Although the thinking, rational mind might amke a cogent argument that it is ridiculous to be blogging at a time like this I am waiting for the midwife and trying to distract myself from contractions which are both regular and unsettling.

So looks like the baby is on his way.

Thanks everyone for all the nice wishes and labour inducing thoughts of previous days. Looks like they work. Either that or the curry.

My Campaign To Evict The Baby has now branched into Hot Curry and Chilli Sauce on Everything. However, while this has caused all kinds of motivated action in my digestive system, the Uterus remains unmoved. I have now resigned myself to the likelihood that the kid won't shift until January and consoling myself with the knowledge that an early January birthday will give it a more harmonious natal chart at least.

We went to the cinema yesterday to watch I am Legend because I find post-Apocalyptic movies both compelling and strangely relaxing (although I recongise that perhaps not everyone likes to watch Day After Tomorrow and Waterworld to unwind). I enjoyed it thoroughly although the dramatic tension of the proceedings was heightened for Z thanks to his touching conviction that I was going to have the baby at any moment thus needing him to carry me out of the cinema halfway through the film while speed dialling the midwife.

My personal conviction on the other hand goes more along the lines of "We can watch every film on release now and the child would still not show. In fact I could probably watch half of them to help me through the early labour." (Note to self: Have Waterworld somewhere easily accessible. And the Battlestar Galactica Miniseries).

Today is Z's and mine three year anniversary and as a sign of his love and devotion he didn't protest while I shopped for shoes online (because you know, what with all the walking and going out and working I'll be sure to be doing in the near future I clearly need new shoes; although on the other hand a true lady knows that New Shoes require no logical justification).

Also having berated my husband about his failure to take any flattering pictures of me and The Belly he rose to the challenge and did himself proud:

Dear Nina,

Keep up your efforts to make the baby come, because I like laughing.

Love,

The Universe

P.S. Also keep on drinking that foul tea. And hoping. Your hope tastes sweet. Like your tears.

Dear Baby,

Some children, considerate children, good and loving children are born before their due dates.

I'm just saying.

Love,

Yo' Mama (aka the woman on whom you will be relying to keep you alive and supply you with pocket money).


Dear Mama,

I hope that my stubborn refusal to listen to your urgings to come early makes me worthy to wear the title of Capricorn. Looking forward to a lifetime of obstinacy.

Love,

Your Son



Babes,

You better be effin cute.

Love,

Mama

Spurred by the ever greater acts of contortionism required to cut/paint my toenails, I succumbed to the many temptations of capitalism and had my first pedicure. At first I was a bit frightened by the array of implements the beautician whipped out and attacked my feet with the attitude of grim determination required to tame the Jewish Toenail Of Doom (a curse passed down faithfully through the generations from mother to daughter). The Jewish Toenail of Doom may well be evidence that if not humans (then at least my maternal line) are descended not from monkeys but from hawks. It is gigantic and hardy and irregular shaped and laughs in the face of ambitions to turn it into something sweet and ladylike.

But no more shall I fear your rule of terror, Toenail! For you have been conquered by my tiny beautician and her Magical Box of Magical Tools! My feet have never looked so dainty. Were it not the depths of winter I would be prancing around in flip flops believe me (especially if my pelvis permitted me to prance).

Tomorrow's fiendish plans include a haircut and eyebrow wax, and then I shall be truly ready for motherhood and its grim promises that even having a shower will feel like an accomplishment.

**********

On the other hand, the workings of the postal system continue to be a trial to me. Z's Christmas present (which I ordered in November) went on an exciting world tour via the Galapagos islands and the neighbours mailboxes and finally fell into my trembling little hands today. This is a relief and saves me the trouble of having to gift wrap tangerines, because that's the only other thing in the house that he doesn't know we have.

And on that same subject, talking with Z this morning:

N: Sweetie, you know how I said 'please feel free not to spend money on me at Christmas because We Are Poor and I still love you?' I totally meant that. Although, just so you know, I also meant the part where I went: 'However, please also remember how important it is to have something under the tree which I can unwrap. I don't care if it's small and symbolic, I don't care if it's a pebble you found on the street, as long as it's wrapped. And for me. And under the tree.' I completely meant that part as well. And failure to comply to these regulations will unleash Force 10 hormonal hatred upon you.

