Charlotte Reynolds hoped she could still have a life and a baby at the same time so she joined the club. How bad could it be, right?
Listen to the story as it was told at The Watercooler storytelling night or read on.
So I found myself at 33 and with no deep baby longings.
However, I’m a sensible gal, so even though I’m strong and independent, and I felt that I didn’t need a child to feel completely fulfilled, I still kind of worried about missing out. After all, I thought, if the trend continues and all my friends end up having kids, I’ll be the one left out. I’ll be constantly surrounded by talk of pregnancy, baby, mothering, schools etc etc , and not being able to speak with authority on any of it!
I didn’t want to have to find whole new baby-less friends, so I thought maybe I should just join the club. How bad could it be, right? I could just have one, and still get to have a life! I could take the child travelling with me, and, y’know, they can learn languages, it’d be good for them. Foolishness, foolishness...
So I suggested it to the guy I was seeing. He already had one, in the weekends, so he knew that it was painful and hard work and energy draining. But he thought it over because he kind of liked me and was no fool – he knew about the whole women-wanting-babies syndrome.
We’d been together about two years. I thought he was good dad material, plus he had some money but wasn’t too busy climbing the corporate ladder to expect me to do all the leg work. And I rather liked him.
If I was thinking I was getting on a bit for baby production, he was the equivalent in male baby production age, so we figured we should get on to it. After all, I thought, who knew, it might take awhile, having never tried ‘it’ out before (‘it’ being my reproductive system).
Of course 33 isn’t terribly old in terms of baby making, I just didn’t want to be 38 going “oh yeah maybe I might want to have a kid”.
It’s kind of weird, when you’ve been having sex for so long, for it to really sink in that there’s this whole other thing you can achieve with it.
I did some research and came to the conclusion that if you want to get pregnant easily and don’t have any known health complications, but also don’t have heaps of cash for flashy procedures, it’s best to start trying before 35. So I figured, I’ve got a guy right now and I could make some space in my life. It might take a year or so to make it happen and, all things considered, it’s better to be on the safe side and go for it.
Well it took exactly two goes. Just like in the movies, we were looking at the little strip on the stick in the bathroom. How cliché! It’s kind of weird, when you’ve been having sex for so long, for it to really sink in that there’s this whole other thing you can achieve with it. You don’t even have to have sex any differently! Just keep doing it, and then there’s a little miniature thing suddenly inside you. (Of course it’s a bit harder for some, but I’m talking about me and not them.)
We calculated back and realised we conceived on April Fool’s Day, on a very drunken night. This did not bode well.
But anyway, I felt great. For three weeks, just me, normal me, but pregnant, awesome, and then it hit!
Why call it morning sickness? Are they making fun of me, I thought? Sure it’s a sickness, but besides hitting you as soon as you start to stir in the morning, as if someone’s punched you in the stomach, it doesn’t let up ALL FUCKING DAY. Imagine feeling hungover every day for eight weeks. It should be called permanent hangover sickness, minus the awesome night of alcoholic reverie.
So you wake up feeling kicked in the stomach, then stagger around all day in a daze, feeling too nauseous to eat, but then have to eat because otherwise you’ll feel too weak to stand. But there’s lots of food you can’t have, a massive list, half of which you can’t remember. You don’t have the energy to actually cook anyway, so it’s normally down to toast and raisin boxes and juice, if you can hold that down.
It’s kind of like being hungover on a ship with limited food supplies, wishing you could be seasick over the side, but the vomit bit never comes. The ship is also full of horribly bad smells, and you wake up every single morning, every day for two months, feeling like this, and you can’t even take drugs to get better (except for little old Panadol).
You just have to lie around and be a sick person and that’s it. Oh and everyone around you tells you how excited and happy you must be! There was one bonus though: My tits looked awesome! They were the size I’d always wanted them to be and they were only going to get bigger!
There was one bonus though: My tits looked awesome! They were the size I’d always wanted them to be and they were only going to get bigger!
