SAM BINNIE
The Baby Diaries

For M and F,

Singers in every weather

Table of Contents

Title Page

Dedication

October 31st

November 2nd

December 1st

January 1st

February 1st

March 1st

April 2nd

May 1st

June 1st

July 2nd

August 1st

September 5th

October 3rd

November 2nd

Check list for hospital

Birth Certificate

Birth Announcement Card

Acknowledgements

Babies, and all that jazz

Morning Sickness

Spreading the News

Maternity clothes

Baby Showers

Gifting a pregnant

Choosing a name

Oh God, now the baby’s arrived and it’s in my house

A million dilemmas

Finally, my attempt to make this whole parenting thing easier on everyone

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

October 31st

Have you ever had that feeling you’ve forgotten something? Something nagging away at the back of your mind – until just the right movement in your memory triggers something else, which knocks another thing down, and like some Indiana Jones death trap, you can feel the clank-clunking of motion in the hidden rooms of your brain, gradually bringing the forgotten memory swinging like a battering ram into your conscious mind. You know that feeling?

That’s what I had yesterday.

I’ve been so busy since the wedding. Tony, my boss and head of Polka Dot Books (purveyors of fine supermarket fiction and glittery celeb books) was as good as his word with my promotion, promising me four new authors before disappearing off on a three-month ‘travelling sabbatical’ to God Knows Where, declaring he needed a break to ‘replenish his business strategies’. Of course, I was delighted that he’d kept his promise – even though that was more his mother Pamela’s doing – but soon realised why things had played out that way when I started trying to get details about them. Two were new, so their failure was liable to blow up in my face, one was an author I’d dealt with briefly and reluctantly and the final one I couldn’t get any details on at all.

Thom’s been settling into his new life as a trainee teacher: to no one’s surprise, he’s loving it. But as his enthusiasm has spilled over into our evenings, we’ve spent a great deal of time together marking papers – him, clunky essays on Wuthering Heights, me, swathes of mostly unreadable fiction: thirty-somethings who always dreamed of writing, aiming for Heathcliff and hitting Cliff Richard. So we’ve been dog tired, and when we’ve had time off we’ve been with my parents (with half an eye on my dad to check he was taking care of himself after his heart attack earlier this year), my nearly-new niece Frida, or our friends (those we hadn’t had to un-invite from the wedding). It was still great to be spending any time together where we weren’t arguing about money, or the importance of decorative accessories, or the social rules of such a complex endeavour as a wedding. But something kept nagging at me. Did we pay the register office? Had we thanked everyone? Was anyone still locked in the primary school reception venue? None of these nudged anything, although I worried at it like a tongue at a wobbly tooth. It would give eventually. And when it did, I just had to hope I didn’t have a huge apology to make to anyone.

Then, yesterday morning, Thom and I were comparing our weeks. Thom said he had me over a barrel, since I spent my time lunching authors and picking my favourite colour for a book jacket, while he was at the coal-face, earning every penny trying to hammer basic English in the heads of his students.

Me: You love it really.

Thom: I might love it, but I’m a hell of a lot more tired at the end of the day than I ever was making spreadsheets all day. Surprisingly.

Me: Can it really be that hard?

Thom: Kiki. I dare you to try dealing with a room full of hormonal teenagers.

That was it. Clink, clunk. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Click. Click. Ka-dunk.

BOOM.

I must have just frozen while my brain went into its noisy activity, because Thom stopped laughing at the mental image he’d conjured and looked at me, puzzled. ‘What’s up?’ he said.

I stood completely still, calculating over and over, mentally flicking through the pages of my pocket diary – dates, dates, dates. Dates. When I managed to reconnect my brain with my voice box, I just said, ‘I think we need to go to the chemist.’

Thom got it immediately. We rushed out, no coats, no scarves, into the freezing October afternoon, hurrying to the chemist around the corner. Outside, it felt like Before for a moment – we teased one another about who would go in and buy it, until I remembered what the whole thing was about, and my face collapsed. Thom went in while I read the notices in the window again and again. A Great Time To Give Up Smoking! the sign read. Or indeed, start, I thought. Then he was out, and we were hurrying home again, and I thought, Is this time included in the three minutes you have to count off? If I walk home slowly will I know the result immediately? Then we were home, and Thom was bustling me upstairs, and I went into the bathroom and locked the door. When I took the little test out of the box, the adrenaline was coursing through me and my hands were shaking so much that I couldn’t read one word of the instructions.

Me: How does this even work?

Thom: [through the door] Haven’t you ever watched TV? Piss on the stick, then we can find out who the father is later.

Me: Please.

Thom: [quiet] Sorry, Kiki. Pass the instructions under the door.

Me: [hands shaking, takes several goes]

Thom: OK. It’s the bit on the end. Then stick the lid back on and leave it three minutes. Do you want me to come in?

Me: Come in? In here? I don’t really know. I don’t know. I don’t know.

Thom: It’s OK, Keeks. I’m right here. We can do this later if you want. We don’t have to do it right now. We can talk about it first, if you want.

And just for a moment, I thought: ‘we’? We? If a little plus sign appeared in this window, it wouldn’t be Thom squandering his recent promotion. It wouldn’t be Thom who was the only one of his friends changing his name to ‘Mummy’. It wouldn’t be Thom pushing a large ham-weight through his tiny little birth canal. We? Me me me me me. Then I thought: oh, fuck it. Just take the test.

So I did.

I was still shaking, so managed to wee all over my own hands, but I clicked the cap back on and let it sit. I opened the bathroom door, and Thom rushed in.

Thom: How are you doing?

Me: You’re holding the hand that’s covered in my urine.

Thom: I’m going to take that as a ‘good’.

He hugged me for a long time, not even commenting on how much the bathroom now stank, then we went over together to check the result. A giant glowing plus sign greeted us.

Me: Well.

Thom: That’s unambiguous.

Me: Best of three?

Thom: It was a two-pack. I don’t think you’ll need me to go out again.

Me: Oh. Shit?

Thom took me into the living room, where we sat for ages in silence.

Thom: But … when?

Me: Our honeymoon.

Thom: How?

Me: Remember that night? We’d been walking under the Eiffel Tower? And we agreed to start trying because it could take years? The night before we sobered up and realised our mistake. That one.

Thom: Wow. Honeymoon baby.

Me: [breaking down sobbing] It’s so taaa-aa-aa- ack-y-y-y-y.

I cried for half an hour, then calmed down into a state of steady shock. Pregnant. I’m pregnant. As if reading my mind, Thom said in a ridiculous over-the-top voice, ‘I can’t believe we’re pregnant already!’ which managed to get a laugh out of me; it’s an all-time Worst Phrase, and my laugh stuck around until I remembered that it was, at least in one sense, true. My catatonic state returned.

Me: How did this happen?

Thom: Oh Keeks. When a man and a woman love one another very much –

Me: Thom, please! Really!

Thom: I don’t know, Kiki, these things sometimes happen, don’t they? I do love you very much, if that helps.

Me: I just don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. [whispering] This is ridiculous.

Thom: Shall we go to bed? Sometimes these things feel better in the morning.

Me: [staring at him]

Thom: Sorry, I don’t mean it like that. I know it’s not going to go away, and I know that no matter how much I say I love you and I support you and I feel for you, I know that it’s your body and I can only begin to imagine your panic and your fear. But I do love you, and loving you also involves knowing that sometimes you deal best with things by vanishing in a cocoon of sleep to work out what you have to do. Is that true?

Me: Yes.

Thom: Right. So let’s do one decision at a time. Would you like me to make you a drink before bed?

Me: Whisky.

Thom: Uh …

Me: OH GOD I CAN’T EVEN DRINK. Oh God! How much have I drunk in the last month? The last two months? OH GOD I DO NOTHING BUT DRINK.

Thom: Kiki. It’s fine. Let’s forget about the drink and just get into bed.

So we did just that. I amazed myself by falling straight to sleep – as Thom said, it’s how I cope with most things, but it meant it was an extra struggle this morning, having a mini version of the click-clunking remembering all over again. Pregnant. Pregnant. Pregnant. It still doesn’t make any sense. Yes, we both want kids very much, and yes, we look forward to having them, but now? Right now? I have just got my promotion, Thom has just started a mind-bogglingly poorly paid job, and we’re not ready for this. I feel so strange.

At work today, Alice noticed something was wrong, but only asked me once. She kept her distance for the rest of the day in the nicest possible manner, her excellent breeding (or lesbian superpower) knowing exactly when to press me and lavish me with attention, and when to leave me in peace. Alice, my best friend in the office, is head of Publicity here at Polka Dot Books and a far nicer, better and more capable person than the company deserves. Since Tony began his ridiculous absence, his mother Pamela (who also happens to be the founder of Polka Dot and its major shareholder) has tried to keep out of the office most of the time, wanting to believe her son knows what he’s doing. But we can all tell she’s worried the company will go down, even with people like Alice working here. Thankfully, this not being one of Pamela’s rare visiting days, I managed to get my head down and do work for most of the day; at lunchtime I had to get out of the office, so took my sandwich round the corner to window shop, and found myself in front of the giant Topshop on Oxford Street, facing the maternity wear entrance.

They had some lovely clothes. Gorgeous slim-fitting jeans with fatty pregna-panels in the sides, fabulous tops to show off pregna-busts and delicious high-waisted dresses. Not to mention the mini-me baby clothes: t-shirts and sweaters with the wildlife of the season embroidered on the front, so the infant can be just as sharp as the mother. Could I live like this? Is there hope? I started walking back to the office feeling better, feeling hopeful. Maybe we could do this. It’s not the seventies anymore: I wouldn’t have to wear huge frilly tents and give up my job. I could be like Rachida Dati, returning to work at the French government five days after having this baby. Only, not the French government. And not five days. Women do this all over the world, all the time. And this wouldn’t just be my baby. It would be Thom’s as well. And who’s going to make a better baby than me and Thom?

So I went to the beautiful stationery shop below our office and bought this diary. I had a sudden urge to keep a record of everything, all our decisions and mistakes and joys. It felt like the first good step in a long road ahead. But I felt good.

Then I left the shop and almost tripped over a woman screaming at her child.

Woman: Didn’t I tell you, Nicholas? Didn’t I say no?

Boy: [incoherent screaming]

Woman: No, don’t keep crying. Pull yourself together and answer me.

Boy: [screaming, but down a notch or two] I … want …

Woman: Nicholas, if you don’t behave right now, not only will Daddy be hearing about this, but you can forget about your skiing lesson with Joshua on Saturday.

Boy: [silent for a moment, weighing up the options, screams recommencing even higher and louder than before]

Woman: [crouching down next to him] Please, Nicholas, please, darling, just calm yourself down. What it is you’d like, Nicky?

Boy: [sensing his advantage, ups the screaming again]

Woman: Calm down, darling. You know Mummy loves you. Calm down. Shall we go back to the shop to get you the little car?

Boy: [pulling back the screams a little] Ye-ea-aah – [hiccupping sob]

Woman: Alright, darling. You were very good last night, weren’t you? You only got out of bed four times! I think you deserve a nice little treat, don’t you, darling?

Wait. I’d forgotten. OH GOD I hate children.

So my mood overall was unchanged this afternoon, and when I came home. Thom saw my face and pulled me into another big hug as I walked through the door, and took me to the sofa where he sat me down and smiled at me.

Thom: Do you know what I thought today, as I tried to convince a room full of thirteen-year-olds to not show one another photos of women’s breasts while I talked about Jane Eyre?

Me: Nope.

Thom: Whether it’s now, or whether it’s in a few years: our kid is going to be brilliant.

Me: Ha! I thought the same thing today. Just before I stumbled over a woman being emotionally blackmailed by her four-year-old.

Thom: You know we don’t have to be like that, don’t you? You can pick your parenting style: we can be Aloof Edwardian Parents. Or Distant Army Parents, who only see their children once a year. Or Caveman Parents, who feed any spare kids to their pet dinosaur.

Me: That’s the Flintstones.

Thom: I hardly think the Flintstones would feed a child to a dinosaur.

Me: [silence, thinking] We could be alright as parents. Maybe.

Thom: Maybe we could. But maybe … you’re too chicken to have a baby.

Me: [laughing] If ever that ploy was going to work on me …

Thom: Kiki, we will do whatever you like. For now, I’ll make us something to eat.

I sat, and I thought. God, if we can deal with Thom’s redundancy and Dad’s heart attack and my previously-very-badly-paid-and-very-high-stress job, all while planning a wedding that took over our lives, we should be able to manage a baby. Thom’s baby. And we might just be OK parents.

Me: [calling to the kitchen] Go on, then. Let’s have a baby.

Thom: [running back in] Wooohoooo!

Me: You can’t make noises like that in a labour ward. And I’m not telling my mum.

Thom: Christ. We have to tell people about this, don’t we?

Together: Shotgun!

Me: I called it. You can tell them.

So I’m happy. But I still blame you, Paris. I don’t know how this is your fault, but it is.

TO DO:

Grow baby

Have baby

Raise baby

November’s Classic Baby

Mrs Darling was married in white, and at first she kept the books perfectly, almost gleefully, as if it were a game, not so much as a Brussels sprout was missing; but by and by whole cauliflowers dropped out, and instead of them there were pictures of babies without faces. She drew them when she should have been totting up. They were Mrs Darling’s guesses.

Wendy came first, then John, then Michael.