Z: *smiling beatifically* You are so cute.

N: *having a sudden vision of Z getting up on Christmas morning followed by the sound of some rustling and hissing, and maybe a scream and then walking into the living room to find one of the cats bound and trussed up with ribbons and bows mewling under our potted pine*

************

Also, like Z, who seemingly likes to pass the time by offending hippies, I can also be unfunny. And completely misjudge my audience.

A Very Pregnant Woman, Whose Child Was Due 12 Days Ago But Shows No Signs Of Wanting To Come Out: *crying* I just want it to be over. I just want it to be over. I can't move, I can't sleep, when I think of staying pregnant for just five more minutes I want to stab myself in the eye. I want my life to go on, and stop being stuck in this limbo. I CAN'T TAKE IT, YOU HEAR ME? And the baby it just doesn't shift.

N: Start drinking and smoking to teach it a lesson.

*A stony silence ensues.*

Operations Raspeberry Leaf Tea and Clary Sage Massage Oil are All Systems Go.

Nowadays most of the internal discussions I have with my child involve some manner of the following: "Hi! Goodness, you must be bored in there by now. Same scenery! Same noises! Boring! I bet you want to see All The Exciting New Things that exist in the world. Have I mentioned that they are exciting? And new? Come check them out!"

or else: "Hey, you know all those strong irregular contractions I was having between Sunday and Wednesday? I could totally handle some more! Regular ones even. Honestly, it's fine!"

On the other hand, when I think of the enormity of the event which is having my child born, and you know, HERE, in the outside world, my mind starts to boggle with it just a little and I think "er, maybe being pregnant a bit longer is just fine."

In the informal family pool that seems to be existing, the most popular day for the baby's arrival is 25th or 26th of December. On the other hand the strong Sagittarian faction is cheering from the sidelines and urging me to get on with it as soon as possible, preferrably before the 23rd of December.

The amount of pain I am in, continues to increase and Not Be Funny. Other things that are not funny? Bruce Forsyth. And the fact that more than a week before the due date (!!1!!11!!) I am already having to have repeated phone conversations that go something like this:

No, I haven't had the baby yet. No, I'm not in labour right now. No, I have no news to report unless you'd like a breakdown of my trips to the loo. But you know, thank you for asking. AGAIN. You're right, that part where I was all - don't call me, I'll call you- was a stupid suggestion. Feel free to disregard it. I look forward to our next phonecall six hours from now.

On the other hand, what IS funny is a shaved cat. Who in this case is the New Old Cat, recently returned to us microchipped and vaccinated and wormed and wombless and slightly less frightened by humanity although still seemingly repelled by Z from the Cats Protection League. I am happy to report that I am still her snuggle bunny though and that I'm having to turn over in bed even more carefully than usual lest I kick her in the head or something as she curls up next to me. She's definately less wild than she was before, but she's also less purry. Still adjusting, I guess.

The other thing I could be very funny? The Santa costume for Zelda that I ordered off ebay because the Devil, he spoke to me and he said: "Give in to temptation. Give in. You know you want to. It feels soooo goood. Just do it. Excellent. Good minion, good. You please me muchly. Now go put make up on Z while he is sleeping."

Z and I did a test run of putting up the birthpool and experimenting with the unearthly forces necessary to keep the cats away from it.

Behold our mastery with plastic! Quake before our parenting know-how!



And now, here is a list of ways in which Pregnancy Has Not Ruined My Life:

1) The hair upon my head has never been fuller or glossier.

2) My skin is softer and smoother than its ever been.

3) Before getting knocked up I had been blessed with follicularity of the legs normally seen on wolves. However, the changes in hormones evidently needed to keep a baby alive have meant that hair I waxed off stayed away. I am for the first time of my adult life enjoying perfectly smooth pins with no effort on my part. This having children lark might be worth it just for that.

Occasionally when I'm feeling weepy and unsure about what good my life on this earth does to anybody, all I have to remember is the state of Z's shoes and trousers before we started going out and my Life's Path It Opens Up and Shines Shinily Before Me.

