The Unmumsy Mum Diary

by The Unmumsy Mum

  The problem for me second time around was that, having gone into labour bang on time with Henry, I had become a secret due-date believer. I saw no reason why Jude wouldn’t join the party on or before 5 September, as that was when he was due. So I found the extra seven days of waiting exasperating – and my exasperation was not much aided by comments from other people. In fact, I was feeling so massive and heartburny that I shot a pregnant person’s death stare at people who came out with any of the following:

  • ‘Wow! You’re getting really big now! Are you sure it’s not twins?’

  Punches person in face.

  • ‘There’s no point second-guessing when he’ll arrive, he’ll come when he’s good and ready!’

  Yes, thank you, Pauline, that’s nipped all my second-guessing in the bud and I’m enjoying being the size of a bus now. Of course you’re going to try and second-guess when the big event is going to happen. And possibly write down potential birthdays, deciding on ones that you like the look of. (I actually have a thing about even numbers and number sequences, which is why I chose 06.08.10 for our wedding day and why I was excited that Henry’s Valentine’s DOB (14.02.12) worked as a sum: 14–2 = 12. Yes, I know that’s quite sad.)

  • ‘Have you tried …’ (lists a gazillion old wives’ tales about curries and nipple stimulation). If you’ve got to the stage of being vocally fed up with being pregnant, you will no doubt already have sat massaging your areola thrice daily and tucking into an extra-spicy vindaloo. Do they think you’ve not been reading every pregnancy thread you can find on the internet about getting things started? Such threads suggest mums are sometimes so desperate to kick the baby out that they drink castor oil in the hope that its laxative effect will stimulate the uterus. I can’t say I ever reached the point of being so fed up that I was willing to deliberately give myself the shits but, given another week, I might have tried it.

  And then there are the unrelenting ‘Any news?’ texts from friends and family. What do they think, that you had the baby eight days ago but couldn’t be bothered to let anyone know? Or that you’re about to offer them a running commentary of the labour scenes? In the modern world, perhaps we could all just Snapchat how things are progressing in real time, like ‘5cm dilated now, guys’, and ‘Oh look, here’s my mucus plug.’ I’m joking. Nobody needs to see that.

  In the end I got so bored of replying, ‘No sign yet!’ that I turned off my phone. So I am trying really hard not to pester said friends who are about to pop – which means I am on edge and constantly refreshing my phone for updates. It’s actually getting a bit ridiculous because WhatsApp lets you know when the person with whom you are having a conversation last checked their messages and I keep finding myself trying to read something into what that means: ‘It says she last checked it half an hour ago, so she can’t be in full-on labour – but she might be in the early stages, having a phone-browse between contractions?’

  I think I just always feel this jittery whenever somebody I know is about to have a baby, right up until I hear that everything has gone OK, because, whichever way you look at it, giving birth is a big deal.

  Perhaps somewhat inevitably, all this due-date jittering has led me to consider whether I can honestly see myself doing it again. I can’t seem to train my brain to stop going there. Brains are funny like that. The more you try to kid yourself you’re not thinking about something, the more you start thinking about it, even when you’re trying to concentrate on the telly.

  I keep reflecting on how relieved I felt when we took Jude home, how I said, ‘Thank God this is the last one!’ to anybody who visited us. He really was to be our last one.

  But that was then.

  And now? Well, now I don’t know. Now I’m feeling excited on my friends’ behalf and, with that excitement, I think a smidgen of ‘Maybe one more?’ wavering is creeping back in. I know if it were me shooting past my due date again I would be feeling hot and fat and frustrated, but I would also be swept up in the good bits, like thoughts about names, or who the baby would look like, and I’d be excitedly checking the hospital bag for the gazillionth time.

  In all these forbidden third-baby thoughts I keep returning to the fact that tonight I will go to bed at 10.30 p.m. and, though there is always the risk of a midnight bed-crasher due to a monster in the wardrobe or a ‘hurty tummy’, the odds in favour of me sleeping through until 6 a.m. are high. It would be absolute madness for me to jeopardise those glorious steady-sleep hours.

