Coming up for air... 10 weeks old

Thursday 7th May...

Unbelievably, Orla is going to be ten weeks old this weekend. Soon, I won’t be counting in weeks anymore, but months – I can’t remember when I stopped counting in days.

Already, she has completely changed my world. I’ve spent much of the past ten weeks alone with this little person; I carried her around like a secret increasingly desperate to be told for nearly ten months, gave birth to after 18 long hours, nourished her entirely from my own body both before and since her birth. I share astonishing and groundbreaking moments every single day – opening her dark, slate-blue eyes on day two, watching her face taking in my features as she feeds quietly and insistently at my breast, packing away newborn clothes that she had grown out of by two weeks old, lying next to her in bed in the mornings, sharing cooed conversations and gentle cuddles. Her smile is like the sun coming out, lighting up the room and enveloping me in its warm glow, and her tiny fingers curl possessively around my finger; she will not let me go, and I will never leave her.

How can I do anything but love this little creature entirely, more than I have ever loved anything? It’s a different kind of love to any I have experienced before. Not the lazy, restless, almost taken-for-granted love shared by family, nor the warm, cosy affection felt for friends. It’s not the loud, ostentatious sensation experienced with a new lover, or the safe, favourite jumper feel of a soulmate – it’s quiet, very quiet, but no less ferocious for that. It’s the quiet, nurturing, protective and unconditional love of a sleepy tigress in the sunshine. Don’t make any sudden moves, don’t bare your teeth or claws – I’m watching you.

Sometimes when I’m out walking, carrying this sleeping miracle pressed against my heart in her sling cocoon, and I feel it crawling through my veins like an opiate, drugging me so that I’m helpless to protest against her demands. Feed me! Change me! My tummy hurts! I can’t sleep! Hold me! I comply every time without question.

She’s so much more alert now, gazing around at her surroundings during every waking moment. She is still fascinated by light – especially the blue dragonfly fairy lights arcing over our bed - and her interest in the boldly patterned African mudcloth on the sitting room was has developed into an obsession. She chats merrily to toys and calls out to me when she gets bored or lonely after waking up alone. We talk for ages on all sorts of literary, political, theological and philosophical subjects, in a passionate and enthusiastic language of gurgles and coos, punctuated by smiles and chortles as we warm to our subject.

She’s so strong, too; she has been holding her head up since her first week, and has become ever-more accomplished at holding it steady as she sits in our arms, raising herself up on her arms as she lies on her tummy on her playmat or on the exercise ball, and pushing her legs straight to stand in our laps. The speed at which she’s growing is breathtaking, and although I mourn the loss of my precious, helpless little newborn, I am besotted with this startling and brilliant small person, who seemingly has a never-ending stream of new tricks and skills to dazzle me with.

For so many years I had managed to convince myself that I never wanted to have a child – it was far more fun to hold on to the self-image I had spent so long creating; independent, spontaneous, daring and fascinating - Peter Pan in female form. I refused to grow up, settle down and become a dull, middle-aged frump who conformed to every outdated stereotype I scorned. Arrogant and immature, stuck in limbo at 29 forever… until my mother pointed out for me what I stood to lose if I didn’t give myself a serious talking-to. I’ll be grateful to her for those words for the rest of my life; because of her sense and her daring to say those things to her wilful, compulsively independent and stubborn daughter, I now have the opportunity to bring up my own.

Of new babies, new passports and weddings...

The week beginning 23rd February was probably one of the potentially more fraught ones of my life, but it turned out to be rather a good one! After Orla and I were checked out at the hospital, Giles came back with a huge grin and a car seat so tht we could take our little girl home. Her fleecy snowsuit was so impossibly huge that she disappeared into its legs; we opted to bundle her up in a fleecy blanket and hat instead!

Back at the holiday cottage we'd rented, it was hard to believe that we actually get to keep her. Our families came to visit and to meet Orla; my nieces, Tayla (12) and Bethany (9), were so excited to meet their new cousin, and were quiet, gentle and patient, even though they didn't get to cuddle her much! And then we were on our own...