It has always been a source of mystery to me how a man who displayed such exquisite taste in buying clothes and presents for me could see no problem with clothing himself in apparel that looked like it had been extracted from dumpsters and sewn by cats. The jacket of his one suit nearly came down to his knees and he owned one pair of trousers that was not:

a) baggy and misshapen
b) too short
c) too tight in the wrong part of the leg
d) designed for the riding of motorbikes
e)from the 80s.
f) from the 80s and the time when his waistline had been smaller by 4 inches or so
g) part of a tracksuit.

Z's trouser choices made me cry as much as his baggy collection of baggy t-shirts (although his shirts with the holes in the back from where he had been practicing archery IN THE HOUSE, that made me laugh). Along with all this, Z owned one pair of shoes that were not trainers or biking boots and he wore them day in day out to every occasion from job interviews to hikes in the countryside (he did this with a feeling of pride since "their endurance and versatility is exactly the reason I bought those shoes"). We come from the same country. I am as fond of footwear constructed with communist endurance in mind as anyone else. But I was also convinced it was time to expand his range.

And because H&Ms exist in the world and make things shiny and good and because Z is an essentially cheerful, easygoing person who wants to please others he let himself be steered into Brent Cross on more than one occasion during our years together and he purchased lovely fitted things of his own free will.

And then with my underground Resistance movement of throwing out stuff that looked like shit and replacing it with stuff that didn't, slowly, slowly his wardrobe reached a level of Perfect Acceptability meaning the only thing truly left to tackle was the hair on his head which grows incredibly fast and assumes alarming shapes. (And aside from you know the odd occasion where I accidentally amputated a sideburn or two while learning how to wield hairclippers thereby forcing Z to walk around for two weeks with band aids on his face in an attempt to disguise this, the Hair Taming Experiment has gone pretty well on the whole; nowadays Z has even found a local barber he is in perfect understanding with, and I'm pleased to report there have been no more sideburn casualties).

But the true revolution came in the field of shoes. And I knew I had helped make the world a better place when Z bought not one but TWO PAIRS of lovely and sexy and appropriate and smart-looking shoes. Of his own free will no less. And using his own eyes and aesthetic capacities! And without making any comments along the lines of: "Now I'll be able to go to construction sites and ballroom dancing!"

And then yesterday I reached the pinnacle of my joy when of his own free will, he bought lovely shoes over the internet. And the angels, they sang. And the unborn children they bounced as they surfed the waves of their mothers delight. And the Ninas, they rejoiced.

And the cobblers, they sat up with alert expressions. Because - Mystery the second- I am starting to suspect that Z's feet actually have secret titanium extendable claws in them, a bit like Wolverine's hands since that man he makes cobblers cry. Or you know laugh, as they extract blood money from me every six months to repair the sole, or shake their heads in mystery as they contemplate holes, HOLES! that have been gouged into the shoe's inner lining.


In other news this has been a week of Exciting Things. I started having contractions on Sunday (painful, but few and far between) which I breathed through in between finishing off various handwritten pieces of my coursework. And then on Tuesday I handed in the said coursework and there was FREEDOM, and then on Wednesday it was chiller's birthday and my waddling to the pub was rewarded by the presence of lovely peoples and chiller's glorious shiny hair.

In other news:

I am exactly 38 weeks pregnant, which means I have been lugging this child around for 35.5 of them and the last time I was pain free enough to have sex is but a distant memory of happiness and heady, innocent summer when dinosaurs entertained themselves by roaming the earth.

I saw the midwife today and she confirmed that the baby's head is nicely descending into the pelvis (3/5ths down, woo hoo!) and we worked out a communal plan of action for Getting This Child Out Of Me As Soon As Possible, Thank You, Using Natural Methods Or Black Arts, At This Point I DOn't Care, Whatever Works.

Today is Z's 34th birthday. Happy birthday honeybunny! I love you lots and lots! So much so that I got up early to make you coffee and didn't succumb to the temptation to have hormonal fightey weep-fests at 2am!

Maternity leave is GLORIOUS. I continue to sleep almost as much as the cats. In fact I think the cats and I are acquiring something akin to a Collective Mind whereby we all enjoy a leisurly snooze then maybe get up for something to eat and a bit of love and then sleep again.

I feared I might be bored, but truthfully I haven't been awake for long enough for that to happen. Currently there's nothing I don't love about being home, from being able to play on the internet whenever I want to it being perfectly socially acceptable to combat pelvic pain by walking around while clutching my crotch and moaning.

