Sam Binnie - The Baby Diaries

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

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.

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

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.