Tag Archives: Pill

Preggo Watch: The Labour Surrogacy Outreach Programme

You lot are great pals. You’re always there for me, clicking on my little links, being kind about the almost-nude preggo pics that I insist on posting online, humoring my articles such as ‘Is Smalltalk Really Necessary At The Gynecologists?‘ etc. I feel like your support knows no bounds…. doesn’t it?

If this is truly the case, then you might do me one last favour:  I am currently looking for someone amazing to take over this pregnancy until the baby arrives. You will need to know that there are either two OR five weeks left, depending on whether this is a Back-Of-The-Van-At-Electric-Picnic baby, or a Went-To-A-Charles-Bradley-Gig-Alone-Got-Hammered-Went-Home-And-Woke-Alan-Up-With-A-Few-Demands‘ baby. I’m sorry that I can’t be more specific, but really, my levels of irresponsibility with the taking of my contraceptive pill knows no bounds.

Your Number One duty as the new vessel for my baby will be to go through with the labour and birth on my behalf. Honestly, I can’t be arsed at this point because I am WAY too busy getting through the list of things that I’ve put on the longest of the long fingers. They include:

1. Finding the right pram (yes, seriously, I still don’t have one)

2. Deciding on what sling might work best for me, baby and my crockety back.

3. Buying a few nursing bras. Honestly, I don’t have even one.

4. Finishing off the paint work in our new house. The mixture of fumes and bending up and down repeatedly isn’t exactly working well alongside my preggo body so I’d like to get back to that please because the staircase that I started looks ridiculous.

5. Getting the car cleaned. I’ve genuinely only been putting this off since Xmas and I think the baby might prefer to come home in a car that doesn’t have melted ice cream stuck to every seat, soiled baby wipes shoved down god knows where or a humongous spider residing in the wing mirror.

6. Finish knitting the baby cardigan that I started for my nephew 4 months ago. (Although, to be fair, the kid might be better off without it. I might just go to the shops and buy one).

7. Put all the bills on standing order like a normal, grown up person, so that The ‘Has The Electricity Been Cut Off?!’ fear doesn’t hit me every time Alan simply turns off the lights in the landing when we go to bed at night.

8. Spending more time getting Jacob to stay in his EFFING BED AT NIGHT. Like, seriously, am I going to have to staple him down?!

9. Training Pearl to stop barking at the postman & black children as they walk past our house to school. Yes, her discrimination knows no bounds, although perhaps I should stop rewarding her with treats when she goes ballistic at the canvassers so that they move on to the next house.

10. Kegels. Kegels, kegels, kegels. I promise, if you take over this pregnancy, that I will do three rounds of kegels for you PER DAY. I just can’t be pregnant and do them at the same time, it really is too ridiculous an ask.

All interested parties, please contact Sharyn at info@raisingireland.com and I will arrange for you to take over my body at a time that is mutually convenient. Failing your interest in this position, there’s a bit of paint work in my kitchen with your name on it…. ;o)

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‘This Body could Be Yours! No Fee, No Charge!!’

[Did you read the Irish Blog Awards Nominated Post: ‘Preggo Watch: Avoiding the Gaybours’? Read it HERE]

Preggo Watch: I Forgot To Take My Pill

For someone who banged on relentlessly about my right to leave Jacob as an only child if I so wished, and not be harangued by pushy relatives and – as usual, strangers – into having more and more and more….. I should really have been a bit more careful about taking my pill so that I wouldn’t find myself in yet another ‘situation’ ;o)

My reluctance to have a second baby was this: we had a hard time the first time around and I wasn’t ready to go again. Simple as that. In the last two-and-a-bit years of Jacob’s life, Ass Monkey and I have moved house twice, have been building up a surprisingly busy business from scratch (mostly from home) AND we were adjusting to our new roles as parents. To a kid who is a terrible sleeper. On top of that, I was trying to hold on to my identity as an artist, squeezing in auditions and plays and gigs, interrupting the flow of our family business, costing us extra money in childcare and causing endless rows. It all happened together and there was never enough time to process any of it.

Since Jacob started acting like a dog…. oh, haven’t I mentioned this? Yes, he errrrr, clearly spends too much time with Pearl and during the summer last year at the park, when Pearl would lie on her back in the grass for a scratch, Jacob would fling himself down and do the same. He also crawls on all fours around the kitchen floor and under the table with her. Not to mention the time that I heard him in the sitting room; ‘7…8….9….10… Ready or not, here I come, Pearl!’ Yup, he was playing Hide & Seek with our dog. He clearly needs a sibling.

In September last year, Jacob turned two and for the first time, Ass Monkey and I really talked about our upset regarding Jacob’s birth and the subsequent struggles we encountered. It was nothing to do with our lovely child, it was to do with our own circumstances at the time, the stresses we had put upon ourselves. We were disappointed that it wasn’t as romantic and calm and loving as we might have imagined… but thankfully, we had made it through to something resembling the other side. I will never forget sitting at the harbor in Rush, overlooking the sea as he moon came up and I had a little cry. It closed the door on it.

Little did I know how perfect the timing of that chat was – as I was already pregnant again! I didn’t find out for a few weeks, when I was so tired that I thought I was coming down with some sort of snot-and-sneeze-free pneumonia and couldn’t get off the couch. On October 26th, the day of my dad’s birthday, we were in my parents’ house where I took a pregnancy test in the toilet like a scared teenager. Positive. I looked again: POSITIVE.

Ass Monkey was summonsed and when I showed him the evidence, his response was ‘Who’s Is That?!’

‘Let me see…’ I helped. ‘In this house right now we have you, my dad, Uncle Gerry, mam – who is definitely past child bearing age at this point – Jacob, and me. Who out of that list of people could this possibly belong to?!’

We couldn’t believe it, especially since our plan was to wait until some time this year to start trying again, but after the initial shock subsided (took a few weeks) we’re totally delighted. This is our chance to have a happier pregnancy and a less stressful time. A lot can change in two-and-a-bit years; the business has come on, we now have a premises outside our home and help, we’re about to buy our first family home and we’re all much happier together as a family. It’s the right time and thank GOD we stuck it out!

We’re planning to do a lot differently this time, starting with not finding out the sex of the baby and wait for the ‘surprise’. Although if you ask Jacob ‘What’s in Mammy’s tummy?’, he’ll say ‘Baby Brother’.

Watch this space ;o)

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