Baby Proofing.

Before I begin let me just post this picture and draw on it's comparisons:

TWINS! 25 years apart. And well, not really twins as I'm his mother and he's my son...but you get the jist of it ;).

So... the other day B  'baby proofed' the living room. I was asleep at the time this happened because I was still recovering from the time he was sick - when he gets sick, I follow suit, but not because I contract whatever he has...my body can't cope with the sheer amount of energy that is required in looking after a toddler and a home full time. Yes, I'm aware many people do this parenting gig on their own and full time but I am also full time sick. And as such, that's my life and my set up. My body is like an elastic band - push it too far and it will break. 


Back to this baby proofing deal. Now, usually I'm sure a lot of people would be over joyed their spouse had been so ingenious as to baby proof their home. In fact they'd probably be downright shocked and/or impressed. 


Me? I'm a little startled by Bryan's methods.


Our problem is that Roman has a little problem with ownership - he thinks everything is his to destroy or throw to the floor to watch what happens to it. This really bugs me, even though I never let it show (first rule of parenting: don't show your kids your weak spots as they'll only exploit them at a later date.) So baby/toddler proofing was the next sensible and ultimately inevitable step...


For me I prepared by buying corner protectors and imaging things being in little neat boxes; tidy and organised, the opposite of my husband who works in a more haphazard fashion. I also have to tell you that this is the man who at 22 said we could "just keep the baby in the bath and throw a towel over them and then scoot them down when they pee or poo." This was his solution to not buying nappies - even though he is a disposable nappy advocate these days and I am very much a cloth advocate. 


So imagine, if you will, what his baby proofing might consist of and try to picture this scene:


I come into the living room and the insides of the book shelf have disappeared. 


No books, no blooming shelves. Nothing. 


Our bookshelf has been gutted. 


Okay, let's move on...this might get better. I also notice that everything that was under the coffee table is no longer there. I begin to panic. What's he done with it all? I notice that a suit case is blocking the entrance to one side of our corner unit sofa - Roman loves to go behind there and cause mischief. I look behind the suitcase and what do I see?


The contents of the bookshelf and coffee table. All lumped into one pile, looks like it's just been thrown into a heap. 


On the other end of the corner unit is a punch bag blocking that entrance. Roman runs up to, huffing and puffing and proceeds to smash his tiny fists on it as though he's attacking someone.


Bryan, what have you been teaching him while I sleep?

The 'guts' of the bookshelf have never been returned, they just lie dormant  in that same heap. And the shelves? They were completely out of view, tucked away nicely in Bryan's gym equipment cupboard.


Oh well...at least if they're out of sight, they're out of mind - right?


So I ask you, Ms/Mrs/Mr Reader: Do I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or am I completely justified to feel trapped under the chaos?

Last Year...

Last year Roman was 5 months old. I did laundry; hung it out to dry, brought it in, folded it and put it away. I organised the corners of our living room (and wanted to die doing it), I organised the drawers of Roman's clothes every 3 months, I vacumed, dusted and polished his room. I aired out his curtains (back in the days when he had curtains!) and would throw open the window as wide as it would go. I unclogged the kitchen sink, poured bleach down the drain in another fruitless attempt to keep it clean, scrubbed and bleached the sink knowing that within a week it would be back to it's disgusting state. I would mop floors, scrub counter tops and even got down on all fours to clean the bathroom floor corners that the mop found hard to reach. The toilet was clean, the bath never had dirty foot prints on it.


Just as I would throw open the windows in Roman's room I would do the same in our room and in the living room. I would carry this work out over a period of a week; scattering the jobs  out knowing full well I was the only one responsible for doing them. 


And suddenly, everything changed. 


I got very sick with mastitis. Loads of washing felt like blocks of concrete in my arms. Scrubbing the toilet free from urine seemed less important to me. I had better things for my energy to do like eat and get better. I recovered from the mastitis but as I have ME it stripped me of my energy. There is even a pile of clean laundry, sitting in a basket in B's bedroom (I say B's bedroom because it's not really my room. My room is the living room and the couch is my bed) that has been there since last summer. A year ago.


