Our babies are a month old this week which we’re pinching
ourselves to believe. They’re feeding
well, piling on the weight and growing like mad. Flo is bright-eyed, alert and busy pointing, stretching
and shouting. Archie’s more sedate –
cuddly, sleepy, fluffy-haired and decidedly more slothful. Nice mix of gene pool going on there between
them we reckon. Good and even brilliant
days far outweigh bad days so far – when feeding and sleeping works like
clockwork, we get some decent rest in the day and sleep at night, and even get some
grown-up evenings with supper and a DVD (and call each other by name instead of
Mummy and Daddy). Our families have been
amazing this first month and I don’t know how we would have survived without
them. We’ve been spoilt rotten with
their love, support and time. They’ve
shushed, jigged and cwtched restless newborns, changed more than their fair
share of nappies, run scores of nursery drop-offs and pick-ups, done endless
supermarket trips, and fed, watered and hugged us. At the same time, friends have showered us
with generous gifts, cards and good wishes.
It feels like our first few weeks have truly been the ‘babymoon’ we
always joked about having but never thought possible or likely. In secret, I weigh myself too much but delight
in losing almost 3 stone in a month.
On the less good days, I’m glued to the feeding chair for
what seems like hours on end, we’re sleep deprived, I’m still in PJs at
lunchtime, we surrender to too much TV
as after-nursery childcare and the house looks like a bomb’s hit it. I confess this tests my control-freakery to
the limits and I have to give myself a good talking to about needing to embrace
the brave new world of life ‘a cinq’. I
avoid the mirror on these days to avoid catching sight of my still-sizeable
bump, cadaverish complexion, eye bags with eye bags, and mumsy smockery of my post natal wardrobe.
And then there was yesterday. I’ve been having some hideous abdominal pain (like
I’m being ripped apart) for the last fortnight which has me doubled up, weeping
and hobbling like a limpy old crone whenever I do anything vaguely
strenuous. By strenuous I mean like
turning over in bed, walking to the end of our lane or getting something out of
a cupboard. The midwife, health visitor,
GP and emergency locum press, poke and prod me, assure me that my section scar
is healing beautifully but fail to identify any recognizable problem, instead citing
numerous possible but vague and untreatable causes.
Throwing my toys out of the pram, I insist on a referral to
hospital and am advised to go to A&E.
I arrive there at 4pm hopeful and
in good spirits with babies and my stoic sister-in-law in tow. Four hours in, the spirits are fading fast
when a Neanderthal and probably demented octogenarian kindly berates me for
feeding the babies in public, having no man with me and being ‘a little bitch’. I shake and sob with rage, yell at him hysterically,
and other people waiting wade in and yell at him too on my behalf, bless them
all. On the plus side, we’re given our
own room to wait in and the horrid old codger is taken to task by hospital
staff who tell me a verbal abuse inquiry will be launched. To top off the day, I leave hospital after 10.30pm,
six hours after arriving, a shadow of my former self with no diagnosis beyond ‘see how you feel in another couple of weeks
and if the pain is no better, ask your GP what you should do’. I’m too tired to battle for better information
even though I know I should have, and leave feeling beaten up and none the
wiser about why I’m not recovering.
On a lighter, more rustic note, our sprawling garden bursts
into colour with spring bulbs and we smile at its green loveliness. Just and my Dad build and plant a veg patch. The same night, Justin watches a vintage
episode of The Good Life – the one where it transpires that the only reason Tom
and Barbara can actually afford to lead the Good Life is because Tom paid off
the mortgage when he still had a ‘real job’.
Just gazes wistfully upon gorgeous Felicity Kendall in her wellies,
dungarees and adorable mud-slicked nose and I know exactly what he’s thinking –
she is his perfect woman. I watch his little
smile fade when I remind him that sadly (for him), I will be forever Margot.
