I just ate my dinner from start to finish with an angry Piglet sitting in his chair kicking his legs around and shouting at the TV, which I had turned him around to face to try and take his mind off the fact that Mummy was eating and not playing with him.
I am a terrible mother.
OK I may now have redeemed myself by cuddling him all through Downton Abbey (it is now several hours after I started writing this-nearly 11pm-and I have just put Piglet in his cot for the fourth time). He has been fussing all evening. His bedtime routine started at 6.20pm as usual and I was hoping he would be in bed in time for Strictly Come Dancing. O what folly! Instead he decided to whinge all the way through Strictly, X Factor and Downton. Clearly one night of uninterrupted television (two. Or maybe three as there's a new series on Thursday I like the look of) is too much to ask, for the rest of my life, ever. Oh well, Piglet is worth it I suppose.
I had been reading another baby book that I got from the library the other day in an attempt to pick up some tips, in particular on sleep routines. The thing about baby books is that the advice proffered is guaranteed to make you feel bad as inevitably there will be something the book suggests you do which you haven't done (or that the book says you should never do, which you do all the time), and as a result you will be made to feel that your child is now destined to grow up and become an axe murderer or general menace to society because you didn't give him a bottle of expressed breast milk for his night feed (please also note the use of the singular here, "night FEED." Clearly the implication is that if your offspring is having more than one feed during the nocturnal hours then you are a failure and a bad parent who will end up being talked about in hushed tones at the school gates as the mother of "Piglet, who has NO boundaries. Did you know that yesterday he weed-yes, WEED all over the headteacher's office?"
Another annoying thing about these books is the outrageous assumption they make that you are a) middle class-live in a house rather than a flat, have a car and a selection of Cath Kidston aprons; are not a teenage mother and b) have a husband, which I find somewhat presumptuous. There are, for example, many mothers who are single, or who are married to other women. Clearly I myself am in the former category. In the particular book I borrowed from the library, there was far too long a list of baby-related items that the author deemed "essential" to purchase. For example, a baby monitor-not necessary when you live in a one bedroom flat. I know only too well that I can hear Piglet cry wherever I am in my very small flat. Not everyone lives in some sort of palatial stately home where one may find oneself in a completely different wing of the house to the baby (like in Downton Abbey. Has Lady Mary actually met her son? It seems to me that Lady Edith spends more time with her secret daughter who lives in a different house than Lady Mary does with the son and heir whose name I don't even remember. She could definitely do with a baby monitor). Also, the book kept banging on about things you need for the "nursery"-not just a baby monitor, apparently, but a night light and a special chair for breastfeeding. Firstly, my iphone has a perfectly good light on it thanks, so why would I go wasting money on some sort of specialist baby light that is bound to be bright pink, plastic and shaped like a character from In the Night Garden and ruin the feng shui? Secondly, a chair specifically for breastfeeding? What's wrong with a normal chair? What is a breastfeeding chair anyway? One shaped like a breast? And lastly, who even has a nursery to put these things in? Who do they think I am, Tamara bloody Ecclestone? Clearly this book is a ruse to make me feel bad about being single and impoverished. Not only this, but the author proudly boasted about how she moved her children into their poncey nurseries when they were only Piglet's age, in clear contradiction of the current guidelines which state that the baby should be in the same room as you for at least the first six months. The woman is a charlatan. She is practically Lady Mary, banishing her child like that.
And I did not just say that to make me feel better about the fact that Piglet and I will more than likely still be sharing a room when he is in his teens (I mean due to financial constraints, not because I am weird). I think I will write a baby book of my own. After all, I'm sure Britney Spears' mother wrote a parenting manual at some point. And look how poor Britters turned out. Admittedly she's done all right for herself, all things considered, but I'm pretty sure she's mentally deranged as a result. Anyway, I could be a pushy stage mother, easy. This week I suggested to Piglet that he might want to try ballet when he's older. That's definitely a start.
Showing posts with label mo money mo problem. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mo money mo problem. Show all posts
Sunday, 12 October 2014
Thursday, 2 October 2014
Sadly, contrary to what Jeff Brazier and that fat one from TOWIE might say, I will not be walking away with £30,000 in cash and a holiday to the Caribbean
Desolate.
I had decided I was going to enter every single one of those competitions you get before the ad breaks of programmes on ITV-you know, Lorraine, This Morning, X Factor....the ones that promise untold riches beyond one's wildest dreams: £30,000 in cash; a brand new car; a Chanel handbag; a holiday to the Caribbean...
Some of these competitions can be entered via the website, I thought cheekily. That means they are FREE, and I will avoid the charge for a text message or phone call to enter, which will inevitably run to about £10. I will CHEAT THE SYSTEM. I am a GENIUS.
It appears that, yet again, the rule of whatever looks too good to be true, is too good to be true, despite ITV's valiant attempts to convince us otherwise by parading Jane and Trevor from Wolverhampton in front of us, sitting on their sofa talking about how all their dreams came true when they won £30,000 and a holiday to the Caribbean, not to mention that Rolex watch and ipad mini. This is because when you actually try to enter these competitions, you have to answer, not an easy-peasy question about which city is the capital of France: Paris, Berlin or Rome, but a long line of intrusive questions about one's electricity supplier, along with a requirement to provide one's telephone number so that one can be contacted in the unlikely event of winning....and with a free quote from Npower, some hard-sell telesales and daily nuisance calls from India for eternity.