I remember that life was very different until I got struck down with an infection. And that's how easily life can throw punches at me. One infection, one virus, one stomach bug and I am knocked out for a year. Everything annoys me now, too. Like you wouldn't believe. I get annoyed when B hangs washing inside and puts the heating on in the summer. The kitchen is constantly dirty. Every room is a mess. There are two over full washing baskets full of months old dirty clothes. The bathroom hasn't been cleaned in a month. I sleep on a couch. I live my life on a couch. I sleep a maximum of four hours a night. I hardly see anyone I know and I don't know who my friends are any more - or if I can call people I haven't seen in years friends.


And there are certain people who swing by every month without a moment's notice. I don't get dressed because it's an effort. Life is an effort so don't expect me to come to the party without my pyjama's, after all that's the uniform of the sick, isn't it?

The Other Half.

I go on about The Other Half of me quite a bit - B, my love, my husband, best friend and everything in between.

I used to think a majority of guys were brainless jerks motivated by boobs, but I still managed to power my way through dating a lot of them.

I was fed up of dating when B got home from his LDS mission (I love LDS missions, I fully endorse them to all able bodied/worthy young men and women!) and made it perfectly clear I did not want a relationship with him. Ever. I even went onto rant to several people about how much better off alone I truly was (looks like Beiber was right when he said 'never say never.')

Um yeah, that was before he spoke to me on the phone for four hours, listing the many ways in which he would be a better boyfriend - and made no bones about marriage, either, may I add - than anyone else. Ever. He wouldn't hang up until I agreed to a second date (in a non creep-fest way.)

He did the thing I wanted everyone to do. Never give up on me. Because so many had. And  he knew everything (oh yes, everything) about me and still loved me in spite of that - and vice versa for me and him.

Like the Marilyn Monroe quote says, he saw me and handled me at my worst and definitely deserves me at my best. 

That's why I'm glad he's joining the Blogging ranks and has set up his own little blog all about democracy and his views on the World (we kinda, totally, LOVE democracy in this household.) So, if you want a view into a wonderful mind, go and check out Bryan's World.

I can't wait to see the things we talk about on this blog of his!


And since we're on the subject of blogs; I need votes DAILY on Top Baby Blogs. Why daily? Because I want the #1 slot! :) And, just sayin', but you can vote twice in a day. Yay!

I'll call this set: Thoughtful Little Man Stares out of Window.

We spent the last week of March at my parents in the Scottish Highlands.

I hadn't been there in over a year. Travelling and ME don't mix at all. 

The scenes that you see up there are utterly breath taking. I have been all over the UK and little impresses me until I head up to the North of Scotland.

It truly is stunning.

I love being there with Roman because my parents have carpets. This is an exciting prospect when you come from a home without carpets, when your home has horrible laminate flooring throughout (I hate laminate flooring; it's cold, requires more upkeep, attracts more hair, dirt, dust etc and Roman can't stand up on the floor.) 

I probably sound utterly Bourgeois, but there you have it. 

I slept and ate well.

The normal pressures were gone. 

The slurping noises of B eating or the way he breathes seemed to matter less. 

But nonetheless, the days slipped by too easily and too quickly.

And then we got back on the train home where we were back to our old ways of me not sleeping till 4am, getting 4 hours of sleep (me) and the breathing and eating noises really annoying me.

Mormon/LDS Bloggers and my thoughts.

I've heard a lot about what Mormon Bloggers are for a while now.

Here are my thoughts on the matter:

We're (we're being LDS/Mormon bloggers) often revered for our "picture perfect lives/out-of-style-magazine homes/our cookies/pies etc."

I don't have a picture perfect life by anyone's standard. And to be honest I don't know anyone - LDS or not - who does. We're (we're/we being humankind) all constantly wishing we could be better than we are - after all if we weren't, would cosmetic surgery be such big business? Would we even bother to keep up with fashion trends or cause trends of our own? 

