Bumps and grinds

Great news! My unborn child is a Bowie fan! I’m sure of it. We have been attempting to cram in a bit of culture before B-day so went to the Barbican to see the Michael Clark Company’s Come, Been and Gone. It was tremendous, albeit exhausting to watch. I get puffed out hauling myself out of a chair these days. The final, brilliant act is choreographed entirely to Bowie tracks including Heroes, Future Legend, Aladdin Sane and The Jean Genie. And the kid, who had been pottering around aimlessly, suddenly kicked off, air punching the sides of my womb and (ouch) trampling on my bladder. A week or so later, I was watching a film which plays out to Under Pressure by Bowie and Queen. The same thing happened. I was so proud! Evidence of pre-natal good taste.

Of course, I might be completely misreading the baby activity. I’m aware that I have a tendency interpret his kicks in a way that suits me, for example:
Cannes: screening of a very dark and violent Ukrainian film, My Joy, which I absolutely loved. Baby kicks = Hooray! My kid likes difficult former Soviet cinema. He is bad ass!
Cannes 2: Screening of an interminably dull German film about joyless sex in a corporate world. Baby kicks = Hooray! He’s bored and wants me to leave, probably to buy cake. An excellent suggestion, I will do just that.

So the awful truth might be that far from appreciating Bowie, he’s actually registering his disapproval and demanding Poker Face by Lady Gaga.

Other music he has liked (or not)
I wanna Be Your Dog by The Stooges – on the soundtrack of The Runaways. One of the first times I felt him move.
Swagga, by Excision and Datsik, a track which my husband describes as like listening to someone trying to saw off their own leg with sound, and with which we’re both mildly obsessed.

Preg style

It has been HOT recently. Seriously, thigh-chafingly hot. So what's a 7 1/2 month pregnant woman to do? Answer: adopt Demis Roussos as a style icon and float around in a kaftan. Grudgingly, however, I realised that the Demis look is not entirely flattering. I resemble Hattie Jacques crossed with a cruise ship. Earlier this week, I had a reception to attend on the South Bank. It was a warm evening, but not too warm. So I decided to try out one of the maternity frocks kindly lent to me by my friend T. It's a black, knee length, figure skimming cotton jersey frock with long sleeves and a plunging neckline. I thought I looked the bees knees. My husband's response: You look like a fat mime! Cheers.That's exactly the look I was going for.

Big, big, bigger

So, yes, it's been a while since I have blogged anything. I blame this on the hot weather and the exhaustion that rolls in most afternoons like a sea fog, rendering me pretty much useless.I have found myself drooping, slack jawed and drooling slightly, in front of the fish monger's stall, unable to make a decision; it now takes me twice as long as it should to write a feature.

Other changes - I'm bulging all over the place like a badly tied balloon animal. My brain has yet to catch up with my new body shap however. I find myself trying to squeeze through gaps that I used to be able to fit through, only to get wedged between parked cars, in small toilet cubicles, and the like. Embarrassingly, it's not just the bump i misjudge. It's the boobs as well. I keep crashing into people with my knockers. It's like some bizarre compulsion and has resulted in a fair few very frightened-looking men sprinting away from me up train platforms.

Horror stories

While most friends who are already parents couldn’t be more supportive about our impending initiation into the world of sleeplessness and shit-filled nappies, there are a few who seem to take a sadistic pleasure in scaring the pee out of us. Our neighbour who, to be fair, has survived two years with the screamiest child I have ever encountered, cackled somewhat maniacally when we told him the news. Then he said something which I think reveals a little more about his relationship than it does about parenting in general – “You’ll find yourself biting your lip a lot,” he said sagely to S, casting me in the role of unreasonable harridan, and S as the heroically long-suffering spouse. Interesting. I had always had his wife down as the kind of unflappable, capable type and him as a slightly feckless twat who sucked down can after can of Tennants like it was some kind of surrogate nipple. Gosh, how wrong I must be.

Then there’s my brother and his wife who, to be fair, had no intention of scaring us. It’s just that as veterans of a tag team of twin girls who never, in the first 18 months of their lives, managed more than about 90 minutes both asleep at the same time, my brother and sister-in-law have done parenthood in a way most people can’t fully conceive. Their reminiscences are like the scene from Jaws in which everyone compares their horrific shark attack injuries. The way my brother describes it, juggling twins is like grappling with some kind of human Catherine wheel which is spraying projectile vomit and liquefied poo everywhere. Then he gets started on the snot stories and his wife cracks her knuckles, ready to step in with the tale of ‘the tummy bug that took out the entire family, twice.’ Fortunately, they are both so exhausted that they fall asleep by about 9.30 so we are spared the part of the conversation that deals with kids, and the horrendous freak accidents that can befall them.

Scan number two

I know I wanted to know the sex of the baby, but I’m not entirely sure I was happy to hear my unborn child’s genitals referred to as ‘his third leg’. It seems wrong somehow. It’s a term you expect to hear in third-rate erotic fiction, not coming from the mouth of your highly trained obstetrician. Even if he is from the Ukraine. Fortunately, I soon had other things to fret about. Everything is progressing well – all the baby’s vital bits and piece seem to be in the correct places and he’s growing very well. Perhaps a little too well. While they didn’t actually use the phrase ‘freakishly large’ the subtext was, ‘you know those pelvic floor muscles you have been exercising so diligently? Well, don’t get too attached to them…’

This morning.

I climb out of the shower, towel myself dry and try not to let the news that I seem to have put on 4 pounds over the weekend get me down. I smile brightly at S as I pull on the super-comfy stretchy trousers I borrowed from a friend. S smiles back and says, "You look like an egg cup!" Crushing. But funny.

Pregnancy nose

One of the most interesting side-affects I have noticed from being up the duff is the heightened sense of smell. In the first trimester I was convinced that I could even smell inanimate substances like plastic and sellotape. It’s settled down a little since then. Now the everyday smells of the world are just magnified by a factor of about 20 or so. As I live in Holloway, this can get interesting. I was on a bus the other day with S when an obviously mad person got on and sat directly in front of us. That sharp, sour smell assailed me like a slap to the face. It was a combination of the yellowish, ammonia tang of ripe fish and the damp spongy, sickly stench of old mushrooms. It was so strong I could practically hear it – a kind of insistent high-pitched discordant shriek. It was immersive, the only thing I could focus on. When we got off the bus, S turned to me with an expression of horror. “I know! He smelt like the bins outside Whittington hospital.” I said. S looked surprised. “It was more the fact that he was shouting the words, ‘East London white people! DEAD DEAD DEAD!’ which bothered me.”