Well, there was no way I was signing up for that, even if I was going to get £2500 to spend at Primark or free groceries for a year from Morrisons.
Morrisons and Primark? What sort of people do they think enter these competitions? Last time I went to Primark, in search of some cheap and comfortable leggings to wear in the immediate postnatal period, I found to my horror that not only do pairs of £3 size eight leggings turn out to be somewhat variable in actual size, but neither of them fit over my postnatal bottom. And not in an attractive, Kim Kardashian-esque way. From now on I am going to veto these competitions unless they are offering free groceries for a year from Waitrose.
Wednesday, 1 October 2014
Insomnia: I CAN'T GET NO SLEEP
Yes, in the words of Faithless, those great sages of 1996, I need to sleep I can't get no sleep.
The baby, meanwhile, is sleeping like, er, a baby.
I'm not sure why people use that phrase, as "sleeping like a baby" clearly doesn't mean lying in a crib suspended between two trees in a gentle forest resembling Tellytubby Land, rocking gently while a soft breeze lulls the baby into a peaceful pink-cheeked slumber more profound than that of Sleeping Beauty, but refusing point blank to go to sleep until well past midnight, needing to be rocked by a knackered mother for half an hour thereafter and then waking at two hourly intervals for a bit of boob following at least twenty minutes of squeaking and flailing arms about while Anxious Mother looks on nervously to check Baby has not fallen victim to some terrible accident in the co-sleeper.
That very same Anxious Mother is not being helped to sleep by either of the following (both entirely non-baby related):
a) Classic 1996 dance anthem Insomnia is now stuck in my head. As pleasant as the memory of those years of GCSEs and trying to get into clubs wearing a sparkly blue bra top and so called "hipster" trousers, neither of which I shall ever be able to wear again, may be, it isn't conducive to a peaceful night's sleep.
b) Upon reflection on the poor state of my finances, I decided to ditch the decaffeinated tea I have been drinking for the past year in favour of the caffeinated version, purely because the former only comes in small boxes of sixty or so teabags, thus making it less good value than the larger boxes of so-called "regular" tea. See how thrifty I am? See?
Given the number of cups of tea I am prone to sink in a day, combined with my lack of tolerance for what must surely be one of the world's most addictive sleep-depriving substances after a year of withdrawal, I am now, to use another analogy from the unsurpassable dance music of the nineties, about as wired as Keith Flint from the Prodigy singing Firestarter in a vat of Red Bull whilst slapping his head repeatedly.
AND THE BABY IS SLEEPING.
This can only mean that come tomorrow, yet another attempt to get Piglet into a routine that does not involve going to bed past midnight and sleeping on and off until nearly midday is going to fail, as I will be too knackered to implement it. And meanwhile, everyone from my NCT class is busy breathing a collective sigh of relief that their babies now sleep virtually through the night, thanks to their rigid routines. I have not felt like such a failure of a mother since July, when all seven expectant mothers in that class managed to pop out their babies before me, despite mine being due third. THIRD.
Perhaps this is why their babies all seem to have such superior circadian rhythms, because they have been in the outside world for longer (I hate to say they are "older," preferring to rate babies' ages by their conception dates, or failing that their birth weights, to make myself feel better about the being last situation). Not that I am in any way competitive or anything. My life in no way resembles that scene in Baby Boom when Diane Keaton overhears the pushy mothers in the park discussing all the classes their babies are doing so that they can get into the best nursery and start on a lifelong course of academic achievement culminating in graduation from an Ivy League university.
Although come to think of it, that's no guarantee of success. After all, I went to Oxford and here I am, in a state of such abject poverty that I have to buy caffeinated tea because it works out slightly cheaper than the decaff, and taking detours to Wilkinson's to buy the toilet roll that's on special offer.
Anyway, I must go, I have to keep the beast in my nature under ceaseless attack or something. I can't get no sleep.
The baby, meanwhile, is sleeping like, er, a baby.
I'm not sure why people use that phrase, as "sleeping like a baby" clearly doesn't mean lying in a crib suspended between two trees in a gentle forest resembling Tellytubby Land, rocking gently while a soft breeze lulls the baby into a peaceful pink-cheeked slumber more profound than that of Sleeping Beauty, but refusing point blank to go to sleep until well past midnight, needing to be rocked by a knackered mother for half an hour thereafter and then waking at two hourly intervals for a bit of boob following at least twenty minutes of squeaking and flailing arms about while Anxious Mother looks on nervously to check Baby has not fallen victim to some terrible accident in the co-sleeper.
That very same Anxious Mother is not being helped to sleep by either of the following (both entirely non-baby related):
a) Classic 1996 dance anthem Insomnia is now stuck in my head. As pleasant as the memory of those years of GCSEs and trying to get into clubs wearing a sparkly blue bra top and so called "hipster" trousers, neither of which I shall ever be able to wear again, may be, it isn't conducive to a peaceful night's sleep.
b) Upon reflection on the poor state of my finances, I decided to ditch the decaffeinated tea I have been drinking for the past year in favour of the caffeinated version, purely because the former only comes in small boxes of sixty or so teabags, thus making it less good value than the larger boxes of so-called "regular" tea. See how thrifty I am? See?