And to prevent myself from feeling like a complete wastrel I have packed my hospital bag and even though I've tried to take the minimum of stuff I still feel like I'm preparing to go camping/survive the Apocalypse.

This morning I noticed that Urchin Cat is looking a lot more of a belly then when she first came, meaning that a) either I've been feeding her more than I've realised or b) she's pregnant. And I was immediately seized by a terrifying and nightmarish vision of attempting to tend to a baby while ankle deep in kittens, a vision so dreadful that I realised my 'i will take her to the vet when she stops being so scared of getting into a box' was not going to cut the mustard anymore. So I called Cats Protection League, who are coming to pick her up today or tomorrow. And I have spent the intervening two hours crying.

Partially because no doubt the hormones, they are raging. Partially because I've grown so attached to her that I will miss her desperately when she's not around. But mostly because I know how batshit-insanely terrified she is of people-who-are-not-me and even more so of being put into boxes. So the thought of someone coming to stuff her into a box and then into a pen- it breaks my heart. Even though I know this is so necessary (after all she needs to be vaccinated, and neutered and checked for microchips and all that, but I still feel like I'm handing her over to be tortured). And when she shows me her delicious strokable belly and bats and melts under my touch and lovingly headbutts me all full of joy and trust I feel like even more of a Judas.

And I thought I was so hardcore because I didn't snuffle watching Animal Hospital.

Wednesday was my last day of work. Originally I wasn't meant to go on leave until the second week of December but the amounts of pain I was in made me collate all my annual leave and just take off early.

On Thursday I did as the cats do and slept all day with an occasional pause for food and stretching only to sleep in a different position. TOday I did much of the same, only with a shower and some hair-combing thrown in. Although I am no stranger to sloth, this crazy amount of self-indulgence made me feel quite guilty (I had been entertaining bold - and clearly doomed- plans of cleaning the house). I had no idea I could feel that tired considering I slept most of the day, then slept all night as well. However, in reality I think I should be making the most of it considering that after the baby comes I won't be getting restful shuteye for the next 18 years.

The last days of work were hard. Despite being buoyed by crazy rushes of adrenaline I was still struggling to get through the day. THe baby's head had begun to move down into my pelvis (an entirely normal procedure) but it roughly translated as OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW as pelvic pain shot up another octave and I walked in a manner that was not so much waddle as Lurch Of The Undead.

I'm in the 37th week of pregnancy, and it's been a time of milestones it seems. My navel has begun to get shallower and I've had to take out my bellybutton piercing.

Everyone tells me I look great, which is encouraging considering that if I felt like crap AND looked like crap I'd probably spend all my days crying. One thing I'm grateful for is that at least it's not Z in pain because a) if he was we'd probably have ended up in marriage counselling by now and b) of the two of us he is much better placed to periodically haul the other into verticality.

And on that same note of counting my blessings and whatnot, here is a list of evils that have not been visited upon me in this pregnancy: stretch marks, heartburn, swelling, contstipation, piles, insomnia, excessive weight gain. Verily, verily, long may they stay away.

The urchin cat is wonderful. I am particularly fond of her habit of sleeping either on me or curled up next to some crook of my body, purring and generating contentment. (Though she still fears Z, I am very much her little snugglebunny). As far as I'm concerned, she has one bad habit which is an insistence on grooming me. While I appreciate the thought, the raspiness of her tongue I'm not so wild about. She is a strange little creature. Half puppy, half-cat. Incredibly affectionate, with a passion of curling up near wherever I am, but without the need to chew shoes and stuff.

LJ has been sadly neglected in the past couple of weeks while I struggled to get through my contracted hours without crying, but now that I am no longer gainfully employed catching up on your lives seems like the finest use of my time and I look forward to doing so.

"The baby is fine. Strepsils are not heroin" is merely the latest additions to Things I Never Thought I'd Say In My Life.