The truth is this: me and my husband argue. I've blogged about it once. 

Because it was included in the context of the blog that I wanted to achieve, not because I wanted to gripe about how bad I have it. Not because I want to paint him as some monster and not even because I wanted to get off my chest about how much he drives me crazy. 

And what is wrong with griping, of painting husbands as monsters in the relationship and of telling others they drive you barmy? 

Well I just think it's counter-productive. When I have a problem with someone, I take it up with them. I think it would be very premature of me to come and detail our arguments, piece by piece. And really although we say we love the drama that life throws at us - do we really?

I turned to my blog as a bigger way of apologising to him. Of saying; "I can't believe I've turned into the things I thought I'd never become." This is the human condition. It can be over come. This is the goal of everyone - LDS or not. Are we agreed upon that? 

I think it is important to acknowledge that both me and my husband are flawed - but why should this be the focus of my blog? It's my way of keeping record of my thoughts. Not a place to bank self-pity - and yes, you're very entitled to self-pity where it's due (didn't want to open up a can of worms on self-pity there.)

I accept there are abusive LDS/Mormon relationships and would never tell someone to keep quiet about this - and neither would our church. And if you want to read someone's view on recognizing emotional abuse read it here. Because the words are placed better than I could have put them and the explanation is pretty thorough and if you're dealing with this then you shouldn't have to live with it, no way. Or go here, here or here. 

The point is that I try to see the good in everything - and I accept people have short comings. However one of my short comings is also one of my husband's and so sometimes we spark off each other and it results in an argument - but why would anyone want to see that? We don't even like it in each other so I don't understand why a reader would want to read about it.

We were wed in 2009 - I had just turned 23 and he had just turned 22. We hadn't been engaged for long at all. We were each other's best friends. I told him anything, everything and the favour was returned. I knew straight off the bat what I wanted and this is something I had never known in any of the relationships I'd had previously. 

I couldn't have had my baby boy without this man I call B. Yes B is annoying sometimes and yes he grinds my gears sometimes but he also has this amazing calming effect on me. He makes me laugh mid-argument when he purposely comes out with an inappropriate moment joke or just a certain look he will give can send me off into a fit of giggles. He's been through things with me that I haven't been through with anyone else; because I haven't let anyone in that close. I'm comfortable, safe, secure and happy - and most importantly I love my husband.

He believes in me. And he believes me.

He isn't threatened by me simply because I am an intelligent woman, like all these other people I have dated. He doesn't speak to me like I am several I.Q points off brain dead. He doesn't tell me what I can and can't do with my life - it's our life and we share it together. He doesn't make decisions that effect me in any major way without speaking to me - and I give him the same courtesy in return.

We are trying to work hard at following what we preach. We are trying hard at upholding the vows we made in 2009. And we are working on our eternal marriage. 

Why? Because we love each other and because we know it's what makes us truly happy. We could retreat away from our beliefs but we believe that wouldn't bring us the true happiness that is promised to us, that we feel every day. Our son is a result of our choice to be married, our love to one another and another sign of our commitment to life. 

We're happy because there's so much to be happy for. Do we get sad? Yes. Do we feel down sometimes, too? Yes. Do Mormons/LDS people suffer from depression and other mental illness? You better believe it. 

There is no conspiracy here; I'm just blogging about the best because when I think of the arguments, the things we said I can't help but think about the joke he made or suddenly images from our wedding day crop up in my mind; I was very late, he didn't look at me when I walked down the aisle, (as per my instructions because I thought it would make me nervous) the intense feelings of happiness and overwhelming love when it came to saying 'Yes' to marriage and the feeling of nervous energy as it got closer and closer to it being us, on our own, the married couple without the fanfare of the wedding day around us. 

And then I sit and wonder what it will be like on our tenth, twentieth and thirtieth and so on wedding anniversaries - how I will feel and how those feelings will evolve over time. Because I fully expect them too. 

