Excuses, excuses

A necessary interlude from eating crackers, supping luke warm water and sulking.

An important conference call with a large client of a company that I have worked for for many years, and am now freelancing for.

I hate conference calls at the best of times, it is constantly impossible to interject a meaningful, useful comment or issue in between silences, apologies and multiple conversation strands (none of which I ever appear to be a part of).

I was introduced to this conference, unaware my ex-boss was already within the conversation. I started introducing myself to these incredibly scary, high powered business people within this incredibly important client business, as the 'HTML person that had been doing a lot of work on the project' and continued in nervous, vague and unstructured babble, until my ex-boss dragged me out of my pit of self despairing and waffle to tell them what I was actually here for.

I had, incidentally, not fifteen minutes before, had an informed, eloquent conversation with my ex-boss, a PM and a designer regarding this project and had generally not made such an incredible arse of myself during that previous, yet unimportant and dramatically overshadowed, conversation.

Coupled with my inability to articulate myself in front of important clients, I also have an unrelenting and stubborn headache, and the sickness is showing remarkable vigor this morning, tearing through the weak barriers of my acupressure bands and running riot, stirring up numerous grumblings in the stomach acids rebelling currently within my stomach.

Not in the best of moods, and it is sadly only 10:30. An age until I can break for yet more carbs (the cream crackers aren't touching my wretchedly active stomach acids this morning), no drink I can enjoy, not even that hallowed thing, once my partner, my soul mate, my cup of tea, and a pile of work to complete.

I am debating on how to redeem myself from my former self humiliation, but the only plaguing words, the only accurate description, is something I can only utter to my partner (which I do regularly).

I'M PREGNANT.

I think that just about covers me for any grumpiness, sulkiness, stubbornness, poorliness, depressive episodes and general lack of communicative abilities across all social and work scenarios for the next 7 months.

Shame my ex-boss and everyone at this very important client just thinks I'm a bit thick.

The long road to...where?

On Saturday, I travelled to the seemingly eternally flooded Tewkesbury to meet my SP.

There, after eating a vast quantity of marmite sandwiches in the sunshine and reading Rebecca in the gardens of the Abbey with the sun shining on my skin, grabbing desperately at invisible drops of Vitamin D, my SP found me and took care of me.

She had bought me ginger and lemon tea, ginger biscuits, aromatherapy oils (checked and cleared for a lady of my condition) and a bag full of baby clothes and books from her sister. Due to my poorly controlled emotional state, even the thought of her kindness now makes me feel a bit blubbery.

There, in a hotel room, I talked and talked at her, about my worries, my fears.

I told her about my battle with exercise, how my figure, a constant source of resentment and unhappiness over years of teenage and twenty-something traumas, that had finally settled into some sort of aesthetic agreement with myself and my perception of my fatty deposits, had suddenly morphed out of control, inflating at speed, cascading over the top of my trousers, pushing hard and fast on jeans, taut and stretched and all a little too early from everything I'd read.

I told her about my sadness, jealousy, my aching for losing my pole classes. On Friday night I had dreamed, such a vivid dream, of dancing in class, of returning to my old class, to an unfamiliar studio, to a room filled with poles, and girls on these poles, to a place with a stranger that I had to share, self conscious and out of condition. I woke up that night, and ran over move after move in my head, praying I wouldn't forget, that I wouldn't lose it all, not completely. Not after what I'd achieved, where I'd got. In my mind, I inverted, I spun, I performed tricks and spins effortlessly, one after another after another.

Then I told her of my fears. How swiftly I bounced from my own selfishness of such superficial visual worries, to my inner terror, my dark place, my lonely place.

I told her my worry of losing this baby, this tiny collection of cells inside of me, this silent, motionless, creature, undemanding yet needing and wanting everything seemingly beyond perfection to survive these fragile, delicate months.

My bump, this thing, my...baby?...could be already gone, vanished, or never even properly evolved. The chances of miscarriage are frightening, I having already witnessed a few in my virtual baby community. Virtual meeting place, real people, real experiences, real pain.

