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Just the Two of Us

Allow me to set the prebaby scene. It's 2009.

I'm taking you back to 2009 because that year seems a fair representation of the prebaby us. It was the year we bought our first house and both had grown-up, serious jobs. James was occupying one of the many civil service jobs he's tried his hand at over the years, and I had just been promoted to relationship manager in an asset finance company, which, in practical terms, meant I spent lots of time driving around to farms in Devon financing machinery, and I bloody loved it.

We worked hard and played sort of hard. We occasionally rolled in drunk at two a.m. smelling of vodka and clutching shish kebabs, but, with the benefit of hindsight, we should have played harder. (I'm somehow mourning the raving I never did in Ibiza; not that I ever had any urge to get my trance on in an Amnesia foam party, but I could have if I'd wanted to.) I didn't appreciate the extent of our freedom.

After an intense week of work, for us, the weekend revolved around a Pizza Hut delivery, bottles of wine and beer, the odd beach walk or excursion to a National Trust house (mainly for the cream tea) and copious amounts of sofa lounging, tea drinking and Jammie Dodger eating to the background hum of Sky Sports News. "Chores" were Hoovering out the car (which we could do in peace or while listening to the radio), grocery shopping (we bought what we fancied when we fancied it) and "cleaning the place," which took all of thirty minutes and consisted of sorting out piles of work clothes and tidying an already uncluttered living space.

Life was good, and we were happy. We were settled.

The following year, we tied the knot and started dabbling in that dangerous pastime I like to call Property Perusing. I'm sure it was all that talk of extra bedrooms and garages and friendly neighbors that prompted us to engage seriously for the first time in the Chat. There was only one chat to have by this stage, as we'd already gone down the pet route and rescued Floyd the Cat, who we treated very much like our baby.

The next level in our adult lives awaited.

I can't pinpoint or remember the exact "Shall we have a baby, then?" conversation, but I remember we agreed that I would come off the Pill and we would "see what happens." There is nothing casual about "seeing what happens." From the moment you are no longer not trying for a baby, you are very much trying for one.

I'm not sure what the rush was. There was certainly no biological rush, as I was just twenty-three at this point. We had all the time in the world to start procreating, but something instinctive told us it was the right time. We may have been just a few months into married life but, by this stage, we were a full seven years into our relationship. I was just sixteen when we first got together (at a nightclub on an industrial estate: the romance of fairy tales-I know).

All of a sudden, I became hyperaware of babies in buggies and pregnancy bumps on the bus. Despite my continued enjoyment of work, wine and uninterrupted Friday-night takeaways, more than anything else I wanted to be a mum.

I guessed it would happen straightaway.

It didn't happen straightaway.

In fact, ten months into the whole "I think I'm ovulating. Can you pause Top Gear and come upstairs, please?" debacle, we'd become slightly disheartened with the bi-daily shagathons and leg holding in the air (me, not James, who never once lay with his legs in the air for ten minutes to discourage gravity).

Then, suddenly, we had other things to concentrate on because we'd just completed the sale of our house and secured a new one with that extra bedroom and garage. Hurrah! It was a chaotic time, as we had only a couple of weeks off work to pack up, move house and prepare for a week's holiday in Kos-a holiday I'd booked prior to knowing we'd be moving that month. So, in a state of mostly unpacked but not quite organized household disorder, we found ourselves getting ready to leave for a road trip to Cardiff airport. I ran myself a bath (to take care of the essential holiday hair removal), and while I fannied around in the bedroom waiting for the tub to fill up, I just had this feeling that I was coming on my period: achy legs, slight tummy churn. You probably don't need to know the workings of my menstrual cycle (you'll undoubtedly know far too much about me as it is when you've finished reading this book), but I never really had regular periods, something we had been told might make it difficult for us to conceive, something which would have made it all the more sensible to pack tampons as a precaution for a week in a bikini.