Because even after two years of marriage I wish we could do it all over again; relive all the happiness even if it meant going through all the sadness. 

It would be worth it a million times over.

Don't miss out!

Leave me a great comment.

I am, It Turns Out.

This post is a response to THIS.

I am an LDS woman. 

To many people out in the World this could mean a whole host of things. To me it is very simple; 

I'm a mother, 
a wife 
and I am a feminist.

(Image: 15 of the Most Sexist Marketing Campaigns.)

For many years I fought with my conscience on the "feminist" title. A lot of people I met defined feminism in very small and pigeon holed terms; bra-burning lesbians who want to stick a stiletto into a man's crotch and this didn't do anything to satisfy my curiosity.

My high school career was short lived (by four years) and I didn't really learn anything new. I never learned about the suffragettes, that women were campaigning for the right to a vote and dying for the cause. I knew it had happened somewhere in history but the fully story was hazy at best. My basic understanding was that women had once not been allowed to vote and now they were and that we should be grateful they were and that was that.

Gradually over time I collected little bits of information on feminism and on women's history.

I bought a Germaine Greer book when I was 17, nearly 18. From that book I learned a lot about myself, mostly things I already knew but that no one would listen too - or that people would roll their eyes at if they did hear me (because hearing is not listening.) There were also things in that book I didn't agree with; such as abandoning monogamous relationships. 

And just because Germaine Greer said so, didn't make it so. She did not have the monopoly on feminism (and nor am I implying she ever had it or wanted to have it.) There were rules I could make up for myself. 

I had worried for a long time that I couldn't be both feminist and LDS (or Mormon.) I worried that being a feminist went against everything I had ever known spiritually. I am not an ignorant spirit and I have always been hungry for knowledge so when I learned more and more about feminism it made me really angry. At who I'm not sure; was it at the people sitting behind desks deciding that it was okay to show a man stepping on a woman's head in an attempt to advertise rugs? The men in government all those years ago who decided it was okay that women shouldn't have a right to whose in power? Either way, something was wrong with this.

Sure, maybe it was "all in the past" but that didn't mean it didn't happen or it should be forgotten about. It also didn't rest easy with me that because of a sexual organ separating one sex from the other that we should be treated differently.

And by "differently" I don't mean that there aren't differences because it is perfectly obvious there are differences; physically, spiritually and even mentally.

But that isn't something I feel I can generalise. Some girls like tractors, some little boys like to play house and dolls. Some little girls love to hand craft things and some little boys like to play in the dirt.

As a child I was considered a "tom boy." At least that's how I classed myself  because luckily my parents didn't have labels for us. We were James, Fiona, Cara and Fraser - and that was that. We were unique in our own ways, but not because we were male or female - because that is a given - and being a "girl" or a "boy" isn't a personality trait, it's a physical fact.

My Dad would talk to me about computers and computer games that were considered "boy games" by everyone else. I took a "boy blue" Thomas The Tank Engine lunch box with me on my first day to school. I also played with Barbies, baby dolls and had a play kitchen. I wanted to be married with children. But so did my younger brother, Fraser, who owned a small vacuum cleaner, loved doing dishes and would show the same interest in playing cars as he did with dolls. 

I applaud my parents for not smothering us with gender ideals and for treating us as people. 

Did my Mum dress us in frilly socks and flowery dresses? Yes. She did. But by the same token I didn't understand the frills or the flowers - they were just nice, not a sign or a constraint of who I was or wasn't. Not an aspiration of who I should be or what was to come.

(Image: 15 of the Most Sexist Marketing Campaigns.)

I realise that yes you can be LDS and a feminist. In my faith we're entitled to an equal partnership in a marriage. We run our churches alongside our men and they alongside their women. We're in harmony with one another. We're constantly working together to make things right, to make things work. We can't have eternal salvation one without the other. 