And on the subjects of additions, a beautiful little tortoiseshell cat has spent a week living in the garden before she overcame her terror of Anything That Isn't Milica The Cat and has spent the last five days ingratiating herself into the household. Asylum Seeking Cat is absolutely adorable and her main interests at present appear to be: 1) Gadding about through the garden with First Cat 2) having her face stroked 3) purring loudly while curled against some crook of my body 4) eating. Nevertheless the majority of her time is still spent in Hiding Under The Bed because she appears equally torn between her hunger for interaction and her terror that We Will Do Something Horrible To Her, because the moment one of us does anything as irresponsible as say speak, or move across the room she flees. We're waiting a while to have her calm down a bit more before we stuff her into a tiny box and take her to the vet to scan her for microchips but I am suspecting that she doesn't want to return wherever she came from. Z and I are still firmly in denial over the fact that we are becoming a three-cat household (for the added vet bills and insurance would surely make us weep and I'm sort of hoping that another loving home may be found for her.

And in line with my determination Not To Think Of THe Sad Things, I shall talk instead about the fact that my dearly beloved friend Susan is here, and that I am on Annual Leave and that I had a perfectly delightful weekend, enhanced by the company of webofevil and the 5000 pancakes Z had whipped up.

And finally, happy birthday to my shiny honey humanfemale!I hope a glorious year awaits you, and I heart you and miss you and you should try strange foods while in Australia and continue to not get killed.

October 2007 may well become known as the month when the Universe decided to beat up on Z and Nina until they wept for mercy just so it could go "No mercy for you suckers!" and then kick them in the teeth some more. My stress levels can be perhaps accurately mirrored in the fact that I either seem to have no appetite at all, or I eat vast quantities of cheese. (Mmmmmm, cheese).

October has been the month where I have found myself facing £3000 of bills I did not epect, not receiving the £2000 I was expecting and contemplating idly what life will be like next year when Small Squalling Thing is here and I'm bringing home the pittance that the British Government likes to call Statutory Maternity Pay. (And cheese, as we well know, does not pay for itself).

In a similar vein (because what are financial woes, without physical ones to accompany them?) my already-bad pelvic pain has been exponentially increased by the fact that on Monday afternoon a child barrelled into me in the library, smacking me in the most painful part of my pelvis, causing me to see every star in the sky and spend the next 45 minutes lying on the carpeted floor too shocked to contemplate anything but shallow breathing and getting someone to call a taxi to drive me the 500 metres home because I couldn't manage to walk that much.

Since then I've kept my walking/sitting minimal and my paracetamol intake high. I can probably go about half an hour of sitting and/or ten minutes of walking -I employ the word in its loosest sense, since I'm shuffling about with tiny steps, like a geisha with Parkinson's- before I feel like I'm being stabbed with a handful of fiery needles. The house looks like a bomb site and I haven't got the energy to clean it, even though just looking at it makes me want to cry. (I am a tidy person trapped in a disorganised person's body).

But! The month of October has still not dampened by resolution to Not Focus On the Negatives so let us talk instead about the gloriousness of the weekend past when Z and I visited chiller and met her cats, and ate her scones (which also happen to be the finest scones I have ever had) and admired her interior decorating talents. And then there's also the fact that I found The Best Smart Maternity Trousers In The World and I will post pictures of their exquisite beauty as soon as I'm vertical again.

Today I'm off work to rest and recuperate for a day in the office tomorrow, and I'm lying in bed piled high with kittens whose goal for Life Happiness seems to consist in molding themselves to my body and grooming my sweater (one of these days one of them will start spitting up blue hairballs).

One of my ex-colleagues is pregnant and expecting her baby a couple of weeks before I'm serving an eviction notice to mine, and by all accounts she is not only glowing with happiness but being amazingly industrious and sewing baby quilts and whatnot, which makes me smile in a wry sort of way since the most industrious thing I've done for my child is to feed it cheese and threaten its father with divorce unless he stops snoring.

Ultimately though, I am OK. One thing that this month has proved to me is just how amazingly strong and supportive Z is and how Things Will Be Fine. I have unshakable faith that as long as the baby is healthy and the two of us are as rock solid to each other as we normally are, then the world can fall apart and we will still be fine. We will find some way through the mess, work out a strategy, take out some loans if need be but ultimately work things out. That as long as we're together and good to each other, that's all that matters. That, and not letting the cheese run out.

So ultimately, I'm not anxious. Only holding my breath through a long dive underwater.

Today I am wearing my long plastic fuschia beaded Necklace Of Happiness even though it matches no aspect of my outfit because it's only the middle of the week and between work and uni I've been doing 12 hour days and frankly I need the emotional boost.