I don't know whether the feeling was in some way different from the usual premenstrual rigmarole or whether I just wanted clearance to drink my body weight in dodgy Greek ouzo, but something prompted me to grab a pregnancy test out of my knicker drawer and wee on it. I shouted down to James, "I think I'm coming on my period, but I've done a test just in case, so I have the all clear to drink wine."

James came back upstairs. I was totally naked by this point (about to get in the bath, as I say), hovering over said stick of fortune. "Well, what does it say?" he asked.

"There are two lines. It's a plus. It says I'm pregnant. Fuck."

"Fuck," he echoed. "Are you sure? Do another one!"

"I can't! I don't need another wee."

I then sat in the bath, trying to digest the possible parenthood news, while James went to get me a pint of water so I could flush out some more urine. I did two further tests.

One test could be a fluke.

Two tests: still questionable.

Three tests: well, three tests showed irrefutably that I was with child.

Holy mother of chuffing God, there was a baby in there.

And we were about to whisk him or her off to Kos for a stay in what turned out to be the shittiest hotel we'd been to in all our years, with a shit "beach" and shit food. Add to that an overall sense of shittiness brought about by knowing that not only had we rejected a villa in Tuscany but we were now also not enjoying our last holiday as a twosome.

The saving grace of that holiday-which-was-a-bit-shit (have I told you how shit it was? I feel the need to reiterate this point, as it was James who said no to Tuscany, for cost-saving reasons) was that we were carrying around our baby secret. We were going to be parents, and we beamed from ear to ear.

According to the BabyCenter pregnancy app we had downloaded on the way to the airport, I was already seven weeks pregnant. The absence of my period had not alerted us because that, in itself, was not unusual. I'd had no other symptoms and had therefore been drinking Pinot Grigio and not taking folic acid for the first seven weeks of our fetus's existence, something I planned to rectify as soon as we got back to Blighty and I could ram-raid Boots for mum-to-be supplies.

So there we were, in our ghetto sunshine hotel, discussing baby names and nurseries and telling ourselves we really shouldn't get carried away until we'd confirmed everything was all right while at the same time getting completely carried away about our little potato. Finding out I was pregnant for the first time was pretty amazing. It was scary and daunting, too, but mostly it was amazing.

I'll forever hold an image in my mind of our tanned and excited faces in the car on the way back from Cardiff airport, scoffing M&S sandwiches and Percy Pigs (and Pals) from the service station. Smug about our little secret. We knew we were on the cusp of something pretty life changing.

The reality, of course, as we gaily chomped on Percy and his Pals, was that we knew nothing at all.

Am I Glowing Yet?

As you know, I am writing as the proud (though slightly overwhelmed) owner of two children. I have therefore spent eighteen months of my life incubating small people. (Total for both pregnancies, I mean; I don't have anything approaching the 640-day gestation of an African elephant because if I did, I would, quite frankly, never have coped. Can you imagine the pelvic pressure and gin withdrawal after 640 days?) Still, eighteen months equates to approximately 5 percent of my life (to date) spent "with child," and, when people ask me how I found my pregnancy adventure, I generally offer the same, uncomplicated response: "It was a bit crap."

I really tried to enjoy it. Mostly, I think, I felt compelled to treasure the experience because I was so mindful of pregnancy being a blessing, mindful that there are so many other couples who can't conceive, or have lost a baby. I have always known that getting pregnant and carrying two healthy babies to full term makes us a remarkably lucky family.

And there were bits I did enjoy. Like all the buzzy excitement surrounding the new addition, the magic of feeling the first kicks, and hearing the heartbeat at the midwife appointments. Discussing names (slightly less fun after we'd made the mistake of sharing name ideas with friends and family, who were surprisingly forthright about our short list); dragging James to antenatal classes (where we tried and failed to act like grown-ups during the demonstration of the doll moving down the birth canal); shopping for baby clothes; painting the nursery and framing my favorite quote from The Twits to add a bit of Roald Dahl wisdom to the walls.

I marveled at my body's ability to grow a small person, twice.