  Saturday 9th – Penzance Literary Festival

  12:40

  Oh my days, the funniest thing has just happened – or rather it is happening as I write this. I’m currently on yet another choo-choo train, this time on my way down to Penzance for a book event that’s taking place a bit later on this afternoon. I have been chatting to a lovely couple, Clive and Liz, who I think are in their fifties and are sitting opposite me, heading to a concert at the Eden Project this evening. The conversation started when they asked me where I’m off to and what I’ll be doing there, which then paved the way for a wider discussion about my book and my blog, and all that jazz. Clive was impressed when I told him that the first book is now officially a bestseller and that I have started writing the second book. Then Liz began telling me all about her children (who now have children of their own) and about how she thought they might enjoy reading it.

  It just so happened that I had a copy in my bag – I don’t usually carry copies of my own book around with me and whip them out to see if fellow train passengers want to buy my literary wares, it’s just that I like to have a copy to hand when I’m going to be up on a stage talking about it – and Clive asked if he could take a look.

  It’s proved an intense experience, sitting opposite a near-stranger as he dives into the book I have written, particularly as he is a male and the same age as my dad (and as I know for certain that I reference the state of things down there in the first ten pages). But I felt at ease almost immediately when Clive started nodding and laughing.

  ‘Quite funny in parts this, Liz!’ he declared loudly, as other passengers looked over at us.

  ‘Ha, that’s great!’ I replied, before asking if I could get a sneaky picture of him reading the book for me to post on Instagram. He kindly obliged and chuckled away as I gave him a live update of the comments coming in, like ‘#teamClive’ and ‘If you ever have another baby you could call him Clive.’ (I can’t imagine a baby called Clive, though I did meet a baby Malcolm recently so what do I know?) God bless social media and its ability to temporarily make Clive an internet celebrity.

  An hour further into the journey and he has handed the book over to Liz, who is now three chapters in and keeps stopping to share something the book has reminded her of. She’s written down the details so she can ‘pick herself up a copy’ and I’m starting to think perhaps I should just give her this one? I’ll do that.

  20:12

  Today must just be a day for me to encounter nice people. First up were the legends that were Clive and Liz, then this evening a group of mums came to hear me talk in Penzance and, when they heard I had two hours to kill before catching the train home, they asked if I fancied going to dinner with them. So I went! I did briefly wonder if it was a bit random for me to gate-crash their mums’ night out but I tend to find that random experiences are the best ones, so I said my thank yous to the event organisers, picked up my bag and followed a group of mums I had never met to a local restaurant. In many ways it should have been weird but as we got chatting while waiting for our food I realised why it wasn’t. For a start, my dinner companions were all mums, which instantly gave us common ground. On top of that, the fact that they had taken time out of their weekend to come and hear me blether on about my book meant there was a good chance they would be on my parenting wavelength. My default position is otherwise to assume that people will hate what I have to say (a self-preservation thing, I think, stemming from the handful of times I have been burned by unkind comments online), so suspectin
g that other mums are on the same page as me brings great relief in a situation like this.

  I’m glad I accepted the invite. There is something un-deniably unifying about the whole motherhood experience, which makes sitting around a table with other mums quite comforting. And hilarious. I’d forgotten just how hilarious motherhood chats can be – which in itself is hilarious, considering that the first time I embarked on maternity leave I firmly believed that mum-chatter would be as dull as dishwater. Granted, sometimes it is a bit dull, like when you’re two hours deep into a chat about the merits/perils of ‘lifting’ your child for a final wee when they’re asleep, but there is also something quite magical about tucking into your risotto while swapping labour stories. And tonight’s stories were a scream. One of the mums told me how she had laughed hysterically when she heard her friend’s baby had been delivered weighing ten pounds – and then, in what would turn out to be an almighty dose of karma, her own (and third) child had come out at ten pounds fifteen ounces. Ten pounds fifteen ounces from her fandango! Then it was her friend’s turn to laugh – and by all accounts she laughed a lot. Despite having only just met these mums, it felt perfectly normal to chat about ovulation and C-sections and to compare notes on the worst tantrums our children have had in public and our thoughts on having more children.