The Devil's Own Drink
Given the number of cups of tea I am prone to sink in a day, combined with my lack of tolerance for what must surely be one of the world's most addictive sleep-depriving substances after a year of withdrawal, I am now, to use another analogy from the unsurpassable dance music of the nineties, about as wired as Keith Flint from the Prodigy singing Firestarter in a vat of Red Bull whilst slapping his head repeatedly.
AND THE BABY IS SLEEPING.
This can only mean that come tomorrow, yet another attempt to get Piglet into a routine that does not involve going to bed past midnight and sleeping on and off until nearly midday is going to fail, as I will be too knackered to implement it. And meanwhile, everyone from my NCT class is busy breathing a collective sigh of relief that their babies now sleep virtually through the night, thanks to their rigid routines. I have not felt like such a failure of a mother since July, when all seven expectant mothers in that class managed to pop out their babies before me, despite mine being due third. THIRD.
Perhaps this is why their babies all seem to have such superior circadian rhythms, because they have been in the outside world for longer (I hate to say they are "older," preferring to rate babies' ages by their conception dates, or failing that their birth weights, to make myself feel better about the being last situation). Not that I am in any way competitive or anything. My life in no way resembles that scene in Baby Boom when Diane Keaton overhears the pushy mothers in the park discussing all the classes their babies are doing so that they can get into the best nursery and start on a lifelong course of academic achievement culminating in graduation from an Ivy League university.
Although come to think of it, that's no guarantee of success. After all, I went to Oxford and here I am, in a state of such abject poverty that I have to buy caffeinated tea because it works out slightly cheaper than the decaff, and taking detours to Wilkinson's to buy the toilet roll that's on special offer.
Anyway, I must go, I have to keep the beast in my nature under ceaseless attack or something. I can't get no sleep.
Friday, 26 September 2014
The Desperate State of Shopping with No Money
So today I was so desperate to get out of the house that I sat in Starbucks for an hour sipping a latte.
A LATTE. This is very bad on the money-saving front. That £2.25 would have bought three days worth of food in the halal shop. At least I didn't buy any cake. This was mainly because now that I am an Uber-Mother and Domestic Goddess, I have been trying my hand at baking, and yesterday made pineapple upside down cake, which I am now in the process of polishing off, on my own, before it goes off. Let's just say that three weeks after giving birth (or, as I prefer to think of it, having Piglet wrenched out of me, since I played a pathetically small role in the whole process) I had lost most of the baby weight, and since then it has been steadily creeping back on. I then spent the next half an hour wandering idly round the "London Designer Outlet" (compulsory inverted commas, like allegedly that's what it is. Most exciting brands therein are Kurt Geiger and er, North Face. We're not talking Roland Mouret here), glancing in shop windows and sighing dramatically at the sight of my not-very-thin midsection, wondering if taking up baking as a hobby was such a good idea.
I also had a little wander into Kurt Geiger. Because obviously shoe shopping is the sensible thing to do whilst berating yourself for having the extravagance to purchase a latte. To my delight, they had the perfect Mum shoes in there-flat heeled knee high brown riding boots, which I had been considering buying for some time, due to their practicality whilst pushing a pram, and country-chic, preppy look with a tweed jacket. And they were reduced. To £140. All I can say is, thank God the "London Designer Outlet" is not a real designer outlet. I then spotted a pair of cheaper black suede over-the-knee boots which I also wanted and still couldn't afford, despite their being less than half the price of the riding boots. If it's any consolation, I already have both a pair of brown knee high boots, and black over the knee ones, but the devil is in the details (the brown boots have a heel and laces, and were purchased in 2006, when knee high boots were already starting to look dated, and the over the knee boots have a pointed toe in the style last seen on Caprice circa 1999).
Before long I am going to look like Caprice in 1999. But fatter. Either that or I'm just going to have to wait for all these things to come back into fashion. Because, like the recent resurgence of the crop top, this is likely to happen just as I have got too old and fat to enjoy it.
A LATTE. This is very bad on the money-saving front. That £2.25 would have bought three days worth of food in the halal shop. At least I didn't buy any cake. This was mainly because now that I am an Uber-Mother and Domestic Goddess, I have been trying my hand at baking, and yesterday made pineapple upside down cake, which I am now in the process of polishing off, on my own, before it goes off. Let's just say that three weeks after giving birth (or, as I prefer to think of it, having Piglet wrenched out of me, since I played a pathetically small role in the whole process) I had lost most of the baby weight, and since then it has been steadily creeping back on. I then spent the next half an hour wandering idly round the "London Designer Outlet" (compulsory inverted commas, like allegedly that's what it is. Most exciting brands therein are Kurt Geiger and er, North Face. We're not talking Roland Mouret here), glancing in shop windows and sighing dramatically at the sight of my not-very-thin midsection, wondering if taking up baking as a hobby was such a good idea.
I also had a little wander into Kurt Geiger. Because obviously shoe shopping is the sensible thing to do whilst berating yourself for having the extravagance to purchase a latte. To my delight, they had the perfect Mum shoes in there-flat heeled knee high brown riding boots, which I had been considering buying for some time, due to their practicality whilst pushing a pram, and country-chic, preppy look with a tweed jacket. And they were reduced. To £140. All I can say is, thank God the "London Designer Outlet" is not a real designer outlet. I then spotted a pair of cheaper black suede over-the-knee boots which I also wanted and still couldn't afford, despite their being less than half the price of the riding boots. If it's any consolation, I already have both a pair of brown knee high boots, and black over the knee ones, but the devil is in the details (the brown boots have a heel and laces, and were purchased in 2006, when knee high boots were already starting to look dated, and the over the knee boots have a pointed toe in the style last seen on Caprice circa 1999).