London is all grey and aside from the day when I walked out to find the city hung with gilded mist, there has been no other edifying features of this state of affairs. It is becoming especially ardurous to get up in the morning, since the alternative is remaining in Z's arms, snuggling into each other like puzzle pieces, feeling the baby do its morning disco routine in my belly.

( click here for some full frontal 30-weeks-tomorrow baby belly action )

But! Look!


London also regularly does things which delight me. Like the fact that someone went to the trouble of making these big paper cranes and hanging them up in a tunnel next to Vauxhall Station. The sight of them cheers me up every time I go to my course.

There should be more of this sort of thing. Hang up more cheery stuff random stuff in London! I feel so strongly about this issue, I would vote for whichever mayoral candidate makes this a part of their campaign.

3 things which have made me break down and cry today:

1. the act of rolling over in bed.

2. the 15 or so phonecalls I received from my mother's tenant (this may well be the start of me developing a phone phobia, and possibly the factor I have to thank for the elevated blood sugar I've been enjoying recently).

3. the person who got up to offer me a seat on the packed and sweltering bus.

The combination of planets and pregnancy is seriously kicking my ass.
With Saturn in Virgo it has felt like that no matter how hard I work at being good and fixing things it's never enough and I need to keep on trying and trying. And Mercury in preparation for retrograde has made me contemplate the logistics of turning off every phone and curling up in some small dark place where no one can reach me again (or at the very least not unless they come bearing tea and snacks).

Today is my granny's hundredth birthday, and she celebrates a whole century of surviving the jolly wars of Europe and at least 80 years of telling people they are eating too much and that their buttocks are too big.

Happy 100 years granny! I hope you are having a splendid day. x



As for those among us who are unborn:

Apparently I am gestating a giant. Not a massively heavy baby but a tall one , whose long femur bones have pushed my uterus into my ribcage (Z: "Are you sure it's mine?") so that it's measuring several centimetres above average in fundal height causing people's heads to wrinkle with concern at antenatal appointments and me to enjoy all-you-can-eat wealth of ultrasounds. Thankfully the baby is still measuring within the normal range, just at the upper end of it.

By the sounds of it this is not an unusual occurence in the family. At birth I was a very tall, and very slim baby (Z: "So what went wrong?") and so were my ancestors.

As my achey breakey pelvic and I sail into the third trimester with its grim promises of how much worse I'm going to feel, and struggle to breathe for two people especially when one of them insists in kicking you in the spleen, I find myself once more seeking the refuge of the sofa as I did in those wretched first months.

Now it's not the tiredness that gets me so much as the pelvic pain which in particularly excruciating moments (like when I want to roll over in bed say) feels like two segments of a broken bone grinding together. Or else being repeatedly stabbed with an incadescent poker. Therefore my social activities of late have been reduced to petting the cats and weeping bitter tears (and First Cat for one is really enjoying me not being able to move, since immobile human = so much petting that he is starting to fray with the ecstasy).

Also, I think the baby likes to plan ahead. For about two months now at every appointment and scan he's been curled up head down, gently head-butting my cervix and bladder. This I expect is another vote for Camp Capricorn because I'd expect a future Sagittarian to get up to a lot more cartwheeling and whizzing around.

But it's not all doom and gloom in maternity world. My skin is flawless, my belly remains fairly compact, I am wearing blue fishnets and my booty has finally been united with a perfect pair of maternity jeans. If you can't have your health, you might as well have cute outfits I say.

This is a picture of my 25 week pregnancy belly:


which incidentally is more or less the same size as my 21 week pregnancy belly and not a whole lot larger than my 17 week pregnancy belly (and who am I kidding, that in itself was a I-had-too-much-curry version of my pre-pregnancy stomach). It is causing something of a mystery in the household, and everyone knows that quandries and enigmas (like marital disputes) can only be succesfully resolved by polling the internets.

My dodgy back and I are deeply grateful to The Belly for staying compact for so long as we are sure that whatever varied pains and wretchednesses we are in now would only be exacerbated by a growing stomach (and as ever I am pleased to continue being able to see feet and self-administer manicures) although I am somewhat dismayed by the fact that it's staying so compact for so long. To add to our mystery the baby is by all accounts growing appropriately and every week I can feel my fundus (top of uterus) rising higher and higher through my abdomen.