  I know I was a reluctant ‘mum friends’ maker in the early days, but tonight has reminded me why having friends who are parents is so important. Vital, in fact, as they provide the nod to share things you probably wouldn’t share with somebody who hasn’t had children. I don’t mean that in an elitist, ‘We’re mums, you can’t sit with us’ way, I just mean that I probably wouldn’t strike up a conversation with my non-mum friends about my apprehension over the first post-birth sexual encounter feeling like a hotdog in a hallway. Motherhood may not be a ‘club’ in the formal sense of the term – there is no initiation ceremony, no secret handshake – but it’s a shared experience like no other. At some stage you will find yourself exchanging a nod of sympathy across the park with another mum whose toddler is also kicking off because the sun is too shiny/the grass is too grassy, and you will know in that moment that you are part of something inexplicably bigger.

  So thank you, Penzance Lit Fest mums, for being kind enough to remind me of that.

  Wednesday 13th

  Another cracking submission to the Facebook page today, this time from a mum who sent in a photo of her spaghetti Bolognese with a twist. In fact, Lisa Ruffett had run out of spaghetti altogether and, in a food-cupboard emergency, had resorted to serving up some of the penis pasta her teenage daughter had brought home as a souvenir from a holiday in Italy. Her younger kids were, by all accounts, absolutely delighted with their new ‘rocket pasta’ and Lisa’s picture – which she captioned ‘Spaghetti Bollocknese’ – led to the comment floodgates opening, as other mums came forward with their own tales of mealtimes where phallic pasta from the back of the cupboard had come to the rescue. A couple of mums noted they had acquired their special pasta packets at Ann Summers parties. I can safely say I never knew penis pasta was a thing, but I have enjoyed being enlightened on this matter and spaghetti bollocknese was just what was needed on an otherwise uninspiring Wednesday.

  I forgot to provide a baby update last week (not for me, before you thought this was going to be an announcement!). The two heavily pregnant friends I’ve been worrying about are no longer heavily pregnant and are instead now doing their own hallway pacing with tiny babies. To my great relief, babies Alfie and Emilia both arrived safely last week without any problems – though when I texted Alfie’s mum, Louise (yes, the being-known-as-somebody’s-mum has already started), I said I suspected that hearing all about the birth would either make me incredibly broody or it would put me off procreation for life. She replied to say she imagined it would be the latter so, naturally, I now can’t wait to hear the gory details.

  Both new mums look incredibly well in their post-birth pictures. I never know how people manage the happy, healthy, glowy post-labour aura; I was ashen-faced with startled eyes and greasy roots for weeks and, despite thinking at the time that I had ‘bounced back’ quite impressively, I look at pictures of those earliest weeks now and, judging by the size of my face, you’d think I had eaten the baby. Yet another reason not to go back there. It’s bad enough when you take a surprise smartphone selfie on a normal day (at close range, my face is at least eighty-two per cent nose). I’m not sure I could bear the pregnant jowls again.

  Saturday 16th

  In the car on the way home from gymnastics this afternoon, Henry asked me if I wanted to hear the story of ‘The Three Little Pigs’. I did not want to hear the story of ‘The Three Little Pigs’ because hearing a ‘story’ from Henry almost always means that he starts offering an unconventional version of the original, forgets what happens, asks me what happens and then gets cross at me for getting it wrong when I try to steer him towards a more traditional narrative. However, when your child is enthusiastically offering to engage with you in story-chat, you simply cannot say, ‘No thanks, darling, your stories are so painful they make me want to claw my own eyes out.’ So I did what I had to do: I turned down the radio and glanced in my rear-view mirror to show him he had my full attention and that I couldn’t wait to hear what happened to the piggies.

