Secrets of the Mummy Concierge

by Tiffany Norris

  As Olivia started talking, I scribbled down everything she was saying, a feeling of hope surging throughout my body.

  I could do this; I was going to help.

  * * *

  A few weeks later, my phone buzzed whilst I was in the middle of a meeting with a new Baby PR company. Glancing down, I smiled and excused myself. I left the room and typed in Olivia’s mobile number. She answered on the second ring.

  ‘Oh, my goodness, Tiffany. I can’t thank you enough! This is EXACTLY what we needed.’

  At this, I smiled. I had spent the last couple of weeks arranging a babymoon for Olivia and Geoff, which Olivia liked to refer to secretly as ‘our get-back-in-the-sack’ trip. I’m certainly no relationship psychologist, but seeing the way Olivia was the day I met her in her car, I knew I had to help arrange something to get them out of their rut. Some of her friends apparently started referring to it as the ‘sex trip’, but I was determined that it was going to be so much more than that. Armed with Olivia’s list of things that she and Geoff liked doing, I had set about arranging a weekend away for them to enjoy doing all the things they loved before trying to get pregnant, but also have time to reflect on the fact they were going to be parents very soon.

  I heard the ‘ding’ of a photo being delivered to my phone and saw that Olivia was sending me some snaps from her trip. She and Geoff were booked into Limewood Hotel, an oasis of a place in the New Forest surrounded by wild ponies and a stone’s throw away from some beautiful beaches. In every photo that arrived onto my phone, Olivia was grinning from ear to ear and I laughed out loud as she sent a snap of the list I had sent her and big red ‘ticks’ next to them.

  1. Relive your first date – a picnic on the beach.

  2. A pregnancy massage for you and hot stones for him (Olivia had confided in me that Geoff never gets massages because he thinks they are a bit ‘feminine’, so we booked him in for something different to see how he fared).

  3. Attend a cookery lesson (Limewood has an amazing cookery course, which I had managed to get them on. Geoff and Olivia actually met at a work gala, where they bonded over their love of Italian food – and the course just happened to be all about making homemade pasta!).

  4. Attempt fly fishing – this was on Geoff’s wish list, but judging by the photo that Olivia just sent, she seemed to have grabbed the bull by the horns. The smile on her face and the impressed grin on Geoff’s showed that she had obviously done a very good job!

  Looking over my shoulder to check that the PR lady was not getting frustrated at my absence, I quickly typed out another text: ‘Have you popped the balloon yet?’

  The balloon was the final surprise I had arranged for their little getaway/babymoon. Having um-ed and ah-ed about finding out the sex of their baby, the couple eventually decided to find out. Three days previously, I had popped into the hospital to meet with their obstetrician and collect the piece of paper that told us the sex. I then dashed across London to a balloon company and explained the situation, whereupon they filled a big black balloon with ‘boy or girl?’ written on it with appropriately coloured confetti. All that had to happen now was for Olivia and Geoff to ‘pop’ it and reveal the sex of their baby.

  An hour later, I got the photo and the text I’d been waiting for: a euphoric Olivia standing under a popped balloon, pink confetti flying everywhere: ‘Thank you. Mummy Concierge to the rescue again. PS. Where did you hide the condoms?’

  Mistakes people make when trying to conceive

  1. Most women know they should start taking pre-natal vitamins once they’re pregnant but few know you should actually start taking folic acid six months before conception. This will give your body enough time to build up folic acid levels.

  2. Most women assume when they are having trouble getting pregnant that it’s solely their ‘fault’. This is not true, so it’s really important to not only have yourself checked over but also your partner, by a medical professional.

  3. Another common mistake is waiting too long to talk to your doctor. If you’re under the age of 35 and have been trying for a baby for more than a year, it’s time to check in with your doctor. If you’re over 35 and you’ve been trying for six months, it’s time to seek help. It’s worth knowing that women aged under 40 should be offered three cycles of IVF treatment on the NHS (provided you meet certain conditions) and women over 40 are offered just one round.