For a week or two after Wendy came it was doubtful whether they would be able to keep her, as she was another mouth to feed. Mr Darling was frightfully proud of her, but he was very honourable, and he sat on the edge of Mrs Darling’s bed, holding her hand and calculating expenses, while she looked at him imploringly. She wanted to risk it, come what might, but that was not his way; his way was with a pencil and a piece of paper, and if she confused him with suggestions he had to begin at the beginning again.

Peter Pan

J. M. Barrie

November 2nd

I’ve spent the last two days at work doing internet searches for pregnancy, then shutting my screen off whenever somebody comes near my desk. Even Carol – our terrifying but secretly incredibly sweet senior Commissioning Editor, who, after a sordid and very exciting office affair, is now with Norman, our reserved head of accounts – has started giving me concerned looks. But I’ve discovered that the ‘classic wedding’ emails I signed up for during the wedding planning also come in a ‘Pregnancy and Babies’ version too. Which … is … something, I suppose?

What’s so strange is how much this new reality is in my thoughts all the time. I can’t put anything in my mouth without my brain suddenly doing a stop-and-search which makes me keep retching on what I’m eating, either because it might be dangerous or my tastebuds have suddenly banded together to bar certain foods. The radio plays nothing but songs about babies: Papa Don’t Preach, Hit Me Baby One More Time, pretty much anything from Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound, almost any pop song ever. Adverts are saturated with babies; pregnant women are everywhere; I’ve gone over my calendar again and again with my sketchy dates to try and work out at what stage I’ll be for everything we’ve got planned. And I’ll need to avoid Susie (my sister, and mother to seven-year-old twins Edward and Lily and baby Frida) – my vocabulary has suddenly shrunk to just a few phrases: the number of times I said ‘They’re such babies/why is he being such a baby/don’t be a baby’ at work today was absurd. Did I see Alice sniggering at one of those?

November 3rd

A baby. Pregnant. I’m still not used to this. I don’t even know where to start. New clothes? A cot? Thom said: ‘Maybe go and see a doctor.’ I’m glad I’m not doing this on my own.

At the doctor’s today, I looked around the waiting room at the other patients with new, wiser eyes. What could they be here for? A teenage girl looks nervous, and plays with her phone the whole time. Pregnant? A woman with three young children looks exhausted and keeps putting her head in her hands. Number four on the way? Then my name was called, and I saw my new doctor for the first time: a black woman a couple of years older than me, standing in the doorway, resting her hip against the frame and rubbing her pregnant stomach. In her office, we each tried to make the other sit down first. She said, ‘On three?’ and I laughed and sat down.

Dr Bedford: So, how can I help you today?

Me: [suddenly nervous] I think I might be … [indicating her]

Dr Bedford: Black?

Me: No! No, not … no, I mean –

Dr Bedford: I’m just kidding, Katherine.

I like her.

Dr Bedford: You think you might be pregnant?

Me: Haha, ha. Yes, I think I’m pregnant.

Dr Bedford: And what makes you think that?

Me: I’ve missed two periods, I did four pregnancy tests in the end and they were all positive.

Dr Bedford: Just wanting to make sure?

Me: Exactly.

Dr Bedford: And how do you feel about this pregnancy?

Me: It wasn’t exactly planned, so I freaked out a bit to begin with – we only just got married this summer –

Dr Bedford: Congratulations!

Me: Thank you – so I wasn’t really sure how to handle it all, but I’m really happy now. I think. We both are.

Dr Bedford: OK, congratulations for this too, then. You say you’ve missed two periods – do you think that’s how far along you could be?

Me: [suddenly feeling like I’ve made an embarrassing mistake] Ye-es. Is that a problem?

Dr Bedford: [laughing] Of course it’s not a problem, Katherine! We’re not going to send you away because you’re a little later noticing than some mothers! Now, I’ll give the hospital a ring to get you booked in for your twelve-week scan – obviously these things are often booked up a while in advance, but of course we’ll find space for you. How are you feeling in yourself?

Me: Fine, thanks.

Dr Bedford: Any tiredness, or aches? Any pains around your womb area?

Me: I did feel completely wiped out about a month ago. I kept coming home from work and falling straight to sleep. But I thought that was delayed trauma from everything that’s happened this year. Do you think it was related to this?

Dr Bedford: I think it almost certainly was. So you’re getting lots of rest now? Anything else, any aches?

Me: Some aching, but I thought it was just period pains. I assume that’s why I haven’t realised. I kept getting stretching, achey pains, then forgetting that the period itself didn’t actually show up. And my appetite has gone crazy – either I’m trying to eat everything, or there’s nothing I can eat without feeling sick. I actually kept meaning to come and see you about it.

Dr Bedford: That’s quite normal, I’m afraid. And how have you been taking care of yourself, generally? Do you smoke or take drugs?

Me: [triumphant] No! Neither!

Dr Bedford: [laughing again] Well, that is something. How about drinking? What’s your weekly intake?

Me: Average?

Dr Bedford: What do you think we’re talking; a bottle of wine a night?

Me: God, no! Actually, it has been way less recently. That’s weird.

Dr Bedford: As long as you’re cutting back now, that’s all that matters. What’s done is done, yes?

Me: I suppose so.

Dr Bedford: I’ll sort out that scan, and give you this booklet [hands over giant A4 folder]. It will hopefully answer any questions you’ve got, give you some idea how to take care of yourself, and let you know all the check-ups and scans you’ll be having. You might also want to think about joining one of the antenatal groups around here, to meet some other mums.

Me: [choking sound]

Dr Bedford: Are you alright?

Me: Mums. Other mums. Other mums. Is it hot in here?

Dr Bedford: It could help you, Katherine, if you want to talk about this with people who might know what you’re going through right now. Do you have any other questions?

Me: Doctor.

Dr Bedford: Yes, Katherine.

Me: Is this all going to be OK?

Dr Bedford: I can’t tell you that, Katherine, but you’re a sensible girl. If you’re eating well and taking care of yourself, I don’t see that there should be any reason to worry. But it’s the scan that can really tell you what you’re looking for. Anything else?

Me: Can you tell my parents?

Dr Bedford: Do you think they’ll be upset?

Me: No. I think they’ll be delighted. I’m just not sure I can cope with it.

Dr Bedford: Well, Katherine, I’m always here if you need support or guidance, but do bear in mind [leaning in, conspiratorial] I’ve only two months to my maternity leave and I do have quite a few people to see before I can go. So …

Me: I see. Thanks, Doctor.

Dr Bedford: [smiling] You’ll be fine.

She is a great doctor. Maybe we’ll bond over our babies and become the best of friends, and we’ll bring our kids up together and have loads of hilarious misadventures as a gang. But maybe I won’t mention that yet. We’ll just see how it goes.

Some things that, with hindsight, were possibly caused by me being pregnant:

1 Sleeping fourteen-hour nights for two whole weeks

2 On three separate occasions, eating Thom’s portion of dinner when he was fifteen minutes late home

3 Crying uncontrollably during a debate with Thom about funding cuts hitting vulnerable women and children

4 Crying uncontrollably at an old Gilmore Girls episode

5 Crying uncontrollably at a bread advert on TV

6 Being sick in my mouth when Alice brought me coffee at work two mornings in a row, after which she stopped doing it

7 Suddenly finding none of my bras fit properly

8 Going off booze (I thought that was odd)

9 Only wanting oranges for breakfast for an entire week

10 Finding Mum even more annoying than usual

Yes, I may have been ignoring some major clues there. But in my defence: I’ve had other things on my mind. Dad’s officially recovered from his heart attack, but I still worry about him. He retired early and happily from a boring senior job at a law firm years ago, and became a Jewellery Making teacher at the local college, to our surprise, all in an attempt to slow his life down and keep himself well. But he was never in one of the high-risk groups before the heart attack, which makes it harder to predict how he’ll fare over the next five, ten or twenty years. I have to admit: every time the phone rings and it’s Mum, my hearts dips. Is something wrong? But it never is (if you discount the neighbour’s noisy driveway, Gillian from her old work’s daughter’s new house, plastic bags, the price of petrol, the shoes she only bought last summer but are already falling apart) and I should be returning to pre-heart attack levels of stress. But I’m not. Every time she reports Dad’s got a cold, headache, or – heaven forbid – episode of heartburn, my adrenaline levels go through the roof. And Mum seems worse than usual at the moment – panicking, worrying, even forgetful. So I’ve been distracted. But how were we going to tell them about this baby? Would they like it? Would they think it was too fast?

At work, before Tony did his Business Strategy Sabbatical Disappearing Act™ he’d been on my case about my new position, pushing me to bring in some money to Polka Dot with my own books. I know his mother Pamela is on my side, since she actually forced him to honour the promotion he’d offered me, but she’s barely around. And Jacki Jones, the actress/popstar whose bestselling wedding book originally got me the promotion, is busy going through a very painful divorce, but Tony had still been nagging me to find out if there’s a second book in her. She signed up for a two-book deal, as Tony obviously imagined there’d be babies soon enough, but the state she’s in at the moment, I can’t bring myself to ask. We still see each other regularly: once a month we pick a bar and spend an evening laughing at the terrible coverage her divorce is getting. Our favourite so far is the story that she’s divorcing her husband for Pedro, one of her best friends and horrific ego-ridden monster-slash-celebrity photographer who snapped our wedding at Jacki’s incredibly kind request (and God knows how much of her own money). He’s truly awful (to me, anyway, accusing me of being a social climber at Jacki’s cursed wedding), but he is just her friend, and I believe he cares about her. She laughs at these dreadful stories, and the headlines illustrated with pap-snaps of her looking ‘tired’, ‘drawn’ and ‘emotional’, but she’s so sad. The more I know Jacki, the more I love her, and it’s awful to see this funny, smart, ambitious person being crushed just a little more every day. So I don’t know where I’m going to get that money-spinner.

For now, I’ve got the Four Authors of the Apocalypse to be dealing with.

Hilary Taylor – producer of Aga sagas. I’ve had brief dealings with her before, when Tony was trying to poach her from her last publisher. He won her over with a glossy presentation and proposed rejackets for her back catalogue, but we all suspect this is going to be one of those terrible triumphs of sales figures over blind optimism: she hasn’t sold well for years, and no amount of extra laminate on the jacket is likely to change anything about that. Favourite fact: In our email correspondence, she was unbelievably bitter and rude about her then-current publisher. Can’t wait until we receive that treatment too.

Matthew Holt – a brand-new author, of truly dire Scandi-crime. I have a horrible suspicion that he’s been no nearer to north-eastern Europe than watching Eurovision, but the crowbarred-in geographical references are the least of my complaints. His book is really, truly, very bad, but my only hope is that people will assume they’re genuinely Scandinavian and blame the translator. Favourite fact: Matthew Holt believes that you can walk directly from Denmark to Norway.

Jennifer Luck – another brand-new name, this time of trashy, shopping-and-handsome-bosses fiction. Magically inspired by completely current cultural reference point Sex and the City, she’s given us four books, all of which we’ve signed up: Nude in New York, Filthy in Finland, Hot in Hong Kong, and my personal favourite, Bonking in Brazil. Favourite fact: These books make me wish I’d never learnt to read.

Stuart Winton – a complete unknown. The manuscript I have is a very ropy erotica novel set in the eighties, under the pseudonym Tara Towne. But I can’t find any details on our systems to even contact Stuart, nor can I find any evidence of the contract. Favourite fact: This may be an elaborate prank Carol is playing on the rest of the office. I can’t even begin to say how unlikely this is.

And all of these I’m responsible for making sure they’re insanely successful.

TO DO:

Find out if it’s possible to change my career before the baby is born

Also: Eat some fruit

Don’t take up horse-riding, cross-country skiing or trampolining

Stop looking up ‘dangerous pregnancy activities’ online

November 4th

Alice has been great over the last few months. She had to suffer my wedding ups and downs; then a week of Tony pacing the office, sweating profusely and muttering, ‘When is she back?’ like I’d just nipped out for the antidote to his snakebite, so desperate was he to go on his ridiculous sabbatical. And on my return from our brief Paris honeymoon, she had to witness slight hysteria on my part as I realised Tony’s five-minute meeting with me was the only handover I’d be getting before he vanished for who-knows-how-long.

Alice is also still having to live with her ‘boyfriend’ despite the fact that everyone besides her family knows she’s gay. She does the work of three people here (a normal situation for publishing) while always keeping a smile on her face. As I thought over and over about breaking the news to my colleagues, I wondered for the first time in ages how she actually is, so took her out for drinks this evening, at our favourite little bar round the corner.

Alice: What’s this for? What are you up to?

Me: I’m not up to anything!

Alice: Are you about to set me up with someone? Is there a beautiful woman just waiting to spend the evening being entertained by me somewhere in this bar?

Me: Only me, I’m afraid. What’s your poison?

Alice: No one actually says that. ‘What’s your poison?’ What are you up to?

Me: Alice! Fine: it’s my round.

Alice: [browsing the menu] I … will have … a Slutty Horse, please.

Me: One Slutty Horse coming up, Madam. [to the barman] One Slutty Horse, one … Elderflower Handshake, please.

Alice: Are you making me drink alone?

Me: Oh no, I’m so sorry – I’m on these antibiotics –

Alice: [mouth agape]

Me: What?

Alice: [whispering] You’ve been married three months.

Me: [nervous] What?

Alice: [shakes head]

Me: What?

Alice: Kiki, Kiki, Kiki …

Me: Alice!

Alice: Don’t make me say it, Kiki.