But treasure every moment I could not.

I quickly tired of sticking my head down the loo to throw up after my evening meal. I became fed up with practically pissing myself every time I climbed the stairs or rolled over in bed because my bladder had been restricted to the size of a Borrower's. I spent the last six weeks of pregnancy number two sleeping (or, rather, not sleeping) propped up on the sofa, unable to get comfy, watching reruns of The X-Files. And, on top of the pregnancy incontinence and slightly sicky burps, I was fed up with hearing the same old shite, those same old myths and superstitions:

"All that sickness suggests this one is definitely a girl!" Clearly.

"The first baby is never on time!" He was on time.

"As your first was on time, your second will be early!" He was seven days late.

"I can tell just by looking at the bump you're having a big baby!" Henry was six pounds, thirteen ounces.

Above all, I was a bit pissed off and disillusioned about the pregnancy legend of the Glow.

I wasn't glowing.

But it would come, right? Because I, for one, had bought into the legend and was excited about my impending glow. I just had to get through the sicky and awkward podgy-but-not-quite-preggers stage of the first trimester (the "shitemester") and I'd be on the home straight to the promised land of shiny hair, radiant skin and a neat and tidy bump displayed proudly under attractive maternity dresses. It became a long-standing joke: "Am I glowing yet?"

I never fucking glowed.

Instead, I found I was vomity, sweaty and permanently tired. My skin was gray and slightly zitty-less English rose glow and more hungover pubescent-teenager shine. The "bump" I had looked forward to sporting under a Topshop tea dress developed into more of a tire of pregnant chub around my middle, spreading slowly to unsuspecting areas like my arms. And chins. In many ways, I quite liked my preggers body-I put on more than three stone with each pregnancy, and there is something quite liberating about thinking, "Sod it, what difference is another slice of carrot cake going to make?"

But glowing I was not. Though I should note that I have met some quite glowy mums-to-be in Topshop tea dresses, so I can't deny that it happens. It just didn't happen in the 5 percent of my lifetime I have spent pregnant. (I'm not at all bitter.)

There were, however, two things I'd heard about pregnancy-two quirks, if you will (things I had generally dismissed as "a load of old tosh")-that I can in fact verify as true, having experienced them firsthand.

The first was nesting.

"Nesting," as a term, is quite misleading, I think, because it conjures up images of decluttering, decorating and making sure things are just so. The nesting I found myself absorbed in was much less about decluttering and more about disinfecting. Of ridding the house of all dust, grime and odors and leaving behind the soft scents of Cif Cream (Original) and Windowlene.

I could not get enough of cleaning products. They just smelled so good. The Cillit Bang advert where "Barry Scott" obliterates shower scum before declaring, "Bang! And the dirt is gone!" was practically a turn-on at one point.

At the height of my cleaning obsession (which was far worse with Jude), I was spraying and scrubbing my kitchen worktops at least three times a day-and that was the most ordinary of my cleaning activities. Skirting-board bleaching, cupboard disinfecting, pulling the fridge out to clean behind it, door washing, wall cleaning-I once washed the external walls and downstairs outside windows with Flash power spray before instructing my father-in-law to do the same to the upstairs windows while he was up a ladder clearing the guttering. I also asked James to pull the TV stand out twice in the same week because I hadn't managed to blitz all the dust the first time and I couldn't relax until I had blitzed all of the bloody dust.

Nobody argued with me when I was eight months pregnant, because they had clocked my crazed look and feared I would climb a ladder/attempt to move a forty-two-inch TV on my own. They were right to be slightly fearful. There were spells of comedy, but I had become a nightmare to live with. One time, I paused our Friday-night film to strip the cushion covers and put them straight in the wash. Because you just can't bring new life into a house with unwashed cushion covers. Another time, James put some leftover lasagna-which was ever so slightly leaking out of its dish-into my newly disinfected fridge. "Lasagnagate," we named that particular meltdown, because I cried for half an hour before getting the surface cleaner back out. Poor James.