Maybe not everyone has experienced such a harmonious time as an LDS woman; maybe you've had a bishop, stake president or whoever whose said some shocking things to you. Maybe it happened in the home. Or in a Sunday School lesson. I don't know, but all I can say is: that's not how it's supposed to be.

Should we strive for equality?

Yes. But we shouldn't fight for it the way we are now. Yes, now. Even now after years of women endlessly proving they can do a job just as well as - or even better than - a man and deserve the same rights and privileges and not be judged for the anatomy they are born with.

I think in the current fight for equality we lose who we are as people. We become warriors against each other rather than fighting for that child who used to carry the blue lunch box to school, climb trees, defy norms and always arrive home with grubby hands after playing in the mud.

It's not a man's World. Nor is it a woman's World. It's OUR World.

Happy Kiss Day.

(Image: we♥it)

Happy Valentines Day.


Even though it was anything but romantic here. I spent my day (and it's not over yet at 11.55pm) with my baby boy - and he still wants to party. I've been awake since 8am. Please sleep baby!


 My big boy was in bed, sick.


I'm okay with that because every day is special here...yep, we're that couple. 


And well I don't have any other choice but to be okay with it ;).

The 9th of February.

A Year Ago Today.

9/02/10

The 7th of February, 2010 I started to feel the first real signs of labour.

Little gut-wrenching reminders that this round shape inside me was a real living, breathing person. A person that had been determined for months (not that I was counting) to make an appearance on their time schedule with no regards to immature lung development, premature birth and my anxieties towards Caesarean sections.

Luckily my prayers were a little more than answered as by the 7th of February there was still no baby (I was due on the 1st of February.)

When I woke up in the morning I had these intense cramps that made it difficult to talk - or think - but they weren't frequent enough for me to make much a deal out of, so I kept them to myself. Luckily they died down after I ate a huge pineapple to myself - odd as pineapple (but usually in a huge quantity) is an induction to labour.

By 11pm that night on the 7th my mucus plug came loose. I knew labour had started by this point and began to shake - the same feelings I'd had seeing that my pregnancy test was positive. I was scared. It was all real, it was coming to a head at last - but that scared me.

By 10am on the 8th of February labour was established with no intention of stopping. I was coping very well with it so I decided to take a bath instead of waking anyone up. By 11.30am it got more and more intense; I can't describe it to you apart from saying it was intense.

It was the kind of intensity that grips your whole body and doesn't let go until it's done it's job. You have little reprieves here and there but the intensity of it all definitely hits you in waves.

With much comforting, listening to music and trying every birthing position I'd ever seen the thing that worked for me in the end was lying down in bed napping intermittently. I kept my bedroom door open and heard B and my mum chatting softly; about what I don't recall, but their voices and the direction of their conversation soothed me.

At one point I didn't want to be on my own any longer and called B through. I can't remember exactly why or when but I lost it. I lost my positive train of thought and sunk deep into believing it would never end; that I wanted the epidural/I was weak/couldn't go on any more.

Of course I had too; I had another eleven hours of this. I didn't know that at the time and my Mum kept reassuring me it would be all over quickly. "If you've come this far at home, you're not too far now." I believed her and let her words sink into the inner part of me that was being chewed up with negative feelings.

We called the hospital (you don't get assigned a midwife or doctor to phone in the UK, you just call the hospital and speak to whichever midwife is manning the phone and they'll tell you to make your way to the hospital) then phoned up B's parents. Neither B or my Mum drive or own a car so we were relying on them to take us to the hospital - they live a good 30 minutes drive away so it was around 6pm when we were leaving to go to hospital.

I was not looking forward to the drive there; but it was great. I felt nothing of the contractions and when a massive wave of intensity hit me I would squeeze down on B's hand; I turned into a cliché. 

We got to hospital where they discovered a few complications, but I was definitely in labour. At this point I was 4cm dilated - which surprisingly comforted me despite not wanting to know how many cm's dilated I was.

My blood pressure was up very high; the midwife surmised this was because I was anxious about being in hospital but sent me down to the delivery suite to be monitored and set up there.

