32 weeks down, 8 to go

It's been a while since I gave a pregnancy update. The last couple of months have been somewhat filled with challenges, though also filled with little joys. I'm sure the next 8 weeks are going to feel like an eternity- and at the same time, I'm sure they'll rush by in the blink of an eye. Particularly since I'm only 5 weeks away from the earliest bit of full term (37 weeks), and only 4 weeks away from the stage at which I was born myself.

Prepare for a monster post on various pregnancy topics...

Maternity leave

I was planning on starting maternity leave at 36 weeks, because I had no idea when you were "supposed" to do that kind of thing. I mean, how do you know when you'll want to stop working and give yourself a break until you get there? The answer is you really don't- I thought I'd be fine for 36 weeks, but I'm just getting too tired. So, I've brought it forward two weeks and I'm starting at 34 weeks. Including two days I have off to attend my 10-year high school reunion in Perth plus one public holiday next week, that leaves me a total of 7 days at work.

Gulp.

I imagine I'll be around here and the Forum A LOT more in a fortnight while I try to find things to fill my time...

The black dog

This is kind of related to the above, and to a whole lot of other things, and to nothing at all. Having suffered depression on and off over the last ten years and knowing I was at higher risk for post-natal depression, I decided I was going to take a proactive approach and see a psychologist for a couple of sessions before the baby arrives.

So I went along a couple of weeks ago, and I sat and had a talk. And a good vent. And a really good cry. And by the end of it, the psychologist had decided I was already suffering from antenatal depression.

I'm writing this because in the two weeks since then, I've come to understand that I (like many others) was so fixed on looking out for the famous post-natal depression that I blindly ignored the signs of the less talked about but equally common pre-birth variety. I let it sneak up and get me because I was too busy looking into the future to concentrate on the present.

Antenatal depression- like a lot of pregnant ladies, I've been feeling pretty down at times. A couple of times I've had full-on anxiety attacks about minor things; a couple of times I've just had stretches where I've felt a little bit weepy and sad. But in the meantime, I didn't notice the other signs, or passed them off as more pregnancy symptoms. I've been completely exhausted lately- absolutely no energy at all. My motivation for everything, from work to writing to jewellery, has dropped away almost completely. I'm not interested in anything except sitting on the couch, and the angry little voice in my head has been getting surreptitiously louder about that, too, telling me I'm lazy and useless and all those other depressing things. I'm fixated on all the bad things about having a baby, convinced that my life is going to be a 24-hour hell of crying, pooping misery. My eye is drawn to every horrible story about awful things happening to babies and pregnant women, and once I've read something like that I can't stop thinking about it for hours- sometimes days.

Each of those alone didn't worry me a great deal- I was happy to ignore each one as another mood swing. But it's been at least a month of feeling all of those most of the time, and my doctor agrees with my psychologist. In fact, she wants to put me on antidepressant medication immediately.

I'm not so keen. I've taken antidepressants for three separate cycles of a year to two years before, and I believe they play a hugely important role once the body gets to a stage where it can't re-establish hormonal equilibrium without extra help. I don't feel like I'm quite there yet. But the doctor has pointed out that the medication takes six weeks to work, by which stage I could already have the baby, and my body and brain are going to be even more out of whack and struggling to cope.

I'm going to keep thinking about it for a few more days and see how I feel. I'm not sure what I'll do. I have reservations on a whole lot of different levels, but I don't want to spend the first few weeks of my baby's life in absolute misery, and I can see how easy the slide would be from here to there. I'm already halfway down the slope.

Regardless, I think it's important that people realise antenatal depression is a reality, and it can affect anyone. I'm very glad I went and sought help early, and I'm glad there are professionals out there willing to listen and help.

The new most popular question

First, people wanted to know how sick I was feeling. Then they wanted to know if it was a boy or a girl (first if we were going to find out one way or the other, then if we had). Lately it's been what kind of crazy food cravings I've had (nothing consistent is the answer to that).

Now people want to know the name. Everyone. Wants to know. The name.

It's starting to drive me bonkers, I have to admit. I love that everyone is so enthusiastic and interested, truly. But I am NOT going to tell you. Why? Because we haven't fully decided yet. We've mostly decided, but there's always got to be room to rethink. Especially if she comes out with, you know, unexpected bits of anatomy. Which can happen. In which case our preferred girls' name won't matter. The main reason, though, is that anyone I *have* told feels compelled to venture an opinion, often on how they don't like the name and how they wouldn't use it themselves.

I've said it before. My kid. I don't care. No names given until the child is here in person.

Nesting

You have the good kind of nesting, where new furniture arrives and order appears in the world (by the way, the garish tangerine wall colour? Not our choice, we live in a rental):


And then you have the baaad kind of nesting. Like, where everything else gets shoved while order is being created in other rooms:


And also the fact that I've micro-cleaned the skirting boards in three different rooms lately. We consider the house a little like a Rubik's cube these days- sure, maybe everything is shoved in one (OK, two) rooms while the other rooms get fixed up and feng shuid. But once all the pieces are moved back into place, the whole house will be a shining beacon of order. Just you wait.

Antenatal classes

We started antenatal classes last week, and DH was more than a little nervous about watching the infamous birthing video. Me, I've watched about fifty episodes of A Baby Story. I'm all good. Right?

Nope. Come the class, which one of us is sitting there in a cold sweat? Me, not him. Flicking on A Baby Story and watching out of choice is one thing- being shown a video by a midwife who will shortly be doing to you what is being done on that video is a whole other thing. Reality. That lady howling her way through a contraction? That's me in 5-8 weeks.