Giles and I have opted to try out the concept of childrearing found in most developing countries, and less common in our society; we aim to carry Orla with us throughout most of her first year. This means that the growing infant experiences the world from the same viewpoint as her parents, and is warm and secure. When they are left by themselves, babies may feel abandoned or cold, and consequently cry more. The idea is that the security of being close to a parent in the early stages enables the child to become increasingly independent at her own pace, returning to her parents when she wants to. We're also trying co-sleeping - Orla shares our bed so that her needs can be met during the night with minimal disruption to any of us. Her body temperature, which she has little or no control of initially, is regulated by my own temperature, and I can feed her and change her without having to fully wake up. I was a little nervous about co-sleeping to begin with, but having read about the incidence of cot death being so much lower in cultures in which parents sleep with their babies from birth, I was ready to give it a shot. Our first night together was so magical; I fell asleep looking at my beautiful little girl's peaceful face and listening to her light, fast breaths... I woke to feed her by the glow of a nightlight before she ever began to cry, roused by her shifting as she woke up. Waking up with Orla and Giles the following morning gave me such a sense of peace and contentment; we snuggled together, a blissful, new family.

Tuesday was a whirl of activity. We needed to register Orla's birth and to have her photograph taken so that her passport would be ready in time for us to return to Istanbul at the beginning of March. Her picture was taken when she was just 36 hours old, lying on a blanket on the floor of the photographer's studio! Then we hurried home to meet the midwife, who was pleased to see the progress we were making with breastfeeding. Orla opened her eyes fully for the first time as I fed her, and when she looked up at me, trying to focus, my own eyes filled with tears. Here was this tiny creature, entirely dependent and helpless; it was overwhelming to think of her as ours.

Giles dashed up to London on Wednesday to fast-track Orla's passport, while Grandma came to stay the night. I know that my mum's experience of bringing up babies and the methods I want to try are rather different, but although she may have raised her eyebrows a few times, I was ver grateful that she never criticised what I was doing. As the fortnight after Orla's birth went on, my mum became more and more supportive - she took me to see a dressmaker friend of hers to have my wedding outfit altered, and I'd never have got through Orla's TB vaccination without her!

We had visits from Auntie Lou, who drove all the way down from Newcastle, and Stinky Uncle Huw, who had flown back from Cologne for the wedding on Saturday. The orchids we'd ordered arrived and my mum made a gorgeous bouquet for me and beautiful corsages for everyone in the wedding party - even for our six-day-old bridesmaid! Orla's dress arrived from Monsoon, I found a pashmina to go with my altered and much improved salwar kameez tunic and Huw took charge of downloading the music for the ceremony. All we had to do was to get to the registry office in Oxford on time!

Giles and I had decided on a small, functional wedding - we needed to be married for me to be covered by health insurance when we returned to Istanbul, and to be counted as Giles' dependent and thereby qualify for a flight to Malaysia when we move in the summer - but we ended up with the most wonderful day to remember. The registrar was considerate and calm, putting us at our ease and taking the time to talk to us, altering little details to make the ceremony more personal. The Dexter Room is lovely, oak-panelled and with stained glass windows and the ceremony was intimate and really special; Giles and I were both welling up! My brother, Lewis, read from 'Daily Afflictions' by Andrew Boyd and Giles' sister, Amy, read 'The Owl and the Pussycat', complete with different voices for the characters! We exchanged rings that we had designed ourselves, based on designs by Salvadorean artist Fernando Llort, and Orla slept peacefully, first in her daddy's arms and then in mine, throughout the ceremony and the photos!

We had a marvellous lunch with our immediate families afterwards, with excellent food and wine, and lots of champagne. It really was a fantastic day, so much more than we'd anticipated, and we thoroughly enjoyed every moment. All that was left to was to drive home and spend a quiet evening and a sunny Sunday together, getting used to being Mr and Mrs...

18 hours with a TENs machine...

Giles and I are over the moon - Orla Rebecca was born at 9.15pm on Sunday 22nd February, weighing in at 8lbs 3oz. The whole labour and birth were completely natural in the end - no hanging about for induction after all!

A Gory Details Alert for the squeamish - skip to the end! - but I know some of you want to know it all...

On Saturday 21st, some erratic contractions had started late afternoon. As I'd been having them all week, I was hopeful but not counting my chickens... they'd had a tendency to come regularly for an hour or two and to then stop abruptly, to my intense frustration. I woke up with a start at 3am; it had either been a real one or a rather painfully vivid dream! I got up, distracted myself on the internet and timed them - about 8 mins apart - until Giles woke up at about 6.30am - by then they were stronger and about 5-6 mins apart. We called the hospital and went in at 8am, but although they let me stay for a warm bath (only a shower in the rented cottage) I was still only 1cm dilated - same as two weeks before! - so we went home.