  4. A common mistake is waiting till after you’ve ovulated to have sex. At this point you’ve probably missed your window – you actually want to have sex in the days leading up to ovulation, about three to four days, and one to two days after. This is because sperm lives in the body for up to 72 hours and once an egg is released, it only has about 24 hours of viability, so it’s really important to identify when you are ovulating.

  5. Don’t stress out! I know, a hard one. It can be very easy to get worked up and stressed if you don’t get pregnant right away, but it’s important to note that only 20 per cent of couples who will ultimately have a successful pregnancy get pregnant each month – you’re not alone.

  Chapter 14

  The text message simply said, ‘Very clever’. I squint at my phone and re-read the message again: Very. Clever.

  Leaning back on my sofa, I picture Patrick halfway across the word, an amused smirk on his face as he digests what I have just sent him. As is always the case with me, when met with sarcasm or a disbelief in my ideas, I puff up my chest and attack:

  ‘I can hear the sarcasm 5,000 miles away. Please turn the volume down. I personally think it’s a brilliant name and is exactly what they are looking for.’

  I wait, feeling more and more agitated until his reply pops up on my phone:

  ‘Like I said, it’s very clever.’

  Feeling the frustration well up inside me, I stab in his phone number and try to control my breathing (in, out, in, out) until he picks up.

  ‘Tiff, please don’t start getting all uppity. It’s clever.’

  ‘But it’s got to be MORE than clever!’ I shout back. ‘It needs to be unique and powerful, beautiful, but not pretentious . . . Jeez, Patrick, I’m stressing out here!’

  * * *

  Let me update you. Three weeks ago, I was contacted by a new client with one of the more ‘unique’ parenting requests I have to deal with every now and again. Sophia was incredibly direct when I asked her how I could help.

  ‘I need a baby name,’ she explained with no hint of what was about to come. In fact, she sounded incredibly relaxed, as though she had just called up a shop and asked if they stocked baked beans.

  ‘OK, sure.’

  I smiled down the phone and tried not to give anything away in my voice. Sometimes mothers do contact me with strange requests, but I had a feeling in the pit of my stomach that this was just the start.

  ‘Would you like me to recommend some wonderful baby name books? Or perhaps you want to pass some potential names by me and we can have a think about the pros and cons?’

  ‘No. I need a name. And YOU have to come up with it. And I have a list of must-haves. Have you got a pen?’

  Panicked (it was only 7am, after all), I threw open my bedside drawer and rifled around, desperately hoping there might be a pen in there somewhere. There wasn’t, so I made do with a blunt eyeliner pencil. Opening the book I was currently reading, I flicked to a clean page and scribbled: Baby Name. Must-haves.

  Baby Names Must-Haves:

  • Must be a name that sounds endearingly cute as a baby, but powerful and successful as a man

  • Must sound beautiful and lyrical

  • Must have a cute nickname/abbreviation

  • Must be completely unique (ideally, never used before)

  • Easy to spell

  • Easy to pronounce

  • Looks lovely when written down

  Baby Names Must-Nots:

  • Be a name used by any current friends or colleagues

  • Be the name that any celebrity has used
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  • Start with A, G or J

  • Sound pretentious

  • Rhyme with anything ‘smutty’

  • Have too much alliteration in it

  • Must not end with an S

  • Must not sound too masculine or too feminine

  • Be too short

  • Be too long (seven letters max)

  • Be American (wants Baby to have a name that sounds regal)

  Two weeks later and I’m running late for my first meeting with Sophia. Usually, with my VIP clients, I set aside a whole day for them (even if they just booked a one-hour meeting) as I know that demands can go far beyond what they originally asked for. I had a client a few months earlier who booked me for a one-hour consultation at 9am and at 5pm we were still walking around Harrods, gathering up suitable baby toys for her unborn baby’s nursery.

  I spot her before she sees me. As it’s a sunny day, she is sitting in the outside terrace of the café in central Chelsea. She is surrounded by a plethora of shopping bags and I can clearly spot the names of some of the most premium shops in west London: Liz Earle, Browns, Harvey Nichols. As I sit down, she wafts a box in front of me and simply says, ‘For you.’