At the end of it, DH cheerfully declared that he was fine with the whole process now, because the squished blue-and-white thing that came out didn't even look like a baby to start with. Which is all great, except no matter what it looks like I still have to push it out. Sigh.

The Bump

The bump has not grown a great deal in 8 weeks, though the baby definitely has (the elbows, knees and butt sticking out of various portions of my stomach tell me that even without the ultrasound confirmation. Its a good lesson- remember how upset I was to put on all those kilos earlier? I haven't gained a thing since, and everything's healthy. The wee girl and I obviously just grow in spurts.

She's as busy as ever in there, by the way- world championships squirms twenty-four-seven.

Baby shower

So, lastly- this morning my other pregnant friend and I went for massages and meditation, which was wonderful. Then we had our joint baby shower at a friend's place. The two of us were very spoilt by our collection of lovely friends, with lots of gorgeous presents and fabulous food- but the highlight of the whole thing was the cake.

My friend Geri (the host) and I have lately become addicted to the Cake Wrecks blog, and have spent many a lunch-break giggling our heads off at it. If you haven't seen it yet, do yourself a favour and go look- the site is all about professionally decorated cakes gone horribly wrong.

One of the craziest categories of terrible cake is the baby shower cake. Geri and I have laughed ourselves witless at some of the past examples- perfectly crafted cake-babies (dismember before eating!), anatomically correct naked women with babies coming out their nether parts (I kid you not- in a cake), and of course the ever appropriate, let's-get-breastfeeding booby cake (most of those can be found in this collection).

Geri's husband Jules is a professional chef, and we ladies are big fans of his, particularly because we often get his sweet treats at our book club meetings. So, Geri set Jules the task of creating a Cake Wreck-inspired booby cake (partly based on this one). He came through with flying colours, and I am proud to present the cake itself:


See it there, up the back? Want a closer look? Well, OK. Here:


Tee hee! We figure this is actually quite accurate, because if you tried to wear a frilly, frippy bra like that while pregnant you probably would end up extruding out of it (eg). For an especially tasty but somewhat gruesome touch, the cake inside was red velvet cake, so once cut into pieces the cake really did look a bit like a dissected boob. But it tasted absolutely fantastic. Many, many thanks to Geri and especially Jules for giving me the Cake Wreck of my dreams- hideously bad taste, brilliantly executed, and delicious :)

The end result of today is, I've eaten about six kinds of cake and nothing else beyond some toast and baked beans. I'm going to be in a coma for the rest of the day.

I'm supposed to go back to my next writing class tomorrow night, but I don't think I will. First, I'm just not going to have a chance to write the scene I'm supposed to. Second, I'm just not sure I'll get anything from it. You'll hear all about it in a series of blog posts in the coming couple of weeks- I have about nine topics to discuss in varying levels of detail, and hopefully the info will be of some use to people.

Let's talk

If I had to nominate my weakest point in writing, dialogue would shove everything else out of the way to top the list. Pacing would be up there, fighting it out, but there’s no question dialogue would win.

It’s often been pointed out to me how little dialogue there is in Between the Lines, and it’s never bothered me that much, because what I have is an entire family full of men of few words. They’re the “communicate with grunts” types. It just happens that Bill has a lot going on in his head even as he’s not saying much. If he wasn’t thinking and he wasn’t talking, then I’d have about a ten-page novel, I reckon. So thinking is fine. Thinking is great- I’m writing in third person limited point of view, and most people agree they feel right inside Bill’s head when they’re reading.

The only problem is, everyone around Bill- not just his family, but everyone in the world- is also pretty quiet. And that’s just not right.

Which leads me to realise I have a total aversion to dialogue, full stop. Everything I write comes out sounding silly or pointless or wrong. This is extremely ironic for someone who started writing with screenplays, I might point out. Anyway- I’m going to my first ever writing class tomorrow, and it’s on dialogue. I’m super excited about the prospect of learning new techniques and figuring my way through the land of the spoken word. But! First I have to find a piece of writing to take with me for the class.

Gulp.

You know what? This allergy to dialogue is serious. Because I can barely find three scenes in the entire 120000 word first draft with more than a few lines of dialogue. I’m not kidding when I say the “” buttons are the least used on my keyboard. I’m not going to worry about that, though. I’m going to take along something I hate and I’m going to use the opportunity to turn it into something I love. I’m not going to worry that everyone else in the class will think I suck if I present something terrible- I’m going to focus on them all being ragingly jealous of my brilliant literary talent once I fix the thing up. Yes indeed.

Isn't it interesting how much harder it is to present your writing for critique in person than it is to present it via the separation of the computer? I must have some little subliminal vision of people actually pelting tomatoes at me, or the like. Above all else I do NOT want to read my own work out loud in public- gaaaargghh. But I guess I'll deal with that if and when I get to it.

So. I’m taking one of three scenes- Bill and his best mate Tom talk fruit cake and death at Gallipoli before going over the top; Bill and his dad Jim talk love, family and war before Bill signs up in 1914; or Bill and Tom vs evil Lionel and his mates on cowardice, patriotism and fighting for King and country when war breaks out in 1914. Whichever I choose, I’ll post the original scene (or part thereof) and the new improved version with some tips from the workshop after the second session concludes in a fortnight.

I guess it’s a bit like speech therapy for Bill- LOL. Wish us luck :)