The Baby Diaries

Eve: But speaking of which …

She was right. We were right in front of a huge display of sexually transmitted diseases, complete with moving structures to illustrate the ravages of each one.

Eve: You sure know how to show a girl a good time.

Me: You just wait. There’s a mummified woman upstairs.

Eve: Woop!

As always, we linked arms and strolled around; Eve telling me about Mike and her work (particularly her terrible new boss, Joyce: ‘She couldn’t manage a ball downhill’) and me mostly listening, asking questions, and telling her a little bit about my family. Family. The whole time we were talking, I was just thinking, ‘Don’t mention you’re pregnant, don’t mention you’re pregnant,’ to the point where I was amazed she couldn’t read it behind my eyes whenever she looked at me. I even forced myself to loiter by the cabinet upstairs filled with tiny ceramic models of pregnant women with detachable stomachs, revealing miniature ceramic babies inside, just so Eve wouldn’t suspect anything in my avoidance of it. ‘That’ll be you, soon,’ Eve whispered in my ear, coming up behind me. I laughed manically, trying to turn it into a fake laugh, but only succeeding in sounding even more suspicious.

Eve: Are you pregnant?

Me: Are you pregnant?

Eve: No.

Me: [apologetically] Oh, I am. [taking the hand of a suit of armour] Don’t tell my husband, but this suit of armour loves me in a way Thom will never understand. I’m due to give birth to a beautiful toaster any day now.

Eve: Alright, alright. Tell me how Thom’s enjoying the teaching life.

So I think I managed to shake Eve off the trail. But why would she ask that?

November 18th

First meeting with Hilary Taylor today. She was exactly as delightful as I’d expected, constantly looking around the room during the meeting with me and Alice to see what she could have.

Alice: So we’re looking at promoting you within the supermarkets – we think that we can get you a placement in some of the weeklies, which should lift those sales.

Hilary: Can I have a copy of those ones? [pointing at a pile of Jacki’s books]

Me: Yes … of course. [passing her over a copy]

Hilary: No, I’ll need three – for my girls, you see.

Me: Right.

Alice: We also thought that you might like to start talking to your fans online –

Hilary: Do you have those flowers changed regularly?

Alice: I think someone just brought those in.

Hilary: They’re lovely. Can someone wrap them up for me?

Eventually Alice kicked me under the table and I called the meeting to a close before we were forced to donate our clothes to Hilary too. She hasn’t even submitted her new book to us yet. I should set her and Monica Warner up together – Monica’s one of our most successful authors, but she’s loaded beyond all imagining, and an absolute monster of a snob. I don’t know which of them would make it out alive.

TO DO:

Talk to Alice about whether we could make that meeting happen

November 21st

My midwife ‘booking-in’ appointment this morning. I’ve been allocated ‘Linda’, who took an hour to slowly, slowly scroll through a hundred screens, painstakingly filling in every possible detail about my physical and medical history.

‘Linda’: Have you ever had any piercings?

Me: Just my ears.

‘Linda’: Nowhere else?

Me: No.

‘Linda’: Not your nose? Or your tummy button?

Me: No.

‘Linda’: How much do you drink?

Me: How much do you drink?

‘Linda’: I’ll put over four units a week. We recommend you keep it to under two, if you can.

Me: [meekly] OK.

‘Linda’: Do you smoke?

Me: [triumphant] No I do not.

‘Linda’: Have you ever taken recreational drugs?

Me: How long ago would it have to have stopped for us to just be able to say ‘no’?

‘Linda’: Before your pregnancy?

Me: God yes.

‘Linda’: Right, I’ll just put ‘no’ for that.

She was OK, really. It just took forever, with her insisting on reading out every option on every page to me, even though I could see the screen and read it faster than she could say it; I felt impatient, claustrophobic, wanted to just get my jabs (or whatever I had to do there) and get out.

But then she wanted to weigh me, take my height, my blood pressure and Thom’s and my family medical history, and to talk me through every possible permutation of giving birth: at hospital, at home, in a midwife-led ward, on a boat (maybe – I might have stopped listening after a while). I must have been sweating a bit when she kept talking about labour and choices and things, because eventually she said, ‘Are you alright, Katherine? How are you feeling about this pregnancy?’ but I just smiled at her, biting back my panic, and said I had a meeting to get to and was it OK if I went now? She waved me off with even more paperwork, plus a handful of blood forms for Dr Bedford. Blood forms. Ugh.

