utterly brilliant a granny my mum is. And how close I was to my granny when I was little.

But I also adore my dad, who can do no wrong in my eyes. And I was utterly vile to my brother when we were growing up – honestly, I can still feel and hear the hollowness as I punched his skinny back as hard as I could. My nextdoor neighbours’ two boys are some of the coolest and friendliest teenagers I know. They’re in a band together, for god’s sake. And maybe one of mine will be gay. Or at least a world-famous fashion designer.

Watching Logie and his little brother play together will surely dissolve all my prejudices about a decade of washing semen-stiffened sheets, grunts instead of conversations, computer games instead of Strictly and diary battles with daughters-in-law. These are random what-ifs, and none of them help.

I just thought that writing them all down might make me feel better, because that’s what I do. I’m sorry if it offends. Like I said, these selfish, indulgent sadnesses aren’t something I’m proud of. Am I going to find it hard in future when friends have girls, especially if it gives them dual-sex offspring? I guess that’s just a tiny flavour of what it must be like when friends get pregnant, and you can’t. I am hugely lucky.

I just need a bit of time to get used to the idea.

If I was Henry VIII’s wife, I would be getting a f***-off bit of jewellery right now. Perhaps a county of my own too. Instead, I am Jon’s wife. Jon, who is just about the loveliest husband and father in the entire species. He thought it was a girl too, but is over the moon that it’s a healthy boy, and getting all excited and saying all the right things. Not things like ‘My kind is going to be outnumbered three to one’.

He even took me into Tiffany’s on the way to the cinema last night, to try on eternity rings. Turns out he’d have actually bought one there and then! But I think it should be for my birthday, if at all, after I’ve delivered the goods, and have stopped being so ungrateful.

Wow, that last bit really sounded bad. Let me leave you with a different image instead. Logie has learnt how to put on his coat ‘the montessori way’ at nursery. It’s a little bit like President Barlet's jacket technique in the West Wing. Or a trainee superhero getting tangled up in his cape. But it’s so unbearably sweet, and proud-making. I can’t wait for him to teach his little brother.

*can we?

Restless leg

There are many ailments I complain about that lots of other people have, but just soldier on with. Bad back, depression, permanently blocked nose at night. None of these will set the world on fire. But if you’re reading this, I guess you’re slightly interested.

Maybe you have one too, but inexplicably don’t write about it on the internet. Because you have better things to do with your time. But as you’re still reading, it might give you a frisson of one-upmanship to identify with something, then carry on with your much busier day.

I have this thing at the moment called restless leg. I rather like the name. A bit like tennis elbow, or housemaid’s knee. I’d quite like to invent a few of my own, eg twisting-in-car-seat-to-reach-crying-child back, or stepmother headache.

It is apparently quite common in pregnancy, and blimming annoying. I tend to get it at night, as I’m trying to drop off. Suddenly, you can’t keep your legs still. Or if you do, they sort of burn with desire to move around.

It’s like the blood in your calves is itchy. You can’t ignore it and it’s totally not restful.

My sister-in-law gave me a good tip the other day. She had it quite badly when pregnant last year. You should get up, stand by a wall, then stand up on tiptoe as high as you can go and down again. Repeat til your legs are knackered. Fall back into bed. Try to go to sleep before it starts again.

This sort of works. Sometimes I try a cheat version and just lie in bed pointing my toes hard then bending them back again. (Remember ‘good toes, naughty toes’ at ballet when you were little? I have very few ballet memories because I handed in my resignation quite early on, when I realised that a) my bottom was bigger than everyone else’s and b) we weren’t allowed to wear tutus until we were something stupid like 12, and could actually do ballet. What’s the point in that?)

But it doesn’t always work. So coupled with having to go to the loo at least three times during the night (for once, I’m not exaggerating) I’m not having brilliant amounts of sleep at the moment.

However, it’s a very small problem in the scheme of things. I’ve just started doing a little voluntary work with Cancer Research recently, so am catching up with ‘Stand Up To Cancer’ that was on Channel 4 on Friday. Watching their appeal films puts an awful lot into perspective.

Can you imagine if your child, your small person into whom you pour so much love, and would do anything for, got a life-threatening illness? And if the treatment that might or might not treat them actually made them iller and in more pain in the short term? I find it unbearable to think about, though once I start I can’t stop.

