Week 26

I’ve gone off the pregnancy reading a bit. Well, the pregnancy parts are fine, but it was just when I started reading about end of the pregnancy - the birth! - that I felt like skipping to the chapters to when the little person has left his womb without a view and everything has been cleaned up. I knew that child birth is very tough and not something you’d video and show on family film nights; I knew that the little one comes out all misshapen and covered in cheesy stuff, but there were other details I was blissfully unaware of. The physiology of it all is incredible but the fact is that it’s not just cheesy stuff and placenta that accompanies the child on its short uncomfortable journey to meet us. I won’t go into details. I think I’ll actually try and forget some of the details and leave them to the midwife when the time comes. Like many things in life, the most rewarding experiences are associated with difficult and uncomfortable moments; a bit like eating prawns, to enjoy the delicious little morsels you have the effort of shelling and of cleaning up a sticky mess.

For those expectant folk who are completely comfortable with the whole childbirth process and the by-products of it, a (very) alternative cookbook I was perusing provided a recipe for “Placenta Pate”, which included garlic and bacon. Oh, yum.

Baby smells

I wondered if I could hear our blueberry, perhaps with some swishing or hiccupping noises. Placing my ear on the bump, I heard...nothing at all. But I could smell him! Amazingly, at that point, Jas’ belly smelt like baby. He was somehow propagating that unmistakable pleasant milky odour to the outside world.

We visited friends for lunch, and Jonty – their delightful spoodle (Cocker Spaniel/poodle cross) - did something similar to me: he approached the bump, curious, and had a lingering sniff. He looked like he could definitely sense something, perhaps he smelt the baby smell, or perhaps could detect much more. (Or perhaps Jas spilt some of the delicious lunch onto her top; her belly was getting very good at catching bits that didn’t make their intended destination!) Interestingly, Jonty was very cautious, and didn’t jump up and sit on Jas’ belly and say hello as he commonly did. Respect to the bump. Jonty then moved over to me, leapt up and unceremoniously planted himself in my lap.

Week 17

Jas: “Our bedroom smells of paper.”

Bedrooms odours are typically related to dirty clothes or to sheets that have been in contact with bodies for 40 hours a week. But not ours: those three harmless books sitting on my bedside table that had been unopened for several days were offensive odours factories! I was happy Jas wasn’t a librarian.

Pregnancy brain

Pregnancy brain: an excuse newly pregnant ladies use for the forgetfulness they always had? Perhaps. Jas had certainly muttered the phrase on a number of occasions recently. However, when we were walking to our second midwife appointment Jas suddenly stopped, looked at her feet, and announced that she had put on different shoes. I looked down, and she was indeed wearing two completely different styles of shoes. I stood there, trying to imagine myself picking up one of my shoes, slipping my foot in it, doing it up, and then picking up a non-matching shoe and putting it on the other foot, all with my eyes open, sober, without noticing that something was clearly amiss.

Step forward, Pregnancy Brain.

The next day, before she headed off to work, she noticed that her top was on backwards. I could see a pattern emerging. Note to self: do not let Jas anywhere near our suitcase when packing for our next holiday.

Back to the midwife appointment: a scanner was rubbed over Jas’ belly to monitor the bub’s heartbeat. After some probing, we finally heard it – hwoo, hwoo, hwoo - the whooshing sound of idling helicopter rotors. The little guy/girl had become an aeronautical engineer in the space of a few weeks.