Thursday 28 March 2013

Grace

If you're hoping to read more embarrassing tales of child rearing, maybe skip this week's; this one's for the dogs.

I was ten when my mum brought Grace home. I can still remember my curiosity at the box in the back of the car being rewarded with a small, black and tan furry head bursting out and instantly offering me excited licks and needle sharp scratches. She established herself as the head of our small family the moment she walked over the threshold with a large puddle on the hall rug.
"Oh bloody hell!" exclaimed my mum.
"Cuuute!" I gushed, knowing immediately that this dog could never do any wrong in my eyes. (Except when she ripped to shreds my poster of Magnum P.I., I wasn't too chuffed at that!)

My mum and I had moved to the south coast from the North West and I was desperately missing my extended family. Grace helped enormously to fill the gaping hole they had left when we swapped north for south.

Long walks along the beach ensued as Grace grew bigger and completely bonkers! Chaos had a nasty habit of following Grace like a mischievous shadow. Once free from the custody of her lead, demented behaviour prevailed, scooting back and forth across the sand like her bum was on fire. In and out of the Channel she would frolic, oblivious to all trying to enjoy their day at the beach. Picnics and blankets were sprayed with excavated sand and dog scented water from her vigorous shakes, before bowling into the backs of legs, knocking the hapless pleasure seeker to the ground before they'd even seen her coming. "No, that's not my dog," I'd say while walking hastily from the scene.

Walks in the park were no less eventful thanks to her obsession with balls - any ball - cricket, tennis, foot, all granted equal attention as she would disrupt countless games in her need to quell the irresistible temptation they represented. Many a cricket match came to an abrupt halt due to Grace running onto the green and nicking the ball with me chasing frantically after her, before she would take off to enjoy her catch in the privacy of a bush, leaving me to be shouted at by angry men in their summer whites.

I was powerless against her will. With The Dog Whisperer some fifteen years away, my only role model was Barbara Woodhouse, and what self-respecting teenager would look to a blue-rinsed granny for guidance? I had to act on my wits, hence we got into a lot of trouble - my wits were none too quick!

She was all paws, lolling tongue and excitement, I could see that, but others were not so easily convinced.

Grace was a dog true to her species, harbouring healthy dislikes for all things furry. Cats, squirrels, hamsters, even other dogs, particularly whippets; don't ask me why! She wasn't keen on children either. If one so much as looked at her, mistaking her for a doe eyed softy, she would give it an irritated snap sending the child running for its mum in hysterics. Most of my cousins were victims of Grace's intolerance, nothing serious, just a little nip here and there. So, along with her complete inability to resist a freshly cooked shepherd's pie resting on the side, or a homemade Victoria sponge straight from the oven, it won't surprise you to hear that my mum would exclaim on a weekly basis, "She's got to go!" Each week I would win her a reprieve with tears and promises until she went blind at the age of six when she could no longer see her tormentors.

Grace was my life. I could read her every expression and she could read mine. She was my best friend and confident, seeing me through some turbulent, teenage years. When I turned from an obedient little girl into an obnoxious little shit, when mother and daughter confrontations were in full swing, Grace would offer me her non-judgemental eyes, reminding me I wasn't really that banshee who was just screaming at my mum, provoking guilt and remorse which never failed to send me seeking an apology. No matter how bad it got, she was always there with those eyes. Even when they were cloudy from the cataracts I could still see their depth. Every teenager should have a dog; there's nothing like them for easing those growing pains. Unless you're allergic, then, even I have to admit, they'd be a pain in the arse!

I was on holiday when the vet diagnosed her with Leukaemia. My mum held off the inevitable until my return. She had lost half her body weight in the two weeks I had been gone; showing no signs of the disease before, the shock was unbearable.She tried to stand when she saw me but was too weak, she had to abandon the idea in favour of a soft wag of her tail instead. I spent the night on the floor, curled up next to her, praying she would die peacefully and spare us the agonising decision. But really, there was no decision to be made.

