Week 4. Wine.

I sincerely hope you're feeling well enough by now but chances are that you aren't. Fun recovering from baby expulsion isn't it? And then spending a month averaging 3 hours shut-eye a night. 

I have fermented grapes in my Arsenal (take what you will from that). A medium glass a day at circa 6pm takes the edge off shirty comments, poo in the plug hole and mass histeria that comes with bath time 'a trois'/quatre if you count the wino banshee running the show. Try it. Early quaffing ensures maximum enjoyment before an inevitable pre 9pm curfew. 

Week 2-3. Shit got real

The small human is here to stay. It doesn't sleep and it screams. They are all very different but fundamentally they take quite some time to adjust to not being secure and wrapped up on the 'inside'. The hosts body should start to settle down, slowly. Eat.a. Lot. It's very very tempting to launch into or try to establish a routine but (gooooood for you if you've acheived this) cut your losses and enjoy the marginal freedom that no routine gives you.

My comment of the week came from an ernest H Bomb..

'Mummy, mummy - you must come and sit down (ushering me over to a scant pile of cushions and a baby wipe) I have made you a chair - SIT - you need to feed the (yet to be named) baby from your (massive) booby'

Week 1. Undignified yet MAGIC

**** one for imminent or brand new mums, a monolgue of my pertinent, patchy memories ****

'Well that was fun!'... Said no one ever. Your body has just grown and expelled a (not so) small human. Your slowly shrinking uterus flops around in front of you in the form of a deflating bouncy castle attached to your navel. 

Stock up on paracetamol and nurofen and take them every few hours in turn. As the blighter reverts back to its original size you might feel like you're still having contractions. Well you are actually. Bonza. 

Sanitary towels the size of mattresses house your granny pants. Rock hard melons. Get cream in case the nips crack as the sleep-thief gnaws away for hours. 

Possibly get daddy to sleep in another room.. Everyone finds their own arrangement to fit around the whirlwind of newborn excitement and sleeplessness but it really helps to have one person who is running on (almost) full batteries to actually engage in proper conversation with people and get stuff done whilst you recover from the phenomenal feat of childbirth and you start to grow the human on the outside. 

The above being said, the tiredness aside, delight in the arrival of this tiny person. Don't be afraid. You will always do the right thing, trust your instincts. Plus there's midwives, health visitors, books (Your Baby Week by Week is my 'go-to'), friends, family and dare I say it: Google. You don't need to see anyone if you don't feel like it, close the doors on the world and relish in the utterly precious first few days with the new human. Welcome people when you feel ready but the outside world is going nowhere yet these first days will slip away.

Philosophy on children

On Children

 Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.