  I accept it gracefully, trying to act as though this happens all the time. She nods at me in a way that gives permission for me to open it, so I do and I can’t help but gasp out loud:

  ‘Sophia, I can’t accept this.’

  ‘Well, you must. I’ve had it engraved so I can’t take it back.’

  I pull out a beautiful leather-bound Smythson’s notebook and run my hand over it carefully. I resist the urge to bring it to my nose and smell it – I can’t imagine Sophia would be too impressed. Turning it over in my hands, I see that on the front are the words ‘Baby Notes’ and on the bottom right-hand corner are my initials: ‘TLN’

  ‘Oh, Sophia, this is just beautiful! I can’t believe you remembered I was pregnant. Oh, thank you!’ The words spill from my mouth appreciatively. ‘I’ve actually just been for a scan and—’

  She cuts me off before I can finish.

  ‘For your baby? Oh no, I’m sorry, but I’ve misled you. This book is for you to write all your notes on OUR baby. I figured as you are finding the best for our little one, then you need the best notebook in which to write everything in.’

  OK. So, this is something I’m going to have to get used to. VIP clients are VIPs for a reason. And that reason is that everything has to be about them.

  Noted.

  Despite the confusion, I am still thrilled with my new notebook and eagerly fish out a biro from my handbag and write ‘BABY NAMES’ on the first page. Then I fill Sophia in on my plan.

  Having chatted with her numerous times over the last couple of days, I had begun to realise that just ‘suggesting’ baby names was not going to cut it. The hours I had spent trawling through baby name books and researching names on Google had come to nothing. A swift ‘no’ and a shake of the head from Sophia on our Zoom calls had made me realise that I needed to pull out the big guns.

  ‘We’ve got a couple of people coming to join us today,’ I start, nervously playing with my handbag strap under the table. ‘I’ve handpicked a group of leading experts so we can all get together and brainstorm some potential names.’

  Sophia nods and leans forward, eager to hear more. Maybe I have actually nailed this idea.

  ‘We have a whole bunch of creatives and people who I have worked with in the past.’

  As I’m speaking, I feel a hand on my shoulder and spin around to see my group of ‘baby name experts’ gathering behind me. There is an explosion of colour suddenly on the terrace – a sea of burnt orange blazers, an extravagant peacock feather hat and horn-rimmed spectacles. You can see just from looking at them that these people are all creatives. A surge of hope zooms through my body: today we are going to find the perfect baby name.

  As my experts take their seats around our narrow table, I swiftly introduce them to Sophia and explain their expertise. We have the creative director of a top advertising company, a mummy blogger, a linguistic expert and a poet. Looking Sophia directly in the eye, I continue. ‘I figured that getting lots of creative brains in one room might mean we can narrow down a potential list to start considering.’

  She nods enthusiastically and I can see that she is impressed – I have proved to her that I have gone above and beyond.

  Two hours later and we have a list. Some of the names are certainly ‘out there’ and a huge majority have to be discarded due them not following the previously laid-out rules of ‘must-haves’ and ‘must-nots’. I pass the list to Sophia.

  ‘So, the next step is a focus group,’ I explain carefully, tilting my head towards Sophia and trying to gauge her reaction. ‘It’s something that is traditionally used by marketing companies to see what people think of a certain product. We will put this list of names’ – I point to the piece of paper in her hand – ‘to a group of strangers and gauge their reaction.’

  Sophia looks confused. ‘But why do I want strangers choosing my baby’s name?’ she asks, rightly so.

  I place a hand on hers in what I hope is a soothing gesture. ‘It’s just a way for you to see how people react to the names and it might help you rethink and consider situations and names you might not have liked initially.’

  Sophia throws back her highlighted hair and laughs. ‘Let’s do it!’ she says, a huge smile spreading across her beautifully chiselled face. ‘But I’m definitely NOT calling my child Leaf,’ she adds, playfully nudging Julian, our poet. ‘Even if it does “suggest that he will sail through life like a leaf on a stream”.’ We all laugh, catching each other’s eyes as we do so and smiling conspiratorially at Julian. Even I had to agree with that; Leaf was definitely one of the more left-field suggestions.