Very soon it was decided my blood pressure wasn't coming down and an epidural would have to be organised (with my consent.) I agreed to this and shortly after I was biting down into a pillow and crying in the arms of a stranger; being told you can't move when you're contracting is quite a feat.

My mum and B swapped over at some point (stupid hospital policy which allows for only one birth partner in the room at a time) and I napped on and off for the next few hours meanwhile the hormone drip worked through my body.

At about 4am I felt pins and needles in my legs then all of a sudden I felt that intensity again. My midwife told me to breathe through it all again - breathe through it despite an IV in my hand, a haematoma in my other hand, a needle in my spine and a trace monitor around my belly. When the midwife went out the room the student midwife asked me if I'd like to try some nitrous oxide to help me out - at first I wasn't sure because I had wanted an all singing all dancing natural labour with no drugs then I thought to myself; "I need to get through this last hurdle, at least I'll feel him passing through me if I have gas and air."

I sucked in deep and after the first two "puffs" I was laughing my head off. I kept saying to B; "Don't tell the midwives but I am soooo stoned!" they all laughed and I would echo their laughter. The gas and air made my throat very dry so I drank some cold water from a straw.

At 5.40am they told me I would need to come off the gas and air now as I was 10cm dilated - and I kept saying; "A human head is coming out of me!" and "I want to push now." - and it was "time." 30 minutes later we were greeted with Roman; slightly purple, cawing and warm. His weight and warmth amazed me. His size shocked me. I'd birthed a 10lb 1 and a half ounce baby boy.

Bryan announced the sex (what we'd asked for as the midwives have a habit of doing this) and cut the cord. Little memories float in now; the midwives saying; "He's so big, look he's rocking his own crib." and B saying; "He's crying real tears."

He was mine. He was crying. He was self soothing. He was Roman. He was every inch real.

He was everything I'd imagined he'd be and at the same time I had never realised how brilliant he would be until that moment we were side by side; me in my delivery bed high on adrenaline and him swaddled in his cot; staring at me, looking, searching and exploring my features and there I was doing the same. 

We were reunited. 

Twenty four years of being apart and finally I could see him again.

Why had I waited so long? Why hadn't I married sooner? Had him sooner? I know me and B didn't wait around to have children - we just didn't see the point of delaying it - but I couldn't stop thinking; I should have had you sooner than this.

And I began to think to myself; "Thank you Heavenly Father, thank you for letting this precious spirit go so he can be my responsibility. Thank you for this opportunity."

I passed out at some point; I was exhausted and I was given gas and air. I was stitched up without anaesthetic and that was traumatising as I felt every pull on my skin and every stab of the needle. It took them three hours. I thought of my Mum who had been opened up without anaesthetic and sucked down on the gas and air until I passed out.

Another midwife prodded me and said; "does that hurt? You've got a pile!" I screamed and told her if she did that again I'd kick her. Ha. (But she made up for it later when she was lovely helping me getting Roman positioned for a first feed.)

My Mum came through and I felt too tired to deal with people's excitement but I wanted to remember and soak up the moments like that at the same time. She called up my Dad. Again I wanted to hang up but never wanted him to stop talking to me at the same time. I wanted him to be there but I was glad he was in Thurso; I pictured him standing in the living room, with the sun on his skin and him peeking through the blinds at the weather, Shadow weaving through his legs and her tail beating off his ankles.

B and my Mum left, I slept and when I woke I walked to the toilet with the student midwife (who wanted me to use a wheelchair) and I remember that pain of peeing for the first time after a baby has come out of your body. I got back into bed and told them I wanted to feed Roman, we fed and napped again and when we woke we went up to the ward.

A day later we were home and visitors came.

 Life was somehow never the same again but it was something wonderful from that point onwards.

Today

Image: L-R: My sister, Roman, his cake and B's hand.

09/02/11

Today you were one.

You had cake, you had presents and you even had balloons. You were happy and cheeky all day long. Delightful and full of love all day long.