We arrived at the vet as three and left as two; distraught and inconsolable. I'm crying now as I type and that was nineteen years ago. She was thirteen. Ironically, it was during that holiday that my now husband stopped being a boyfriend and became a fiance. In that fleeting moment of my history, I gained a life partner and lost my childhood. Maybe that's why I didn't stick to dogs.

Thursday 21 March 2013

Blue Line

I tried to take comfort in the fact that one in three first time pregnancies end in miscarriage and got straight back on the horse. (So to speak!) I bought my husband a whole new draw of extra loose boxer shorts and brought my marker pen out of temporary retirement for that all important task of marking my ovulating days.

After a few months I was cautiously hovering over the toilet trying to hold a pregnancy test under a tiny drip of wee. Under normal circumstances, my bladder is weaker than a new born kitten, and with Tena Ladies quickly becoming a reality in the not too distant future, I was miffed to find, at one of the very few times I would ever actively call on my bladder to perform, it had dried up like a parched camel!

After some ten minutes (and the onset of cramp), I sat back down on the seat and began imagining waterfalls and tidal waves to entice the timid flow. Nothing. Eventually, I drank a large glass of water and left the tap running in the hope that would induce a gush. Success! Not only did I gush, I was positively torrential! I was now in danger of missing it altogether, so I resumed my hovering stance and tried to thrust the test into the flow which was now spurting in all directions like a wayward hosepipe! After splashing the seat and the backs of my legs a few times, I managed to hit the test long enough - I hoped. The next few minutes were charged with more tension than waiting to find out who shot JR. (No, I didn't have the T-shirt!) Heather offered her head on my knee as a comforting distraction and we waited. Finally I watched the blue line appear and I ran to the phone to call my husband.

"It's positive!" I screeched.
"Great," he said, "I suppose that means no more sex?"
"Yep."

I ignored the groan on the other end knowing that his excitement mirrored my own really, and a postponement of sex for a while was a small price to pay. Yes, I know it was cruel and unnecessary to deprive him, but I was taking no chances.

We made it through the first trimester - the longest twelve weeks of my life, while I did everything in my power to make my body the happiest, most comfortable environment for my baby to grow in. I took my Folic Acid religiously and began charting the baby's growth. "Hey, it's the size of a grapefruit today!" I bored all my younger friends whose biological clocks had not yet ticked with tales of uncontrollable flatulence and searing heart burn. I attended every ante-natal class to learn how to breath, discover the horrors of child birth and meet mums-to-be just like me. I was in a weird twilight zone. As I puffed and panted my way through the nine months I
became totally unrecognisable to myself. Obsessed with babies, pregnancy, nesting - nesting? Birds make nests! I usually made a mess and then paid a cleaner to tidy it up once a week; but there I was, fastidiously folding bibs and babygrows while neatly filling draws with nappies and Sudocrem.

My due date came and went while I drank more raspberry leaf tea and ate more curries than a person ever should, until a day came when I felt my waters break; at least, I thought they'd broken, I wasn't entirely sure I hadn't merely wet myself, so we went along to the hospital to check. They had indeed broken, but my contractions hadn't started, so I was sent home until the following morning when I would be induced if still no contractions. I spent my last baby free night at home (last night of peace in other words) wide awake fearing every twinge was a contraction, but more often than not, it was a bubbling fart wrestling for room with the baby.

The morning dawned and we headed for the hospital full of wind but no contractions, (I had eaten a lot of curries!) to find the whole of South West London had come to the hospital during the night with emergency births, meaning I would have to wait. And wait. And wait. Eventually, eight hours later, I finally started having contractions. So painful were they that I immediately slapped on my tens machine and cranked it up to the highest setting. I paced the corridors of the hospital using my husband as a crutch, doubling in agony every couple of minutes while he diligently measured the time between each contraction. "What do you mean 10 minutes? Your watch must be knackered you bastard! It's coming, it's bloody coming, get help!" He left me writhing in excruciating pain while he ran to get a midwife. I had been at this contraction business for hours, it felt like a Tasmanian Devil was trying to claw its way out of my womb! I had to be at least eight centimetres dilated, at least!

