Earlier this year I was honoured to share my friend Katy’s story of the loss of her baby girl, Alma (read her story here). Today I’m equally honoured, and thrilled, to share her thoughts as she waits the final few days of pregnancy before the birth of her first child.
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I love Autumn. The encroaching darkness may be a little hard to accept after summer’s long, halcyon days, but there is something so comforting and cosy about the burnished colours of falling leaves, the warming aromas of spices and apples on the stove, the steam of hot cocoa on a crisp, chilly day.
Autumn – and October in particular – is a significant time for my husband and me. It’s the month we first met, three years ago. On our second date, we hiked up to a rugged swathe of moorland where stags were rutting. We unpacked a picnic and watched, breathless, as the stags locked antlers amid the russet-hued grasses and swirling mist. A downpour swiftly ensued, and as we laughed and stumbled our way back down the sodden hillsides, dripping wet and shivering, I knew I’d found my soulmate. The following October, we got engaged at Whitby Abbey, on the wild and windswept coast of North Yorkshire. Or, more accurately, we got engaged on the steps down from the abbey, after I apparently messed things up when he tried to propose at the top. Last October, we got married in our beloved Peak District. And this October, we’re expecting our first baby, due any day now.
Normally, the start of Autumn is the time when I love being out of the house, picking blackberries and going on long, blustery walks with my husband in the Peaks. We wrap up warm, pull on our hiking boots, fill up the thermos with hot coffee, and set out on rambles through the hills before ending up in a country pub with a roaring fire.
But this year, due to a pregnancy dominated by a pelvic condition which makes walking far difficult, I’ve had to make my peace with staying home. In these last days of pregnancy, I’ve been nesting: cleaning, upcycling furniture, decorating the nursery and batch cooking meals to store in the freezer ready for the early, crazy days of parenthood.
I’m now at the point in pregnancy considered full-term, the point at which the baby can come any time. Yet I still have up to three weeks before he will definitely arrive, one way or another. It’s the paradox of the ‘due date’ – somewhat arbitrary, given that only 5% of babies arrive on that date, but it’s been the measure of my life for almost 40 weeks, the arbiter of midwife appointments, scans and milestones; the day I’ve been counting down to. Yet I know that for first-time mothers, a 41 or 42-week pregnancy is actually pretty normal and an ‘on-time’ arrival not so common.
So this is a time which can be full of stress and anxiety: googling natural induction methods with highly questionable scientific bases, over-analysing every twinge and cramp, worrying about the possibilities of medical induction and forceps and c-sections. At home on your own, it’s easy to let your mind be filled with all of this while you drink raspberry-leaf tea, bounce on a gym ball, and mull over the benefits of evening primrose oil for helping the dilation process.
It’s a strange limbo, being on the precipice of something so fundamentally life-changing that I can’t quite imagine it yet, but I’m impatient for it to happen, already! After 9 months of weathering every pregnancy discomfort, from the early days of morning sickness to this late-stage elephantine condition, the desire for things to get a move on is overwhelming. One of my friends, a new mother, joked that these last few weeks are part of evolutionary design so that when labour does finally start, you don’t care about the prospect of intense pain anymore – you just want the baby out!
At the same time there is ongoing fear of the unknown. For me, it really isn’t a fear of labour: this is my rainbow baby, the first my body has brought to term after two miscarriages. Because of that, I know without a doubt that I can cope with the pain of labour, as long as he is ok. But everything from this point on is completely unknown territory.
In the midst of these whirling thoughts, I am trying my best to find an Autumnal calm – to savour these last days of solitude and little projects, reading books that have been sitting on my bookshelf gathering dust, binge-watching boxsets without guilt (something I am finding surprisingly hard!), enjoying brief forays into the October sunshine, going on brunch and dinner dates with my husband, meeting other pregnant and new-mum friends for lazy coffees and camaraderie.
My wardrobe is covered in colourful affirmative cards, given to me by a friend, which remind me daily that my baby will come when he is ready, that I am prepared for labour, and that I will be a good mother. If nothing else, sitting on the end of the bed for a few minutes each morning and reading a few of the cards offers a quiet bonding moment with the baby.
I’m hoping that he’ll come while the leaves are still turning, while there is still warmth in the sun, before the nights draw in further. But this really is one decision left to my baby and my body, that I really have no choice in. He is currently snuggled inside me, kicking his little legs and using my bladder as a pillow, apparently in no particular hurry to come out. I know that watching and feeling him move inside me right now is something I will look back on as a fleeting memory that passed too quickly, and is something to treasure.
This will be a life-changing Autumn, but for now, it is a season in which I’m learning patience and calm, waiting for the day when I can hold my baby in my arms.