Impressing your guests with the many things you've mastered over the months they've missed.

It amazes me to think you're a one year old.

Happy Birthday Little Man, we love you.

Facebook Hangover.

We all do things we regret.

For me the list is too many to mention - but I'm not going to feel bad about any single regret I've made.

I've made mistakes for whatever reason (thinking I knew better than everyone else/thinking it was right at the time and KNOWING what I was doing was 100% wrong, wrong, wrong but doing it anyway.)

And now Facebook has become a new platform to air your dirty (or virtual) laundry in public. 

A new place where long lost friends can meet up and realise why they drifted apart in the first place through a couple of status updates. 

A venue for friends to meet up, discuss politics and fall out with each other.

A new kind of talking behind each other's backs with the messaging system on there.

And where you can catch the latest drama on so and so's relationship - don't you just love to hate those status updates? I find them better than an episode of The Hills.

And today I KNOW I'm going to have Facebook hangover. Especially when my parents see my status. I told people to KMA. And how fed up I am. I'm really feeling fed up of doing everything around here and could use some help that never comes.

I know several other Working Mama's (in the home or out of the home) will know what I mean - and you Working Dad's. But less is expected from men (at least in my culture and in Scotland in general.) Women are to be everything but be behind the scenes at the same time. We're supposed to have dreams but then have very little time and energies we can give to our dreams because there's always something else to do in our every day lives.

I wouldn't swap being a Mama for anything because that is not what eats at my time - and when I spend time with him I am happier and calmer. Looking at him makes me smile and see that this is really what it's all about for me.

And what people may say or do doesn't really matter.

Don't miss out!

Leave me a great comment.

When you comment I'll even give you a shot of my air guitar!

If I ever...

I've made a really important decision...

If I ever get pregnant again I'm telling no one.

Shall I begin to tell you about the constant horror scene stories I heard, or perhaps the well intentioned "get drugs" advice from men (okay, seriously taking the empathy thing too far on that one, guys!) and last but not least the "YOU'RE HUGE!" insults comments.

(4 days before my due date, I was 9 months pregnant here.)

When you're pregnant you become public property and Jack and Jill Average turn into Jack and Jill MD/OBYGYN/Midwife.

Seriously, back off people. 

The last thing any pregnant person wants to hear is how HUGE they are. Yes, I think pregnant ladies get it.  Trust me they're certainly feeling every kick to the groin possible, (just putting it out there) counting every day they have left until their due date (although not more than 5% of babies actually arrive on their due dates) and trying to get through the day (and night, pregnancy insomnia sucks!)

I was transported back to the 7-9th months of my pregnancy tonight while on a Facebook Group reading what Mum's To Be were saying - I'm not some weird person who stalks pregnant women, this group is for Mama's, too - and the insensitive and rude nature of people in this country never ceases to amaze me.

One Mum was so upset as some absolute tool had said she was the size of a house. Excuse me? Let's back up a second here.

The size of a house?

I wasn't shocked as when I was pregnant people kept reminding me (although I think they forgot I'm not blind and I can look in mirrors) how huge I was getting. 

On top of the "you're so HUGE!" comments were the constant: "HAVE YOU HAD THE BABY YET?" questions.

Twenty times a day without fail.


When I'm pregnant for the second time I will add three weeks onto my due date. When I had Roman my due date was the 1st of February. By the 8th of January people were asking if I had any twinges/signs of labour yet - with a few asking if I'd had the baby yet. Fast forward to a week later and my Facebook wall was covered in queries as to where this "stubborn baby was."


On the 2nd of February I had people telling me they'd perform a C-section on me themselves if the baby didn't show up soon.


On top of not sleeping, not really eating properly and the insane trips to the toilet I could have done without these queries, comments and insults.


So this is my plan of attack for next time;


Hide under layers of clothing for as long as possible, stretch the truth about the due date and delete all comments on Facebook related to the pregnancy.




And definitely make one of these cool time lapse videos!