So I went to see the doctor and I find out that the due date is December 23. Oh no! The poor kid might be born on Christmas Day. How horrible. Also the due date happens to be the day after its half-brother’s birthday. The poor kid might have to share a birthday with Christ and Santa or their brother. Why didn’t I just wait an extra month before trying to get pregnant? I’m already wrecking the kid’s life and I haven’t even met it yet.
The books tell me this is the time when you won’t be able to resist going out to buy your baby one little gift, like a small teddy bear. Really? I hate buying gifts for people I like. Why would I want to buy a gift for this little creature? It’s already eating all my food. Isn’t that enough!?
So the months pass and I keep getting bigger and freaking myself out whenever I see my reflection. I feel like I should be reading something about pregnancy, online, or in books or something, but to be honest, I just can’t be bothered. I’m spending all my time being pregnant; I don’t want to read about it as well! I just have occasional chats to people who have done it recently to glean some knowledge.
I can’t see it myself but random people begin to tell me at various times that I have “the glow”.
Soon sex in exciting or even favourite positions gets more and more difficult as I get bigger and bigger. It feels like we’re being pushed into a smaller and smaller box of possibilities.
We eventually find out we’re having a girl and I feel so relieved. The dad says to the ultrasonographer, “Great, another feminist for me to deal with.” Suck it up.
I begin to feel her kicking and moving around more, which is exciting and freaky, but I’m not really sure what to think about it all. Was this a good idea? Pregnancy was a bit more full-on than I expected. All exercise and yoga grounds to a halt in the last few months as I develop symphysis pubis dysfunction. Even walking slowly becomes painful.
I get more apprehensive as the due date gets closer, and I worry about the whole Christmas clashing with the birth thing. I get kind of obsessive about it in a very tedious way. I’m a planner and it disturbs me that I can’t plan for this.
As it turns out there no need to worry. She was on the late side, and by the end of December she still showed no signs of coming.
After a gruesome 27 hours in hospital, having to have every natural part of the process being initiated medically, she finally emerged and I cried with relief and exhaustion.
Her first five weeks of life felt like five months. People tell you it will get better, but I didn’t believe them because it’s truly like being in a dark tunnel unable to see the light at the end. I was literally counting down the hours until the six-week mark.
Being sleep deprived is like being constantly hungry. You daydream about what it would be like to be able to just lie down. You’re feeding and trying to wind and changing nappies and trying to settle her and she’s crying and all you want to do is just sleep, but she won’t stop crying, and your real life seems so far away. It’s like I was caught up in a whirlpool, unable to plant my feet on solid ground.
Was I still able to have a sex life? Well, it varies a lot. You might need to be a little ‘creative’ for the first few weeks.
And stupid people say things like: “Aren’t newborn babies the best thing in the world?” No! I can think of heaps of better things. Just spending an evening getting drunk sounds heaps better!
Oh and the important bit: Was I still able to have a sex life? Well, it varies a lot. You might need to be a little creative for the first few weeks. Then master the art of trying to satisfy both partners within the 45-minute nap deadline, during which there will also be frequent ‘replace the dummy’ interruptions. A baby crying must be the most sexually inhibiting noise on earth! I remember reading once about a woman who had to rock the cradle with her foot during sex. I thought she was joking, but believe me, she wasn’t!
So have I freaked all you child-free people out?
She’s 12 weeks old now, and it truly is getting easier. She sleeps mostly without needing to be settled, and is so much cuter and smiles and has little chats as she gazes fondly at the ceiling.
But mostly the actual work is still tedious, repetitive, boring, manual labour. It fills up all the life spaces, so I feel like I’m only getting small morsels of my previous life back. But I suspect it will keep getting better, though there is this constancy about having a child that is very disarming.
Part time children I think would be the way to go. We are definitely looking at trying to co-parent in a way that is efficient and gives both of us the illusion, even for parts of the week, that we are still child-free.
This story was originally told at The Watercooler, a monthly storytelling night held at The Basement Theatre. If you have a story to tell email thewatercoolernz@gmail.com or hit them up on Twitter or Facebook.
Illustration: Giselle Clarkson
This content is brought to you with funding support from New Zealand On Air.