Since everything is gestationally normal, Z and I are each developing cunning theories to explain Compactness of Belly. I am inclined to believe it's a child designed by Japanese engineers to remain as small as possible, while Z mostly believes that I have the most spacious abdominal cavity in the world.

And since I am not famous, and do not have tabloids speculating on this subject for me, I as ever, turn to you oh internets.

Poll #1054157 The Mystery Of The Baby Belly
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

The explanation of belly size is:

Suggest your own ideas

If there is one thing I wish that could be different about this pregnancy (well aside from no pelvic pain, two things then) is I wish I could be more innocent about it. I wish I could be one of those women who from the first moment they see those two pink lines start painting nurseries and choosing names and whose minds aren't troubled by the thought of whether their children will survive to be born.

I am not one of those women, for many reasons beyond my Scorpio Moon. My mother had a terrible time reproducing, since so many of her attempts at it ended up doomed to failure late in the pregnancy. Babies who were born too soon, or born dead at seven months gestation. And while I have never had any fertility problems, nor any indication that Kicky Baby was in anything other than excellent spirits and sterling condition, I don't dare trust in happy outcomes fully.

I haven't been able to since my father died and I learned in that unerasable way how deeply and how quickly things can go wrong.

I'm not overly worried mind you. Most days I even tread the line between cheerful and cautiously optimistic. I just know that I won't be able to relax fully and completely until I have a healthy baby placed into my arms, and there after I won't be able to relax again EVER. Or at least not until my children flee their nests and I devote myself to martinis.

In Yugoslavia there is a deeply ingrained custom that nothing is bought of prepared for a baby until after the baby is born. The reasoning behind it I suppose being that if summat goes wrong and you don't walk away with a baby to put into that room you've made then you will be even sadder that if there wasn't an empty room staring at you in the face, waiting to pummel you with reminders.

This tradition has deep roots. It's endemic. Even people who consider themselves rational, atheist-thinking people do it. And rebelling against it- man that was hard. The thing had got me but good. It had wrapped its chill tentacles around my heart and for weeks on end while I paced that no man's land between attachment to the baby and its ability to survive outside my womb I felt that just by merely looking at all the fluffy footed onesies I was jinxing everything, bringing on some looming, terrible event.

While Z could see my darkly pragmatic point of how-sad-will-we-be-if-we-have-a-room-but-no-baby he also felt that preparing stuff for the child's arrival after it had arrived would be more stres than strictly necessary and would only end in a scenario where all three of us wept with frustration and wretchedness.

So we continued to put our hearts and paintbrushes on hold, until I reached my 24th week of pregnancy - otherwise known as the magical point after which babies become viable (i.e. have a chance of surviving after birth).

And all of last weekend we worked, cleaning and de-cluttering that spare room in our house which had previously served as the resting place of all manner of miscellanous clutter and chaos. We had long ago decided how we wanted to decorate the space (jungle theme) and this empty, guest-less weekend we set about manifesting our vision.

Z enjoyed doing all the painting (he said it felt like giving his child something clean and lovely, and brand new; exorcising all of our clutter and the phantoms of whoever had been in that room before) and I enjoyed seeing him sport handfuls of pearly-grey paint all over his hair and face and clothes until he was as splendidly bedecked in it as an Aboriginal man.

On Sunday we braved the labyrinthine bowels of IKEA in order to acquire various brightly coloured things and Z earned himself some more Good Marital Karma points by assembling the wardrobe and then whipping up a bunch of pancakes for us to enjoy with X-Factor.

Our Mood Of Gayness and Affability became slightly strained by the application of these (best product ever! but boy does it seem to require an awful lot of concentration) where Z's engineer brain and Sense Of The Scientifically Real both had a battering.

Z: No! We cannot place the turtle sticker in the middle of the wall! My son will grow up to think animals float just willy nilly with no regards for the laws of gravity!

N:: Baby your son will grow up looking at bright things which will hold a lot more appeal for him early on that the principles of physics which he will likely as not spend his childhood trying to flout.

Z: We cannot attach that monkey hanging from a branch to the palm tree! Palm trees don't have branches!

N: But it's pretty! And aesthetically pleasing trumps accurate in a nursery.