By 2pm, I was throwing up, crawling on the floor and furniture, wired to the TENs machine and telling Giles that it wasn't strong enough to be much help, so we went back in. Hallelujah! I was about 3-4cm by then, so they kept me in... but the next 2cm went on for another four hours! I couldn't stand the tube for gas and air and it was making me throw up, so stuck with the TENs machine. Strangely, I knew when the big contractions were coming, as I started to shiver uncontrollably about a minute before they started - Giles got up a good rhythm of throwing a robe around me, then whipping it off my shoulders and replacing it with a cold flannel on the back of my neck as the contractions kicked in! It was a new one on Rachel, the midwife - she'd never seen anyone do that before!

By 6 or 7pm it was getting pretty bad - Rachel had to break my waters to speed up the contractions, so they were far more painful and frequent. I had to walk around and stand for a couple of hours as resting was slowing the contractions and dilation, and finally at 8pm, Rachel, told me I was at 9cm. It was so hard not to push by then, but she and Giles helped me to breathe through and resist for as long as possible. By the end of her shift, there was just a tiny rim of my cervix left, and Rachel held it aside with her finger as I pushed with a contraction to push the baby into the birth canal. The two incoming midwives only just had time to get their gloves on before one massive push delivered her head, and then the next contraction delivered the rest of her! The pushing stage only took about 5-10 mins - no tears, just two tiny external lacerations, so no stitches were necessary. The midwives put a wet, sticky little bundle of baby and towels onto my chest and there she was, at last. We were left alone for an hour or two to cuddle her, skin to skin - Giles had a go, too, though the baby was a little confused by his chest hair! It was so sad for him to go home when they took us up to the postnatal ward - through the rest of the night, Orla fed and cuddled up, sleeping in my arms. It was wonderful.

Apparently we were the talk of the labour ward - Orla has a huge thick mop of hair, and I had done 18 hours on a TENs machine - apparently not a common occurence! MWs also loved my birth plan - I had written (five weeks previously) that if the second stage was happening very fast, I wanted to "slow things down by pushing between contractions"! So birth plans really do go to hell in a handcart once you're in the delivery room...

So although it didn't feel like it at the time, it was actually a really, really good experience. Orla is just amazing, and is eating, sleeping, pooping and everything else like a dream! We can't believe we don't have to give her back. I never believed I'd feel like this, but my friend summed it up best in her text message the following morning -

"Nothing else matters now that she's here."

The waiting game...

After several weeks of sheer terror that the baby would put in an early appearance and that Giles wouldn't make it back from Istanbul in time for the labour, he finally arrived home for a mixture of paternity, personal and unpaid leave, topped with a half term holiday, that totalled three weeks. I didn't particularly mind which day of that weekend Little Miss decided to put in an appearance - Friday 13th had a certain melodramatic appeal; Valentine's Day had obvious connotations of love, cuddles and a lifetime of being guaranteed to receive cards and Sunday 15th seemed entirely feasible, as she had been such a considerate child throughout my pregnancy - never disturbing my sleep, not growing so big that I looked like an elephant in calf, not compelling me to eat coal or soil or soap, and so on.

However, in spite of a combination of old wives' tales and 'guaranteed' labour-inducing strategies, she decided that she was perfectly happy where she was, thank you. Checks at the hospital throughout the following week revealed a very content baby who was very comfortable and showed no imminent signs of movement. We tried everything - raspberry leaf tea dosage rose to four cups a day, consumption of curry increased, romantic interludes took on a new level of importance and we even tried going to London for the day, booking tickets for the theatre and an exhibition, in the hope of Sod's Law coming into force.

But to no avail.

By Friday, I was convinced that absolutely everything was about to go well and truly tits up. Family were starting to murmur about postponing the wedding - but until when? We had less than one week's leeway - and that was assuming that the registry office would be able to fit us in. It was looking doubtful that me and the baby would be able to return to Turkey with Giles on 7th March, and more likely that we would have to travel back alone a week or so later. Together with my putting myself under pressure as everyone looked at me hopefully for early signs or twinges, the fact that Giles had already spent a week of his leave witnessing false starts and the onset of Braxton Hicks contractions (at last), the disappointment of Little Miss not being as eager to meet us as we were to meet her and the fear of a protracted and painful induction the following Wednesday, I was not a person you'd want to be stuck in a lift with.

