Читать книгу The Baby Diaries - Sam Binnie - Страница 35

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.