Before long I am going to look like Caprice in 1999. But fatter. Either that or I'm just going to have to wait for all these things to come back into fashion. Because, like the recent resurgence of the crop top, this is likely to happen just as I have got too old and fat to enjoy it.
Monday, 22 September 2014
The Single Mother's Guide to Saving Money
Today Piglet and I decided to brave a trip to Westfield.
Well, I decided to brave it. Piglet didn't have much choice. I'm sure that had he been given a choice, he would have chosen not to be whizzed around in the pram looking for the family room (where there were apparently some fabled pods specifically for breastfeeding-no need to fumble around in Costa Coffee hiding an angry Piglet under a specially designed apron trying to avoid revealing one's nipples to the whole of London), whilst screaming blue murder. Once we got there, Mummy managed to successfully spill coffee all over the bouncy seating, and then had to change Piglet twice (including a change of babygro), after some exquisite poo moments (Piglet's, not mine).
After all of this palaver, we returned from Westfield with nothing more exciting than a job lot of nappies and baby wipes. The days of popping into Topshop to casually spend £200 on shoes are long gone. In fact, I found myself actually wondering whether it might be worth the extra walk to Wembley High Road to trade in shopping in Tesco for the halal shop (food items) and Wilko (non-food items. Did you know you can get bleach in there for 80p? And today I purchased a washing up bowl for £1 for the express purpose of cleaning Piglet in it.
And there we have it, item one in the Single Mother's Guide to Saving Money: Shop in Wilko.
Well, I decided to brave it. Piglet didn't have much choice. I'm sure that had he been given a choice, he would have chosen not to be whizzed around in the pram looking for the family room (where there were apparently some fabled pods specifically for breastfeeding-no need to fumble around in Costa Coffee hiding an angry Piglet under a specially designed apron trying to avoid revealing one's nipples to the whole of London), whilst screaming blue murder. Once we got there, Mummy managed to successfully spill coffee all over the bouncy seating, and then had to change Piglet twice (including a change of babygro), after some exquisite poo moments (Piglet's, not mine).
After all of this palaver, we returned from Westfield with nothing more exciting than a job lot of nappies and baby wipes. The days of popping into Topshop to casually spend £200 on shoes are long gone. In fact, I found myself actually wondering whether it might be worth the extra walk to Wembley High Road to trade in shopping in Tesco for the halal shop (food items) and Wilko (non-food items. Did you know you can get bleach in there for 80p? And today I purchased a washing up bowl for £1 for the express purpose of cleaning Piglet in it.
And there we have it, item one in the Single Mother's Guide to Saving Money: Shop in Wilko.
Wednesday, 7 May 2014
Sudden Panic at Actual Realisation that I am about to become Really, Really Poor
AAAAARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
This pretty much sums up how I felt when I saw how much (read: *little*) I am going to get in maternity pay. Seriously, it's so bad I almost considered having Little One adopted.
WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?
I am literally terrified. Why am I not married? WHY WHY WHY?
OK, need to calm down now. Things could be worse. I could have terminal cancer, for example. Or I could be one of the kidnapped schoolgirls in Nigeria. Or I could be Madeleine McCann. This really isn't all that bad in the great scheme of things. I haven't been kidnapped by Boko Haram, or burnt at the stake as a witch in medieval times. I don't work as a prostitute in Whitechapel in 1888 and consequently Jack the Ripper poses no risk to me at all.
I might need to start working as a prostitute though if things get really rough.
It'll be OK. It'll be like Pretty Woman and I can prance about in thigh-length boots and court gentlemen who are extremely wealthy and not at all seedy.
Everything is going to be OK. I just need to breathe. I'll just master the art of self hypnosis and mindful breathing and everything will be fine.
Went to my first NCT antenatal class last night. Hilarious. Some of the men were asking very silly questions about birth. Men are silly. I don't need a husband. No, not at all. I, on the other hand, was a total swot, showing off my knowledge about all things birth related to the assembled clueless marrieds. I've read a few books on this subject you know, I'm practically a midwife. Anyway, all was good until the end, when we had to work in pairs with our husbands (HA!) and do some dancing. It was at that point that I could tell the woman running the course felt sorry for me as though I was some sort of Abandoned Wife. It could have been worse to be fair, as when she first said we needed to work in pairs with the partners I thought for one horrifying moment that there was going to be a discussion of perineal massage. PERINEAL MASSAGE, ladies and gentlemen. It's ACTUALLY A THING! The hypnobirthing book has an entire chapter devoted to perineal massage, that's how much of a thing it is.
Anyway, I'm going to get into the bath now and try some breathing techniques to calm myself down. Hell, I might even engage in a spot of perineal massage while I'm at it. It's supposed to reduce the likelihood of tearing. Lovely.
This pretty much sums up how I felt when I saw how much (read: *little*) I am going to get in maternity pay. Seriously, it's so bad I almost considered having Little One adopted.
WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?
I am literally terrified. Why am I not married? WHY WHY WHY?