Saturday brought another hospital outpatient appointment to check my erratic blood pressure. The postnatal ward was full to bursting and the poor day unit midwife, Linda, had been displaced to a small, private room, from which she had to scoot off to find a sphyg, sonicaid and all manner of other bits and pieces. What a star she was! She offered to perform a membrane sweep (look away now if repulsed or terrified by biological details) - the insertion of her finger through my cervix to try to loosen the amniotic sac and to induce contractions without any assistance from drugs. She was extremely gentle and reassuring and the procedure wasn't painful at all. On hearing that my community midwife was on holiday the following week, she advised me to return to the hospital on Monday for a second sweep if nothing had happened by then.

A more hopeful, maybe slightly delirious, mood descended as Giles and I stocked up in Sainsbury's for the next two weeks in our rented holiday cottage. A chicken Madras and a bottle of wine slipped into our trolley - if we had to wait, it might as well be enjoyable...

Counting down the days...

There are only twelve days left until Little Miss' due date. Not that that means very much, really; 37 weeks is classed as 'full-term' and she could go as far two weeks late before the hospital decides to coax her out! So sometime in the next three and a half weeks, there should be a small person putting in an appearance. Theoretically. On the basis of the unpredictability of this event, I am attempting to occupy myself with Other Things...

Can anyone please tell me how it was possible for me to write ten chapters of a novel in two and a half weeks in November, but has taken nearly two months to write one chapter since then? OK, there was moving back to England, a stolen handbag, journeys north, a brief trip to Bruges, Christmas and New Year, but that only accounts for a few weeks - what on earth did I do in January? A lot of eating, hormonal weeping and general fannying on, it seems. So I now have ten days before Giles comes home for paternity leave (fingers crossed) to write two chapters and an epilogue. Talk about making things difficult for yourself.

Wedding preparations are trundling merrily on... after abortive and disappointing attempts to find a suitable dress that will accommodate post-baby belly and giant milk-producing boobs, my mum suggested a salwar kameez - an inspired idea. Elegant and roomy! Who could ask for more? Giles is on the lookout for a foxy Nehru jacket to complement the look. Bespoke rings are ordered, restaurant booked for a jolly nice lunch afterwards and all seems to be going according to plan. Watch me go into labour on 27th...

Big changes ahead...

I have no idea how this blogging malarkey works, or why people seem to love it so much, but hey, I'm 40 now and that's when life supposedly begins. That, along with being on the cusp of producing offspring, means that I should probably power up for the 21st century - at least I know what a blog is - sort of - so I'm going to give it a go.

It's funny how everyone seems to have a bogey age; for my mother, sixty is a ghastly number(though of course, that's still a long way off for her), for her husband, fifty filled him with horror and anguish and for a couple of friends, thirty was unthinkable. I dreaded turning forty; in my mind, it stood for everything that I was afraid of - conformity, settling down to a life that would involve none of the pleasures of my youth, wrinkles and sagging flesh, having medical procedures and generally preparing myself for a downhill slump to the grave. However, I can safely say that this has been steadily shaping up to being one of the most energising and exciting years of my life. I'm 35 weeks pregnant, have written three-quarters of the first draft of my first novel (and germinating plans for a second), have been shortlisted for a short story writing prize (oh please oh please let me get published!) and am finally officially engaged to my completely marvellous partner-in-crime, Giles.

My fortieth birthday marked quite a revolution; this has already been a year of big changes, and they're about to get bigger. In just four and a half weeks, I'm due to meet my first child, and two weeks after that, Giles and I will be married. A week after that, we hope to return to our friends in Istanbul, before we have to pack up all our worldly goods and prepare for the next big change - a move to Penang, Malaysia this summer.

Of course, all of this change is marvellous, and will bring all kinds of new challenges, rewards and disappointments, but it's also utterly insane. As my mother has always said, I don't do things by halves - and neither does my other half, so what other option is there but to take on the whole world at once?

And so, my friends, the reason for my attempts at moving with technology - or at least, straggling on its coattails and hoping I'm not left too far behind - to try to keep you up to date with some of the impending tornado of activity that is about to lift me clean out of life as I know it and to dump me somewhere beautiful, fearful and incredible that sure ain't Kansas. I hope that some it will be enough to interest and entertain you.

Lots of love xxx