[silence]

Me: Alice, please don’t tell anyone. It wasn’t even supposed to happen – we didn’t even mean it – but we did mean it, but only for one night, and we were drunk, and it just – please, you please mustn’t tell anyone, [almost sobbing] please.

Alice: Kiki, does this face look like it tells secrets?

We talked for a long time. We talked about how I was feeling, and how Thom was feeling, and how Tony and Pamela might take it, and what the maternity package may or may not be at Polka Dot (for some reason we haven’t had anyone go on maternity leave while we’ve been there). And some more about how I was feeling. She also told me, after her fourth Slutty Horse, that everyone knowing about Norman and Carol’s office romance doesn’t seem to have quenched their passion – she caught them snogging in Carol’s office after work the other evening. At the end of the night, as we stumbled to the tube station and down to our platforms (Alice stumbling after taking on all the Slutty Horses, me stumbling after taking on Alice), I realised we still hadn’t talked about how Alice was. ‘Plus ça change, my darling,’ she smiled, as I put her on her train home. Is she OK?

TO DO:

Start carrying around a hipflask filled with apple juice, for when someone next needs to see me drinking

Check Alice is OK tomorrow

November 9th

Body. Didn’t we have a deal? Didn’t we agree that enough was enough? That you would stop this nonsense? Yes, it’s probably hard work growing another human being, but do you need to make such a fuss? Women do it all over the world. Every day. And they’ve done it since before even my mum was born. So can you just stop? Please?

The last few days, the mild queasiness I’ve had on and off the last month or two has burst into something far worse. I just feel rotten. Tired, aching, and sick, sick, sick. It just doesn’t let up. And I don’t want to be one of those frail Victorian pregnants, hobbled by confinement and sent to rest until the baby is ready to go to boarding school, but I just can’t function like this. It ambushes me at moments throughout the day, but the worst thing – the meanest trick in the whole nausea book – is that this isn’t morning sickness. Oh no. In the morning, I wake feeling perky and wholesome, hoping that this might be the day this sickness has slung its hook. So I enjoy a good breakfast with Thom, and we talk, and we make plans, and behave like civilised, happy humans. Then at work, I might feel a bit odd, but it’s OK, I just need to get on with work. By lunchtime, my mouth tastes gross, and nothing seems that tempting, but I can normally find something to fill the gaping, ever-increasing black hole in my appetite (because, of course! – it wouldn’t be truly funny unless this nausea coincided with a huge increase in appetite!) and I’ll be fine for a few hours. If I get hungry in the afternoon, I’ve stocked my desk with fruit and nuts, plus a huge bottle of water. So I just about make it through the day. I start feeling hopeful. Maybe Thom and I can have a conversation tonight! Maybe I can make him dinner, to thank him for all his recent kindness and consideration! Perhaps we can even do some of that stuff we’re probably contractually obliged to do, post-wedding ceremony! That would be great! But even as I’m waving goodbye to everyone, I can feel it starting. My mouth-taste is switching from weird to bitter, from Status Normal to What The Hell Is Going On Here? By the time I’ve got a seat on the tube, I’m desperately praying that no one near me smells of anything, or, heaven forbid, dares to eat anything. And by the time Thom and I meet at home, all I can do is lie down, slipping tiny slivers of whatever arbitrary foodstuff I can handle that day into my mouth. I am not fun company right now.

November 10th

I’m sure morning sickness is supposed to fade around now, not get worse every day. This is something hatching in my brain and stomach, where Thom can’t even say particular foods to me without bile pooling in my mouth until I have to go and lie with my head on a really cold pillow, sipping water like an idiot. The first night I had this, Thom was thrown.

Thom: What’s … wrong with you?

Me: I don’t know. That morning sickness I was so delighted to have missed? I think it found me.

Thom: It’s seven pm.

Me: Thank you. I’ll just swallow your watch to let my stomach know and we should have this sorted in two seconds.

Thom: Sarcasm? This does sound serious. [sitting tentatively next to me on the bed]

Me: OH GOD don’t lean on me.

Thom: [leaping up] OK, no problem. Is there anything you can stomach eating?

Me: What have we got?

Thom: Um … pasta? Salad?

Me: [gulping] Nonotpastatalkaboutsomethingelse –

Thom: What would you like? Name it, and I’ll find it.

Me: Mm … Maybe … Do we have any salt and vinegar crisps? And a melon?

Thom: You’re depraved.

Me: I’m sure I’ll feel alright tomorrow. I’m just tired. Tomorrow I’ll be back to eating –

Thom: Don’t. Don’t say anything. I can’t risk you being sick on our bed. I’ll go and fetch your gourmet feast, then we sleep.

Me: Deal. Thank you.

And it’s just got worse since then. I avoid being sick all day, but what I can’t do is stop the feeling that I want to be sick, pretty much all the time now. I can’t tell you how angry it makes me to be reduced to that movie pregnant cliché, and to feel so bad with no purpose. This isn’t something that needs medicating – it’s just my body launching a full-on civil war. Well, Body, I shan’t forget this. You just remember that. This isn’t over.

November 11th

Christ, I still feel so terrible. The fact that there are some women who feel like this every day of their nine months I think is a pretty reasonable explanation for only children. I just about manage to stay upright at work, but I come home and just lie, with a downturned mouth, either on the bed or the sofa and try not to smell the food Thom is doing his damndest to cook and eat in a secretive manner. Then I eat as many mouthfuls of cornflakes and cold, cold milk as I can before my rebellious stomach sends reinforcements and the refuelling party is over. The enemy has realised my plan and all I can do is retreat to the sofa again, trying not to groan out loud and wishing so very, very hard that the feeling of being on a whirling roundabout would stop. Any time now. Like, now. Or now. Or now?

I’m sorry to feel so sorry for myself. As long as this baby is growing, and healthy, and all that jazz that pregnants say to one another like a mantra, then I can stomach this stomach.

Unless I wake up tomorrow and it’s still like this. In which case, I will not be happy.

OK, I can do this. Millions of people – women, I suppose; millions of women – get pregnant every day, and they just get on with it, don’t they? I mean: there will be frightened girls and women who don’t want their babies and don’t know what to do, and women who want babies so much and can’t have them, and here I am, happily married (for less than three months) with a supportive husband and family, so what am I worried about?

Yet the reality of this pregnancy rattles around my head. I can actually hear it: rattle rattle rattle, all the time. Are these sound-effect thoughts also a symptom of pregnancy? I’m delighted, then I’m terrified. I think of the fun we shall have with our own child, then I think of my body, and my social life, and – oh GOD – my career. Tony’s hardly a dream boss, but I love Polka Dot. What am I supposed to do? I’ve had this new position for even less time than I’ve been married, and I’ve got to somehow get a carrier pigeon to Tony in distant lands to let him know that he took a punt on me and it backfired? How am I going to face any of them? And Pamela too! She championed me against her son, and now I’m dragging the Polka Dot offices back sixty years, into the dark days when young women married, bred and vanished into a life of baking and school fêtes. Not that that’s even what I want – I don’t want to watch my career dissolve while I stay in the kitchen, weeping while my kids pelt me with Lego. But that’s definitely the assumption Pamela and Tony will make.

But then I get excited again. A baby, with Thom. Not that I even like babies – I really don’t, not at all – but it’s exciting, to be doing something so different, so wonderful, so creative, and to have this massive responsibility and to be sharing it with Thom. What an honour. This is the most wonderful thing. And then I think: a baby. Jesus. Not a baby Jesus, but a baby nonetheless. And one that I imagine will do a hell of a lot more crying than the one we have to thank for Christmas. How the hell are we going to cope with that?

And then the nausea comes back.

We spent tonight watching some belated fireworks from a pub window with Jim (a session musician and source of great kindness, and my oldest friend besides Eve) and Poppy, the girl he brought to our wedding and who seems like a keeper. I sat sipping an apple juice (‘Sorry, I’ve been feeling rough all week’) and trying to steady my stomach and absorb the letter from Dr Bedford this morning, confirming the date for the twelve-week scan. Thom’s got permission from school to go in late, and I’ll tell Polka I’m editing from home that day. I can’t stop thinking about it. Something about that scan will make it real, rather than just a distant To Do. And I’m sure it’s going to be much harder to keep up my heroin habit afterwards. Joke.

TO DO:

Start reading any of those pamphlets Dr Bedford gave me

November 14th

I got a letter today from the local team of midwives. Ah, the things you never thought you’d find out: who even knew there was a local team of midwives? A team sounds good, though. Like a team of crime-fighters. I hope they have cool uniforms, at least. The letter said that I had an appointment with them next week at the local hospital, and came wrapped around six different leaflets – what I should be eating, how I should be feeling, what’s going to be taken from me (blood and urine) and what’s going to be given (more information). I find it’s most helpful to write the appointment in my diary, tuck the whole thing safe at the back of my drawer, and just not think about it again. Note: this may not work when the actual baby is born.

Mum came over tonight to drop off some photos from our wedding (oh, how recent that seemed) and I thought she’d guess instantly when I was lying on the sofa, grey-faced and sipping water with a lemon in.

Mum: Hello darling, are you ill?

Me: My stomach. I think it’s a bug.

Mum: Oh, that’s awful. Have you had some plain toast?

Me: [trying not to retch at the thought] No, I don’t really …

Mum: Well, it’s the best thing for you.

Me: I know, but it’s not what my stomach wants right now.

Mum: Kiki, I think you’re being very silly; a nice piece of dry toast is exactly the kind of thing you should be eating if you want to feel any better. Is it something going round?

Me: [burping, a precursor to vomiting]

Thom: She’s been a bit sick all day, it might be better if we let her rest for a while.

Mum: [voice almost cracking] You’re being ridiculous! If you don’t want to feel better –

Thom: I’ll get her some toast later. I think she’s just a bit tired at the moment.

Mum: [grumpily] Well I shan’t kiss you, in case it’s catching and I give it to your father.

Thom: [sniggering]

Me: [faintly] Alright Mum. Thanks for the photos.

Mum: That’s perfectly alright. See you soon!

And she was gone. We both felt such relief, even though she is incredibly kind (sometimes) and did do a huge amount towards saving our wedding from disaster: but her attentions can be a little much, and if she’d kept saying the word toast I would definitely have been sick in front of her. And she seemed even more tense than usual – surely she wouldn’t care that much about my toast intake normally? Plus, we definitely don’t want to tell anyone until we’ve had the first scan. It still doesn’t seem real.

November 15th

Ah, crazy hormones. Yesterday I got home from work and, in a brief respite from nausea, pounced on Thom, then fell straight to sleep to a night of the filthiest dreams I have ever had. I can’t even name some of the people who featured for fear of this diary ever falling into the wrong hands, but it was … well, I’m not surprised I was more tired this morning than when I went to bed.

November 16th

Thom remembered the Diary today – last Christmas he’d given me a diary for the year, with trips and treats every month. Last month he’d dug me out a perfect Marion Ravenwood costume (wicker-basket-Marion, not Nazi-tent-Marion) for Halloween, and in return I found him a Captain Sharpe costume (yes, I know, Thom Sharpe, Captain Sharpe, I am exactly that imaginative); the combination of which resulted in us arriving slightly late, but very cheerful, to the party.

This month, the treat was simply Tickets. November seemed so far off when Thom arranged it all last Christmas that he couldn’t book anything, leaving it instead up to our whims of the moment. Right now, I didn’t know what I wanted – a gig? Theatre? A film? An exhibition? That is, until Thom suggested a swap.

Thom: You don’t have to go for this. But you know you’re only allowed the treat within the month – there are no rollovers.

Me: Where was this written down?

Thom: [taps side of his head] So, here’s your alternative. I go out, right now, and get you six ice-cold bottles of ginger beer, a jumbo bag of salted vegetable crisps, aaaand … [holding up his hands]

Me: A can – no, make it two; two cans of corned beef.

Thom: [shuddering] Whatever milady requires. So what do you say? Is it a swap?

We agreed to the swap, as I’m in no fit state to be going anywhere at the moment. But I did enjoy my strange, protein-heavy meal this evening immensely.

November 17th

Drinks with Eve tonight, my oldest, most difficult, but potentially-most-reformed friend (since meeting wonderful baker Mike, she’s developed a taste for not being a terrible human). Or rather, it was supposed to be drinks, but I changed it to a trip to the Wellcome Collection as I couldn’t face Eve giving me suspicious side-eyes when I wasn’t drinking. So we met outside, hugged, and headed in.

Me: [narrowing eyes at her, suspicious] You look very well.

Eve: [narrowing eyes too] So do you.

Me: My goodness, is Mike still making you incredibly happy? Goodness. He is, isn’t he? You love him.

Eve: I might. Do you know what it is, though? I just don’t see good-looking men anymore.

Me: Maybe it’s because you’re so in love.

Eve: [mock-concerned] No, I think my eyesight’s getting worse. I really need to see a doctor.

Me: Optician. And I don’t imagine they’ll be able to help with what you’ve got.

Eve: Syphilis?

Me: Wow. You old romantic.

Eve: But speaking of which …

She was right. We were right in front of a huge display of sexually transmitted diseases, complete with moving structures to illustrate the ravages of each one.

Eve: You sure know how to show a girl a good time.

Me: You just wait. There’s a mummified woman upstairs.

Eve: Woop!

