April 2013: a snapshot

It is 12.25am and I have been asleep for about two and a half hours. I am woken by the three year old child to my left wriggling and grunting in his sleep. He kicks the duvet off, gets up on all fours, then flops back on to the bed, still asleep. He settles for a moment, then gets up on all fours again, crying this time. I realise he has wet the bed. Wetting the bed has been a fairly regular feature of the past four or five weeks; before that our bed had been Wee Free Since December 3.

We do not make a big deal out of this. We do not want the boy to feel shame or humiliation. But it's bloody annoying to have to change the bedlinen at half past midnight. Still, at least there's a good seven hours of night left. We go back to sleep.

It is 1.30am. The six week old baby to my right is snuffling and chirruping for a feed. As if by magic, the small child on my left wakes up at the exact same time and wails for booby. I know that if I respond quickly he will go back to sleep, but I need to get the baby propped up on my other boob to feed first. It takes me about 20 seconds to do this, in which time the child is still wailing and I am getting increasingly irritated by the incessant 'I want some booooby' and pawing at my chest, so I snap at him then begrudgingly give him what he wants, feeling like I want to push him off the bed. I am starting to loathe tandem nursing. He goes back to sleep and after about half an hour, so do I. Prior to four or five weeks ago, he was sleeping through the night without any demands for booby. I know why he is unsettled but it doesn't make it any easier to find compassion.

It is 3.27am. The small baby is uncomfortable. He is pushing with his legs against my knee. I think he probably needs a wee or a nappy change, but I am too frightened of waking the child to help him. I try to feed him back to sleep but he is having none of it. I take a deep breath and hoist myself out of the bed with him, take him to the bathroom and let him wee into the loo. I put him in a fresh nappy and get back into bed. After about 45 minutes I go back to sleep.

It is 5.11am. The child stirs. In his half-sleep and half crying, he declares 'I want some boooooby'. I want to weep, I am so exhausted. I give him what he wants and he falls back to sleep within 20 seconds, clutching my shoulder as though I've just told him I'm leaving for Australia indefinitely. The baby stirs again. He wants a feed. I roll over and feed him cradled in my arm. I love breastfeeding him and wish I could devote my boobs 100% to him. He falls asleep, purring.

It is 6.42am. We all wake up together. The child sleepily says 'I want some booby'.

I hate tandem nursing, I really really hate it. 

This is us in April 2013.

Doing it differently

For the second time, I am 37 weeks with child.

When this sprog drops, clearly some things will be the same as for Fred, my first. Like the fact that it will sleep in the same bed as the rest of the family, and the fact that when it comes to weaning, I can't be bothered with Annabel Karmel puree recipes so I'll probably just give it a stick of broccoli to wave ineffectually. And some things are already the same: the fact that we haven't found out if it's a boy or a girl, for example (yes, this child's technical apparatus will be shrouded in mystery until the day it finally breezes into our lives).

Having said that, there are some things I am absolutely doing differently this time round, having done about a million times more preparation and reading than I did in my first pregnancy.

Firstly, I hired me an independent midwife. This gives me continuity of care from antenatal appointments, through labour and birth, and postnatal care. I know that (barring her illness) the midwife who delivers my baby will be the same person I've formed a relationship with over the past 7 months - not whoever happens to be on the shift in the maternity ward. It also allows me much, much more time with her (hour-long appointments, in my own home, on my own sofa!) to discuss the various choices surrounding labour and birth, and to make informed decisions based on statistical evidence. So far, this hands down beats the 20-minute NHS appointments I had in my first pregnancy where I'd have four or five measurements taken, a couple of perfunctory questions about my general wellbeing, and be sent on my way with a cheery wave.

Secondly, I decided to have as few scans as possible. Some people decline all scans because of the possibility that ultrasound carries dangers to the unborn baby. I don't know about that, but I figured that the point of the 12-week scan is to get a date, and I knew my dates. At the 12-week scan you can also have the nuchal fold test to get a probability of Downs syndrome, but having a Downs baby wouldn't have made any difference to my going ahead with the pregnancy, so I didn't need that test. I did have a 20-week scan, mainly just to make sure I definitely was preggers, because I had virtually no symptoms, but that was it. 

Thirdly, I'm planning a home birth. Statistics show that hospital births end up in an increased likelihood of (sometimes unnecessary) interventions like forceps and ventouse and Caesarean deliveries. Been there, done that, don't fancy it again thanks. I'm pretty confident that my fabulous, wobbly booty is capable of birthing a baby without a doctor telling me how to do it. I'm also planning not to have any pain relief, mainly because none is provided, but also because I've been reading up on and practising other ways to overcome the pain (including positions - ie not lying on my back - breathing techniques, and lots of YouTube videos of cats and Vic and Bob, because laughter is apparently an analgesic). And if anything goes wrong I trust my midwife to tell me that actually we do need to go to hospital now, and I can be there in 7 minutes.

Fourthly, not a drop of formula is going to pass my new baby's lips. I will have faith that if the baby wants to feed for 5 hours straight on its first night out (as happened first time around), it's getting what it needs whether that's food or comfort. I don't intend to pay for a product that my body makes for free.

And fifthly, having used disposable nappies first time round, this time I'm going cloth. Furthermore - and this is a real step into the unknown - I'm planning to EC. EC stands for elimination communication, also known as infant potty training, and it's a way of understanding your baby's cues for when it needs a wee or a poo. You end up using fewer nappies because you're getting everything straight into the loo from the word go, you have fewer moments of 'what on earth are you crying for now' and you end up with a toddler who's out of nappies much earlier than the norm. Quite frankly, it's a wee-wee win-win. 

So there are my five Things To Do Differently Second Time Around. Yeah, I think it's going to be fun.