So if you want to donate, to fund new research and turn it into readily available treatments more speedily, you can do so here. It’s money well spent, and good for addressing restless night-time worries.

Etiquette

I’m a bit short of medical news this week, although I do think that people with etiquette problems have a gene missing.

However, it is sometimes acceptable to do something a bit cheeky. Recently, I found myself in the extremely rare position of a) having a smart, work-ish dinner to go to around Green Park b) being early. So I rang up a great friend (who has asked to remain nameless – you’ll see why in a minute) who works nearby and she suggested we have a quick drink at a frightful Eurotrash bar on Berkeley St, for reasons of proximity.

Gosh I felt out of place. Probably because I am the sort of person who says gosh.

It was practically pitch black, with several categories of waitress geisha who could show you to your very low seat, or hand you a 28-page drinks menu, but couldn’t take your order.

But they did provide a big bowl of rather nice nuts. So big in fact, that there were still quite a lot left. As the incognito friend had other friends coming for supper later, we joked how convenient it would be if she could take them home. If only we had a suitable container.

Aha! Suddenly I wasn’t out of place, I was in my element. I may not wear heels, or make-up newer than two years old any more, but I can be relied upon to have useful crap in my bag. And thus it was that I discovered the world’s first genuine use for a parking ticket.

The little plastic, resealable bag they come in. Perfect for stealing food from restaurants! Women of the UK, breathe out. There is a (tiny) silver lining to having got that penalty charge notice. There is a way to to make it add a (miniscule) bit of value back into your life.

So we did it. And maybe it was rude, and wrong, but I don’t care. So is charging £5 for a glass of fizzy water.

What are rude and wrong, though, are bad swimming pool manners. I have wanted to write about this for some time, but have held back for fear of confirming myself as London’s most small-minded blogger. Seeing as I’ve blown that with ticket-bag-nut-gate, I’ll crack on.

I swim twice a week, fairly early, and usually in an outdoor pool. Partly so as to wake myself up and organise my thoughts, as I have some of my best (okay, only) writing ideas whilst swimming. But mostly so I can casually drop it into conversation later on that day, to accidentally impress people and help me nurse a kernel of virtuousness that will see me through another three biscuits.

But lordy, is it a minefield when it’s busy. It is a fascinating study in human zoology to see who will move over when another swimmer enters the pool, and who pretends not to notice.

I tend to stay away from the serious swimmers – you know, the ones who wear hats. And have water bottles at one end. But there is a man in our pool who is, quite frankly, not on. He looks a bit like Crocodile Dundee’s bad-tempered older brother. He is thin, weatherbeaten and WEARS A WETSUIT. It is a heated pool.

Not only does he never move over, sometimes he swims unnecessarily close to you just to prove a point about staying exactly on the length he was on. Twice he has touched me, as he flapped past. Me, a pregnant lady!

Now, there are rules about touching strangers in public. We all know the ones about the tube. It’s absolutely fine to meld your entire body into someone when you’re both standing up at rush hour, and not say a word. But as a stander, if you even nudge the foot of a sitter, while you’re trying to balance all your weight on one foot and hold the rail in a way that doesn’t show your armpit sweat mark, you must apologise.

Crocodile Grumpee has even been observed to pause at one end at say ‘Disgraceful’ when some poor unsuspecting woman has the gumption to start doing careful backstroke next to him.

In the summer, a Frenchman came into my lane with his son, aged about eight, I’d say. For a while, papa would give some instructions, then do a demo length with garçon in tow. Or garçon would go first. Fine.

Then, as I turned at one end, I saw them swimming side by side towards me. It was parallel lesson time. I swam towards them. Exciting, incredible, what would happen?! I gave in. To avoid collision, I stopped and stood aside to let them carry on, still abreast, around me. We did this two more times, with my anti-French spleen rising, then bottling, before I moved as the next lane emptied. Is it pathetic to have found this so extraordinary?

Perhaps there’s a way of giving them a special opposite-of-parking ticket, sans useful bag, posted into their locker.

Cyst on eye

Actually, it turned out not be a cyst, but I like to have a dramatic title.

Logie woke with a red eye on Sunday. But there was no gunk (we live in fear of another bout of conjunctivitis, as nursery have a militant banning policy) so I brazenly and firmly deposited him in the infant room on Monday morning. With some eye infection drops that I’d bought the day before JUST IN CASE, you understand.