The midwife came with soothing words and examined me. "You're two centimetres," she said.
"WHAT?" All that bloody pain and I was only two bloody centimetres! "I think I'm going to need an epidural," I said defeated. There went the idea of a natural birth, it transpired I had the pain threshold of a computer geek. But then, the human race hadn't made such advances in medical science for me to still suffer like a cave woman. "Nurse, hurry up with that epidural!"

I had gas and air, my tens machine and a drug to stop me being sick before I was eventually given the blessed relief courtesy of an epidural, the anaesthetist quickly becoming my new best friend. I was now granted a few snatched moments of sleep before the action started, and boy did it start! (Any male readers, look away now!) The midwife tried to time my dilation with the epidural wearing off to enable me to feel when I needed to push. However, although lovely, she was newly qualified and I was her first case, leaving her timing to seem more Jamaican than Big Ben. I couldn't feel a thing. I held my breath and pushed in the direction I thought was correct. I was ever so slightly off. It wasn't the baby I was bringing any closer to its first breath but my faeces! I only became aware I was popping poo rather than a baby, when the sensation returned and I felt the midwife wiping my bum! "Don't worry, we see it all the time," she offered reassuringly to my horrified expression.
"But you're new!" I pointed out.
"Ah, yes, well, so I'm told," she tried. I caught a glimpse of my sniggering husband and threw a sick bowl at him. Sadly, it was empty.

My husband was conscientiously exercising the one and only task he felt capable of, the act of drenching my forehead with a wet sponge. No calming words, no reminders to breathe or even whale noises; just a wet sponge which he used to great effect. I was soaked. I suppose it was a distraction of sorts, while I wiped the water from my eyes, but eventually the sponge had to go; I launched it across the room, sad that my husband was at an awkward angle behind me, making a direct hit impossible.

More agonising time passed in which I remember getting onto all fours at one point, (not my best idea) before an excited midwife announced, "I can see the head!" And I screeched, "Why didn't I stick to dogs?" for the whole corridor to hear!

With one last heave and a scream the baby came tumbling out like storm water from a drain. She was quickly wrapped in a towel and placed on my chest. I tried to fight the wave of exhaustion now consuming me as the last dregs of adrenalin ebbed away, but I literally couldn't keep my eyes open and I feared I would drop her. The midwife rushed to my rescue and that was the last I knew until I woke up some hours later gripped by an alien fear. What if I don't like her? What if we don't bond?

When I felt brave enough to open my eyes, (the temptation to keep them closed and pretend it had all been a dream was strong) I tentatively looked around my immediate environment while trying to adjust to my new situation. What if I can't do this?

I saw my husband sleeping in the armchair and a fresh vase of flowers surrounded by cards on the windowsill, but there was no sign of my baby. A new fear squeezed at my throat, what if she's been confiscated because I fell asleep? I sat up in alarm, suddenly convinced the NHS had deemed me a bad mother and my baby was on her way to a foster family. Oh no! (I know, it's called baby brain, mine took a hold instantly and still hasn't left me!) It was then that I saw the transparent, hospital issue cot with the tiny bundle of my sleeping daughter, wrapped in the white blanket I had carefully chosen from Mothercare. I saw her little pink, perfect face and matchstick fingers curled into a tight fist resting on her cheek. As my heart melted and oozed like a Cadbury's Caramel, I said to myself, "That's why I didn't stick to dogs."

Check next week's blog for more dog v babies comparisons.

Monday 11 March 2013

Percy Street


All my life I have never been far from a furry neck to nuzzle. From Glynn to Grace to Heather to Sally, all different breeds with wildly different personalities sharing only one thing in common; four legs. So why then, did I add two legs to my uncomplicated existence?

Children had never featured highly on my 'Things to do Before I Die' list, in fact, they never featured at all; until one day in my early thirties when my body broke free from the constraints of my mind, and struck out for independence in the name of Mother Nature and the survival of the species. As though the human race hasn't been successful enough!