As always, we linked arms and strolled around; Eve telling me about Mike and her work (particularly her terrible new boss, Joyce: ‘She couldn’t manage a ball downhill’) and me mostly listening, asking questions, and telling her a little bit about my family. Family. The whole time we were talking, I was just thinking, ‘Don’t mention you’re pregnant, don’t mention you’re pregnant,’ to the point where I was amazed she couldn’t read it behind my eyes whenever she looked at me. I even forced myself to loiter by the cabinet upstairs filled with tiny ceramic models of pregnant women with detachable stomachs, revealing miniature ceramic babies inside, just so Eve wouldn’t suspect anything in my avoidance of it. ‘That’ll be you, soon,’ Eve whispered in my ear, coming up behind me. I laughed manically, trying to turn it into a fake laugh, but only succeeding in sounding even more suspicious.

Eve: Are you pregnant?

Me: Are you pregnant?

Eve: No.

Me: [apologetically] Oh, I am. [taking the hand of a suit of armour] Don’t tell my husband, but this suit of armour loves me in a way Thom will never understand. I’m due to give birth to a beautiful toaster any day now.

Eve: Alright, alright. Tell me how Thom’s enjoying the teaching life.

So I think I managed to shake Eve off the trail. But why would she ask that?

November 18th

First meeting with Hilary Taylor today. She was exactly as delightful as I’d expected, constantly looking around the room during the meeting with me and Alice to see what she could have.

Alice: So we’re looking at promoting you within the supermarkets – we think that we can get you a placement in some of the weeklies, which should lift those sales.

Hilary: Can I have a copy of those ones? [pointing at a pile of Jacki’s books]

Me: Yes … of course. [passing her over a copy]

Hilary: No, I’ll need three – for my girls, you see.

Me: Right.

Alice: We also thought that you might like to start talking to your fans online –

Hilary: Do you have those flowers changed regularly?

Alice: I think someone just brought those in.

Hilary: They’re lovely. Can someone wrap them up for me?

Eventually Alice kicked me under the table and I called the meeting to a close before we were forced to donate our clothes to Hilary too. She hasn’t even submitted her new book to us yet. I should set her and Monica Warner up together – Monica’s one of our most successful authors, but she’s loaded beyond all imagining, and an absolute monster of a snob. I don’t know which of them would make it out alive.

TO DO:

Talk to Alice about whether we could make that meeting happen

November 21st

My midwife ‘booking-in’ appointment this morning. I’ve been allocated ‘Linda’, who took an hour to slowly, slowly scroll through a hundred screens, painstakingly filling in every possible detail about my physical and medical history.

‘Linda’: Have you ever had any piercings?

Me: Just my ears.

‘Linda’: Nowhere else?

Me: No.

‘Linda’: Not your nose? Or your tummy button?

Me: No.

‘Linda’: How much do you drink?

Me: How much do you drink?

‘Linda’: I’ll put over four units a week. We recommend you keep it to under two, if you can.

Me: [meekly] OK.

‘Linda’: Do you smoke?

Me: [triumphant] No I do not.

‘Linda’: Have you ever taken recreational drugs?

Me: How long ago would it have to have stopped for us to just be able to say ‘no’?

‘Linda’: Before your pregnancy?

Me: God yes.

‘Linda’: Right, I’ll just put ‘no’ for that.

She was OK, really. It just took forever, with her insisting on reading out every option on every page to me, even though I could see the screen and read it faster than she could say it; I felt impatient, claustrophobic, wanted to just get my jabs (or whatever I had to do there) and get out.

But then she wanted to weigh me, take my height, my blood pressure and Thom’s and my family medical history, and to talk me through every possible permutation of giving birth: at hospital, at home, in a midwife-led ward, on a boat (maybe – I might have stopped listening after a while). I must have been sweating a bit when she kept talking about labour and choices and things, because eventually she said, ‘Are you alright, Katherine? How are you feeling about this pregnancy?’ but I just smiled at her, biting back my panic, and said I had a meeting to get to and was it OK if I went now? She waved me off with even more paperwork, plus a handful of blood forms for Dr Bedford. Blood forms. Ugh.

I know that she was trying to help, and I’m so grateful that care like this is free (Jesus, the thought of what this all could be costing us has brought me out in a sweat again) but does it have to be so – babyish? Do we have to keep talking about how it grows, and when I’ll feel it, and how it’s going to come out of my body? I’m sure in the next six months science will have invented a laser to just zap it right out of there. Like Innerspace, only backwards.

Even though I arrived mid-morning, I took Alice to lunch today. I was determined to try and see if she really was OK. As we settled over our bowls of bibimbap, I asked how everything was.

Alice: Honestly?

Me: Yes please.

Alice: Do you remember my ex, Simone? I saw her a couple of weeks ago.

Me: Did she look dreadful?

Alice: [sighing] No. She looked fantastic. She’d just been on a fantastic trip to her parents’ house in Italy with her fantastic new girlfriend and a whole bunch of brilliant power lesbian couples.

Me: Did you look good?

Alice: [scornful] Kiki. Need you ask. But I was thinking about how Simone never hassled me about telling my family about us, which was one of the things I liked about her. But … maybe it is getting ridiculous. Maybe I’m too old to still pretend. What am I doing?

Me: Only you know when you feel ready.

Alice: I’m almost thirty, for God’s sake. Look at you! Married, a child on the way.

Me: Hold on, don’t let me be a catalyst for anything. I tumbled into this kind of responsibility. This wasn’t a life choice, this was too much red wine in a Parisian café.

Alice: Whoah, hold something back for your child’s wedding speech.

Me: Alice, you’ll know when you want to talk to your family about it. But don’t look at me – or anyone – to see how to do things better. I can just about manage to be married, I’ll hopefully come to terms with having a baby, but I don’t think I can ever take the responsibility of being someone’s example.

Alice: You’re right. I should tell them.

Me: That … wasn’t exactly what I said.

Alice: Shhhh. Eat your bibimbap.

As we get closer to the scan date, the days crawl by. I snuck into a bookshop around the corner from the office today, and, sweating like I was buying the worst kind of porn, paid for and stuffed hastily into my bag a glossy, hardback Guide to Pregnancy. I’ve been going through it this evening, and my brain, freshly fed with dangerous information, has now started imagining all the things that can be wrong with the six-centimetre shape inside my womb. Thanks, Brain.

Thom says I should try to relax. He’s offered me baths, food, even a foot massage with a face that screamed his reluctance for me to take him up on it, and insists that we won’t know anything until the scan, and I should just take care of myself. He tried to say, Let him take care of me, but I think he could see a Force 10 Suffragettes Lecture building, and changed it to how I could look after myself. I know he wants to help, and heaven knows he’s seen enough of my panicking this year, but I can’t help it. There’s something in there, and all I can think of is Alien.

November 22nd

We were in bed last night when I suddenly rolled over.

Me: Oh my GOD!

Thom: [half asleep] What? What’s happened?

Me: Zoe’s pregnant too!

Thom: [mumbling] I don’t know who Zoe is, but I’m very pleased.

I let him get back to sleep, but stayed up for ages trying to work out her possible dates. Surely if she’d seen me twig about her pregnancy at our wedding but hadn’t told us, she wouldn’t have been more than three months? So that meant … she was at the very most three months ahead of me? I was so excited that I called her this morning, to ask if she wanted to catch up. She’s been away working in New York with her nightmare boss, horrible celeb photographer (and Jacki’s alleged new love) Pedro, since just after our wedding, so I’ve had no chance to see her, but heard from Jim that she and her boyfriend Zac had just got home again recently. She didn’t pick up when I called, but left a return message for me later to meet her at a Goth pub off Tottenham Court Road after work tonight, if I was free. I was so pleased to be seeing her, I didn’t really think twice about the strange espionage nature of the set-up, particularly since I already knew about her pregnancy. And it was nice to see her, as she came into the pub and rushed straight over to give me a hug. I beamed at her.

Me: So how have you been?

Zoe: Well, I have a little news.

Me: [laughing] Oh, I know your news.

Zoe: Nope. This news. [holding out her hand, with slim wedding band]

Me: Oh, you two did it! Congratulations!

Zoe: Thank you! I didn’t want to talk to you on the phone because I knew I’d give it away. I’m so happy.

Me: Please, tell me all about it.

It seems that, because it was such a long stay in the US, her super-handsome American boyfriend Zac stayed out there too, and her parents and sister came to visit for a week in the middle. With Zac’s family living right around the corner, they figured it was an opportunity they may not get again for a while; the day before, Zoe asked Pedro for an extended lunch hour and that was that. Only – and this is the most surprising bit of the whole story – somehow Pedro found out what she was doing, and not only cancelled their whole afternoon schedule, but followed them to City Hall, swept both families off to a top restaurant, paid for everything and took photos the whole time.

Me: But he took it out of your wages, right? Or he had you deported that night? What was his punchline?

Zoe: If he’s got one, I’m still waiting. He’s been … he’s been human, Kiki. Believe me, I’m as baffled as you are, but I’m enjoying it while it lasts. Oh! Do you know – he wouldn’t let me travel economy, either way? He upgraded me to First Class, saying it wouldn’t be good for the baby.

Me: And how was First Class?

Zoe: It was very good for the baby.

Me: Ah. Speaking of which.

Zoe: Ye-ee-es?

Me: Zo, I’m slightly knocked up. I don’t know what to do.

Zoe: [biting back a woop] OK, let’s take this step by step. Can I ask if it was planned?

Me: No. Yes. No, I mean yes you can ask, and no, yes, it was and wasn’t planned. It was planned at the time, but it was a one-night error which we realised in the morning. It really isn’t planned. I haven’t thought about how it would fit in with my promotion, or how we’ll look after it, or how we’ll afford it, or what we’ll do with it. What am I going to do with a baby?

Zoe: Right, and how pregnant do you think you are?

Me: Entirely.

Zoe: And in weeks?

Me: Maybe … eleven? It’s all fairly approximate at the moment.

Zoe: And have you seen a doctor or had any scans?

Me: Yes doctor, no scans. Day after tomorrow.

Zoe: And how’s Thom?

Me: He’s pleased, I think, but worried about me. He’s OK.

Zoe: How are you feeling? I’ve just been talking the whole time and not even asking about you.

Me: Ugh. I don’t know how I am. I feel sick almost all the time, although actually that’s improving. I don’t know what to think about this, but I don’t know how to think about anything else.

Zoe: Everything makes you think of it, and nothing feels real?

Me: Exactly.

Zoe: This one wasn’t exactly planned either. Well, it wasn’t a full accident, but we were just … trying it. Seeing how it played out. And it’s worked out brilliantly, so far. If it helps you at all, Kiki, I was so freaked out when our plan actually worked. Hugely freaked out. I couldn’t speak for three days.

Me: And then?

Zoe: [shrugs] Then I could.

She said she realised that this was something happening to both of them, and it would be a hell of a lot more manageable if she shared it all with Zac. She didn’t want to be alone, and she didn’t want him to feel alone either, and if they loved each other enough to marry in the face of Pedro’s insistence on twenty-hour working days, they could certainly manage growing a baby together. We stayed for a couple of hours, nursing our non-alcoholic cocktails, then were both so wiped out that I was home by 9, although I agreed to keep her posted with our scan results.

I think she’s right. I need to share this properly with Thom, not carry it all on my own and keep him at a distance. And I’m so glad to be going through this with a friend, too. And she might be only a month or so ahead of me, if my dates are right.

November 23rd

I couldn’t sleep last night, thinking about the scan today. I’m a giant emotional pendulum, elated one minute and excited to see our baby, terrified and frozen by the thought of actually seeing it the next.

But we had a slot first thing, and got to the hospital just in time so we didn’t have to hang around waiting. We completed the forms and had barely sat down in the waiting room before my name was called by the receptionist, and a friendly woman was welcoming us into the little room, filled with wires and screens.

Sonographer: Hello, I’m Clare. Katherine?

Me: [staring at the equipment] Yes, hello.

[silence]

Thom: I’m Thom. We’re hoping I’m the father.

Me: [not really listening] Sorry, yes, this is Thom.

Clare:— Hello, Thom. Katherine, there’s no need to be worried. Nothing I’m using today will harm your baby in any way, it’s perfectly safe equipment just to check everything’s going well, OK?

Me: OK.

Clare: Shall we get started? I just need you up on this bed, please, and you just need to lift your top up, that’s all. [I clamber on] Great, that’s perfect. I’m just going to put some of this gel on your stomach, to improve the contact, OK?

Me: OK.

Clare: Right, I’ll just have a look around. Yes, we’ve got the head here, can you see that?

Me: OK.

Thom: [quietly] Wow.

Clare: And you can see the spine following down, here. See that bit there?

Me: OK.

Clare: That’s the stomach, and all the internal organs.

Thom: Kiki, isn’t that amazing!

Me: OK.

Clare: I’m just going to take some measurements now, to check everything’s on schedule and growing as it should.

She worked in silence for a while, moving the wand around and marking points on the scan.

Clare: Mmm. [concerned] Mmmm.

Me: What what is it what’s wrong?

Clare: I’m just … is it?

Me: What can you see?

Clare: No, I … No, I think it’s fine. I just watched Alien for the first time the other night, and I can’t stop thinking about it. Just checking your baby has all its limbs and no tentacles. Hang on, is that …?

Me: WHAT?

Clare: [cheerful] No, nothing. Have you seen that film?

Me: [wide eyes at Thom] Yes.

Thom: No.

Clare: [to Thom] Don’t. Not for at least … a year, I’d say. OK, we’re all done here! Everything looks fine. I’d say you’re just over fourteen weeks at the moment, which makes your due date the 21st May, and your baby’s growing well so we don’t need any further scans at the moment. We’ll see you in six weeks for your twenty-week scan, then. I’ve sent your pictures to reception to collect.