OK, need to calm down now. Things could be worse. I could have terminal cancer, for example. Or I could be one of the kidnapped schoolgirls in Nigeria. Or I could be Madeleine McCann. This really isn't all that bad in the great scheme of things. I haven't been kidnapped by Boko Haram, or burnt at the stake as a witch in medieval times. I don't work as a prostitute in Whitechapel in 1888 and consequently Jack the Ripper poses no risk to me at all.
I might need to start working as a prostitute though if things get really rough.
It'll be OK. It'll be like Pretty Woman and I can prance about in thigh-length boots and court gentlemen who are extremely wealthy and not at all seedy.
Everything is going to be OK. I just need to breathe. I'll just master the art of self hypnosis and mindful breathing and everything will be fine.
Went to my first NCT antenatal class last night. Hilarious. Some of the men were asking very silly questions about birth. Men are silly. I don't need a husband. No, not at all. I, on the other hand, was a total swot, showing off my knowledge about all things birth related to the assembled clueless marrieds. I've read a few books on this subject you know, I'm practically a midwife. Anyway, all was good until the end, when we had to work in pairs with our husbands (HA!) and do some dancing. It was at that point that I could tell the woman running the course felt sorry for me as though I was some sort of Abandoned Wife. It could have been worse to be fair, as when she first said we needed to work in pairs with the partners I thought for one horrifying moment that there was going to be a discussion of perineal massage. PERINEAL MASSAGE, ladies and gentlemen. It's ACTUALLY A THING! The hypnobirthing book has an entire chapter devoted to perineal massage, that's how much of a thing it is.
Anyway, I'm going to get into the bath now and try some breathing techniques to calm myself down. Hell, I might even engage in a spot of perineal massage while I'm at it. It's supposed to reduce the likelihood of tearing. Lovely.
Friday, 25 April 2014
Musings on my Impending Poverty
What a lovely relaxing day this has been.
In fact, what a lovely relaxing two weeks this has been. It's such a shame I have to go back to work on Monday and ruin it all.
Still, nine weeks folks. NINE WEEKS. Well, nine working weeks left anyway. Nine weeks until I plunge into poverty and despair, as most of the pregnant people in the world are able to rely comfortably on their husbands' salaries at such a time as they need to go on maternity leave. Either that or they are so rich and ambitious and driven that they can go back to work after three days and leave their offspring with a nanny.
NOT THAT I AM JEALOUS OR ANYTHING.
Need to make self more ambitious and driven, possibly in the style of Karren Brady or Sheryl Sandberg, so that I can be provider and also feminist role model for baby. Particularly important that I am feminist role model as baby is a boy and therefore presumably will need to be taught about the importance of equal rights as will naturally gravitate towards a sense of privileged male entitlement bestowed upon him by the patriarchy, rather than be enraged by a natural sense of injustice at being expected to play with toy carpet sweepers (which I was not. I liked my toy carpet sweeper.* It's just a shame that affection never evolved into a permanent enjoyment of cleaning in adult life).
Anyway, highlight of today was going to Starbucks, getting a nice decaffeinated beverage with my name on it-well, OK, a variation on my name, if my name was "Ereech"-and sitting blissfully in the shop, looking out at the rain and thinking about how I was not at work. This is what it will be like when I am on maternity leave, I thought. Except that I will not be able to afford the likes of a latte or a choc chunk shortbread cookie when I am on maternity leave, and will have to go into Starbucks and order tap water instead, while Baby has a breast milk babychino made by me.
If anyone has any suggestions for totally free things to do they will all be welcome.
*Carpet sweepers, for the benefit of anyone under the age of 30 who may be reading this, were a popular household implement that used to be used for cleaning one's floors before the invention of the vacuum cleaner. GOD I AM OLD. I LIVED IN A WORLD WHERE NOT EVERYONE HAD A VACUUM CLEANER!
In fact, what a lovely relaxing two weeks this has been. It's such a shame I have to go back to work on Monday and ruin it all.
Still, nine weeks folks. NINE WEEKS. Well, nine working weeks left anyway. Nine weeks until I plunge into poverty and despair, as most of the pregnant people in the world are able to rely comfortably on their husbands' salaries at such a time as they need to go on maternity leave. Either that or they are so rich and ambitious and driven that they can go back to work after three days and leave their offspring with a nanny.
NOT THAT I AM JEALOUS OR ANYTHING.
Need to make self more ambitious and driven, possibly in the style of Karren Brady or Sheryl Sandberg, so that I can be provider and also feminist role model for baby. Particularly important that I am feminist role model as baby is a boy and therefore presumably will need to be taught about the importance of equal rights as will naturally gravitate towards a sense of privileged male entitlement bestowed upon him by the patriarchy, rather than be enraged by a natural sense of injustice at being expected to play with toy carpet sweepers (which I was not. I liked my toy carpet sweeper.* It's just a shame that affection never evolved into a permanent enjoyment of cleaning in adult life).
Anyway, highlight of today was going to Starbucks, getting a nice decaffeinated beverage with my name on it-well, OK, a variation on my name, if my name was "Ereech"-and sitting blissfully in the shop, looking out at the rain and thinking about how I was not at work. This is what it will be like when I am on maternity leave, I thought. Except that I will not be able to afford the likes of a latte or a choc chunk shortbread cookie when I am on maternity leave, and will have to go into Starbucks and order tap water instead, while Baby has a breast milk babychino made by me.
If anyone has any suggestions for totally free things to do they will all be welcome.