I was strolling down Percy Street one unremarkable day in May. A woman was walking towards me with a baby sling strapped to the front of her body. Still nothing unusual, I barely glanced at her. But as she drew nearer, we seemed caught in slow motion for a split second as our strides passed in perfect mirror image. While suspended in this twilight zone moment, I glimpsed the tiny, peaceful blob nestled snugly against her chest. My step faltered and I turned to watch her as she continued her journey, oblivious to the bomb she had just detonated in my life.

I felt strange. My throat tightened, and before I knew what was happening I found myself cooing. Cooing! Aliens may as well have landed before me I couldn't have been left more stunned. My cooing had previously been reserved for puppies, kittens, cubs (bear and feline), foals, giraffes, hippos, ducklings, goslings (anything feathered), wolves, deer, reptiles and even the occasional rodent; but never, I repeat - NEVER, had my list included a baby!

I had always found babies to be much over-rated, believing that all they did was poo, cry, induce sleepless nights and a terrifying fear of cot death. Who needs that? And that's just the baby stage! Then they start to crawl, bringing a whole new meaning to the word neurotic. Days spent on your hands and knees scouring for discarded adult paraphernalia. That once innocent paper clip suddenly becomes as scary as Freddie Kruger in the chubby hands of a toddler. The two pence piece you glimpse heading into the baby's slobbering black hole bringing with it heart stopping terror. The coin rescued and choking averted in the nick of time while you curse your husband for having dropped it in the first place. The little menaces just have to explore with their mouths don't they? I mean really, haven't they heard of the sense of touch? And then there's the teething. Everything from the telly to the dog's bed becomes covered in a thick, slobbery slime worthy of The Blob.
But all that pales in comparison to the toddling stage. Who knew there were so many sharp corners to a house just waiting silently to catch a baby's unsuspecting head as it crashes to the floor after another failed attempt at toddling?


Presuming mouth explorations and toddling have been successfully navigated, you then begin enthusiastically encouraging it to say "mama", only to have the word used to asylum threatening proportions before they become teenagers when it morphs to the some what colder, mother and is preceded with "I hate you!" No, none of that was for me. Give me walks in the park, a game of fetch and a wagging tail any day. Except - on that day, when I was almost deafened by the chiming of my biological clock.

My husband leaped for joy on receipt of the news as it meant ridiculous amounts of sex not enjoyed in such quantities since his early twenties. I availed myself of the top ten tips to successful pregnancy and we got to work. The marker pen ringed my ovulation days in my diary. I bought extra loose boxer shorts for my husband (don't ask, I read it somewhere!) and filled the fridge with nutritious, pregnancy boosting snacks. With luck on our side (and an obsessive nature), I was up the stick pretty quickly.

When I was compiling my list of reasons for not having children back in those heady days of sanity, it hadn't occurred to me to include the actual act of pregnancy itself; not only include it, but stick it at the top! The joy felt at the loss of periods for nine months was easily over-shadowed by the mood swings, sore boobs, water retention, morning sickness and the first bout of paranoia - will I make it through the first trimester? I didn't. The first spots of blood I noticed in my knickers sent a pain to my heart so sharp and intense I thought I'd been stabbed. I spent the afternoon with my legs firmly crossed, determined to keep my baby in. I'd done all the right things, stopped smoking, eaten the right foods, drunk the right drinks, so I wasn't about to let it escape. How stupid I felt when I realised gravity is stronger than a clenched pelvis. With nothing to hold on to, it slid from me before I'd even reached six weeks.

I emerged from the bathroom, sore and swollen eyed to find Heather at the door, lying at the threshold like a guard dog. She stood up and gave a solitary wag of her tail, her head hung low with her ears pinned back as though she'd just stolen a freshly cooked chicken off the worktop. I slumped beside her and sank my tear soaked face into her neck and whispered, "why didn't I stick to dogs?"