We stumbled out of the room to get our pictures.

Thom: She was amazing. And now I’m curious: I really need to see Alien.

Me: You really, really don’t. And she really, really wasn’t.

We agreed to disagree, but I shall have to keep an eye on Thom. I suppose I’ll know if he’s watched it on the sly as he’ll suddenly come nowhere near my stomach.

It was so strange to see the baby really there. It sucked its thumb and rolled around, and I really believed for the first time that we were going to be parents.

TO DO:

Find out what babies do, and need, etc.

Ask Suse?

November 26th

Today was the day we’d agreed to break the news to our families. As with our engagement, we – by which I mean Thom – told his parents in Australia over the phone, just prior to telling my family over here. Aileen and Alan were delighted, shrieking down the phone and checking over and over that I was looking after myself, that Thom was looking after me and the baby, that we were happy, that we were well. It was so nice to talk to them and so nice to hear how glad the news had made them, but I also felt exhausted by it, and nervous about having to do it all over again with my family actually in front of us, where I’d be unable to draw my finger across my throat as a signal for Thom to draw the conversation to a close when it all got too overwhelming. My hands were shaking so much as we left our house that Thom had to do my coat up for me, saying, ‘It’s all practice for when you can’t do this yourself in a few months,’ to which I sighed, ‘I’m only going to have a bigger stomach, I’m not having my hands cut off.’ Thom tugged an imaginary forelock at me, and we headed over to Susie’s.

When we got there, I’d barely got my shaky finger onto the doorbell when the door opened to reveal Susie, husband Pete and all the kids in the hallway, all wrapped up in coats and scarves. I asked them whether their heating had broken again, but Susie told me that Dad’s birthday lunch was now at Mum and Dad’s house rather than theirs; she didn’t think I’d mind if we moved venues. ‘Come on, Sour Puss. I didn’t have to buy any supplies. Free food!’ ‘Is it, Suse? Is it?’ I said, but we were flurried out with their family. Thom and Pete took the twins Lily and Edward between them, walking in a wide line together, and Susie gave me Frida to carry.

Susie: So what’s new with you?

Me: Nothing! Why do you say that?

Susie: Jesus Christ, you’re pregnant.

Me: [wailing] How does everyone do that?

Susie: OH MY GOD I WAS ONLY JOKING. [doubles over laughing] Oh my GOD. I literally could not be more pleased with myself right now.

Me: Susie, you absolutely cannot tell Mum and Dad.

Susie: [wide-eyed, serious face] Oooh yeah, they’ll totally ground you and you’ll never get to go to the end of term party.

Me: Susie, please.

Susie: Alright. Do you want me to do it?

Me: Tell them you’re pregnant? I don’t know how long that story will hold. In about six months’ time my hospitalisation with Swollen Stomach is going to seem reeeeeally suspicious.

Susie: That wasn’t what I meant, but actually …

Me: We’ll all pretend we’re pregnant! Like Spartacus!

Susie: You’re hormone-addled.

Me: And you have to stop saying that stuff.

Susie: Alright, spoilsport. But I think you should know …

Me: God, what?

Susie: Mum’s actually really good at all this stuff. Looking after us in pregnancy. If she’s anything like how she was with me; she was brilliant. Asking all the right things. Providing great food. I think you’re going to see a new side to our mother.

Me: Hang on – Mum, who can barely remember our names at the best of times? Mum, who never quite manages to listen to what we’re saying when we’re in front of her? Mum, who reacted to news of your pregnancy with ‘Is it definitely yours?’?

Susie: Mum who single-handedly catered and decorated your wedding? Trust me. She’s good at this. She always preferred us when we were in utero, so she gets really excited about pregnancies.

Me: I’ll believe it when I see it.

We settled on Susie and Thom tossing for it. When we got to Mum and Dad’s, we took a coin from the pot in the hallway and all three of us squeezed into the downstairs toilet.

Susie: Call it.

Thom: Heads.

Me: No, tails.

Susie: Which one?

Thom: I don’t care.

Me: Tails! No, heads. HEADS.

Susie: [flips coin] Ha ha! It’s tails. [sing-songing] I get to tell them.

Thom: Oh, thank God.

Me: Just … do it. Don’t gloat, Suse. Get it done with.

So we filed back out, Dad giving us an odd look, and came into the kitchen where Mum was plating up our lunch.

Susie: Mum, Dad, Pete, children. I have an announcement to make.

Pete: [crossing fingers]

Susie: Your daughter’s knocked up – and it’s not me, for once!

Pete: Oh, thank God.

[silence]

Mum: Fucking hell.

Me and Susie: Mum!

I actually love it when Mum swears. It’s like Johnson’s walking dog – we’re not concerned so much how well she’s doing it, but that she’s doing it at all.

Mum: Sorry, darling, I just … well, I was surprised. Sorry. I just thought …

Me: What?

Mum: Well, I’m just surprised you’re having children so soon! I just thought you’d want to wait a little while. You two are both so young, and I thought you’d want to settle into your careers a little bit more …

Me: Susie had had two kids by the time she was TWENTY-FIVE!

Susie: [pulling a Question Time face] I hardly think that’s the point.

Me: [pleading] Mum.

Mum: Oh, darling, of course we’re excited. You do spring this on people, don’t you?

Me: [indignant] Would you prefer a blow-by-blow –

Thom: Don’t.

Me: [understanding] – mm.

Then Dad and Pete and the Twins were excited and gave us both hugs, and Mum came and gave me a lovely hug too. She asked lots of questions (all the right sort, for once), and Susie caught my eye and winked at me. Mum stayed excited for the rest of the afternoon, although she did occasionally repeat herself, which I can forgive in the name of her excitement.

Sometimes, I really love this family. Now it’s just telling everyone else we know. Gulp.

TO DO:

Find out if Susie’s available to tell all our friends

November 28th

Alice hasn’t so much as raised a conspiratorial eyebrow at me since she guessed the news. She’s been as friendly as ever, sweet and funny, but she’s too tactful to make hints or whisper questions to me in the office. She shows her me her neutral face, the face that’s meant she’s managed three Christmases with her handbag Gareth and her family, and never even looked at me when Carol reported that Tony had bought a baby book. In our weekly meeting, Carol asked if we had any thoughts yet on Lucie Martel’s A Womb of One’s Own.

Me: Her what?

Alice: A what of her what?

Carol: Tony bought this just before he left. It says here Kiki’s handling it in his absence. Didn’t he tell you?

Me and Alice: [blank faces]

Carol: Bloody hell. Right, it’s an American import, obviously, but we’ll publish in March, the same time as them. Lucie’s an incredibly wealthy New York journalist, mainly working in the US but with a few things published over here. Her piece on arranging a prostitute for her super-rich-CEO husband went down a storm last year in the Mail.

All: Oh, her!

Carol: Quite. She’s written the book already, but we won’t bring it out until the baby is actually born.

Me: But what is it?

Carol: Looking again at the submission notes, it’s ‘a unique look at pregnancy, labour and the early years through the fresh eyes of someone appreciating the beauty and purity of the experience’.

Alice: I’ve heard about Lucie. If her eyes are fresh it’s only because she’s had them injected with dolphin endorphins at some million-dollar spa.

Carol: We’re all thinking it, Alice, but I’m afraid you must learn to love this book. Tony’s spent enough on it that we must make use of the month we’ll have her for.

Me: But how can she have finished it if she hasn’t even had the baby yet?

Carol: Because when you have that much money, you can guarantee that life will turn out how you planned. I’ll send you the latest version; she’s over next month for a meeting with us. Did Tony really not tell you any of this?

All I could think was: Christ, I really hope Tony doesn’t buy a How to Cope with Everyone You Know Dying book, or I’m going to have to keep a closer watch on my loved ones. Why does he keep predicting my life? What the hell is going on? And why the living hell would he not tell us he’d bought it?

But it felt like the right time to tell Carol about this baby, after the meeting. She took it so well, giving me a hug and asking me for all the details. She said she’d email Tony – not that he responded with any real frequency – and get all the information to me about my leave and maternity pay. Her enthusiasm was quite infectious, in fact, and for once I didn’t mind telling people. Alice pulled out one of the bottles of prosecco that always seem to dog this place, and we had a tiny toast. I even saw Norman raise his glass to Carol before he drank, that old romantic. It wasn’t so bad, after all.

A Womb of One’s Own’s publication date is in March, four months away, a month after Lucie’s baby is born. As long as there are no complications, I’ll be happy to assist Alice with Lucie’s publicity; at seven months pregnant, I’ll be delighted to be on the phone for them while I sit in comfort in the office. Who knows, maybe she can actually give me some tips. And I can practise holding another baby, too, one that, unlike Susie’s kids, it does matter if I drop. Maybe I’ll start feeling maternal.

Although that seems unlikely.

November 29th

This morning, I remembered the times we’d visited Heidi and Rich, Thom’s best man, and their new baby Megan since our wedding. I liked them both very much, and found Megan wonderful to hold, like a kitten. But I’d always been quickly bored of that little animal warmth, and was happy to pass it back to Heidi so she could uncover an udder and feed the squirming creature. I never felt broody when we saw them – ha! In fact, last time we went, we even talked on the way home about how we hoped our feelings about babies would change before we had them ourselves – and never looked forward to seeing the baby, rather than Rich and Heidi. Yet there we were tonight. Pregnant, and on their doorstep again for another visit. We had a nice enough time, but I couldn’t wait until we were driving home again.

Me: Did you see the face they made at one another?

Thom: What face?

Me: The ‘Didn’t we say’ face.

Thom: Didn’t they say what?

Me: Have you really not noticed that when we’ve told people? The second you’re married, everyone starts waiting for the womb on legs in the relationship to get knocked up.

Thom: [laughing] I can’t say I have noticed that, I’m afraid.

Me: No! I know you haven’t! And do you know why? Because –

Thom: I’m a man. I know. And I can’t tell you how sorry I am about that fact right at this moment.

Me: [laughing] Thom, I’m not blaming you. I’m just saying it’s another one of the countless things which exposes the idea of pregnancy being some kind of partnership as completely and utterly false. We are not pregnant. I am pregnant. I am the one everyone is watching. If something happens to this baby, whose fault do you think people will think that is?

Thom: [stopping the car] Kiki. If anything – heaven forbid, times a million – if anything happens to this baby, I couldn’t give the slightest shit what anyone else says. My only concern is loving it, and loving you, and making sure that even if it’s a tiny contribution, I do whatever I can to make your lives better.

Me: [crying] I’m just so hormonal. You don’t know what it’s like.

Thom: [pulling me into a hug] I know, Keeks. I know.

TO DO:

Investigate how long these crazy hormones are supposed to last

On second thoughts, maybe don’t

Do something nice for Thom

November 30th

Pamela came in for one of her infrequent visits to the office today, so I thought it was a good idea to tell her about the pregnancy: I owe my promotion purely to her and won’t ever give her an excuse to be disappointed in me. But she was as nice as Carol, checking I felt well and wasn’t exhausting myself, asking how the check-ups had been and whether my parents were excited. ‘I hear grandchildren are one of the greatest gifts one can receive,’ she explained, ‘but I’ve long since abandoned any hope of Tony giving me such a blessing.’ She shook my hand and congratulated me again, and I reassured her that she wouldn’t be able to keep me out of this office for long.

Drinks with Jacki tonight. I was so excited, since I missed our last drinks in October and I haven’t told her about this pregnancy yet. I have so much to thank her for – my promotion (it was the success of her book that sealed it), my wedding (she offered to bankroll it), and the fact I had a husband at all (she reminded me what really mattered when her marriage to a gold-digger broke her heart) – but even if I didn’t, seeing her always makes my day. We met at one of our favourite snug bars in Soho, underneath an erotic bookshop, and clacked downstairs to a booth. We were talking over one another before we’d even ordered our drinks.

Me: Jacki! I can’t believe I haven’t seen you for so long. It’s been the craziest few months.

Jacki: I know, me too, darling. I’ve been filming two videos back-to-back for singles from the bloody Love Songs album, and I don’t think I’ve slept for a month.

Me: Well, you look well, Jacks.

Jacki: Do I? I’ll give you some advice that you won’t ever need: Don’t get divorced. [seeing my face] Sorry, love, I don’t mean you. Don’t let anyone you know get divorced either. It’s not the money – I always knew I’d be worse off after marrying Leon one way or another – it’s everything else …

Me: Jacks, I’m so sorry. Come and sit next to me. [putting my arm around her]

Jacki: I’m sorry, I’m not a complainer, you know that. But this is … knackering me. It really is. Leon, his girlfriends, the rumours, the public judging us both, and waking up on my own every day … Ugh. [shaking herself] Tell me about your life, Kiki. [swallowing hard] Is married life good for you? You look amazing on it, anyway. Glowing!

And with that, I lost my nerve. I told her all about my new role, about how her book was still selling, about Thom’s new job and Mum’s increasing anxiety over Dad, and Susie’s battles with the icing bag for yet another school event. As ever, Jacki listened so attentively, asking all the right questions and remembering everything I’d ever told her about these people. She asked about guests from our wedding too, Eve and Mike, and lovely Jim and Poppy.

Jacki: And wasn’t your best man’s girlfriend due any day? What did she have?

Me: They had a little girl, Megan. She’s … wow, almost three months now.

Jacki: And are they happy?

Me: I think so. Heidi doesn’t get much sleep, though.

Jacki: And Ped told me all about Zoe, too.