I know that she was trying to help, and I’m so grateful that care like this is free (Jesus, the thought of what this all could be costing us has brought me out in a sweat again) but does it have to be so – babyish? Do we have to keep talking about how it grows, and when I’ll feel it, and how it’s going to come out of my body? I’m sure in the next six months science will have invented a laser to just zap it right out of there. Like Innerspace, only backwards.

Even though I arrived mid-morning, I took Alice to lunch today. I was determined to try and see if she really was OK. As we settled over our bowls of bibimbap, I asked how everything was.

Alice: Honestly?

Me: Yes please.

Alice: Do you remember my ex, Simone? I saw her a couple of weeks ago.

Me: Did she look dreadful?

Alice: [sighing] No. She looked fantastic. She’d just been on a fantastic trip to her parents’ house in Italy with her fantastic new girlfriend and a whole bunch of brilliant power lesbian couples.

Me: Did you look good?

Alice: [scornful] Kiki. Need you ask. But I was thinking about how Simone never hassled me about telling my family about us, which was one of the things I liked about her. But … maybe it is getting ridiculous. Maybe I’m too old to still pretend. What am I doing?

Me: Only you know when you feel ready.

Alice: I’m almost thirty, for God’s sake. Look at you! Married, a child on the way.

Me: Hold on, don’t let me be a catalyst for anything. I tumbled into this kind of responsibility. This wasn’t a life choice, this was too much red wine in a Parisian café.

Alice: Whoah, hold something back for your child’s wedding speech.

Me: Alice, you’ll know when you want to talk to your family about it. But don’t look at me – or anyone – to see how to do things better. I can just about manage to be married, I’ll hopefully come to terms with having a baby, but I don’t think I can ever take the responsibility of being someone’s example.

Alice: You’re right. I should tell them.

Me: That … wasn’t exactly what I said.

Alice: Shhhh. Eat your bibimbap.

As we get closer to the scan date, the days crawl by. I snuck into a bookshop around the corner from the office today, and, sweating like I was buying the worst kind of porn, paid for and stuffed hastily into my bag a glossy, hardback Guide to Pregnancy. I’ve been going through it this evening, and my brain, freshly fed with dangerous information, has now started imagining all the things that can be wrong with the six-centimetre shape inside my womb. Thanks, Brain.

Thom says I should try to relax. He’s offered me baths, food, even a foot massage with a face that screamed his reluctance for me to take him up on it, and insists that we won’t know anything until the scan, and I should just take care of myself. He tried to say, Let him take care of me, but I think he could see a Force 10 Suffragettes Lecture building, and changed it to how I could look after myself. I know he wants to help, and heaven knows he’s seen enough of my panicking this year, but I can’t help it. There’s something in there, and all I can think of is Alien.

November 22nd

We were in bed last night when I suddenly rolled over.

Me: Oh my GOD!

Thom: [half asleep] What? What’s happened?

Me: Zoe’s pregnant too!

Thom: [mumbling] I don’t know who Zoe is, but I’m very pleased.

I let him get back to sleep, but stayed up for ages trying to work out her possible dates. Surely if she’d seen me twig about her pregnancy at our wedding but hadn’t told us, she wouldn’t have been more than three months? So that meant … she was at the very most three months ahead of me? I was so excited that I called her this morning, to ask if she wanted to catch up. She’s been away working in New York with her nightmare boss, horrible celeb photographer (and Jacki’s alleged new love) Pedro, since just after our wedding, so I’ve had no chance to see her, but heard from Jim that she and her boyfriend Zac had just got home again recently. She didn’t pick up when I called, but left a return message for me later to meet her at a Goth pub off Tottenham Court Road after work tonight, if I was free. I was so pleased to be seeing her, I didn’t really think twice about the strange espionage nature of the set-up, particularly since I already knew about her pregnancy. And it was nice to see her, as she came into the pub and rushed straight over to give me a hug. I beamed at her.