I have learnt my lesson with nursery and illness. I once rang them first thing to ask their advice about bringing him in, as he had a slight temp, but seemed fine in himself. I was barely halfway through the first sentence when they said uh-uh, no way, any hint of a temp is an automatic ban. Similar to doing more than 30mph over the speed limit, I imagine.

But since then I’ve felt little frissons of annoyance every time I sign the medicine book for teething, and see previous entries for other children where their parents have requested calpol for ‘temperature of 37.5’. I can only deduce that they just turned up and presented the situation as a fait accompli. So that is my new MO.

When I collected him that afternoon, the eye was even redder, and there was an alarming white spot in the corner. Now, growths are not good, in my book. Unless you’re George Osborne.

So we gave swimming a miss on Tuesday, and toddled off to the doc instead. Logie literally toddled – he has a new ladybird backpack with a sort of dog lead on it. I know some people are very anti reins. I used to be dubious. But dear God it is a genius invention. I can stop him running into the road and prevent his certain death! I can stop him picking up fag butts on the street with a single jerk! I can even help him up if he falls over by employing the crane technique! And he really likes it.

Anyway, it was unusually calm at the surgery. When we checked in on the touchscreen, it said we were seeing ‘Dr Urgent’. Which sounded like a good superhero name. Logie played fairly nicely with a little girl with a ponytail called Josie (who later turned out to be a boy called Joseph) – it’s pretty impressive how much entertainment there is to be had from going in and out of a knackered plastic playhouse, sticking your head out the window and saying ‘Ha!’.

The GP said it wasn’t infected (no gunk, you see, I was spot on) and merely inflamed. Impossible to say why. And that it wasn’t a new spot – there are all sorts of bumps on our eyes that you don’t normally notice til they get inflamed and thrown into contrast by a red bit. So he said he’d prescribe some anti-inflammatory drops.

Then he got his book out, and started looking them up. I know it’s mean, because they can’t be expected to memorise the details of thousands of medications, but I feel slightly uneasy when the bible comes out. Unfairly, I want them to prescribe things they know inside out – and possibly even invented.

Eventually, he looked up and said “So the drops I was going to prescribe aren’t licensed for children...” and did a significant pause. Well, I felt it was significant. I am sensitive to pauses. I wasn’t sure if this was my cue to say “Never mind, we’ll have them anyway,” or “Oh that silly old licensing authority – don’t you just hate them?”. Or perhaps “Don’t worry, I won’t mention your ill-conceived plan to anyone, for example on a blog.”

Perhaps if he’d been a convincing regular doctor, who said he’d done this a thousand times before, I’d have been happy with the adult ones. After all, I know someone who has shared eye drops with their dog (much cheaper).

But instead we settled on an oral anti-inflammatory solution. And when I volunteered that we had infant neurofen at home already, we abandoned the whole prescribing thing. So just another of those instances where you don’t know what caused it, they can’t give you anything special for it, and you’re told to hope it goes away on its own. If not, come back in a week. It’s not the doctors’ fault – it’s just the nature of childhood illnesses. But it’s unsatisfactory, and makes for a very mediocre blog.

On a separate note, it’s important for me to put in writing that our gas bill has gone up by £41 a month. That seems like quite a lot, doesn’t it? Golly, I don’t know...energy prices. Lots to say about them, isn’t there?

The reason I mention it is because Jon revealed last night that he has two more work jollies (sorry, important events) coming up – taking journalists to see England v New Zealand at Twickenham, and then some ATP Masters tennis at the O2. And other halves are not invited. Why not?

“You’d have to be a journalist...” he explained, then hastily added as my indignant mouth opened “...who writes about energy”. Perhaps he could see my cogs grinding, as he finally concluded “You’d have to have written something about oil or gas, and had it published”. So excuse me while I press my Publish button.

Buttocks

I am icing my buttocks.

This is in part inspired by the Great British Bake Off. Don’t you just feel safe when you watch it? Like everything is benign, and the smell is wafting through the screen.

My ultimate way to watch it is on Sky+ so you can whizz through the boring history bits – merely padding to get the cost per minute down, presumably, or a way to tick the box of some sanctimonious BBC department, ‘Thought for the Day’ style.

Obviously, one also needs something delicious to eat whilst watching. Something treat-like. The problem is, you want something that mirrors what they’re cooking. No good eating chocolate if they’re doing wellingtons. I like an icecream cone or morsels of mature cheddar with special chutney.