Me: [not looking at her] Yeah! It’s amazing, isn’t it? I hear he’s treating her really well. First class all the way, these days. Maybe I will work for Pedro, after all.

Jacki: That only works if you’re pregnant, though.

Me: Ha! Hahaha! Haha! Yes! Haha!

Jacki: But at least Zoe and your friend Heidi have someone to care for, and to care for them, Kiki. They’re very lucky, and they should remember that.

Me: Would you like another drink?

Jacki: Ooooh, yes please. Isn’t it my round?

But I had to go and order the drinks so she wouldn’t realise that I was having Virgin Mules and Shirley Temples. Poor Jacki. As if she needs to hear from me how I’m happily breeding with my loving husband when she’s so lonely and hurt from that conniving horror Leon. I made a useless resolution that if anyone else I know ever seems to be marrying someone who appears to be a feckless greedy gobshite, I will definitely tell them. For now, I will continue to support Jacki in any way I can (or until I start showing).

December’s Classic Baby

‘You may, perhaps, be prepared to hear that Mrs Micawber is in a state of health which renders it not wholly improbable that an addition may be ultimately made to those pledges of affection which – in short, to the infantine group. Mrs Micawber’s family have been so good as to express their dissatisfaction at this state of things. I have merely to observe, that I am not aware that it is any business of theirs, and that I repel that exhibition of feeling with scorn, and with defiance!’

Mr Micawber then shook hands with me again, and left me.

David Copperfield

Charles Dickens

December 1st

Oh, advent calendar joy! When we were very little, Susie and I had a fabric advent calendar each which Mum had made, and which she and Dad would then fill with all sorts of gifts. When Dad had to travel with work, the calendar would include little German Christmas decorations, American sweets or even just miniature hotel jars of jam, while Mum would provide pound coins, lip glosses, single chocolates and hair clips. Despite the fact that we are far too old to indulge in such things, Mum still delivers the bags of twenty-five gifts each November 30th, with each tiny parcel numbered, so Susie and I don’t spoil one another’s surprises, although now the calendars are obviously filled with gifts for Thom, Pete, the Twins and Frida too.

Thom and I had spent last night diligently filling each pocket with the numbered parcels, and I was allowed to string the fairy lights around the bookshelves (but not turn them on). This morning, I leapt out of bed to open the first one.

Me: A hair clip!

Thom: [grumpily] Yours.

Me: Ahh, is someone feeling left out of the widdel advent caw-endar?

Thom: I hope you’re not going to talk to my child like that.

I always hug myself when he says something like that. If all goes well – a phrase I think to myself a hundred times a day – we’ll be celebrating next Christmas with three of us here. Three! Our baby! Wait. I got too excited too quickly. Won’t it just pull down the tree? Eat all the presents? Mmmm. Still not ready for this.

December 2nd

So I’ve finished A Womb of One’s Own. Wow.

Wow.

What a mixture of preachy, hippie garbage and self-congratulatory smugness. Here are some of my favourite bits:

On discovering the news:

It was a moment I shall never forget. As Bill and I looked at the doctor’s report telling us that our great blessing had arrived, we held hands. ‘Our souls are fused together forever,’ Bill’s eyes seemed to say. ‘This is a child of love,’ mine replied. Bill started to cry, then I joined in, and even the doctor wiped his eyes. ‘I’ve been doing this job for thirty years, and I’ve never been so moved when I told a couple the good news,’ he exclaimed. ‘Thank you. Thank you for reminding me of the magic of this job.’

On going into labour:

It was a swelling wave, a jungle noise that I rode, crested, becoming stronger and more powerful than I ever could have considered possible. I reached inside my soul, and found myself as a small girl, a teenage beauty, a handsome woman, a wise old crone. We stood in a circle holding hands, and they guided me to the place I needed to be, delivering me strength and love. I knew my child was being born, and that it was a journey only I could go on. I could hear my doctor: ‘One more push, Ms Martel,’ and my selves nodded at me, smiling. With one final effort, I could feel myself doubled, grown, as the love Bill and I created became a person, a name, a life. It was Creation.

On feeding the baby:

I had watched others around me struggle with breastfeeding, discovering pain and bleeding. Others had simply given up, and turned to a plastic bottle for their newborn wonder. Blessed as we were with our child, so was I blessed with his feeding. He took to it like a natural – as that’s what it was, the most natural thing in the world. We stared into each other’s eyes, and I could feel the love flow between us. I knew that no pain could ever touch me, as I was giving him the greatest gift in the world – mother’s milk, which would be with him for the rest of his life, bettering him and lifting him among his peers, wherever he went.

On the baby’s toys and clothes:

Bill and I agreed from the start that we wanted only beauty for our child. We had no plastics in the nursery, which our own interior decorator had redone completely for us, in shades of dove grey with a yellow accent. The cot was made from an old altar from Brazil, with wood which was hundreds of years old. The changing unit was fashioned from a table Bill’s family had kept for generations, while the baby’s wardrobe was an heirloom from my grandmother, shipped from France in the eighteenth century. We carpeted the room in the softest New Zealand wool, with a feature rug from Morocco. The toys were handmade – an artisan in upstate New York made a whole family of wooden animals, and an Italian craftsman designed an original light fitting in a giraffe shape. All the bed linen and blankets came from handcrafters across the country when I’d sourced throughout my pregnancy. We even had a film prop-maker fashion us the baby’s name in lights, to go on the wall – Bill and I both knew how important it was for this baby to feel at home the second we brought him in.

I cannot wait to meet this woman. Orrrr … not meet. One or the other. Probably the latter.

TO DO:

Find out if Thom will repaint our living room in dove grey and accent yellow. That actually sounds lovely.

December 3rd

My final treat from Thom’s diary of treats: a trip to the local garden centre, choosing and buying a Christmas tree, plus as many Christmas decorations as I could carry. We both got slightly giddy, sniffing the needles and displaying the baubles to one another in very, very mature ways, but eventually we left with a tree that was, of course, slightly too big for our living room, and an enormous box of extra fairy lights, baubles, bells, bead ropes, robins, ribbons and a golden, glittering star tree topper.

We blew the rest of the afternoon getting the tree positioned and decorated (Thom: ‘I think we need to soak the base first.’ Me: ‘Do it later! Let’s get it up first!’), with me tying bows everywhere while Thom kept us supplied with tea and mince pies.

Thom: Do you ever worry you might peak too soon?

Me: Nonsense. Carpe diem. And the diem I carpe is Christmas Day.

Thom: I didn’t know one could pick.

Me: One can and one does. If Scrooge resolved to keep Christmas every day, I think starting at the beginning of December is the very least we can do. It’s not like I’m making us eat turkey and all the trimmings every day for the next month.

Thom: Don’t. I know you. You start off joking about these things …

Me: [pulling him down beside me] I promise. No turkey until at least the 17th. But thank you, for all these things over the year. It’s been lovely. And I think next year might be lovely too.

TO DO:

Double check which foods I’m allowed to eat, before Christmas kicks in properly

December 4th

Time to tell Eve. Why was I nervous? This wasn’t the Eve of old, this was new Eve. Nice Eve. Thoughtful Eve. Normal Human Being Eve. Since she’d tried to seduce Thom at her last birthday party, met someone she’d actually cared about for once (the lovely baker Mike) and faced my half-hearted wrath, Eve had changed. I loved seeing her now – she no longer made me feel guilty or inadequate. Yet, still so nervous.

She’d come over to mine for lunch, and was loitering in the kitchen doorway while I got everything together.

Eve: I brought some wine – shall I open it?

Me: Yes please. Just a bit for me, though, thanks.

Eve: Late night last night?

Me: [brightly] No, it turns out I’m pregnant! Oops. Didn’t mean for that to happen. Not that I’m an idiot or anything. Just … statistically unlikely. But it’s fine. I’m fine, and the baby’s fine, although I’m still not used to it actually being a baby – I just like to think of it as a thing I’ll have to get round to dealing with sometime next year. Ha!

Eve: Oh right. Cool.

And that was it. She didn’t ask any more, and I didn’t volunteer it. We ate lunch, and talked about work and our families, then she left. I felt flat.

When Thom got home from the pub, I was still lying with my face half-pressed into the sofa, watching something dreadful on TV with my open eye.

Thom: Eve back on form?

Me: No! She was fine. It was nice to see her. She just didn’t really … care.

Thom: Wasn’t that what you wanted? Better that than her telling you how to name it and where we should live and what clever little vintage items it ought to wear, isn’t it?

Me: I suppose so.

Thom: Keeks, I know she’s been different these last few months, but a leopard can’t change its spots entirely. Just think about all the other people who do make you happy: Suse, Zoe, Alice – have you seen Greta recently?

Me: No! That will be nice! You’re right. It’s just habit with Eve. But you’re right.

TO DO:

Stop having high hopes for Eve

Start enjoying the rest of our friends while I can

Remember I’m not dying, just having a baby

December 6th

An evening to try again with Jacki. She’d emailed me this time, asking if I wanted pre-Christmas cocktails at the Dorchester after work, even though we’ve only just seen one another. I knew I had to get there before her, to order my soft drinks again, so I left the office at 5; walking up Oxford Street towards Marble Arch, admiring the windows, but hurrying. I got there almost half an hour early, bursting into the bar in a sweat, and grateful that I’d have time to compose myself. But Jacki was already there.

Jacki: [waving] Woohoo!

Me: Jacki! Hello? Didn’t we say six?

Jacki: I thought so. Thirsty?

Me: I am, yeah.

Jacki: [gesturing to a barman] Here, it’s coming over now. [taking two drinks from the waiter]

Me: [smelling it] Oh … lovely. Thank you. What is it? [lifting it to my mouth]

Jacki: It’s called a Belladonna.

Me: [wetting my lips with it] Mmm, what’s in it?

Jacki: Gin and rum. And apricot liqueur.

Me: [still holding the glass to my lips] MmmMMMm.

Jacki: And a double whisky.

Me: [putting glass down] Alright, enough. [wiping mouth] Oh, that is good though. How long have you known?

Jacki: I had an email from Polka Dot telling me they were looking for my replacement editor and would let me know as soon as they could.

Me: What?

Jacki: Which is exactly how I felt. Why the hell didn’t you tell me, Kiki?

Me: Well, partly because I only found out really recently –

Jacki: So you didn’t know last time I saw you?

Me: Um.

Jacki: Was this a pity silence? Was I so sad that you couldn’t even tell me you were pregnant?

Me: No, of course not!

Jacki: So what was it, then?

Me: It wasn’t pity, it was just tact. You were sad, because of course you would be, because your husband …

Jacki: He’s not my husband.

Me: I’m sorry, Jacks. You know what I mean. Of course you would be sad, and we were talking about that, and I didn’t think it was appropriate to say, ‘Hey, guess what! I’m having a baby!’

Jacki: [quiet] OK. Alright, Keeks. What a pair we are, hey?

So Jacki drank both the Belladonnas, and I drank some amazing ginger and apple things, and we stayed there for a while. I told her about the scan, and how my family and Polka Dot were taking it.

Me: Hey, Jacks, do you want to be godmother to this baby? Well, not godmother godmother. Non- godmother. What do you say?

Jacki: Did you just think of that?

Me: Nope.

Jacki: Kiki?

Me: Please? It’s all so medical I could do with a little laughter and colour in the mix. As long as the colour isn’t flesh pink or wound red.

Jacki: Oh, you do know how to sell it, Kiki. Can I think about it?

We kissed and said goodbye, and I headed home to collapse on the sofa and tell Thom the good news.

Thom: Jacki Jones Jacki?

Me: Yes.

Thom: As the baby’s godmother?

Me: Non-godmother. I’m not dunking my baby for anybody.

Thom: Jacki Jacki Jones?

Me: Yes, Thom.

Thom: [thinking] Sure, that sounds nice.

December 7th

Thom woke me up this morning.

Thom: Uh, Kiki?

Me: Unnnnn. What?

Thom: What was the last thing you got in the advent calendar?

Me: Nnnnidunno. Mm. Maybe … oh, a lip balm. Why? What did you get today?

Thom: Look.

I finally opened my eyes to see what it was. Thom was holding up a slightly chewed stumpy pencil, the kind of thing Dad always keeps behind his ear at college. I felt baffled, then I realised that Susie had finally excelled herself.

Me: Oh my God … it was Susie!

Thom: How do you work that out?

Me: When she was over the other night, she had me rooting around for ages, trying to find a top she’d lent me. That bloody crafty wolf.

I roared with laughter, and we agreed that Susie deserved to be congratulated on her effective sabotage. I also determined to swap one of her parcels for her own little surprise before she got our congratulations. I was pretty amazed neither of us had had this brainwave before, to be honest. But if she wants to play mean, we can play mean.

At work today, I asked Carol about the email Jacki had got.

Carol: Jesus. Well, I assume that means Tony is checking his emails. I only told him last week, but he’s clearly back to meddling, wherever he is. Was Jacki OK?

Me: Yes, thanks Carol, she was, but I think if she’d been slightly more nervous this could have tipped her over the edge. Why would he do that?

Carol: It’s a refrain I’ve been singing for the fifteen years I’ve been here, Kiki, and I’m no closer to finding a satisfactory answer. It was an ignorant, trouble-making thing to do and I’ve not got the slightest clue how he thought it could benefit anyone. But let me know if you get any hassle from your other authors.