*Carpet sweepers, for the benefit of anyone under the age of 30 who may be reading this, were a popular household implement that used to be used for cleaning one's floors before the invention of the vacuum cleaner. GOD I AM OLD. I LIVED IN A WORLD WHERE NOT EVERYONE HAD A VACUUM CLEANER!
Thursday, 21 February 2013
Treatment Over. Complete with Simulated Walk of Shame for Authenticity
So the IUI is over, and I am going crazy all over these internets.
The current fear is that the IUI was done too soon, given that it took place less than 24 hours after I had taken the so-called "trigger" shot (I confess I had absolutely no idea how this would work, and lay awake most of the night praying that I wouldn't ovulate too soon and miss the sperm).
And after all that I now find that the "trigger" doesn't trigger bugger all until 36 hours later, by which point the sperm would all have been dead as a doornail (is that the phrase? Well, as dead as a very dead thing anyway, like, I don't know, a 5000 year old Egyptian mummy or something).
I even had a dream that all the sperm were dead. So there, it must be true.
Perhaps I have in fact killed the sperm by visualising them dead. I have a powerful mind you know. Today I was thinking about Alexandra Burke (God knows why) and an Alexandra Burke song popped up on my ipod. Now if I can trigger Alexandra Burke to sing in my ears merely by thinking about her, surely I could also be responsible for killing sperm by thinking about them dead.
The actual events surrounding the insemination are somewhat hazy. Mostly because I was drugged up and don't remember any of it, therefore in the extremely unlikely event of my becoming pregnant, the baby will appear like some sort of miracle virgin conception that I will probably give birth to unexpectedly in a toilet (sadly, another one of my crazy dreams involved me giving birth to twins far too early in the pregnancy, i.e. early enough for them both to still be red and bloody and look like foetuses. The dream ended badly, with one of my beloved twins dying in my arms, and me then running around desperately trying to stop the other one from dying too. If that's not a grim premonition then I don't know what is).
Anyway, I went for a scan on Friday afternoon-the first since I'd started on the ol' meds. Of course all my fears had been realised and I had overstimulated, although frustratingly not by much (frustrating because had I had one less follicle, I wouldn't have had to pay over the odds to get one sucked out). I had four follicles. Now that I've read all manner of details about other people's IUIs on the interwebs and all of them seem to know in great detail the precise sizes of their follicles (or "follies" as those in the know, such as myself, call them). However, I was so worried about how many there were that I paid absolutely no attention whatsover to the size of mine, and now realise that I should have asked. I'm sure one of them was 22mm, and another one maybe 17mm, both of which sound pretty standard from what I've read.
Anyway, I was offered the stark choice of either abandoning the cycle, which would have been less unpalatable had I had an unsuspecting man available to drag back to my place to try "au natrel" (which I didn't. Men are so unreliable) and hope for the best (i.e. some babies but preferably not quads. That would be embarrassing) or paying an extra few quid (450 to be precise) to get one "or two" aspirated.
TWO! What was the point in taking all those poxy injections if all the eggs were just going to be sucked out?
I chose the latter. Unfortunately this meant a total cost of £500, the additional fifty coming from the train ticket to Devon that I had purchased with the objective of attending a friend's wedding there the following day. I also had to come back the following morning for the follicle reduction and the IUI to be performed together.
I went home and had a mournful last glass of wine, hoping that it wouldn't damage the quality of my precious eggs.
The following morning I set off for the clinic early, looking uncannily like someone doing the walk of shame, as I was completely overdressed as I was getting on a train to attend said wedding straight afterwards, but afflicted with a severe lack of make up or hair products as both were in my suitcase having been driven to Devon by a friend the night before in the expectation that I would be joining said suitcase later.
I arrived and was shown into a hospital ward-type room along with two other women who were both having egg collections for IVF. There was a surgical gown on the bed-type thing which I assumed I was supposed to put on, but no one had actually explained to me whether I should, and the other women looked like they knew what they were doing, so I didn't want to look like a total idiot by putting it on wrong, and had to poke my head round the curtain and ask the nurse. Embarrassment number one.
Embarrassment number two occurred when one of the other women came out of her egg collection clearly drugged up to the eyeballs and slurring her words whilst gleefully telling the nurse that she had "dreamed" she would have four eggs collected (a bit like I dreamed I had dead sperm and dead twins. I sense a theme here and it's not a good one). I decided that I would not be drugged up and embarrassing and when I came out of my follicle reduction and IUI (I reminded them I was having this done by asking lots of questions about how many follicles they were planning to remove, etc, just in case they got confused, thought I was having egg collection too and removed all my eggs. HORROR) and therefore when I came out of theatre (why do they call it that?) I demanded several times that the nurse reassure me that I did not sound "drugged up," then declared that I loved the drugs and wanted them all the time, especially when travelling on long haul flights. DOUBLE HORROR.
Anyway, after a bit of lying about drinking cups of tea and wondering where all the sperm were (there didn't look like there were many in the test tube, although I was assured that there were over 9 million) I was finally free to go and hot-footed it to Paddington to jump on a train where astonishingly, I made it to the wedding on time, albeit sans make up.
The rest of the day was spent trying to avoid doing too much dancing (I had been advised to avoid the gym) or drinking (I had been advised not to do that either). I'm sure I didn't ovulate until later that evening, which I reckon could scupper my chances as surely if I didn't ovulate until, say, midnight, that would have been more than twelve hours after IUI and by then surely all the sperm would have been dead, given that the interwebs say they only live for about six hours once they've been frozen, thawed and washed (a traumatic process for a sperm, one imagines).
