12 weeks

So yet again, I start on the long hard journey into a life that’s different from what it was a little less than 3 months ago. Since then, it’s as though I’m powered by Tesla- I’m sooped up energetic, but only in short sharp boosts. During the day, I work, exercise, dog walk, and eat with more gusto than before – perhaps a little kick of testosterone adding all-wheel-drive to what had previously felt like a faltering engine. By dusk though, I’m snoring; idling on the sofa ignoring all by the most urgent calls of nature. I’m enjoying my five year post-partum pelvic floor while I can. Ditto, peace and quiet, relishing precious time by myself while I still have it, before I become little more than a nipple attached to an engorged breast, for months, it feels, at a time. I am enjoying being pain-free, and time-rich. I know how it goes.

So too, I am employing a scattergun approach to life beyond birth. This time, I’ll be less of a martyr, less too, of a control freak. I’ve looked around local nurseries whose peeling paint I’d previously been put off by, and thought, it’ll do. I’ve listened to the lapsed consonants of long-local minders, and thought, you’ll be fine.

But it’s easy to be selfish while I still can, and worry more about cost than quality- I know when the time comes, I’ll want only the best. And work, however well paid will play second fiddle to being there for my child. But I have other obligations too, so compromise we must, and maybe that’s a good thing all round.

It was with relief though, that I met a lady over the road who childminds for a song (or rather £7/ hour), who won’t teach my child glottal stops, and will deal with potty training and weaning- which is a darn sight cheaper than some of the so-called nannies in the villarge who are in reality little more than students, yet charge £12/hour with zero experience and yet won’t get their hands dirty.

Practicalities aside, (and worries too- the Botox I had after I’d conceived; that night where I got trollied two days later; the mosquito bites in zika-infested Thailand; that boot in the stomach from Ava when she swam away from me at the crystal lake, the lack of preggo vitamins in month one; an early ultrasound when I was undecided as to the fetal fate), I feel better than I have in years – perhaps nature’s way of prepping you for the non-stop activity of bouncing baby boys by offering a sweetener up front. Certainly, I felt nowhere near as nauseous as I did with Ava, nor look as drained- the worst was over three weeks ago. If daughters steal their mother’s beauty, I’m glowing with testosterone. But as for gender, this time, I’m actually planning to wait and see.

But to prepare myself (I remember how challenging Jonah was as a youngster), I’m only thinking of boy’s names, and thinking about how many more boys things we have in the loft – girls being the running theme of the rest of my family, and recipient of many an unwanted hand-me-down (my sister’s daughter only wants to be a boy!).

And in my moments of doubt- and there are many- Tom at least has more than come round, and seems to be existing in cheerful anticipation, living once more to prop me up, after his decision day tantrum where I decided our fate, which had, in reality already been sealed.

I need only address a difficult conversation with work, which in itself is only a formality, given I’m waddling in maternity jeans already. Hopefully once done, it will clear the air, and I can test the waters if whether or not I’ll be penalised once more for doing what feels as though it’s being done to me, through no active choice if my own.

But in this glorious spring, it’s hard not to feel optimistic that this time it will be better, easier, less stressful; that we are more experienced, in a better place financially, and have help, at least long term, from kids who don’t know quite what they’re in for – but then neither, of course, do we.