Bringing up Boys: the truth about the facts of life (a practical tale...)

Waiting For The Great Event

We've had puppies. Lots of lovely whippet puppies and it has been a tad chaotic; especially last Friday when at a quarter to eight in the morning I took my leave of a very pregnant whippet just before rushing off on the school run.

Seeing her staring at the moon and making whimpering noises, I soon realised that there was no way on earth I would be able to take the boys in to school - everything seemed so very imminent plus the fact that the wickedest whippet aka Sassy had grabbed my hand by this time and trying to get to school with heaving pregnant dog  clamped to my right hand while I drove the car wasn't going to be easy to explain to the local constabulary if I had an accident.

I made a call

The Boys could stay at home and learn first-hand all about the wonderful way Mother Nature worked.

Educational.

Exciting.

And it was Friday and I wouldn't have to drive anywhere - perfect!

There was a holiday atmosphere and the boys gleefully divested themselves of school uniform and prepared to hunker down in front of the telly.

"Oi! You Lot! No way are you watching telly all day! This is NOT a holiday. Tidy up and wait down here until I tell you that you can come upstairs to watch THE most amazing thing on earth!"

It was said brightly in an effort to get the boys on board with the day's educational programme but already I could see my youngest growing mutinous - he's never been that into our animals; I mean it took him nearly five years before he deigned to remember the names of the cats.

I will admit I hadn't really thought through the whole letting-the-boys-see-the-mother-nature-at-work thing properly and perhaps I should have been a tad more circumspect; after all nature is red in tooth and claw!

However, it all started out fine.

Both boys came up to see Sassy and sat quietly on my bed watching as I tried to explain what was going on. Luckily at this stage not much.

Sassy strained and whimpered and the boys could see she wasn't all that happy.

"Is she alright Mum?" said my eldest.

"She's Ok sweetheart, just a bit uncomfortable at the moment."

The dog started to pant heavily.

"Mum are you sure?"

"Really darling it's fine. It’s natural to pant like that. It helps ease the pain of the contractions which are pushing the puppies out."

The dog strained on time.

"Oh it looks like she's doing a poo"

"Yes you could say that..." I replied, thinking back to giving birth to him and flinching at the memories. Thank god I thought that I had had a caesarean - his head was enormous!

After watching for several more minutes he chirped up: "Do ALL girls have to do this?"

"Yes sweetie, they do." said I, being VERY worldly wise. "It's a thing all females have to go through in order to have babies, we are all the same. Arn't you lucky it won't ever happen to you."

I know, I probably laid it on a bit thick but that's what comes of living as the only girl in a household of boys.

Both boys were very quiet as they digested this thought.

"It's BOOORING," announced my youngest.

This IT generation have no patience so rather than force him to hang about any longer and become seriously annoying I let him off the hook. Boys will be boys I thought and just don't get it. My eldest took the opportunity to scarper as well and for a couple of hours it was just me and her communing in that most elemental way that all females do on the matter of life and producing it.

Finally at 11.45 it was the moment jus - the first puppy arrived and it was at exactly that moment that my eldest returned to the scene in time to watch in horror as my beautiful whippet atet up the placenta...

"Ewwww Gross! Is that what you had to do as well!!!!!!!..."

All my lost ones...

Bog Boy

There’s a bit in the movie Marley & Me where they go to the doctors because they have ‘not’ been trying to have a baby and Jen is nearly 10 weeks pregnant. They’re having an ultrasound and he’s goofing about wanting to know the sex of the baby and he says: “I don’t mind what sex the baby is, as long as he’s OK”

The sonographer says that the heartbeat will sound a little fast but that’s normal and then, then it's not so funny for you don't hear the thrum of the heartbeat, there’s no sound at all and she gets up to go out and the main doctor man comes in and you just know it’s going to be bad.

I know that feeling.

It happened to me.

And so now seeing it all, and knowing what the character is going through, I start to cry.

I hear my little boy pipe up from the sofa where he’s engrossed watching to say: “They don’t get a baby this time but she goes on to have three Mum!”

And still the tears drip down my face.

I remember every one of mine, the ones I didn’t have but it’s OK I had two, two glorious boys but every now and then I wonder about my lost babies.

It got to the stage when I didn’t go to the hospital when I miscarried. I just carried on. The hospital couldn’t do anything about it and I hated it there. I hated the atmosphere, the sterile empathy, the fact that I had failed and there would be no baby. I used to glower at all expectant mums-to-be, I was so angry I wanted to know why me? Why not someone else. I am sure some of the women who saw me metaphorically crossed themselves to ward off the evil eye. But I wouldn't have wished it on them really, not really. But I was so jealous.

I had seven miscarriages in total. Three before The Boy and four before Bog Boy.

In fact after the last miscarriage I said that was it, no more. And then of course I got pregnant and do you know what? I didn’t want to be pregnant. I hated it.

I railed to my friend, who so desperately wanted another that I couldn’t stand to go through it all again. I was scared I’d lose it and I was angry that I had got myself into a situation where I could be hurt.

It was a hideous pregnancy, I was as sick as a dog for the first couple of months then I got pneumonia then they thought it was likely to have Downs Syndrome. Do you know they wanted me to have an amniocentesis - with my history of miscarriage??!!!

It was simply awful and the pressure I felt under to make me have the tests which could lead me to miscarry was enormous. It was if they felt that it was better to suffer the collateral damage of losing a healthy child than to bring a potentially disabled one into the world.

Luckily we stood firm and when they allowed us to have a scan with their new 'soopah doopah' all singing and all dancing scanning machine they could see that all was fine and ‘normal’.

For us that was not the point, we'd talked it over, we didn’t mind, we were just happy finally to be having another child.

And what a child he is…