The Baby Diaries. Sam Binnie

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СКАЧАТЬ is a pretty reasonable explanation for only children. I just about manage to stay upright at work, but I come home and just lie, with a downturned mouth, either on the bed or the sofa and try not to smell the food Thom is doing his damndest to cook and eat in a secretive manner. Then I eat as many mouthfuls of cornflakes and cold, cold milk as I can before my rebellious stomach sends reinforcements and the refuelling party is over. The enemy has realised my plan and all I can do is retreat to the sofa again, trying not to groan out loud and wishing so very, very hard that the feeling of being on a whirling roundabout would stop. Any time now. Like, now. Or now. Or now?

      I’m sorry to feel so sorry for myself. As long as this baby is growing, and healthy, and all that jazz that pregnants say to one another like a mantra, then I can stomach this stomach.

      Unless I wake up tomorrow and it’s still like this. In which case, I will not be happy.

      OK, I can do this. Millions of people – women, I suppose; millions of women – get pregnant every day, and they just get on with it, don’t they? I mean: there will be frightened girls and women who don’t want their babies and don’t know what to do, and women who want babies so much and can’t have them, and here I am, happily married (for less than three months) with a supportive husband and family, so what am I worried about?

      Yet the reality of this pregnancy rattles around my head. I can actually hear it: rattle rattle rattle, all the time. Are these sound-effect thoughts also a symptom of pregnancy? I’m delighted, then I’m terrified. I think of the fun we shall have with our own child, then I think of my body, and my social life, and – oh GOD – my career. Tony’s hardly a dream boss, but I love Polka Dot. What am I supposed to do? I’ve had this new position for even less time than I’ve been married, and I’ve got to somehow get a carrier pigeon to Tony in distant lands to let him know that he took a punt on me and it backfired? How am I going to face any of them? And Pamela too! She championed me against her son, and now I’m dragging the Polka Dot offices back sixty years, into the dark days when young women married, bred and vanished into a life of baking and school fêtes. Not that that’s even what I want – I don’t want to watch my career dissolve while I stay in the kitchen, weeping while my kids pelt me with Lego. But that’s definitely the assumption Pamela and Tony will make.

      But then I get excited again. A baby, with Thom. Not that I even like babies – I really don’t, not at all – but it’s exciting, to be doing something so different, so wonderful, so creative, and to have this massive responsibility and to be sharing it with Thom. What an honour. This is the most wonderful thing. And then I think: a baby. Jesus. Not a baby Jesus, but a baby nonetheless. And one that I imagine will do a hell of a lot more crying than the one we have to thank for Christmas. How the hell are we going to cope with that?

      And then the nausea comes back.

      We spent tonight watching some belated fireworks from a pub window with Jim (a session musician and source of great kindness, and my oldest friend besides Eve) and Poppy, the girl he brought to our wedding and who seems like a keeper. I sat sipping an apple juice (‘Sorry, I’ve been feeling rough all week’) and trying to steady my stomach and absorb the letter from Dr Bedford this morning, confirming the date for the twelve-week scan. Thom’s got permission from school to go in late, and I’ll tell Polka I’m editing from home that day. I can’t stop thinking about it. Something about that scan will make it real, rather than just a distant To Do. And I’m sure it’s going to be much harder to keep up my heroin habit afterwards. Joke.

      TO DO:

      Start reading any of those pamphlets Dr Bedford gave me

      November 14th

      I got a letter today from the local team of midwives. Ah, the things you never thought you’d find out: who even knew there was a local team of midwives? A team sounds good, though. Like a team of crime-fighters. I hope they have cool uniforms, at least. The letter said that I had an appointment with them next week at the local hospital, and came wrapped around six different leaflets – what I should be eating, how I should be feeling, what’s going to be taken from me (blood and urine) and what’s going to be given (more information). I find it’s most helpful to write the appointment in my diary, tuck the whole thing safe at the back of my drawer, and just not think about it again. Note: this may not work when the actual baby is born.

      Mum came over tonight to drop off some photos from our wedding (oh, how recent that seemed) and I thought she’d guess instantly when I was lying on the sofa, grey-faced and sipping water with a lemon in.

      Mum: Hello darling, are you ill?

      Me: My stomach. I think it’s a bug.

      Mum: Oh, that’s awful. Have you had some plain toast?

      Me: [trying not to retch at the thought] No, I don’t really …

      Mum: Well, it’s the best thing for you.

      Me: I know, but it’s not what my stomach wants right now.

      Mum: Kiki, I think you’re being very silly; a nice piece of dry toast is exactly the kind of thing you should be eating if you want to feel any better. Is it something going round?

      Me: [burping, a precursor to vomiting]

      Thom: She’s been a bit sick all day, it might be better if we let her rest for a while.

      Mum: [voice almost cracking] You’re being ridiculous! If you don’t want to feel better –

      Thom: I’ll get her some toast later. I think she’s just a bit tired at the moment.

      Mum: [grumpily] Well I shan’t kiss you, in case it’s catching and I give it to your father.

      Thom: [sniggering]

      Me: [faintly] Alright Mum. Thanks for the photos.

      Mum: That’s perfectly alright. See you soon!

      And she was gone. We both felt such relief, even though she is incredibly kind (sometimes) and did do a huge amount towards saving our wedding from disaster: but her attentions can be a little much, and if she’d kept saying the word toast I would definitely have been sick in front of her. And she seemed even more tense than usual – surely she wouldn’t care that much about my toast intake normally? Plus, we definitely don’t want to tell anyone until we’ve had the first scan. It still doesn’t seem real.

      November 15th

      Ah, crazy hormones. Yesterday I got home from work and, in a brief respite from nausea, pounced on Thom, then fell straight to sleep to a night of the filthiest dreams I have ever had. I can’t even name some of the people who featured for fear of this diary ever falling into the wrong hands, but it was … well, I’m not surprised I was more tired this morning than when I went to bed.

      November 16th

      Thom remembered the Diary today – last Christmas he’d given me a diary for the year, with trips and treats every month. Last month he’d dug me out a perfect Marion Ravenwood costume (wicker-basket-Marion, not Nazi-tent-Marion) for Halloween, and in return I found him a Captain Sharpe costume (yes, I know, Thom Sharpe, Captain Sharpe, I am exactly that imaginative); the combination of which resulted in us arriving slightly late, but very cheerful, to the party.

      This СКАЧАТЬ