Incompetence

A short hospital stay last week (all fine now) gave me cause to think about pregnancy/birth language again. Some of the terms in general use really do make you wonder about the people who invented them - they seem to reveal a totally negative and distinctly judgemental attitude towards maternity.

For example, I apparently have an 'irritable uterus'. This is an ok term I guess, although to a laywoman it does conjure up the image of my womb being cross with me, which is hardly comforting. But it reminded me of reading about 'incompetent uterus' or 'incompetent cervix' which basically means that the cervix is weaker than normal and starts dilating too early. Could there possibly be a more loaded word than 'incompetent' to describe this? Is it only me who would feel personally accused by such a diagnosis (even knowing on a rational level that I am not consciously responsible for the behaviour of my internal organs)?

Of course, it gets worse. If your labour doesn't move swiftly enough for those overseeing it (for example, stress can occasionally stop labour altogether), it is called 'failure to progress' and steps will be taken to get you going again. Fair enough, but why bring the concept of 'failure' into it? Failure sounds human and avoidable, even if it isn't, and is surely the last word we'd want associated with what is already the greatest test of physical endurance most of us will ever have to go through.

Oh and there are more failures on the horizon - once you actually have your baby he or she might be assessed as 'failing to thrive', a weirdly vague diagnosis (referring to slower than expected growth and weight gain) which in its lack of medical specificity just sounds like a scary accusation aimed at the parent.

What hope have I got of getting through the next 10 weeks in a conducively calm frame of mind when half the relevant terminology seems designed to scare me?

Weeks: 29+6

Amphibious midwifery

I was inspired by the Guardian's free wallchart today to look up midwife toads (actually a type of frog). It turns out they are so called because the male carries the fertilised eggs on his back and subsequently wraps them around his legs to protect them from predators until they hatch into tadpoles. Er, maybe it's just me but that doesn't sound THAT similar to the duties of your average human midwife...

Speaking of which, having just read Misconceptions, Naomi Wolf's book about the medicalised, interventionist and downright inhumane model of antenatal care and birth in the USA, I am even more grateful for our cheery, practical midwives and their non-judgemental care so far. And especially for our specialist nurse from the regional cleft lip/palate team, who visited us at home and provided all the information and reassurance we could possibly want, including encouraging me to go ahead with the planned home birth if I want to. So now we just need to convince the obstetrician (although to be honest he is a lovely man too and I'm sure he won't be aggressive with his 'hospital care is best' agenda if we are really keen on home birth.)

Weeks: 25+1

Pre-pregnant or sub-human?

OK, so the poem reading wasn't THAT bad. And they gave me a box of chocolates for my trouble which is more than I'm usually paid for poetry-related activities. In a way it was a pity that we only had 20 minutes, because it meant that I couldn't fully engage with the startling suggestion one of the students made, that male poets write about abstract concepts while female poets write about feelings. I don't know what evidence he was drawing on, but I think this view often has more to do with prior beliefs about men and women than anything in the poetry. If you expect male-authored poetry to be philosophical, abstract and rigorous and female-authored poetry to be emotional, concrete and woolly, then you will easily find examples to support you. But there are just as many counter-examples.

Even more proof that anti-woman sentiment is far from dead, and is in fact being written into law: the pregnancy police are watching you. This very disturbing article suggests nothing less than a return to state-sponsored biological tyranny the likes of which feminists thought they'd shaken off 40 years ago. We all want healthy children, but viewing women only in terms of their baby-making function, and criminalising them for failing in it, is hardly the way to ensure the best future for our society.

Weeks: 23+6

Sad news

The baby which one of my colleagues was expecting (due last week) didn't make it through the birth alive. It seems deeply unlikely and unfair that a tiny foetus can - against the odds - make it all the way through the pitfalls and miracles of pregnancy, that it can be protected and thriving for nine months, and then not be out of the woods. It made me realise all over again that in fact there IS no 'out of the woods', that every life is stupidly fragile from the moment of conception until the moment we die, whether that death comes tragically soon or after many flukey, healthy years.

You always know that losing a baby must be the worse thing ever, but I know it more sharply now I'm pregnant myself (even though I still can't imagine what they're going through). It's such a horrific reversal of the preceding nine months of expectation, planning, congratulation, excitement, happiness. When you're pregnant everyone celebrates with you; if you lose your child when it's barely arrived you must feel totally alone. I now feel terrified for my own little bump, of course, but mainly horrified that my colleague will eventually return to work and have to experience my pregnancy and happiness (assuming nothing DOES go wrong, universe forbid.)