Me: So how have you been?

Zoe: Well, I have a little news.

Me: [laughing] Oh, I know your news.

Zoe: Nope. This news. [holding out her hand, with slim wedding band]

Me: Oh, you two did it! Congratulations!

Zoe: Thank you! I didn’t want to talk to you on the phone because I knew I’d give it away. I’m so happy.

Me: Please, tell me all about it.

It seems that, because it was such a long stay in the US, her super-handsome American boyfriend Zac stayed out there too, and her parents and sister came to visit for a week in the middle. With Zac’s family living right around the corner, they figured it was an opportunity they may not get again for a while; the day before, Zoe asked Pedro for an extended lunch hour and that was that. Only – and this is the most surprising bit of the whole story – somehow Pedro found out what she was doing, and not only cancelled their whole afternoon schedule, but followed them to City Hall, swept both families off to a top restaurant, paid for everything and took photos the whole time.

Me: But he took it out of your wages, right? Or he had you deported that night? What was his punchline?

Zoe: If he’s got one, I’m still waiting. He’s been … he’s been human, Kiki. Believe me, I’m as baffled as you are, but I’m enjoying it while it lasts. Oh! Do you know – he wouldn’t let me travel economy, either way? He upgraded me to First Class, saying it wouldn’t be good for the baby.

Me: And how was First Class?

Zoe: It was very good for the baby.

Me: Ah. Speaking of which.

Zoe: Ye-ee-es?

Me: Zo, I’m slightly knocked up. I don’t know what to do.

Zoe: [biting back a woop] OK, let’s take this step by step. Can I ask if it was planned?

Me: No. Yes. No, I mean yes you can ask, and no, yes, it was and wasn’t planned. It was planned at the time, but it was a one-night error which we realised in the morning. It really isn’t planned. I haven’t thought about how it would fit in with my promotion, or how we’ll look after it, or how we’ll afford it, or what we’ll do with it. What am I going to do with a baby?

Zoe: Right, and how pregnant do you think you are?

Me: Entirely.

Zoe: And in weeks?

Me: Maybe … eleven? It’s all fairly approximate at the moment.

Zoe: And have you seen a doctor or had any scans?

Me: Yes doctor, no scans. Day after tomorrow.

Zoe: And how’s Thom?

Me: He’s pleased, I think, but worried about me. He’s OK.

Zoe: How are you feeling? I’ve just been talking the whole time and not even asking about you.

Me: Ugh. I don’t know how I am. I feel sick almost all the time, although actually that’s improving. I don’t know what to think about this, but I don’t know how to think about anything else.

Zoe: Everything makes you think of it, and nothing feels real?

Me: Exactly.

Zoe: This one wasn’t exactly planned either. Well, it wasn’t a full accident, but we were just … trying it. Seeing how it played out. And it’s worked out brilliantly, so far. If it helps you at all, Kiki, I was so freaked out when our plan actually worked. Hugely freaked out. I couldn’t speak for three days.

Me: And then?

Zoe: [shrugs] Then I could.

She said she realised that this was something happening to both of them, and it would be a hell of a lot more manageable if she shared it all with Zac. She didn’t want to be alone, and she didn’t want him to feel alone either, and if they loved each other enough to marry in the face of Pedro’s insistence on twenty-hour working days, they could certainly manage growing a baby together. We stayed for a couple of hours, nursing our non-alcoholic cocktails, then were both so wiped out that I was home by 9, although I agreed to keep her posted with our scan results.

I think she’s right. I need to share this properly with Thom, not carry it all on my own and keep him at a distance. And I’m so glad to be going through this with a friend, too. And she might be only a month or so ahead of me, if my dates are right.

November 23rd

I couldn’t sleep last night, thinking about the scan today. I’m a giant emotional pendulum, elated one minute and excited to see our baby, terrified and frozen by the thought of actually seeing it the next.

But we had a slot first thing, and got to the hospital just in time so we didn’t have to hang around waiting. We completed the forms and had barely sat down in the waiting room before my name was called by the receptionist, and a friendly woman was welcoming us into the little room, filled with wires and screens.

Sonographer: Hello, I’m Clare. Katherine?