Lovely Carol. How rotten to be second-in-command to someone with such a deadly combination of laziness and cluelessness. Tony can be relied upon to get involved in something just long enough to muck it up, then he’ll get bored and require someone else to do the actual work. Going on leave seems such a distant future event, like having the baby: something I know I’ll have to deal with eventually, but nothing I need to think about anytime soon. But this talk of cover has made me realise that within six months, the office won’t have me in it anymore, and I won’t be in meetings, and I won’t have books to work on, and someone else will be doing all of my jobs.

I feel incredibly strange about all of that.

The Christmas cards have started arriving in the office, from authors and agents. The very first one was from Clifton Black, Polka Dot’s military fiction specialist – and by specialist, I mean ‘someone who’s spent his career trying to convince us he has previously served in the army, while writing books like Bullets and Bravery and Serving Under Fire with an entirely straight face’ – who I may have accidentally sexted slightly before our wedding. It could happen to anyone. Since then, he doesn’t come into the office anymore, a fact which, if we’d known earlier, any one of us would have been willing to send all manner of inappropriate texts to him. But he sent a lovely card, albeit one which omitted my name entirely. God bless us, every one.

TO DO:

Come up with a few items to scatter into Susie’s calendar: a boiled egg? An empty M&Ms bag?

Find out if romantic text messages can scare off all the difficult authors

Make my peace with someone else doing my job for a little while

December 9th

Polka Dot’s Christmas party tonight. I had such a nice time, but definitely felt some sadness at being stone-cold sober throughout. Having said that, it was completely hilarious to see Alice, Dan (my favourite of Polka Dot’s designers), Carol, Norman and the rest of the team drunk beyond all comprehension and actually be able to remember it for once.

As is tradition, Pamela joined us for the first course, laughing gamely at our rising spirits, then bidding her goodbyes as the plates were cleared. As she came over to leave her company credit card with Carol, she checked that I was keeping well, and not working too hard. I’m so glad I’ve got to know her – not only is she a good person to have on one’s team, she’s also hugely inspirational, a capable woman running this company solo for years before Tony got involved.

After she left, the nice dinner rapidly descended into plate-sharing, drink-spilling, name-calling bunfight (in the best possible way) which I think will result in a) Dan waking up with a very nasty bruise on his left thigh, b) Norman being grateful he has no social media presence, and c) no employee of Polka Dot books ever being permitted back into that restaurant again.

Funny to be so sober. Funny how things change.

December 10th

If that’s how she wants to play it, that’s how we’ll play it. After finding a half-used box of floss in today’s calendar, I resolved to sneak over to Susie’s at 7 tonight, knowing – with Pete away on some travel agent job somewhere around the world – it would be the most frantic time for her. Between helping her bath the Twins and Frida, finding their pyjamas, telling them stories, brushing their teeth and getting them down, I managed to swap tomorrow’s parcel out of her calendar, replacing it with a similarly wrapped burst balloon. I would be the worst poker player – I could barely contain my glee when I went back downstairs to find Susie putting all the toys away and tidying up the kitchen.

Susie: Thanks so much, Keeks. When Pete’s away this part of the evening is always so unbelievably exhausting.

Me: [feeling slightly bad] But practice makes perfect?

Susie: More like familiarity breeds contempt. Oh, not for them, you shocked face, just for this bloody life. I’m so tired. Yes, they all sleep well and eat well and I love them dearly, but I’m going mad, Keeks. When I wave Pete off on another trip these days, my blood boils. It boils.

Me: Do you tell him?

Susie: Tell him what? That I wonder if we married too quickly? That I wonder what I’d be doing now if I hadn’t got knocked up that night?

Me: [feeling a bit sick] Do you regret it?

Susie: [looking at me] Oh, no, of course I don’t regret it. And your life isn’t my life, and my decisions aren’t your decisions, and you aren’t married to Pete. I’m glad he loves his job, but I wished he loved a job slightly closer to home, so he could put his children to bed more than twice a month, and tidy the house, and remember their school projects and the new socks they need.

Me: [putting an arm around her] Are you happy, Suse?

Susie: [silence] Not really at all, these days. I’m so tired and bored and angry that my emotional resting state is permanently somewhere in the red. Sometimes I just think – maybe I could just go, one day. Just go on holiday and come back after a few months, and see how Pete had got on. He knows what to do. If he had to, he’d be absolutely fine.

I’d not heard Susie talk like that before, although I’ve suspected for ages that’s how she felt. I almost had a guilty twinge for sabotaging her advent calendar.

December 11th

To try and begin to thank Thom for how supportive and thoughtful he’s been over the last few months, I took us to the new production of an Alan Bennett play at the National. It was fantastic – funny and clever, moving and sparky, and we talked solidly in the interval about how we both wished we came to the theatre more often.

At the end of the play, I felt Thom nudge me.

Thom: Were you … were you asleep?

Me: No. [wiping drool from side of mouth] Do you have any water, please? My mouth is a bit dry.

Thom: Well, I really enjoyed it. Thank you for the kind thought. And for not snoring.

It’s literally the least I could have done for him, and I managed to stay awake for dinner afterwards. Also, for the after-dinner treat at home. Which was very much worth it.

December 13th

Pre-Christmas Christmas drinks with Greta. She’s so utterly fantastic – an unexpected surprise when I signed up to be a bridesmaid at a hideous wedding last year, and a woman I would almost certainly have married instead of Thom if she’d been a man.

Greta: Hello there! I haven’t seen you since the early Halloween party. Nice costume, by the way. And Thom looked … good.

Me: Thank you, and tell me about it. I’m debating making him wear that every night in.

Greta: Alright, get a room. Did you manage to get the pumpkin off that guy in the end?

Me: No. He said it had his medication in. Spoilsport.

Greta: So tell me something from the world of publishing. Tell me a celebrity scandal. Make it up if you don’t know any. But don’t tell me you’ve made it up.

Me: I’m pregnant?

Greta: No no no, the tabloids will never care about that. Something about someone actually famous.

Me: I … am?

Greta: No – are you really? Well that, Katherine Carlow, is a nice treat.

Me: Thanks. Do you want to deliver it?

Greta: Noooooo. No, I do not. Do you want me to ask you lots of things about it?

Me: No, I don’t really. But is it going to be a wedge that will come between our new friendship? Are we going to grow apart because the baby has come between us? Is it going to be weird?

Greta: Only if you make me catch it in the maternity ward. Otherwise: couldn’t care less. In the nicest possible way. But I’m pleased for you.

Me: Understood.

So we didn’t talk about it, and I was happy. See? A relationship undefined by this pregnancy! I don’t need everyone to sing and dance about it. Joy!

Which means it is just Eve’s reaction that bothers me.

TO DO:

Pump Greta later to find out if she really doesn’t care, or if she just doesn’t care because she totally hates babies, like any sane person, and will thus never want to see me again after May

December 14th

Seven months pregnant, Lucie Martel has defied her weeping doctor’s advice to fly over for some pre-publicity stuff, and to meet with all of us. For that alone, I suppose, I have to respect her. I’m already feeling slightly nervous just being away from my bed, but Thom says that’s a latent tendency that’s purely been verbalised with the pregnancy. Rude.

I met Lucie over breakfast at the Charlotte Street Hotel, where she ordered a decaf espresso. I must have been staring at her a little, because she laughed and said, ‘Pathetic, isn’t it? Like ordering a meat-free steak. But it helps to cling to these little things somehow.’ She seemed nice, by which I mean normal, by which I mean she acknowledged that pregnancy seems to be just a desperate battle to cling on to life as it was beforehand.

Since Tony had already negotiated her contract earlier this year, we were free to talk about her publicity, any marketing we might offer, the bookshop deals we were looking at and how long she’d be over in the UK after the baby’s birth.

Lucie: I’m afraid I can only offer you four days for any publicity.

Me: Oh, OK. We thought you were over here for a month …?

Lucie: Well, three weeks, but I don’t think it’s fair to be working all that time when the baby is so young.

Me: No, OK, that’s great! So the baby will definitely be with you?

Lucie: [shocked] Absolutely. He’ll only be five weeks old when you publish over here, and I don’t think Bill will be ready to deal with his son for, what, eighteen to twenty years?

Me: [laughing] Of course, you know it’s a boy. That’s nice.

Lucie: Yes, Bill insisted on all the scans – we have a beautiful 4D scan of little Bill Jnr, that some nights I just watch over and over again. Do you have children?

Me: [choking slightly on my tea] Nope, no, no children. No children.

Lucie: Tick tock tick tock, you know! I see you’ve got a ring at least – how long have you been married?

Me: [gritting teeth] A few months.

Lucie: Well, don’t leave it too long. Do you know, Bill Jnr has already cost us almost $500,000? That’s because we were ‘waiting for the right time’. And that’s not including redeveloping his nursery, costs for the nanny, and any of his education.

Me: Jesus, I’d be hoping he comes out covered in gold for that money.

We both clearly had a mental image of exactly what I was suggesting and got very quiet. I suddenly thought, ‘If she walks out and refuses to do anything for us again, how I am going to tell Tony that I scared off my new author by encouraging her to push a metallic infant through her birth canal?’

Lucie shook her head and blinked, and said, ‘OK! What kind of publicity do you guys have in mind?’ I ran through the options we were chasing, women’s glossies and the weekend supplements, gave her the latest jacket options we were looking at and asked her to think about any pieces she might be writing for the US that we could use over here. Then I got the bill and got out of there, before I offered to cut her umbilical cord with my butter knife, or something.

And oh. Came home tonight to find a beautiful letterpress card from Eve, saying how pleased she and Mike are for us, with a tiny lobster holding hands with two huge lobsters on the front. Oh, Eve. I will really stop thinking the worst of you one day, really.

TO DO:

Consider whether I’m actually safe company for any antenatal group if I keep saying my grotesque birthing nightmares out loud

December 15th

My stomach has suddenly popped out. From spending ages each night standing in front of the mirror smoothing my t-shirt over a small curve (only there if you were looking), with Thom saying, ‘Stop bending your back,’ it has now – somehow overnight – become indisputably that of a pregnant. And I love it. I really do. For one thing, it means all those maternity clothes are finally beginning to fit a little better; for another, I now get a seat on the tube; for one more, it is just lovely. It has somehow lent my body proportions which suit it much better – with a small stomach curving out, I fit together perfectly, and my body just makes sense. So while I can’t grow a plant to save my life, I can grow a whole other human being. Amazing.

And yet, and yet … it’s novel, like wearing makeup for the first time, and I feel grown up. But when I consider what’s in there, what’s required of me both in that hospital room and for all the years of my life following, I can’t … breathe.

Me: Thom, what are we going to do?

Thom: About what?

Me: [patting the bed next to me] This baby.

Thom: [lying down beside me] I don’t know, Keeks. Is there anything that could make you feel better? Do you still feel sick?

Me: Hey, I don’t actually. That’s nice.

Thom: Why don’t you do some of that ‘get in touch with yourself’ rubbish you’d normally scoff at? Pregnancy yoga, or something? You can make some friends, lie in a quiet room and fall asleep …

Me: Well, that does sound nice.

Thom: And if I had been keeping my eye out for that kind of thing, I might have found out that there was a class round the corner every Thursday night, and I might have discovered that they have spaces and I might be willing to get those classes as a Christmas present if it’s anything that would make you feel better.

Me: My God. You’re such a … flower child.

Thom: [rubbing my head with fake soothing motion] I just think someone needs to do a little swimming in Lake Me?

Me: [laughing] No way, I know where you’ve been.

Thom: Katherine, you just need to connect to the life inside you.

Me: [serious] Oh. Don’t. Thom, this is so hard. I’m sorry to be ill, to be tired, to be hormonal –

Thom: Is it OK to say I quite like some of your hormones? [wiggling eyebrows]

Me: Yes, I liked those ones too. But it’s horrid for me to feel so at the mercy of this thing I don’t even know, or understand. I’m still me, I’m still Kiki, but now I’m this vessel being pummelled and slugged and lectured.

Thom: Who’s lecturing you?

Me: [mumbling]

Thom: Christ. Have you been looking at forums again?

Me: I was just curious!

Thom: What, bloody UninformedMumsSpeculate dot com? Kiki, if those places upset you, why would you look at them?

Me: It’s just … one of the people mentioned that if you don’t bond with your baby while it’s … you know … in there, it can really affect how you get on with it when it’s born.

Thom: [putting his arms around me] Kiki, that sounds reasonable. I’m sorry.

We just lay in bed for a while, not talking, and I hoped that something would change, to stop swinging wildly between finding a positive and being suddenly petrified by it. I didn’t want to be quite as certain as Lucie Martel, but I wouldn’t mind just a little piece of that.

Optimism, I suppose I was after.

December 16th

Before Christmas swept us up in Publishing’s usual month-long shutdown, I thought I’d better get in touch with my other new authors. Jennifer Luck, rather bafflingly, wrote back to say how far she’d got with Tony’s notes (Tony writes notes?) and would resubmit in January, as they’d agreed. Matthew Holt, meanwhile, seemed delighted to have a new editor, as he hadn’t quite ‘clicked’ with Tony. I’ve no way of knowing whether that means Matthew saw straight through him, or whether Tony pointed out that most parts of Sweden don’t have three months of continuous daylight each summer. Can’t wait to read his updated manuscript too, next year. Still no clue to the contact details for Stuart ‘Tara Towne’ Winton, though. I’ll look into this properly in January.

Back at home, I’ve no idea how she’s done it, but she’s done it again.

Me: Has Susie been round here while I’ve been out?

Thom: No. Why?

Me: [holding up a tampon]

Thom: This is a bit too abstract even for me. What’s the connection?

Me: It was today’s calendar gift.

