A 33-week pregnant mind.

Labour. I will be giving birth to a BABY. In approximately 7 weeks. This is seriously scary. I have no idea what my pain threshold for this will be. People say to prepare your ‘birth plan’ which basically means, what do you want to do? I have no idea what I want to do. I want to give birth to a healthy baby, but there are a million ways to do this, and you know what? You can’t make that happen, what happens: will happen. So I say, I dunno... “gas and air? And then if I just can’t take the pain, an epidural?” I pretend I know what this means for me; I do not know what this means for me.

Pain. I know what I can deal with in terms of past experience; lower back pain, skinned knees, a laser to my heart through the groin (don’t ask!). That hurt, but really… an actual CONTRACTION of your WOMB inside of your BODY. This is pain I cannot imagine, and I have no idea if I can hack it. I’ll have to hack it. And there is no going back, because this baby has got to get out somehow.

And as for if things go wrong? You can’t plan for that. It could happen, it very might well happen.

When the baby is here. If I think about this too long I freak out. I am bringing a human being into the world. The human being will always be here, always be in the house, unless we take it out. He won’t eat unless we feed him, he won’t develop unless we nurture him.

Words like “nurture”. There is a whole new language, a whole new world to understand now. Breastfeeding, nappies, sleep patterns, things to look out for… things I’ve never heard of. These seemed like babyspeak to me. It now makes more sense, but all these phrases and words I’ve heard so many times before are beginning to take shape, and now I want to talk about them. I want to understand them. I dream about them at night to the point that I wake up feeling a bit sick and even more confused.

Listening to other people’s point of view and advice. Everybody is different from me. I know from experience that Conrad and I deal with things very differently from our friends and people that we know. So I don’t really know how to take advice – I take it lightly, I keep it in mind. But really? We can only deal with things the way we’re going to deal with things. We are strong, it will be fine. But advice is almost useless. Particularly because all advice is different.

Regardless, I will be giving birth to a new human being in approximately 7 weeks.

I've got a serious case of Gotta Get Outta Here's and there's nothing I can do. This has never happened to me before. I would usually go to extreme lengths to get outta here if I had to (present residential country). I would go into horrible debt, sell all earthly possessions.. but I can't.

Hormones are something ELSE. I'm irrational and emotional at the best of times, and wow do I feel bad for Conrad right now. When I feel sad, it is immense. When I feel angry, it is extreme. When I feel nervous or tentative about the future, it becomes verge-of-needing-valium anxiety. This baby is making me crazy. And I'm already a little crazy anyway.

Other emotions include extreme want to keep the baby safe - being scared of woods. Seriously, scared of going in the woods. I could only imagine this was hyperdrive protection mode, because there is nothing freaky about woods.

Definite nesting instincts. I don't want to be at work, but not just in a 'I don't feel like working way'.. in a I belong with my family (Conrad and bump), I want to be with them NOW way.

Add to all these things a really heavy dose of guilt. Guilt that being here isn't enough, guilt that I feel anything so strongly besides what I feel I should be feeling.

Anyway, most strongly I want to be somewhere else. I know internet land is sick of me saying this, but I need to get away so I can realise that I like England again. So I can feel homesick and want to be here. Because right now, I just want to get away.

p.s. as a side note, one thing that is keeping me going is the most amazing watermelon I've found at the local Greek cornershop. It is better than anything I have ever tasted. England doesn't do watermelon, so this is just a taste of paradise. I can close my eyes and see the mediterranean.

I’m mad about the amount of sun England has.

1. When the sun’s out, every single other person in the UK decides to do the exact same thing you decided to do, at the exact same time.
2. People wear short skirts and short shorts that really just shouldn’t
3. You can only be happy with the sunshine ‘in the moment’… you cannot plan. Once a BBQ or day to the park is planned, the weather will change.
4. You can’t pack your winter clothes away. At some point soon, you will need that thick sweater or that thick pair of socks.
5. Every single outdoor space is packed to the gilt
6. If you try to do anything summery, it just ends up feeling like a Brit’s Abroad Tenerife holiday. Or something equally as awful
7. Your tan that you’re nicely topping up will disappear in two day’s time when the grey sky and concrete slabs of dullness come back
8. Sunshine is bittersweet. It will soon leave and you will feel empty and used.
9. English people complain. SERIOUSLY! They complain that it isn’t sunny, and then as soon as it’s warmer than 20 degrees, they complain that it’s too hot. TOO HOT! And too sunny! This is stupid.
10. All winter long you wait for the sunshine to come back and the hot days to wash over you. Mid June you realise it never happens – why do you always expect it?
11. You take 5 days off for Bank Holiday weekend; it is grey and cold every single day. The day you go back to work it is 27 degrees and sunny.
12. Every summer will be the same. You think it will be different, but it will be the same.
13. You pay way too much for way too little. My garden is a courtyard that would laughably be called a gutter to some in the world.
14. I'm having a baby so I can't spend money on going somewhere I can forget about the greys, whites and dullness of the sky here. I want to go away so I can forget it and come back and love it again. As of right now, I'm mad at it.