Me: [staring at the equipment] Yes, hello.

[silence]

Thom: I’m Thom. We’re hoping I’m the father.

Me: [not really listening] Sorry, yes, this is Thom.

Clare:— Hello, Thom. Katherine, there’s no need to be worried. Nothing I’m using today will harm your baby in any way, it’s perfectly safe equipment just to check everything’s going well, OK?

Me: OK.

Clare: Shall we get started? I just need you up on this bed, please, and you just need to lift your top up, that’s all. [I clamber on] Great, that’s perfect. I’m just going to put some of this gel on your stomach, to improve the contact, OK?

Me: OK.

Clare: Right, I’ll just have a look around. Yes, we’ve got the head here, can you see that?

Me: OK.

Thom: [quietly] Wow.

Clare: And you can see the spine following down, here. See that bit there?

Me: OK.

Clare: That’s the stomach, and all the internal organs.

Thom: Kiki, isn’t that amazing!

Me: OK.

Clare: I’m just going to take some measurements now, to check everything’s on schedule and growing as it should.

She worked in silence for a while, moving the wand around and marking points on the scan.

Clare: Mmm. [concerned] Mmmm.

Me: What what is it what’s wrong?

Clare: I’m just … is it?

Me: What can you see?

Clare: No, I … No, I think it’s fine. I just watched Alien for the first time the other night, and I can’t stop thinking about it. Just checking your baby has all its limbs and no tentacles. Hang on, is that …?

Me: WHAT?

Clare: [cheerful] No, nothing. Have you seen that film?

Me: [wide eyes at Thom] Yes.

Thom: No.

Clare: [to Thom] Don’t. Not for at least … a year, I’d say. OK, we’re all done here! Everything looks fine. I’d say you’re just over fourteen weeks at the moment, which makes your due date the 21st May, and your baby’s growing well so we don’t need any further scans at the moment. We’ll see you in six weeks for your twenty-week scan, then. I’ve sent your pictures to reception to collect.

We stumbled out of the room to get our pictures.

Thom: She was amazing. And now I’m curious: I really need to see Alien.

Me: You really, really don’t. And she really, really wasn’t.

We agreed to disagree, but I shall have to keep an eye on Thom. I suppose I’ll know if he’s watched it on the sly as he’ll suddenly come nowhere near my stomach.

It was so strange to see the baby really there. It sucked its thumb and rolled around, and I really believed for the first time that we were going to be parents.

TO DO:

Find out what babies do, and need, etc.

Ask Suse?

November 26th

Today was the day we’d agreed to break the news to our families. As with our engagement, we – by which I mean Thom – told his parents in Australia over the phone, just prior to telling my family over here. Aileen and Alan were delighted, shrieking down the phone and checking over and over that I was looking after myself, that Thom was looking after me and the baby, that we were happy, that we were well. It was so nice to talk to them and so nice to hear how glad the news had made them, but I also felt exhausted by it, and nervous about having to do it all over again with my family actually in front of us, where I’d be unable to draw my finger across my throat as a signal for Thom to draw the conversation to a close when it all got too overwhelming. My hands were shaking so much as we left our house that Thom had to do my coat up for me, saying, ‘It’s all practice for when you can’t do this yourself in a few months,’ to which I sighed, ‘I’m only going to have a bigger stomach, I’m not having my hands cut off.’ Thom tugged an imaginary forelock at me, and we headed over to Susie’s.

When we got there, I’d barely got my shaky finger onto the doorbell when the door opened to reveal Susie, husband Pete and all the kids in the hallway, all wrapped up in coats and scarves. I asked them whether their heating had broken again, but Susie told me that Dad’s birthday lunch was now at Mum and Dad’s house rather than theirs; she didn’t think I’d mind if we moved venues. ‘Come on, Sour Puss. I didn’t have to buy any supplies. Free food!’ ‘Is it, Suse? Is it?’ I said, but we were flurried out with their family. Thom and Pete took the twins Lily and Edward between them, walking in a wide line together, and Susie gave me Frida to carry.

Susie: So what’s new with you?

Me: Nothing! Why do you say that?

Susie: Jesus Christ, you’re pregnant.