  As predicted, ‘The Three Little Pigs: Henry Style’ was completely off the wall. As best as I can remember it, this is how our conversation went:

  Henry:

  One day there were three little pigs. In their houses. [Pause] Then, what next, Mum? I forgot this bit. Mum?

  Me:

  Hmmm? Oh, right. How detailed a story is this? Have the pigs each built their houses with different materials at this stage?

  Henry:

  No, Mum! What happened when the Big Bad Wolf came?

  Me:

  Well, we’ve missed the start of the story, but never mind. The Big Bad Wolf came and said, ‘I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll—’

  Henry:

  No he didn’t!

  Me:

  Didn’t he? Well, why don’t you tell the story then, if I’m getting it wrong? In the version I know the wolf says, ‘Let me in, let me in!’ And the piggies say, ‘Not by the hairs on my chinny-chin-chin!’ so the wolf says, ‘I’ll huff, and I’ll puff—’

  Henry:

  MUMMY! That’s not right. He had no puff!

  Me:

  You’ve totally lost me.

  Henry:

  He had no head! [Laughs hysterically in car seat]

  Me:

  Of course he had a head. You’re just being silly now.

  Henry:

  No he didn’t. They chopped it off! THE PIGS CHOPPED HIS HEAD OFF. With a sword.

  Me:

  I’m pretty sure that is not what happened.

  Henry:

  It is! They chopped it off so he had no huff or puff. [Eerie smile] And they all lived happily ever after.

  Me:

  Well, except the wolf. He didn’t live happily ever after, did he?

  Henry:

  [sighing] No. He was dead.

  What the actual fuck?

  Sunday 24th

  Lord have mercy, for I am a fool. I don’t even know where to start with my explanation of what happened last night – it’s that embarrassing. I had hoped that I would be providing a pleasant overview of a sophisticated evening, where James and I had dinner with two of my cousins and their wives; a child-free meal in a restaurant, no less. But I’m afraid events unfolded without much sophistication on my part.

  I got bladdered.

  It was not my intention, but that is what happened, and now I’m cringing so hard it’s painful. I swear I have physical cringe pains in my chest.

  I have, in the past, been known to be ‘that one friend’ who makes a show of herself when under the influence. Having had a tendency to get carried away, or to simply fail miserably at recognising when I’ve reached my limit, I can recall (or rather
somebody else has recalled for me) far too many occasions when evenings have ended badly due to the level of alcohol in my bloodstream. There was the time I was sick in the street on a night out with work colleagues in Torquay, and two street pastors who were volunteering for a local church tried to offer me water while I shouted at them (mid-sick) that I wanted more gin. Or the time I tripped over outside a Wetherspoons – only it was less of a trip and more of a collapse because, as far as anybody could see, there was nothing to trip over and I didn’t even have heels on – who face-plants the pavement in flats? Oh, and the time I initiated a dance-off with a stag party who were all dressed as Britney. In a kebab shop.

  In fact, there have been plenty such times in years gone by, but they have almost always been attached to university antics or work nights out and I can honestly say, with some relief, that things have calmed down over the last few years. Having kids has changed the way I drink. Yes, I enjoy wine at home; yes, I enjoy gin at home; yes, I would be lying if I said I didn’t get slightly-past-tipsy whenever I find myself out in a bar with a handbag that doesn’t have baby wipes in it. Such occasions are rare now, though, and there is seldom any sick or shouting, or in fact any behaviour that is likely to get picked up as CCTV footage for a documentary about boozy Britain.

  I am a massive believer in parents letting their hair down when off-duty – heaven knows, we need to – but I have downgraded my pisshead levels since the boys arrived. I have done so not because parent hangovers are unbearable (though they are) but because the thought of me falling over drunk in the street now I’m a mother makes me feel a bit uncomfortable.