Body image

There's nothing like pregnancy to highlight the extent to which you feel your physical appearance defines your identity. Throughout my entire adult life to date I have had an image of myself as a person with small breasts, slim hips and a stomach that although not flat can be relatively easily kept in check by reducing the number of cakes I eat. I don't think about my body type very much but I do, I suppose, try to choose clothes to suit it. My weight fluctuates, but only between a size 10 and a size 12.

I knew that my body could theoretically change, but I always thought in terms of changes that I could control through diet and exercise. And yet here I am facing the most dramatic change of all and I have no control whatsoever. Pregnancy is turning me into my own opposite: big boobs, big hips, big stomach. Despite being stupidly unprepared for this, I haven't minded it much. I am changing on the inside and it's only right that I change on the outside too. If nothing else it's been a glimpse into the sartorial options of the big and busty, and it's probably the only time I'll be regarding a growing stomach with pride and excitement instead of depression and anxiety.

My friend A, on the other hand, is at three months pregnant saying a heartwrenching goodbye to her skinny Miss Sixty jeans and her size 10 Benetton suits. But which body is really her? The willowy pre-pregnancy version or the swelling pregnant one? Both? For me, it's case of still feeling like myself, but a self that isn't the same any more.

Weeks: 20

Some thoughts on words

The language of pregnancy is slightly odd when you think about it. I don't mean the technical terms and the endless mystical abbreviations, but the everyday words. Take 'conceive' for example. 'Conceiving' a child makes it sound like you just thought something up. That which you create when you conceive something - a concept - is practically the opposite of a child, surely. A concept has no physical manifestation; a child is the most amazing physical thing that human beings can create. Why is creating LIFE described with a word that can be equally well applied to dreaming up a project, a scheme, an artwork, a joke, an argument, a sonnet, a dress design? Not that these things aren't valuable, but it's a category error somehow. I did write a poem about this a while ago in fact, but at the time a child WAS only an idea to me. Little did I know...

Or 'expecting'. Why do we 'expect' a baby like we expect a letter, or a phone call? I suppose the word contains the sense of something that SHOULD happen at some future date, but might not. Which is an accurate, although rather pessimistic, way of describing pregnancy I suppose. Maybe 'I'm having a baby' sounds too definite for some people, too much like tempting fate. Or too much like the present tense.

Weeks: 15

A pregnant pause

Well it has happened. I have finished my dissertation and next month will possess a piece of paper that means I can theoretically work as a librarian. Whether I WANT to or not has not yet been worked out in my head to my satisfaction. Anyway, the idea was that as soon as I emerged from academia I would have time to devote to poetry, and to the exploration of the writing process via blogging.

Only, another thing has happened in the meantime: I have become pregnant. It thus remains to be seen whether I will get any writing done before about 2050, but I am hopeful. Possibly I will write about babies.

Things I have learned so far:

1) Expecting a baby makes you radically review your entire life. I was prepared to feel anxious about being a good mother, but not about whether I was a good person. Do I deserve to bring a child into the world? If only I hadn't spent my 20s being too lazy/scared to get myself a proper career, we would have a perfect house and a sensible mortgage by now, instead of a rented one bedroom flat and a box full of unpaid bills. If only I had a dream to pursue instead of a lack of ambition that would put a stoned media studies student to shame, I could feel sure of being a serene and inspirational mother instead of a neurotic bore. If only I had paid more attention to my ecological footprint, done my own composting, bought organic all the time etc etc, I wouldn't be contributing to the global disaster that my child is going to inherit. And if I remain as expert in the art of beating myself up once I've actually given birth to this baby, I will be emotionally black and blue for at least the next eighteeen years.

2) Everyone else's opinions become simultaneously extremely important and extremely unwanted. It only takes one sniffy look at the words 'home birth', or one question about which blood tests I'm choosing to have, to make the whole fragile edifice of our choices and decisions threaten to tumble down on my terrified head. So if you're reading this and you have pregnant friends/family, try not to offer advice until asked for it. We're overwhelmed enough as it is.

Weeks: 12+6