cut to...two months later

This photograph was taken yesterday. You in your Christmas dress, sent by lovely Lynsey and worn with something approaching a smile. To be perfectly honest it's not often we see you in clothes sweetheart, sleepsuits are more your style. You are downstairs sleeping, my boobs are leaking just thinking about you....

long story short

You were just over an hour away from being born in theback of a minicab. No wonder the driver looked nervous.

Labour was a grind, but giving birth was a trip. A trip and a half. And then there you were...

xxx

look, no picture

I don't know how to upload picture's on daddy's mac, but I can never quite find the energy to hook up to the internet on my PC (as this entails going downstairs) Yep, I'm that lazy. Thought I should write something just in case you come and I don't find time to go on the internet for, I dunno, the next eighteen years? Just four days until due date. I do indeed now have milk inside the fridge that might last longer than you inside me.

I didn't realise how nervous I was until faced with my final midwife appointment today. When she said goodbye and good luck, I had a moment of panic. I can't wait to meet you, honest, but suddenly these last nine months have contracted, as my womb soon will, and suddenly it feels like no time at all since Valentine's Day and finding out you were there. And even though everything is ready for you, I am apprehensive about change. A great old lady once said to me 'change is a good thing, we should never be afraid.' But I am afraid. Not of labour, that's never been a worry for me, it will happen the way it happens, we will survive and then there you will be, but the rest of my life, being a mother, something else to worry that I'm not quite good enough at.

I'll be fine, right?

Kick if you think I'll be a decent mummy.

I'll be FINE.

See you soon.

There was a luscious full moon last night. I could hear Daddy and my friend Hannah watching Heroes downstairs as I looked at it for a while and I wondered, will it be the last full moon I see before you are born? I got some books out of the library yesterday that are due back the day after my due date. Any day now I'll buy a pint of milk that expires after my term is full. According to all the books you are done, you are cooked, you are a ready. And so we wait.

Thanks for being such an easy baby to carry. I hope you are an easy baby to birth. I hope you love us. I hope we have fun, you and I. I hope.

I may have a stretch mark. Or possibly it could just be a scratch.

Claudia Jean, my beauty queen. Things are shaping up nicely here. Your room looks gorgeous, your new pram, bouncy chair, cot, clothes et al make me smile every time I see them.

I never forget that I am pregnant but I often forget what I look like. I catch an unexpected glimpse of myself in a shop window, sailing by the size of a small boat, and it takes my breath away. Last weekend someone said that soon I will do the same and be surprised to be thin (or thinner) but somehow I doubt it. Nine months isn't long enough to get used to being pregnant. I do however look forward to the day when I can bend over once again. And eat brie.

pleasure pain

It' s been a month, over a month. I have my reasons, none of them convincing.

You kick me all the time now. Hard. Sometimes it hurts, especially when you get me right in the ribs, pow, but I love it more than anything. I think I might even miss it when you're not in there any more, safe from harm. It's easy looking after you right now, isn't it? All I have to do is look after myself and you take what you need without making a sound. Soon, in ten weeks time if you are prompt, everything will change. Maybe I'll hold you close and let you kick me, just for old time's sake. Still no ill effects, not really. A bit of heartburn, the occasional searing cramp in my meaty hockey player's calf, but nothing dramatic, nothing to get upset about. I don't even mind when you press down on my bladder in the middle of the night so I have to try and creep down the creaking stairs in this little cottage to the bathroom. This bodes well for our future together, don't you think?

I read that at 30 weeks you have eyelashes. Cute. I hope you have daddy's, they're lush.

Neighbours in high places

Rumour has it that the new home secretary Jacqui Smith lives round the corner. Hence all the armed police. And that's it for politics.

You move all the time. Last night I wondered aloud whether that could be a bad thing. Then I learnt that little Rebecca moved around so much in the womb that auntie Maria thought she could be epileptic. My new favourite thing to do is watch you make my belly dance. I swear it's better than television.

That's me rocking it at the Aerosmith gig in Hyde Park by the way. Well, not quite rocking it, we left early because it was raining, but you seemed to like the bass beat.

As I type this you are squirming around inside me. I feel bad that you can't see much. There's so much out here to see. Just you wait....

You're a girl! I had been trying to supress my sixth sense in case I was hopelessly wrong but this week the ultrasound confirmed it. I'd hoped for a girl. I'd sat in the pink bedroom wearing a pink jumper, smelling freesias and hoped for you. Not for any feminist reasons but because of all the little boys you already have in your life - charlie, monty and ferris, jude and luke, harry and paddy, harry and edward, conner and flynn, oliver - a neverending supply of boyfun. It's about time there was a little girl on the scene and now there will be you.

Morocco tomorrow. We'll have a good time babes, you're gonna love it.

baby look at me now

It's been a while. You're moving now, Daddy felt you tapping away in there for the first time last night. Wouldn't exactly call it a kick though. Your great-great-auntie Doll calls it quickening. I call it crazy.

Hey! Either blogging is remarkably simple or I am some kind of Wonder Woman...

What's it all about?

I'm not really sure. I think time will tell. I know I wouldn't be doing this unless I was pregnant (15 weeks, 4 days and counting) because I love being able to watch Charlie grow up by checking in on his blog every few days. So this blog is really for our friends and families to stay in touch.

Also being pregnant feels like the most meaningful thing to happen to me so far in my life, utterly annihilating anything I previously thought was important - meeting Manny, being published, moving to London - these all fade into insignificance when compared to the journey ahead.

And lastly, and perhaps whimsically, I would like the unborn critter inside me to look at this one day and see the story of his/her gestation and childhood. So hello you. We are calling you Wrigley these days because you were wriggling around so much during your first ultrasound. I like to call you Riggs because he was a cool - if somewhat cheesy - action hero. I can't wait to meet you.

my inspiration

These little smilers are Sarah and Charlie Valentine, two of my favourite people in the world. Sarah has been an inspiration to me for all of my adult life. I am very proud to be Charlie's godmother. They have a blog, www.sarahandcharlie.blogspot.com. If they didn't, I doubt that I would be doing this at all. Aren't they gorgeous?

Where are you now?

Blogging. Can it really be this simple?