It is such a very long road ahead. I am seven weeks now, or there abouts. I have such a long time to go before I am even allowed to know if there is something growing within me (apart from fat deposits which seemed to have jumped on the bandwagon excitedly at the thought of establishing themselves on my once generous, more recently economic, hips, of settling comfortably on the never quite conquered back fat, slipping back into their positions grinning satisfactorily, perhaps with a slight hint of superiority, a knowing 'I told you so' at their lips).

It seems an eternity before I even register for my scan. Then such a long, long journey ahead, and that is if that goes okay.

I never understood before the pain a miscarriage must cause. I have seen it, in friends, in handed down stories, in literature, in film. But until I became pregnant (I nearly wrote a mother - again, an uncomfortable betrayal of how I sometimes let my thoughts unravel), I couldn't have foreseen the tumbling of thoughts from cell cluster, from foetus, to dependent baby, to demanding toddler, to stroppy teenager, to drug taking rebellious youth, to adult.

The scenes collapse into one another with no control of my own. I watch as their life, and subsequently my life, unfolds like dominoes collapsing, too fast, never able to take moments back. I am scared for myself as a parent, I will have to toughen up to the harsh words of children, to their icily sharp observations, their bitter and cutting remarks, their casual use of hatred, of love.

I watched Neighbours during my half hour cardio session (a sweat and breathlessness arising after merely stepping onto the stepper these days, according to my midwife signs that I should stop my exercise...but does this apply to the suddenly painfully unfit?) and I noticed the remarks - nasty, bitchy, angry, venomous remarks that children flung at their forgiving, despairing, loving parents and sympathised, for the first time, with the parents' never ending battles for equilibrium, for love in return, for peace, for happiness.

But I am getting ahead of myself once again, in the way that my mind does at the moment. Now I am still buried deep within first trimester sickness, my bands not holding back the waves, although calming them somewhat (or at least distracting me), and scared for each day that passes, each twinge magnified, resonating throughout my inflated body.

And now, to sleep...

It is Friday night, just after 8pm.

Every bone in my body, every tissue, every muscle, every nerve pulse, is aching, exhausted.

My hands are slumped lazily over the keyboard, moving occasionally, trying to pretend that my words are in some way productive, even though my partner is still working on the house, despite my feeble, shallow attempts to assist him.

My exhaustion is all consuming, and terrifying. I have no control about the increasing onslaught of tiredness that I can feel creeping up on me. But I am fighting it, I am struggling against it, forcing myself to drive into it, onwards.

The idea of letting it swallow me is inviting, too much so. But it is never ending. Every night I collapse into bed, every morning I struggle to get up, aching for more sleep.

He is finishing soon, and I will do my best to entertain something of an evening for him, but I can feel that even that feels like an empty, unstructured promise.

I have no idea when this will end. Tomorrow I meet with my SP, the second to last time I will see her before she leaves for Dubai. I wish I was energised, my normal self. I know she understands, I know she will allow me to indulge in my self pity, my fits of exhaustion.

But I wish I was myself for her, for our precious time together.

I am wearing sea sickness bands to help cure my nauseous stomach. I thought they were helping. I'd be happy with a placebo, I'd be happy to indulge in my psychosomatic symptoms, if only the sickness left me, or subsided, or only came in short, succinct waves, preferably when I was in deep sleep.

Anyone for a dry cracker?

Quick! Get thee to a midwife!

Yesterday, my partner and I visited my midwife for the first time.

This was the second time I had graced the local health centre with my presence, the first time being when I had just found out I was pregnant, and was something of a total disaster.

The doctor, a young, nervous looking public school type, had stuttered through a number of vague questions and practicalities, skirting around the edges of intimacy and giving a wide birth to anything that I might have deemed relevant or helpful. Even after indicating several times that I couldn't eat any dairy (including eggs) or meat, he still ploughed through his rehearsed list of danger foods.

I did try to interject on numerous occasions to inform him that I wasn't likely to tuck into a raw steak, nor was I about to indulge in mayonnaise littered with uncooked eggs, and I certainly wasn't going to have a big slab of blue vein ridden soft cheese any time soon. But there was no stopping him. He had his list, he was damn well going to say it.