  * * *

  A month later, Sophia calls me to let me know her little boy has been born. So, did she take the name suggested by the focus group? Of course not!

  ‘In the end, we decided to go with something traditional and so we called him Richard.’ I put my hand to my forehead in exasperation – after all that hard work! ‘Did you know it’s the name of a king in one of Shakespeare’s plays?’ she continues, oblivious to the months of hard work that had just gone down the drain. ‘And in the end, my parents couldn’t get to grips with having a grandson with a name they couldn’t pronounce so Baby Richard it is!’

  I smile into the receiver and shake my head from side to side, a huge smile appearing on my face.

  ‘Well, I suppose you always have a second name to think about,’ I suggest, playfully.

  ‘Oh, that’s sorted already. We actually quite liked “Leaf” as a suggestion so he’s Richard Leaf Harrison . . .’

  PART FIVE

  BIRTH

  Chapter 15

  I had already been in Selfridges for over three hours, my arms full of designer dresses, silk pyjamas, various lotions and potions and a designer handbag which was going to double as a nappy bag. Harriet was a new client of mine who was also mum to two-year-old Edward (who was currently wrapping his sticky hands around my legs whilst we waited for his mummy to try on yet another outfit).

  ‘How is that one looking?’ I ask cautiously.

  Let’s just say, Harriet seemed highly strung today. When I met her outside Oxford Street tube a couple of hours ago, she had Edward in a rugby hold in her left arm and was barking instructions into her mobile phone at the pace of an Olympic sprinter. When she saw me, she physically breathed a sigh of relief, bundled Edward into my arms and marched off towards Bond Street, beckoning for me to follow with a flick of her finger.

  ‘Mummy cross,’ said Edward, looking up at me with his big blue eyes before pointing at the retreating back of his mother. ‘Me draw on her dress and she cry.’ He knitted his brows together and pulled an exaggerated frown.

  He’s so sweet, I think, as we weave our way through the tourists to catch up with Harriet. I can’t believe I’m going to have my own l
ittle boy in just a few weeks. Bliss! Little did I know that at that exact moment he was also smearing thick red jam from his sandwich down the back of my cream cashmere dress. Had I realised, it would have set the tone perfectly for the rest of the day.

  ‘It’s just goddamn AWFUL!’ Harriet appeared from behind the thick plum-coloured curtain and stood in front of me, pawing at the material around her pregnant belly and grimacing. ‘I mean, just look at it. I look HUGE! And these’ – she cups her breasts and bounces them up and down – ‘look like something that should belong on a cattle farm. Right, let’s try the Versace.’

  I looked down at my own 8-and-a-half-month-pregnant bump and sighed. I completely understood how Harriet was feeling. When you’re in your third trimester, your body has changed beyond all recognition and getting dressed in the morning is one of the more testing pregnancy nightmares. I mean, are there really any clothes that make you look like you don’t have a helium balloon shoved up your top? Self-consciously I adjust the material of my dress that is clinging to my bump and try to breathe in. Just a few more weeks to go, I mutter to myself silently.

  I switch my attention back to Harriet. Searching manically through the pile of clothing currently balancing on my left arm, I pulled out a silvery metallic number and handed it over, wincing as I did, as I knew it just wouldn’t work over a baby bump.

  Let’s get one point straight: I am not a stylist. But I do know, having worked with numerous pregnant mothers, what does and doesn’t work as maternity fashion. There are certain rules, you see – specific items that you must avoid and others you must embrace.

  A dove-grey waterfall cardigan catches my eye on the ‘returns’ rack at the entrance to the dressing room. I move over and add it to the pile in my arm, thinking how the draped styling will glide over any pregnancy bump, making it invisible – it’s exactly the sort of thing Harriet needs.

  Edward was occupying himself on the floor by my feet, happily distracted by a basket of Hermès scarves abandoned in the corner. I tried not to notice the rivers of drool he was currently depositing over them and instead concentrated on how content he looked. A contented baby, when out shopping with his mother, is something you rarely come in contact with, so I decided not to interfere and left him to it.