Anyway, I am trying not to overthink this (have just spent the last two hours desperately searching for answers on the interwebs) as hopefully the clinic know what they are doing (fleecing me, mostly).
Anyway, I am armed with a pregnancy test and I am determined to use it. Hopefully not until my period is late (PERIOD PLEASE BE LATE. TEST PLEASE BE POSITIVE, OR I HAVE WASTED A WHOLE CREDIT CARD THAT I COULD HAVE SPENT ON SHOES!!!!)
Only time will tell.
The current fear is that the IUI was done too soon, given that it took place less than 24 hours after I had taken the so-called "trigger" shot (I confess I had absolutely no idea how this would work, and lay awake most of the night praying that I wouldn't ovulate too soon and miss the sperm).
And after all that I now find that the "trigger" doesn't trigger bugger all until 36 hours later, by which point the sperm would all have been dead as a doornail (is that the phrase? Well, as dead as a very dead thing anyway, like, I don't know, a 5000 year old Egyptian mummy or something).
I even had a dream that all the sperm were dead. So there, it must be true.
Perhaps I have in fact killed the sperm by visualising them dead. I have a powerful mind you know. Today I was thinking about Alexandra Burke (God knows why) and an Alexandra Burke song popped up on my ipod. Now if I can trigger Alexandra Burke to sing in my ears merely by thinking about her, surely I could also be responsible for killing sperm by thinking about them dead.
The actual events surrounding the insemination are somewhat hazy. Mostly because I was drugged up and don't remember any of it, therefore in the extremely unlikely event of my becoming pregnant, the baby will appear like some sort of miracle virgin conception that I will probably give birth to unexpectedly in a toilet (sadly, another one of my crazy dreams involved me giving birth to twins far too early in the pregnancy, i.e. early enough for them both to still be red and bloody and look like foetuses. The dream ended badly, with one of my beloved twins dying in my arms, and me then running around desperately trying to stop the other one from dying too. If that's not a grim premonition then I don't know what is).
Anyway, I went for a scan on Friday afternoon-the first since I'd started on the ol' meds. Of course all my fears had been realised and I had overstimulated, although frustratingly not by much (frustrating because had I had one less follicle, I wouldn't have had to pay over the odds to get one sucked out). I had four follicles. Now that I've read all manner of details about other people's IUIs on the interwebs and all of them seem to know in great detail the precise sizes of their follicles (or "follies" as those in the know, such as myself, call them). However, I was so worried about how many there were that I paid absolutely no attention whatsover to the size of mine, and now realise that I should have asked. I'm sure one of them was 22mm, and another one maybe 17mm, both of which sound pretty standard from what I've read.
Anyway, I was offered the stark choice of either abandoning the cycle, which would have been less unpalatable had I had an unsuspecting man available to drag back to my place to try "au natrel" (which I didn't. Men are so unreliable) and hope for the best (i.e. some babies but preferably not quads. That would be embarrassing) or paying an extra few quid (450 to be precise) to get one "or two" aspirated.
TWO! What was the point in taking all those poxy injections if all the eggs were just going to be sucked out?
I chose the latter. Unfortunately this meant a total cost of £500, the additional fifty coming from the train ticket to Devon that I had purchased with the objective of attending a friend's wedding there the following day. I also had to come back the following morning for the follicle reduction and the IUI to be performed together.
I went home and had a mournful last glass of wine, hoping that it wouldn't damage the quality of my precious eggs.
The following morning I set off for the clinic early, looking uncannily like someone doing the walk of shame, as I was completely overdressed as I was getting on a train to attend said wedding straight afterwards, but afflicted with a severe lack of make up or hair products as both were in my suitcase having been driven to Devon by a friend the night before in the expectation that I would be joining said suitcase later.
I arrived and was shown into a hospital ward-type room along with two other women who were both having egg collections for IVF. There was a surgical gown on the bed-type thing which I assumed I was supposed to put on, but no one had actually explained to me whether I should, and the other women looked like they knew what they were doing, so I didn't want to look like a total idiot by putting it on wrong, and had to poke my head round the curtain and ask the nurse. Embarrassment number one.
Embarrassment number two occurred when one of the other women came out of her egg collection clearly drugged up to the eyeballs and slurring her words whilst gleefully telling the nurse that she had "dreamed" she would have four eggs collected (a bit like I dreamed I had dead sperm and dead twins. I sense a theme here and it's not a good one). I decided that I would not be drugged up and embarrassing and when I came out of my follicle reduction and IUI (I reminded them I was having this done by asking lots of questions about how many follicles they were planning to remove, etc, just in case they got confused, thought I was having egg collection too and removed all my eggs. HORROR) and therefore when I came out of theatre (why do they call it that?) I demanded several times that the nurse reassure me that I did not sound "drugged up," then declared that I loved the drugs and wanted them all the time, especially when travelling on long haul flights. DOUBLE HORROR.
Anyway, after a bit of lying about drinking cups of tea and wondering where all the sperm were (there didn't look like there were many in the test tube, although I was assured that there were over 9 million) I was finally free to go and hot-footed it to Paddington to jump on a train where astonishingly, I made it to the wedding on time, albeit sans make up.