So then came the question: What exercise could I do?

He informed me that I was fine to continue with my normal routine pretty much, listing jogging and swimming as possible favourites. He asked me, almost relaxed in our dialogue by this point, 'What exercise do you do?'

When I told him, his stuttering increased ten fold as he searched for something to steady his clearly wrecked shredded nerves. He clearly was not expecting this small, child-like, innocent looking pregnant woman to tell him she was a pole dancer.

His exercise knowledge on this topic was as poor as I imagine a vicar's might be, and, after watching him floundering wildly for a few moments, I rescued the situation by saying that I probably had a better idea of what that entailed and whether it was suitable or not.

I slipped out of the office, clutching a post-it note stating "congratulations form" that I was to hand over to the lady on reception.

By this point, I was ready to leave. I had followed the instructions on no less than three positive pregnancy tests that had informed me to visit my doctor, I had done so, and I had gained nothing by this point: no enlightenment, no information, no knowledge. He had even informed me, on calculating that I had conceived in early December, that I was due in October. And that was using a pregnancy wheel. Genius. I was not feeling comforted by my experience.

So I subtly passed this post-it note over to the lady on reception, one of a series of severe, middle aged, self important women who patrolled the office like the gates of Mordor. She read the post it aloud. Very loud.

I winced. I debated on telling her, asking her, pleading with her to be a little bit subtle. But I could tell that would probably only encourage her further.

By that point anyway she was part way through her next sentence, directed not at me, more at God and all who fell beneath him on this earth.

"I don't think we have any congratulations forms, [name of other severe middle aged self important woman], do we have any congratulations forms?"

A loud, uncensored discussion ensued between the severe middle aged self important woman, which resulted in phoning a desk 'upstairs' and eventually, finally, after the women interjecting 'congratulations form' into every sentence possible during the age that I was standing nervously, uncomfortably at the desk, a woman hurried down, presenting woman #1 with the hallowed form.

Woman #1 said to woman #2 'it's for this....woman'. I could see her eyes flicker up to me, the pause the size of the grand canyon, the word 'girl' substituted so inelegantly, and under duress, for 'woman'.

I filled in the form, and shuffled home, with a few leaflets, one containing, yet again, all the foods I was forbidden to eat. No meat pate, shellfish or Marlin for me then.

Yesterday, our visit was somewhat less harrowing. My midwife, who, from what I have been able to interpret from other people's experiences, fits the stereotypical mould like a hand in a stiff, yet effective and productive looking glove, disproved of my dietary 'issues', and seemed a little too disappointed that neither mine or my partner's immediate families had anything interesting to contribute to the illness or disease section.

More baby admin. That's basically what it was. 30 minutes of foetal paper work.

I came out with a large brown envelope and instructions to call the hospital for a scan appointment in three weeks. And the knowledge that morning sickness may wear off after 12 weeks, but sometimes it's just there for the whole duration, like an unwanted, irritating, vomit-inducing yet relentlessly enthusiastic sidekick.

Today I have woken up feeling a little lost. Still sick, still lacking the much begged for concentration and personal application to my work, still grumpy, still aching for the love of a cup of tea to return, still riddled with exhaustion, still tied in numerous emotional knots, double bows and the occasional velcro strap.

All in perspective

A post just on the thread I belong to: a miscarriage at 5.5 weeks.

Somehow my symptoms are all in perspective. And the possibility of things going wrong are all the more real.

Concentration, concentration, concentration

It is now Thursday.

I have achieved, in financial terms, in personal terms, in workload terms:

Nothing.

I have, this week, attended a few meetings and workshops, written a proposal in about the amount of time I would possibly have normally completed the work outlined in the proposal, and generalyl failed to do a lot of my assigned tasks.

My sickness, close to sea sickness or motion sickness, rides with me constantly. Coupled with a constant, overbearing headache, resting on my temples like a slovenly, awkward cat, I feel like I have PMT, a nasty stomach bug and a gin hangover day after day.

There is no cure, there is seemingly no end.