The opposite of nesting

I don’t know if it’s being a TCK (wikipedia’s definition) or if it’s something else, but my ‘nesting’ instincts as they like to call it are showing up in really strange ways.

Instead of wanting to set down roots and create a stable environment for our baby boy, I’m trying to think of ways that he won’t ever be settled. I’m already planning trips for his first year of life, imagining times when we aren’t ‘tied’ to living in London. I want to make sure he can see the world as a borderless land where he has every choice he could ever want and be understanding of culture, life and people.

Dear Moves-a-lot-Junior,

Your life is going to be full of surprises, twists and turns, and unexpected people. You will always be loved, you will always be cared for, you will always be free to think for yourself and become the best you there is to be.

I want you to learn for yourself that no person in this world is inferior to others. Every country has its own unique and beautiful culture. Just because you haven’t ever tasted or seen something before does not mean it’s ‘weird’. It’s just different from what you know.

You will grow up seeing beauty in everything, the best in every person. You will have a deep understanding of love and what it actually means, and you will go out into the world with curiosity and open eyes.

I love you so much already, and I can’t wait for you to experience all these things with us. You will love it, little man.

Restlessness.

Every day, around after lunch I’ve started feeling very restless. Some might call it itchy feet, but I just call it my past catching up with me.

I’d very much like to take an early day off of work, get home and start packing. Conrad and I will pack all of our things into a couple of suitcases (including baby stuff, of course), grab Snoopy and his lead (and of course, poop bags), lock up the house (with lights on for winter-time, so people think there’s someone home). And go. We have enough gas in the car to make it to France, I’m sure – once we get over (or under) the channel we can just go whichever way we choose. Perhaps a bit of brie and rich red wine on the way through France, a few stops along the way to eat duck and steak and walk along rivers and buy endless amounts of baguettes and pastries. I’m not sure where we should go next. How do you feel about Spain? I wouldn’t mind seeing some more of that Gaudi architecture, I do like the blues and greens and the tiles and the cave-like buildings. We’ll then perhaps take a turn towards Italy. Yes? Italy, I miss Rome – let’s go see the ruins and soak up the intensity of Italian spirit. I wouldn’t mind some creamy pasta, I could drink a nice cool glass of Pinot Grigio, definitely. Once our feet are too tired, we’ll sit at a café and drink coffee with lots of foam on top. When we’re done, we’ll walk till we can’t walk anymore and we’ll have another one. When we run out of coffee money, we’ll buy lemon fanta and sit in a piazza, not caring that we’re poor. We’ll then drive out to the coast to a small town (shall we choose Chivitavekia?) where no-one will know what we’re saying and we think everyone is angry at us – but really they’re not! Now then, I know where I want to go now – let’s go to Switzerland. Let’s visit my home. I will take you swimming in the Rhine in the height of summer, we will find paths that nobody knows, we will laugh at their choice of footwear and walk giddily through the main street of small town. I will feel at home, I will feel a different kind of normal. We will walk along the river to buy ice cream, I will show you the Munot and the way of life. We’ll need to take a train, because that is an essential! We will leave just on time and arrive when we’re supposed to. The streets will look like postcards, and I’ll know I belong there that day.

There are so many more places to go, but my mind is tired now. Perhaps I’ll just stay here in my office in London and dream about it, but you’ll still be there with me.

A thought

I think I may have control issues. This has just come to me now, after 28 years of living.

I am 5 and a half months pregnant, therefore I do not have control over certain things. I make a plan for my super-productive day and I get to about a third of the tasks and crash out. This angers and upsets me. Sat from my lazy position on the couch, I try and think of ways I can get up and carry on, but in all truth - I can't! All energy is sapped out.

Rather than being thankful for the excuse to rest, or being cautious because it's important to save up energy for the week ahead, I just get mad. And cranky that the wonderful feeling of productivity and purposefulness is so far beyond me right now.

So yes, something I didn't expect about pregnancy: Complete annoyance about lack of the control I have over the situation.

Missing people, missing things, missing ways of life. This is just a normal part of my upbringing and is just another part of normal life. Sometimes it hits harder than others. The fact that I can’t ever casually see my brother and sister, that I can’t pop by my brothers house to congratulate him on one of the most exciting things that’s happened in centuries; his recent engagement. My sister can’t see my growing tummy, and can’t talk to me about exciting things to do with her becoming an aunt and just generally be a sister.