I think there is a business opportunity in setting up kitchens equipped for hen parties and work awaydays to come and do technical challenges (well, easier ones – sausage plaits perhaps). Much more fun than ten-pin bowling or electro-zumba-pole-dancing.

In fact, as I type, there is an item on Radio 4 about how GBBO is boosting sales of kitchen equipment everywhere. Apparently it has almost twice the number of viewers of any other BBC 2 programme. And business in Lakeland is going through the roof. (How I used to love the Lakeland catalogue – spatulas and flat whisks are my kind of porn.)

I don’t want Brendan to win. Sorry. I’m sure he’s very nice, but in one of the VTs even his neighbours seemed fed up with him – they just took his proffered cake off him and closed the patio door. You could practically hear them saying ‘It’s that camp old guy from next door with some baked goods again – I just haven’t got time for him today’.

But back to my buttocks. In fact, I simply have an orthopaedic ice pack on them, because they are unbelievably painful. It is a close cousin to my back pain, and the whole area is feeling very knife-edge. I can’t take any decent painkillers, and rest and ice is the only temporary solution. The other key thing is not to lift Logie, which is pretty tricky. His affront is legendary, and produces real water tears and a koala cling to my legs, making it difficult to walk.

He also has a buttock issue at the moment. We see a lot of them. Because he often throws a complete shit fit when having his nappy changed, and refuses to put on trousers. It reminds me slightly of my brother Toby, who when having a tantrum when he was little (approximately seventeen, from memory) would start to strip off, regardless of where we were. Even in the supermarket. I’m so glad I accidentally mentioned that to his best man once, so it could be shared with all his wedding guests this summer.

I am a bit embarrassed about having buttock pain. Cos what I really want to say is ‘God, my bum hurts’, which sounds a bit dodge. Apparently it is a classic symptom of pelvic girdle pain in pregnancy, but even if I have got a touch of that, the real culprit is the prolapsed disc, sticking out and annoying the nerve like Logie taunts one of his friends who is trying to play nicely on their own.

When I first started this blog, Toby (who doesn’t read this blog, so far as I know, but I guess I’ll soon find out) kindly offered to share his minor ailments, and revealed that his physio has deemed that much of them are due to problems with his left buttock. I was delighted! Cos my left buttock is also the troublemaker. What a coincidence – as if we’re related or something. Thanks Mum and Dad for the left-buttock gene.

Perhaps we should do a survey of the rest of our family, to see how far it goes back. Was it caused by being Vikings who always had to row on the left-hand side? I wonder if there’s a history-medical-diversity department of the BBC who’d like to make a documentary about it.

16-week antenatal appointment

I didn't have any decent medical updates last week. Well, I burnt my hand on a pitta bread. So I went to sleep with my palm on a cold pack. It gave me a bit of a fright when I woke in the night and brushed against it.

And true, my friend Charlotte cut her finger on a yoghurt lid and it got so infected she was almost admitted to hospital. She said it looked so bad she was ashamed to type at work, and was considering a metal finger thing a la ‘The Piano’. But it might've been a bit noisy.

Jon’s right ear was a slightly blocked, but he only remembered to ask me to put drops in it once we’d said good night and turned the lights off.

See?

So I waited til today, my 16-week antenatal appointment, and it turned out my blood pressure is a fraction on the low side. Which is quite ironic given the blood-boiling three hours I spent at the antenatal clinic.

I was seen, eventually, by a midwife called Marcella. I fear I am predisposed not to like people called Marcella, as the only other one I’ve ever known turned out to be a wolf in friend’s clothing.

At my hen weekend, organised to the n^th degree of loveliness by my godsister Jules, she was rude to all my friends, refused to eat anything cooked by Jules, got shitfaced, went to the pub on her own in Chipping Norton while the rest of us were at the beauty place and had to be coerced into paying her share for dinner at the Kingham Plough. Apparently she insisted on inspecting it squiffily, then still wouldn’t hand over her credit card, stating in a very loud, American (which is pretty heretical in itself in the Cotswolds) voice “You girls need to learn to read a bill!” To which my now sister-in-law Emma, who is the sweetest-natured person under normal circumstances, somehow found herself replying “Well you need to learn to...be more polite!”