Me: [wailing] How does everyone do that?

Susie: OH MY GOD I WAS ONLY JOKING. [doubles over laughing] Oh my GOD. I literally could not be more pleased with myself right now.

Me: Susie, you absolutely cannot tell Mum and Dad.

Susie: [wide-eyed, serious face] Oooh yeah, they’ll totally ground you and you’ll never get to go to the end of term party.

Me: Susie, please.

Susie: Alright. Do you want me to do it?

Me: Tell them you’re pregnant? I don’t know how long that story will hold. In about six months’ time my hospitalisation with Swollen Stomach is going to seem reeeeeally suspicious.

Susie: That wasn’t what I meant, but actually …

Me: We’ll all pretend we’re pregnant! Like Spartacus!

Susie: You’re hormone-addled.

Me: And you have to stop saying that stuff.

Susie: Alright, spoilsport. But I think you should know …

Me: God, what?

Susie: Mum’s actually really good at all this stuff. Looking after us in pregnancy. If she’s anything like how she was with me; she was brilliant. Asking all the right things. Providing great food. I think you’re going to see a new side to our mother.

Me: Hang on – Mum, who can barely remember our names at the best of times? Mum, who never quite manages to listen to what we’re saying when we’re in front of her? Mum, who reacted to news of your pregnancy with ‘Is it definitely yours?’?

Susie: Mum who single-handedly catered and decorated your wedding? Trust me. She’s good at this. She always preferred us when we were in utero, so she gets really excited about pregnancies.

Me: I’ll believe it when I see it.

We settled on Susie and Thom tossing for it. When we got to Mum and Dad’s, we took a coin from the pot in the hallway and all three of us squeezed into the downstairs toilet.

Susie: Call it.

Thom: Heads.

Me: No, tails.

Susie: Which one?

Thom: I don’t care.

Me: Tails! No, heads. HEADS.

Susie: [flips coin] Ha ha! It’s tails. [sing-songing] I get to tell them.

Thom: Oh, thank God.

Me: Just … do it. Don’t gloat, Suse. Get it done with.

So we filed back out, Dad giving us an odd look, and came into the kitchen where Mum was plating up our lunch.

Susie: Mum, Dad, Pete, children. I have an announcement to make.

Pete: [crossing fingers]

Susie: Your daughter’s knocked up – and it’s not me, for once!

Pete: Oh, thank God.

[silence]

Mum: Fucking hell.

Me and Susie: Mum!

I actually love it when Mum swears. It’s like Johnson’s walking dog – we’re not concerned so much how well she’s doing it, but that she’s doing it at all.

Mum: Sorry, darling, I just … well, I was surprised. Sorry. I just thought …

Me: What?

Mum: Well, I’m just surprised you’re having children so soon! I just thought you’d want to wait a little while. You two are both so young, and I thought you’d want to settle into your careers a little bit more …

Me: Susie had had two kids by the time she was TWENTY-FIVE!

Susie: [pulling a Question Time face] I hardly think that’s the point.

Me: [pleading] Mum.

Mum: Oh, darling, of course we’re excited. You do spring this on people, don’t you?

Me: [indignant] Would you prefer a blow-by-blow –

Thom: Don’t.

Me: [understanding] – mm.

Then Dad and Pete and the Twins were excited and gave us both hugs, and Mum came and gave me a lovely hug too. She asked lots of questions (all the right sort, for once), and Susie caught my eye and winked at me. Mum stayed excited for the rest of the afternoon, although she did occasionally repeat herself, which I can forgive in the name of her excitement.

Sometimes, I really love this family. Now it’s just telling everyone else we know. Gulp.

TO DO:

Find out if Susie’s available to tell all our friends

November 28th

Alice hasn’t so much as raised a conspiratorial eyebrow at me since she guessed the news. She’s been as friendly as ever, sweet and funny, but she’s too tactful to make hints or whisper questions to me in the office. She shows her me her neutral face, the face that’s meant she’s managed three Christmases with her handbag Gareth and her family, and never even looked at me when Carol reported that Tony had bought a baby book. In our weekly meeting, Carol asked if we had any thoughts yet on Lucie Martel’s A Womb of One’s Own.