This is before mentioning the fact that all my good friends I’ve had throughout my life don’t live anywhere near me (excluding Conrad, of course). A lot of times I feel friendless – when asked what I’m doing with my time, I don’t have that old friend that I can meet up with over the weekend, I don’t have the fail-safe people that I can call to who know me without me having to explain myself.

Most of the time I don’t think about it, this is the life I have, I obviously can’t complain. But every now and then I miss certain people that were really seriously important to me. People who got me straight away and really cared about me. I will never see these people again, that is just a fact. They are still in constant transient position far away from the UK. I do not have the disposable income to travel to wherever they are living at any given time. If I did have the money, I would visit my family, visit the places that still own part of my soul.

Ah, then there is missing places. Homes I cannot drive past and peek through the window, homes that are entire cities, entire country smells that I miss deeply. I dream of them sometimes, that I’m there. I dream that I’ve finally taken Conrad to my home – that he can see that part of me he never really could understand because it so vastly different from where we exist in now.

It bugs me when people don’t understand all these feelings, but they never can. I can never be in five places at once; I can never be with all the people I love. That is definite. It’s hard when people see things so one-dimensionally. When culturally they can be so unaware, so near-sighted. The world is not England. England is not the centre. The way English people live isn’t the ‘right way’, isn’t the ‘norm’. Going away for 2 weeks - or shock! A month! Does not mean you will understand me, does not mean you understand how it feels to be so very scattered and fractured. England is not my home.

Boredom is the worst thing. Stagnant mind, stagnant soul. Minutes go slower and all you can think about is the crap in life, the minor, unimportant details.

Give me air, give me crisis, give me changes of mind. Give me a day where you end up somewhere different than where you started out. Give me a minute of shock, of readjustment. Let me smell something musty, something out-of-place – snap me back to a moment decades ago.

Show me a glimpse of possibles that I don’t think are possible. Use a word that I’ve never heard that explains how you feel, a feeling I’ve never felt before.

Twist my expectations so I can’t see more than 10 minutes away – start running when I’m ready to sit down, ask me questions when all I want to do is de-focus.

Bring me life that I know exists, in this – this regularity that everyone so enjoys.

12 again, and not in a good way.

I’ve been having a really strange month at work. Work is fine, I still love it – it’s just, well – the atmosphere has all turned a little pre-teen.

It all started one evening when I was leaving work at 5:30pm on the dot, and overheard someone say “so where should we go for a drink beforehand?”. I turned back around and said “oh, are you guys going out?” They were – and they had neglected to mention anything before hand. Now, it’s not just me – there are two other colleagues who aren’t included in this evening out. The thing is, it’s not just happened once. They always have an excuse (“oh, we all got invited and didn’t realise all of us were going…blablabla”) But it’s happened again… and again.

All just happening to go out for lunch at the exact same time, all mentioning something that happened the night before.

It’s not the actual being left out that kills me (well, it is that, too) but the fact that it’s so sudden. For the past year, my team have been getting along like a house on fire, going out together, going for lunch together, generally the key word is together. All of a sudden, it’s pretty commonplace that they go off on their own without even mentioning it and have secret little email conversations.

So here’s me, almost 28 years old, feeling like I’m back to 12 years old. The problem is, I shouldn’t care. I don’t want to care. I’m a married woman of 27 years! These things are in the past, surely? It has just reverted my whole feeling back to being the odd-one out as a child, and it’s totally knocked my confidence.

Thing is, they’re just work friends. But for this past year, they haven’t been just work friends – they’ve been more. We’ve been to weddings together, they’ve been round to my house for a barbeque – you know? Regular friends stuff. I even went to India and spent 24 hours a day with one of them.

I just feel kind of betrayed. And it totally knocked my confidence. It’s made me question if it’s because of something I did? Am I no fun? do they not like me anymore? What are they saying about me? The list goes on. Truthfully they probably dno’t even see it like this – but I just know that one of them does. One of them thrives on being included when others aren’t, thrives on gossip, being exclusive, being the one who has the inside track.

Ugh, see how this makes me talk? It’s all just so pre-adolescent. I wasn’t even like this as an adolescent, and now I’m being made to feel like this now. Made to feel like going to the bathroom and having a bit of a cry, of standing up and saying ‘guys, I can see you’re emailing each other! What are you saying?? Why aren’t I included anymore???” And most importantly, WHY DO I CARE?

Thanks internet, I just needed to vent.

Pictureworthy for The Guardian, methinks.

Conrad makes Guardian news for the first time.