Thom: Oooooh. Ooh, that’s good. No, she hasn’t been round here for ages. You haven’t done something foolish like give her a key, have you?

Me: [thinking] Oh, I bloody did, as well. For emergencies.

Thom: We need to raise our game.

TO DO:

Come up with a full blueprint for Susie Revenge

December 17th

We went to Susie’s last night, before heading out with them for drinks for Pete’s birthday. Mum and Dad stayed in to babysit the kids, and I managed some quick advent calendar manoeuvres before we left. ‘What are you grinning about?’ asked Susie as we wrapped up for the walk to the pub, and Thom just mouthed exaggeratedly, ‘DID YOU DO IT?’ over her shoulder. I nodded to him but just smiled at Susie, saying, ‘Gosh, nothing! Aren’t we suspicious?’ She narrowed her eyes at me, but we went off nonetheless. I had a great time tonight, and Susie’s so much happier when Pete’s around. I’m sure she didn’t mean all that stuff she was saying the other day. I can’t imagine how exhausted she must feel all the time, or how much she misses him. I’m sure they know what they’re doing, though.

December 21st

Susie rang tonight.

Susie: Have you been meddling with my advent calendar?

Me: [sniggering] No. I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Susie: You little bastard. Those calendars are sacrosanct.

Me: You started it!

Susie: What do you mean, I started it?

Me: You put the pencil in mine!

Susie: What?

Me: What?

Susie: What pencil?

Me: Don’t try that game with me. The pencil … in my … advent calendar … Didn’t you?

Susie: I did no such thing, you horrible brat. How dare you.

Me: Well, who did then?

Susie: [silence] Dad?

Me: I got a tampon last week.

Susie: [longer silence] Mum?

Me: [even longer silence] She has been really stressed, Suse. I think Dad’s heart attack shook her more than we realised. And you know she always goes crazy at Christmas.

Susie: So you’re blaming your mother, are you? That does not seem like the actions of a grateful child. Your poor, aged mother.

Me: Don’t, Suse.

Susie: Alright, alright. Poor Mum. Don’t mention it to her, OK?

Me: OK. And Suse?

Susie: What?

Me: Don’t let the kids open tomorrow’s calendar parcel.

Poor Mum. She does seem pretty stressed at the moment.

December 22nd

Final day in the office before Christmas. Contracts all taken care of until January, publicity all wrapped up – Alice, Carol and I will be on the phone should there be any emergencies – Secret Santa gifts exchanged (gave: a woolly hat to Norman; received: a pack of fake moustaches, obviously), plans gone over and seasonal farewells said. There’s such a holiday mood over all of us, even though we’re a small office: I wonder how much of that is Christmas, and how much is how well we’ve done these last few months in Tony’s absence. Anyway, it’s nice to have these almost-two-weeks stretching ahead of us.

TO DO:

Check I’ve actually done everything?

December 23rd

Drinks with everyone tonight, bliss. Eve and Mike, who brought fresh boxes of stollen for everyone, Alice, Designer Dan, old pal Jim and Poppy, Zoe and Zac, Greta (my bridesmaid-buddy), Thom’s new teaching colleagues Liz, George and Robin, and even Susie and Pete (Mum and Dad had the kids). It was great, the first time I’d seen everyone together since our wedding, and reminded me and Thom both that we didn’t want to give any of this up when the baby arrived. It was always a pleasure to see these people, and for every friend we’d lost touch with over the years, there were new ones: Zoe, Greta, the teachers. This was a nice life, and we’re grateful for it. Eve’s stopped being a frenemy and is just my friend again, Mike brings us baked goods, Zac’s really handsome and Greta and Alice are hilarious – what more could one want from life?

TO DO:

See if this baby can be postponed a couple of years

December 24th

Christmas Eve. I have all my presents bought, wrapped and ready to go, I have my mocktail ingredients in Mum’s fridge (I’ve got everything for several jugs of mock-itos, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to just end up on the dusty Buck’s Fizz as usual) and our flat looks like a grotto explosion, every available surface covered with fairy lights, paper chains, snowflakes, Christmas cards, flocked reindeer, tissue paper snowmen (from the Twins’ school), weathered metal stars and little festive wooden decorations. Our tree was festooned with gold bows and red baubles, and with tiny decorations made by Dad. It was beautiful.

I made us both some mulled wine (so thoroughly mulled I’d be lucky if there was even a breath of booze left in there) and brought two mugs of it through. Thom was sitting on the floor, staring at the tree.

Me: You OK?

Thom: [slightly surprised] Yeah. I am. Are you?

Me: Yes. I like how much this baby moves. And I like you.

Thom: My God, Christmas makes you emotional.

Me: You say that like it’s not fact number one about me.

Thom: Do you like it today?

Me: I do. More and more.

Thom: You’re going to have a baby here next time we do this.

Both: – All going well.

Me: We will. Are you going to cover it in ‘Baby’s First Christmas’ bibs and babygros? Will you get it tiny baby antlers?

Thom: I don’t think they exist.

Me: Well, now we know what we can pitch to Dragon’s Den, don’t we?

We stayed up late tonight, mostly just resting against the sofa, looking at the tree, until suddenly at 11.59 Thom said, ‘Right, get to bed. Father Christmas won’t come otherwise.’ Quite right, too.

December 25th

Oh, a lovely day. Thom woke me up with such wonderful treats, gifts from under the tree and a tray of Christmas breakfast in bed: buttery scrambled eggs and toast, fresh orange juice and tea, and a little mince pie. ‘I’m going to look nine months preg by New Year if you keep this up,’ I warned, stuffing the mince pie in my mouth first. ‘Ah, the beauty of Woman in bloom,’ Thom countered. ‘Plus, blooming woman, we need to be at your mum and dad’s in an hour. Shall we open something here first?’ My mouth still full, I grabbed the nearest gift and thrust it at Thom, nodding, wide-eyed.

Here’s what we got one another:

From Thom:

A new MAC Ruby Woo lipstick (mine’s run out)

Four paperbacks, none of which were about babies

Plants for the window-box

To Catch a Thief, my favourite Cary Grant film

From me:

A boxset of Paul Newman films (maybe a little bit for me too)

A tie (of course)

Two poetry books

A jar of homemade chutney (annual ritual)

We thanked one another, then I said with mock casualness, ‘Oh. What’s that? Is there something still in the tree?’ Thom looked at me quizzically, then pulled out a gold envelope from within the branches. His face lit up. ‘It’s not what you think it is, I think,’ I warned, ‘but have a look anyway.’ He pulled out a little card, similar to the one he’d given me last Christmas (and yes which we still used, thank you very much).

Thom: ‘For a night off.’

Me: Ah, but don’t you know how these things work? Turn it over.

Thom: ‘Definitely redeemable more than once.’ Thank you, Keeks, but a night off from what?

Me: From everything. I may regret this once the baby actually arrives, but I don’t want to you to feel that your every waking hour away from work has to be spent here, with your baby. Or with me.

Thom: Where else am I supposed to be?

Me: With your friends! Wherever you want! I know that you want to look after me, but I want you to know that you’re allowed nights off too. To be a pal to someone other than us. I know we don’t need to give one another permission, but if you ever want it, it’s there. OK?

Thom: You’re going to be a nice mother.

Me: I do hope so. I’ve already bought a card with that message for you to give me on Mothers’ Day.

As we wrapped up to go over to Mum and Dad’s, Thom said, ‘By the way, there were other things I wanted to get you but I thought they might be pretty depressing as special gifts, and I didn’t want you to think that you were just a breeder to me now. Maybe you can have them another time.’ He widened his eyes at me mysteriously, as is his wont, and we headed off.

When we got there, the house was strangely quiet, Susie and Pete and the kids not having arrived yet. While Thom went to give Mum a kiss, Dad took me to one side.

Dad: Listen, love, I think your mum’s a bit overworked at the moment, so be gentle on her, alright?

Me: Overworked? She’s been retired two years.

Dad: Katherine, I mean it. I think she’s too worried about all of us – my heart, your pregnancy – and we need to go easy on her. Tell your sister.

Me: Dad, I will, and we will. We’ll be model daughters. Susie and I were worrying about her only the other day.

Dad: Why’s that?

Me: I got some … odd things in my advent calendar this year.

Dad: [something flickering across his face] Did you, now? Alright, love, don’t mention anything about this to your mum, alright? Just … be a good girl.

He gave me a kiss and a hug, but I felt worse, rather than better. I can understand how Mum would be so shaken by Dad’s heart scare, but it had been six months now, and she seemed to bounce back so quickly at the start. Is it a delayed reaction? Is it just Christmas stress taken up a notch?

When I followed them all into the kitchen, Thom gave me a quizzical look – are you OK? – so I smiled and nodded at him and gave Mum a long, tight hug.

Mum: What’s that for?

Me: For letting all of us ne’er-do-wells into your home every Christmas. What a nice time we have. Thanks, Mum.

Mum: [surprised] Well.

Me: Now, what can we do to help?

But the one time I was offering to help, she wouldn’t hear of it, insisting that I must relax and stay off my feet, while I still could. I liked the first half of it, but the thought – even if this wasn’t what she intended – that next Christmas I would be jogging around like a maniac after a crying, stinking baby, planted me firmly on the sofa with my feet up. Dad turned the carols up and brought me a heavy tumbler of Buck’s Fizz (one part champagne to one hundred parts orange juice), and handed me a long, thin parcel. ‘You can open it now, if you want, before the hordes arrive,’ he said.

Inside was one of Dad’s little mobiles. Oh! I’d forgotten about this tradition. As I pulled it out, I saw what was hanging from each wire: tiny little books, no bigger than my thumb, wired open so the tissue-paper pages flapped as the mobile went around. Looking closer, I saw that the books were actually printed, in a tiny font: Little Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks, Puss in Boots, Cinderella, The Gingerbread Man, Hansel and Gretel.

Me: Dad! This is lovely.

Dad: Oh, I’m glad you like it. Some of my kids may have helped with the printing inside – extra grades and all that.

Me: Thank you, Dad.

Dad: You’re more than welcome, Kiki.

Me: Thom! Come and see this.

Thom was as delighted as I was by the gift, and I felt overwhelmed for a minute by how lucky I was. This kind man, determined to make my life better in any way, and two parents who had bent over backwards for the last thirty years to make their children’s lives happy, secure, fulfilled. I choked up, and Thom pulled me into a bear hug. ‘She does this about six times a day,’ he explained to Dad.

Just then, Susie and co. arrived, banging through the front door in a wall of scarves and noise, bags of presents, bottles of wine and kisses, with the Twins and Pete singing Christmas carols as they kissed everyone. As they went through to the kitchen, I grabbed Susie in the hall, just as Dad had caught me.

Me: Dad says we have to be extra nice to Mum.

Susie: But we’re always nice to Mum.

Me: [moving my hands into Chinese burn position]

Susie: God! Alright! You have my word that I will be nice to my mother. Why did Dad say that?

Me: I think he’s worried about her. I hadn’t even told him about the advent calendars until then. He says she just seems really stressed and … well, that’s all, actually.

Susie: Calendar, singular. The only rotten surprises in mine were from you, thank you very much. Nothing else, though? Just that she seems stressed? That’s pretty normal for Christmas.

Me: Shouldn’t we be making more of an effort for her? Aren’t we old enough to be making Christmas dinner ourselves?

Susie: I’d like to see you try to get all of us in either of our places.

Me: No, I’ll always want to come here for Christmas, but maybe we ought to be doing slightly more than just turning up?

Susie: Thanks, Mother Teresa. When you’ve got a newborn next Christmas, remind me to check how eager you are to cook turkey and all the trimmings for nine of us.

Me: Ten, Suse.

Susie: [looking at me as if I’m mental] At seven months old, your baby probably won’t need its own turkey leg. God, you have so much to learn about parenting.

Me: I hate you.

Pete: [poking head round door] Suse, where’s Frida?

Susie: Oops. Asleep in the car, I assume.

Pete: Was she asleep when you put her in?

Susie: [staring at him] I didn’t put her in.

Both: [grabbing the car keys, rushing outside]

I heard the engine wildly over-revving as they sped back to their house round the corner. Dad wandered in from the kitchen, saying, ‘Where’ve Susie and Pete gone?’ I smiled sweetly. ‘I think they forgot something at home.’

When they came back in a few minutes later carrying a sleepy-looking Frida, Susie came over and whispered in my ear, ‘If you mention this again, I will destroy you.’ I took her hand and said, ‘I know, Suse. I have so much to learn about parenting.’

The rest of the day was good fun, although occasionally Mum did seem really tired. But the food, as ever, was wonderful, and everyone seemed pleased with their gifts. We put the kids to bed upstairs and stayed up late, eating and drinking and watching Casino Royale. Merry Christmas, you foetus.

December 26th

Home again, home again. For once, we (I) didn’t leave Mum and Dad’s in a flurry of repressed fury – it was one of the nicest Christmases I’ve ever had there. Maybe Susie’s right about Mum; maybe pregnancies do bring out the best in her. Once all the cooking was out of the way, Mum was just funny and relaxed, giddy and happy with her family all around her. And rather than the usual gross and/or useless gifts (dear GOD this baby better not be as ungrateful as I am), she’d bought me a beautiful maternity top and a set of the most fabulous nail polishes (‘Because nail polish always fits you, darling,’ she said, giving me a hug). Pete was around for the whole thing, Thom wasn’t stressed about his job, Dad romped with the Twins and I could not have been happier. Thanks, everyone.

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