I wimped out of confronting her about it in the remaining weeks before the wedding. Which obviously wasn’t much to her liking either. Despite being spotted early on at her designated table (she had fiercely insisted on being seated next to her boyfriend) they must have suddenly decided to leave, but without saying anything. So the waiters patiently served their food, and took it away again, untouched. My mother took over a special gluten-free cake she had thoughtfully made her for pudding, and left it by her chair, just in case.

Marcella never referred to it, and I managed to be smiley but too busy at every subsequent encounter, which was a little tricky seeing as we worked together. We didn’t have many meetings together, but she always seemed to be in the loo at the same time as me. Then she left (in mysterious circumstances) so my cowardice breathed out.

Anyway, midwife Marcella was a perfectly nice person, she was just baffled and fairly weary. These appointments are basically an exercise in administration, and if your administrative system is based on photocopies and guesswork, it’s an unuplifting experience all round.

Together we marvelled at the fact that I have yet to be contacted by the 1-to-1 midwife, who is meant to have taken over all my appointments and care. Marcella filled out another referral (by hand, on a photocopied bit of paper) and said she hoped I got a phonecall before my next appointment. But she said it in a resigned, powerless way that one might say in October ‘I hope it won’t rain for the rest of the month’.

I am meant to have this 1-to-1ery because of my psychiatric history, which I suppose makes people explode six feet off their chair. The words electric shock therapy tend to have that effect. Although it would be very nice to have such support, I am doing much better in the mental health stakes (though prob not 100%) and would actually like it because a) the last time I was pregnant and had such a midwife she was one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, and I wanted her to Be My Friend, which she sort of was for a bit, especially when we had lunch in Carluccio’s and I dripped prawn oil on Logie’s head whilst doing that overambitious breastfeeding whilst eating in a public place thing, that I never normally did, I was just trying to impress her. And b) it would solve all this buggering about trying to sync up appointments.

Because Marcella, bless her, didn’t have much of a clue about what days various clinic were held on, it turned out once I got back to reception. And she didn’t take too kindly to my probing questions like “Why do I have to go to the VBAC (vaginal birth after caesarean – I’m sorry, both the acronym and the full name are squeamish) clinic after I’ve seen the obstetrician if she decides I need another c-section?”. Poor Marcella folded too easily, clearly just wanted me out, admitted that it didn’t really matter which ‘clinic’ I went to, they were all in the same place, with the same midwives.

I’m having a diabetes test at 28 weeks, because Logie was such a big baby, need to see the anaesthetist at 32 weeks, because of my prolapsed disc, and have a showdown with the obstetrician about an elective c-section after the 20-week scan in a month. It’s the last one that I really mind about.

Eventually Marcella, having left the room four times to get different photocopies, lifted her head from my notes and asked “Have we covered everything we need to in this appointment?”. I mentally checked my many years’ medical training as a midwife and gave her the reassuring answer she clearly desired.

It all reminded me of last time, when three separate failures of information-sharing between hospital, GP and midwife after Logie was born turned out to be due to fax problems. FAXES?! Who uses faxes these days? Michael Winner?

When I finally got back to the car, I had a parking ticket. The receptionist had given me a letter, in case this happened, because I was seen almost two hours after my appointment time. He said that it would negate the charge, so I didn’t need to nip back and put another pay-and-display ticket in. In fact it said that I’d had ‘unforseen problems with my pregnancy’ and that they hoped the authorities would ‘take this into consideration’ which makes me feel both guilty and unreassured.

However, one system which is working tickety boo is nursery. Logie started in the infants' room today. It felt like such a big day I even brushed his hair.

When we got there, he beetled off as usual, but was diverted from the stairs to the baby room and steered towards the older children. He went to the side independently, collected his cereal in a bowl from a carer, carefully carried it to a table (on his own – there were two other little boys sitting at two other tables – is that a thing?), pulled out his little chair, sat on it properly and started eating his breakfast nicely. I mean, HELLO?! I was dead proud, and even a bit misty, but not entirely sure this wasn’t a clone they’d created just for my benefit.

I stood for a while by the door, open-mouthed, and he turned around and spotted me. He cheerfully shouted ‘Mumma!’, gave me a boastful wave and turned back to his breakfast.

On collecting him, he rushed up to show me proudly that he was still wearing his George Pig wellies, made a spirited attempt at pilfering a scooter and ate a whole chicken drumstick with a flourish when he got home. He’d had a successful day. Maybe nursery could organise my maternity care. It would be far more efficient – and I’d get snacks.