Not ready yet

Another interesting piece of knowledge from our hippy prenatal lessons is that apparently if the woman is not mentally ready to deliver, she won't.

Now, this is really important for us, since we still don't have a new flat, we didn't inform the Czech government about whom the father of the baby is and we didn't drop by the Spanish embassy to enquire about how to get a beautiful passport with two surnames for our child. With all this, I'm not mentally ready to deliver this child yet. More worrying, I think if all paperwork and logistics were solved, I still wouldn't be mentally ready to deliver this child.

Come on! Twelve hours of pain followed by two months of not sleeping. Who can be mentally ready for that? I rather have the alien kicking my belly bottom and messing with my stomach a little bit longer.

Well, surprisingly, everybody else is so much looking forward to me pushing this creature out. Even my dear Martin said that he would like to have the baby in his arms already. "Seriously?" I asked. "Yes" he said. "Seriously?" I insisted. "Yes" he insisted as well. I didn't know whether to kiss him or kick his ass.

Pregnancy symptoms: Cellulites. My sister says I shouldn't eat oranges, but not giving the baby enough C Vitamin would really make me feel like a bitch. I choose cellulites.

Mother instinct: 3. I don't want the baby to go out, but I am fine with him being inside.

Oxitocine

Apparently it is the hormone of love. You get it when you hug and when you kiss and it will make us fall in love with the baby, even more than we are now. These are not my words, of course, it is what we learned in the prenatal lessons.

So, I got scared. Should I be in love with the baby already? Sorry, nope. We are just getting to know each other. He can be annoying when he kicks my bladder and he can be cute and creepy at the same time when his little foot moves from one side of my belly to the other and you can see it from the other side of the dinner table. But that's pretty much it. For now. I am of course expecting the magic oxitocine will perform miracles on my mother instinct.

And what about the father instinct? Since daddy's hormones are not playing the little chemist games in his body, when is he supposed to get high with love for the little alien? should I hug him often, so he gets some more oxitocine?

I was getting worried about all this until I browse through the booklet that we got in the prenatal lessons. Homeopathy, acupuncture, Bach's flowers... ey, why not fairies and little green men? Father's instinct may exist or not, but I'm afraid we are not going to get the answer in this course.

Pregnancy symptoms: I cannot run anymore. It hurts.
Mother instinct: 2 Apparently, still running low in Oxitocine

Happy Hormones

Martin pointed out that I am particularly happy since I'm pregnant. That is a nice way to say I didn't performed for a while my psycho girlfriend routine. And that is weird. Martin expected pregnancy would turn me into a crazy bitch. I expected that as well. The hormones overdoses and, the overweight, the overwhelming responsibility and the life changing feeling should be enough to make anybody nuts. Now top that with a coat of pregnancy sugar "the miracle of a life growing inside you" and you get a perfectly nice young lady that suddenly turns into a mad mum.

But so far I'm ok. Too much ok. I am quite happy indeed, enough to make me suspicious. This doesn't feel natural. I doubt very much that the miracle of a life growing inside me is changing my mood, or that I subconsciously give a shit about the perspective of "fulfilling myself as a woman".

So the only plausible explanation is of course, hormones. Happy hormones. Some chemical aid is keeping me high and cool and that's why I am not totally freaking out. And what is going to happen when I expel the little alien and the happy hormones disappear? It is very worrying indeed.

Pregnancy symptoms: The belly is starting to be heavy and Martin refuses to get me a pregnancy pillow because we have perfectly good normal pillows at home.

Mother instinct: 2. I am sad about leaving work. And not so excited about the perspective of changing diapers

Pregnancy lessons at home

We are modest people. When we first moved into our 30 square meters flat we slept without mattress for almost a week. The first furniture we bought was a hammock and a wine storage. We survived without a table for over six months because Martin refused to buy a soulless one from IKEA. We ate over a tray stuck on top of our wine storage.

Over the years we started piling up stuff. We did buy a table from IKEA, and another one to hold our flat screen and our Wii. We replaced the plastic chairs with real ones, we even adopted a non functional dishwasher and a broken washing machine, and we found a corner to pile our snowboards, skates, and golf clubs.

We didn’t count with a baby, though. So when we knew about him we started looking for a bigger place. In the center, so mummy and daddy can still go to the cinema, but with a garden, so the baby can eat worms. We amazingly found something quite acceptable (God bless divorcees in a hurry to sell).

But we still don’t have the keys. We still didn’t paint and we don’t have a table. So the baby cannot come yet, and neither the lady that is supposed to give us prenatal lessons in English. I don’t want her to see our lovely-but-not-children-friendly student nest. I don’t want her to teach me how to breathe while she peeks at the pile of suitcases and sports equipment in one corner of the leaving room and the basket full of cables in the other. Really, I don’t think we can even fir three adults and my belly in our leaving room slash dormitory slash kitchen.

So I’m going to ask somebody to lend us his place for the prenatal lessons. Is this being a good parent? I don’t know. But it sure feels like the first of a series of stupid acts performed when you have a child.

Pregnancy symptoms: My mum says that if I eat too much the baby will be too big and I will have problems to deliver it. I say chocolate is as necessary as folic acid during pregnancy. Makes mum happy and caffeine free.

Mother instinct: From time to time I have the feeling Martin and I got into a beautiful mess. Then, the happy hormones kick in and I find baby toys adorable. I do have hormones after all!