The rest of the day was spent trying to avoid doing too much dancing (I had been advised to avoid the gym) or drinking (I had been advised not to do that either). I'm sure I didn't ovulate until later that evening, which I reckon could scupper my chances as surely if I didn't ovulate until, say, midnight, that would have been more than twelve hours after IUI and by then surely all the sperm would have been dead, given that the interwebs say they only live for about six hours once they've been frozen, thawed and washed (a traumatic process for a sperm, one imagines).
Anyway, I am trying not to overthink this (have just spent the last two hours desperately searching for answers on the interwebs) as hopefully the clinic know what they are doing (fleecing me, mostly).
Anyway, I am armed with a pregnancy test and I am determined to use it. Hopefully not until my period is late (PERIOD PLEASE BE LATE. TEST PLEASE BE POSITIVE, OR I HAVE WASTED A WHOLE CREDIT CARD THAT I COULD HAVE SPENT ON SHOES!!!!)
Only time will tell.
Monday, 14 January 2013
Physical Illnesses: 0 (v.g.): Mental illnesses: Innumerable
Well I picked up my test results from the GP today and it appears that I do not have any of the following:
HIV
Chlamydia
Hepatitis B
Hepatitis C
Result.
I felt so smug at the fact that I am officially STD-free that I actually toyed with the idea of taking a vow of chastity to preserve this state of purity forever.
Given how phenomenally crap my love life has been recently though that probably won't be necessary.
I celebrated this news with a regular Monday night's festivities: gym, Miranda (rather below-par episode today, I felt) and several hours of pointless and frankly depressing purusal on the interwebs (today's search criteria: "having second thoughts about fertility treatment," as I have been spending much of the day thinking I might be mental to be throwing huge amounts of cash that I do not have on something which is probably not going to yield much of a return).
All that I learned was that a lot of people have fertility treatment and it fails, then they get really depressed and start crying all the time, then they get even more depressed and their marriages break up and they fall into an ever-deeper spiral of depression. Then they get a bit better. This last bit was necessary so that they could manage to write an article about it, usually in the Daily Mail, that ever-present harbinger of doom harping on about of the transient nature of a woman's fertility and the fact that it doesn't matter anyway, no one can have it all and if we prioritise our careers or are just not lucky enough to meet the man of our dreams "in time" then we are harsh-faced and unsexed old hags, and if we do get married and have children then we are doomed to a life of domestic drudgery. And don't get them started on single mothers, who are basically responsible for last year's riots, the recession and the war in Syria.
All this means, of course, is that some of these unfortunates don't get better, and don't go on to write depressing articles in the Daily Mail. They just jump off a bridge.
That said, I still thought the "shocking statistic" quoted in the aforementioned rag of 90 out of 900 women having fertility treatment feeling "depressed" was surprisingly upbeat. That means the other 90% must be happy as sandboys, presumably.
Unless it was a typo and they missed off the percentage sign. I mean, I feel pretty depressed and I've not even started. I even started watching Superscrimpers (sample suggestion: use a dishwasher tab to clean your garden furniture. Instead of what? Instead of BUYING NEW FURNITURE?)
I'm fairly sure that "have fertility treatment" was not on Superscrimper's recommended list of tips. But then, presumably, neither is "have a baby," which of course makes me feel so much better.
What am I doing? I am mental.
HIV
Chlamydia
Hepatitis B
Hepatitis C
Result.
I felt so smug at the fact that I am officially STD-free that I actually toyed with the idea of taking a vow of chastity to preserve this state of purity forever.
Given how phenomenally crap my love life has been recently though that probably won't be necessary.
I celebrated this news with a regular Monday night's festivities: gym, Miranda (rather below-par episode today, I felt) and several hours of pointless and frankly depressing purusal on the interwebs (today's search criteria: "having second thoughts about fertility treatment," as I have been spending much of the day thinking I might be mental to be throwing huge amounts of cash that I do not have on something which is probably not going to yield much of a return).
All that I learned was that a lot of people have fertility treatment and it fails, then they get really depressed and start crying all the time, then they get even more depressed and their marriages break up and they fall into an ever-deeper spiral of depression. Then they get a bit better. This last bit was necessary so that they could manage to write an article about it, usually in the Daily Mail, that ever-present harbinger of doom harping on about of the transient nature of a woman's fertility and the fact that it doesn't matter anyway, no one can have it all and if we prioritise our careers or are just not lucky enough to meet the man of our dreams "in time" then we are harsh-faced and unsexed old hags, and if we do get married and have children then we are doomed to a life of domestic drudgery. And don't get them started on single mothers, who are basically responsible for last year's riots, the recession and the war in Syria.
All this means, of course, is that some of these unfortunates don't get better, and don't go on to write depressing articles in the Daily Mail. They just jump off a bridge.
That said, I still thought the "shocking statistic" quoted in the aforementioned rag of 90 out of 900 women having fertility treatment feeling "depressed" was surprisingly upbeat. That means the other 90% must be happy as sandboys, presumably.
Unless it was a typo and they missed off the percentage sign. I mean, I feel pretty depressed and I've not even started. I even started watching Superscrimpers (sample suggestion: use a dishwasher tab to clean your garden furniture. Instead of what? Instead of BUYING NEW FURNITURE?)
I'm fairly sure that "have fertility treatment" was not on Superscrimper's recommended list of tips. But then, presumably, neither is "have a baby," which of course makes me feel so much better.
What am I doing? I am mental.
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