Working on a site build, as I was hoping to, would have been okay. Structure, completion. Beginning, middle, end. Creativity aside, just function, methodology, no conception, just conclusion of someone else's designs. Replication. I was always good at that.

But instead I am lumbered with vague, unfocussed, never ending research.

My sister comforted me today telling me not to panic, that it was like sleep, you can't force it. Worrying about it will just make it worse. "This is probably what it feels like to be a man who can't get an erection."

I am hoping that through writing I will be able to purge the sickness and the worry that circulates endlessly, encasing any strands of productivity and suffocating them with overbearing thoughts of panic and dispair.

I am scared.

Last week I worked long hours, 13 hour days, tears streaming down my puffy cheeks, tracksuit bottoms stretching uncomfortably around my swollen belly. The sickness came and went, I drank tea, I worried, I stressed, I earned money, I paid the mortgage.

Now the deadlines for that start, that middle, that end, that structured work, have passed. I am waiting for work, I have been all week. The sickness swells but doesn't rest anymore, constantly plaguing me, rising in my throat, filling my stomach, an acid-ridden balloon.

I am not without tasks to complete, deadlines to meet, but the work I have is vague, unstructured, and I can't apply myself. And with lack of application comes self-loathing, a twisted, gnarled hatred, distraction tinged with anger, naps full of worry, walks plagued with unfinished tasks, delayed deadlines.

I shouldn't punish myself, I know. But I imagine those other secretly pregnant women across the country, the world now, and how they are coping. Stories of women discreetly, or not-so-discreetly, vomiting in bushes waiting for buses, or stopping to be sick cycling to work. Women who take power naps propped up in public toilets. Women who manage to steer their other offspring through morning rituals and off to school, while their stomachs are goading them to the basin. And what am I sacrificing, what am I suffering?

Sat at my desk, with an attentive partner, a depressed Newfie (in a cruel irony, this week she was spade and is now battling with an oversized cone and an unbearable itching - she is lying now, exposing her scar to me, as proof of our crime, our theft). I would be brought cups of tea, could I stomach them. I am able to take precious cat-naps, in my own bed, if I need to (so far I have succumbed to two this week) while the rest of those women bearing their pregnancies silently battle through their jobs, physicially challenging, mentally draining, emotionally exhausting.

I am angry with myself, not just in my lack of application and concentration. But for those other women who have no choice that are suffering in silence.

I do, on the plus side, have some (minor) boob growthage.

Early days

The title of this blog is a little presumptuous.

And also a bit inaccurate.

I am now, today, six weeks in to my pregnancy (although the doctor, with his nervous stutter - I think he would have preferred a verruca to deal with - and Wheel of Birth, managed to predict that I was not only 6 weeks pregnant 4 weeks ago, an impossibility, trust me, but also that I was due in October, therefore assuming that I hadn't yet conceived).

Today I see the Midwife. I am not sure what will change.

My persona, abandoned 11 months ago, rises up again, albeit a little confused. Mainly because that is who I am - I tried to come up with another persona, to suit the situation, so no virtual paper trail scattered links from one to the other across the web, so no connections were made between old and new. But there is safety in eleven months, and that safety is forgetting, is losing the ritual of blog checking. The knowledge my former readers (mostly kind friends, bored at work) are now all settled in different daily reads, gives me some comfort in anonymity.

The familiar blogger window (with a few more posh hovery boxes), the familiar comfort. I have been longing for it for such a long time.

I always imagined I'd blog my pregnancy. I have written daily entries in my virtual post-it notes scattered over the bedroom air as I try to sleep. I have even gone to write in this very window several times over the last few weeks but something stopped me. Fear of being found out, fear of being a fraud, fear of some lunch break detective stumbling over profile connections.

And the sickness made me too ill to write. Too ill to find myself. Too ill to express my loneliness, my sadness, my tears, my worry, my fear.

But today, what changed?

Perhaps because over the past few days I have joined a lovely online group who I am able to spit rants at and ask questions to ladies all due in the same month as me.

Perhaps because I am hitting despair with my work struggles and worry.

Mainly because I just need to write.