And Baby Makes Two

And Baby Makes Two - An Introduction

The story begins with narrator Zoe. A single mother-to-be. She is clever but often drifts off into her own thoughts and fantasies. She is both the gel of the group and watches from the sidelines. She is misguided in love and romance but she is strong and rises to the challenge of single motherhood with positive and steadfast commitment. I am not her, but she is part of me.

FOREWORD

If you are the owner of a newborn baby it is extremely likely that you are reading this in-between feeding time, bath time, your shower, the neighbours knocking on your door about the pram in the communal corridor, or God forbid, work. Reader take heart! Just as you juggle the domestic baby bliss in your life, so am I in writing this book. If you are still ‘without child’ then wallow in the indulgence of completing this story in one sitting and spare a thought for those of us who have traded that little luxury in for.... well, this...



INTRODUCTION
Clothes, clothes everywhere and not a thing to wear.

Pregnancy and fashion just do not mix. The Ted Baker hipsters betrayed my hips 3 months ago. I had bought them as ‘maternity wear’ believing that my bump would simply hang over the top - rather cutely I had imagined. What no one actually tells you is that pregnancy alters your entire body. For example, did you know that you can gain an entire shoe size whilst pregnant? Well, if new shoes are on the MTB (Mother to be), shopping list I guess it does have its plus points.

I ponder, looking at all the clothes lying strewn across my floor, bed, hung over the clothes rail and slung over the chair. Its all too tight, too short, too..loud, too pleated. Oh, I dunno all too....wrong. Considering all possible outfits I plump once again for the trusty yoga pants (black) and Topshop lycra dress (black) combo that I am currently wearing and have been washing-wearing, washing-wearing for two months now. On the bright side at least I don’t have to change. For yoga, that is.

In a diametrically-opposed universe where my fashion-club membership dwindles like a burnt-out star, my expulsion is eclipsed in a perfectly formed arc by the new star that is born: That of the Antenatal Membership Club.

I enthusiastically attended antenatal yoga at an embarrassingly slender five months. It was awful. I felt like a fake and a phoney as I thinly observed the other women dragging their immense weight, and oddly proportioned bodies, around in an attempt to get comfortable: cross-legged. And there was I, a woodland sprite, feeling as agile as a yogic cricket. I also felt a bit ripped-off actually; handing over £10 to lie on the floor for an hour did not seem value-for-money. What about stretching, bending, balancing, isn’t that the whole point of yoga? Then, to add insult to injury at the end of the ‘workout’ all those sea-lions, heaving their stomachs into place sumo-style, started talking in-tongues, spouting words like posterior, anterior, breach, perineum, episiotomy, flibbyflobbyotomy...

...I didn’t go back. I was an outsider. I was not of their world.

I am now.

Quintessentially pregnant-shaped, A capital 'B', and very much part of the ante-natal club. Veteran mothers cheer me on down the street now with chants of encouragement like, “You go girl,” like I am running the London Marathon just walking to the shops. Strangers pat my stomach in the queue at the Post Office saying,
“Not long now”, and, “Everything changes from here on in.”

Such words of wisdom are always followed by a self-congratulatory chortle that boasts they are in on a secret I am yet to learn. Stupid bastards, don’t they think things haven’t already changed? I can’t even see my bloody feet now let alone wear my heels!
One friend even rested her drink on my stomach as she relaxed into a gossip session.
“Oooh sorry” she chirped, a bit shocked and embarrassed, “I mistook you for the table, hahaha.”
Fortunately her coffee had gone cold.

In addition to my physical metamorphosis over the last four months I have also learnt to speak-in-tongues. As each yogic MTB tells her individual tale of fetal positioning, scan-scares and medical jargonography, I am now able to nod in an informed and confident manner. Mother nature is a very clever lady. In preparation for this new language, pregnancy performs a hormonal lobotomy that strips the brain of anything outside baby info. Thus, enabling the pregnant type to rather comfortably fill the grey space with a new vocabulary of encyclopeadic proportions.
......

Labels: pregnant, shoes, single mother

posted by Rebecca Valentine at 12:55 am