But I only had to remind Z once not to shout at me over incorrect sticking technique and he bravely clambered all over rickety ladders to secure to the ceiling a string of leaf shaped fairy lights I'd bought ages ago and the end-result has pleased us so mightily that every few hours we go into that room to look at it and be gleeful.

Of course unhappy outcomes can still happen. And if we lose the baby then the nursery will make me unspeakably sad. And I probably won't be able to set foot in there without wanting to kill myself.

But I choose to say fuck off to the possibility of those outcomes, and we applied ourselves to the project with all of our best hopes and all our love, and chose just for a while to walk on the side of the sunny, happy angels instead.

My son's room (which will one day have a cot too):



The existence of teeny tiny clothes for teeny tiny people fells me every time with the overload of cute:

Mornings are generally not my finest hour, but today's was especially woesome. The cats were communicating their hunger and excitement by winding themselves around my legs as I twirled through the kitchen getting everybody's breakfast and doing their damndest to place themselves beneath my feet. And when I made some kind of sudden twisty movement to prevent myself from crushing First Cat my back shot up a spasm of such agony that I screamed my pain and stress and frustration in a rather primal and dramatic manner. (Although psychologically it had many benefits, in life it seemed to have traumatised the household).

Both cats fled the house in terror without pausing to have any breakfast, and my up-to-that point frisky and frolicsome and gaily kicking fetus went completely still and didn't budge for the next four hours.

And once I managed to move again, I found myself sufficiently doped on adrenaline to shuffle off to work using tiny Geisha-like steps and punctuate the morning with intermittent groans and soft weeping.

FOrtunately I had a physio appointment for this afternoon, and having arrived thither in my full disabled glory going "Fix me, please fix me" I delighted my physiotherapist by managing to present with back pain, coccyx pain AND groin pain and she delighted me with telling me that for the foreseeable future I need to walk, stand, sit and transition between these with the body posture of a mummy (legs glued to one another).

Half an hour to go before I shuffle home to the comforts of sofa and frozen pizza and those kind souls (animal and human) who will keep me company in my hours of Wretched Misery.

Incidentally, does anyone know where I can purchase a donut-shaped cushion?

Over are the days in which I shall weep over the lack of adequate maternity trouserings. For the Universe, it has taken mercy upon me and led me to a secret maternity section in H&M and there I have discovered trousers that did not make me weep with frustration, but with JOY.

Even black trousers! Professional looking trousers evidently not made by gnomes for gnomes! Trousers that appreciate leg length, trousers whose bootcut hems doth effortlessly reach the bottom of my ankle!

The importance of this discovery cannot be overestimated, since the Presence Of Good Trousers is instrumental to my quality of life. On occasions it is the only thing that stands between me and hermitude, and certainly it's been a powerful factor in my new-found enjoyment of pregnancy despite annoying foot-swellage and ligament pain. (Although apparently nothing entertains small children quite as much as me lurching around the office like a zombie on account of tendonal agony).

I have to say, the outward belly is remaining much more compact and manageable than I dared hope despite bullying and re-routing all my internal organs.

( Two shots of the 23 week pregnancy belly )

The baby continues to enliven my working days with backflips and kickings and elbowings and the occasional rendition of Riverdance on my bladder. Although the last is not nearly as delightful as the others my bladder is a bladder made tough by long car journeys and dreadful en-route toilet conditions of childhood and it endures with fortitude. (If this doesn't give me the pelvic floor of Steel I don't know what will).

The past few weeks have been a tense emotional no-man's land between my attachment to the baby and my anxiety about pregnancy loss (founded on nothing beyond my mother's history of miscarriages and my own 'I cannot think of joy and butterflies without also thinking of disaster' imagination) but as the baby reaches its point of viability I am enjoying it more and more.

Five best pregnancy moments so far:

*The day I found out.

*My 13 week ultrasound when I saw the by-then humanoid baby wriggling and jumping and sticking its tongue out at me.

*Feeling the baby move for the first time - a curious sensation as though a giant moth were beating its wings inside me.

*Waking to a pool of sunlight, then progressing to sleepy snugglings and Z reciting a weather report to my stomach.

*Just now - the cat watching my stomach intently and gently sniffing and batting at the baby flutters under my skin.

(Sixth favourite moment - the expression on the faces of the gathered health workers as I drank a glass of champagne at a leaving do yesterday)