I wrote this a few years ago. First public viewing. I'd like to put forward a complaint against the person that spread the rumour that late pregnancy is a time of peaceful and joyous contemplation of the future. It's misleading and an outright lie. The last month is a time of restless discomfort and barely concealed panic and I'd like to set the record straight. When I first fell pregnant I was horrified but confident that I would cope. I'd just accepted my encroaching motherhood when I was awoken at two in the morning with stomach cramps and an overwhelming urge to throw the contents of my entire alimentary canal into the toilet. I was shocked and more than a little frightened but consoled myself with the knowledge that this was 'morning sickness', a totally normal phase of my condition. Society had neglected to tell me that 'morning' is any time of the day and could be invoked by the smell of cigarettes, any food that wasn't Bonox sandwiches and any movement faster than walking. I was congratulating myself on surviving my month of normal illness when I began to cry. I cried at that coffee commercial where the city son returns to see his country Dad and finally resolves their differences over a cuppa. I continued crying when the phone rang I had to speak to anyone that I had the slightest affection for. However, I cried the hardest standing in the middle of the hospital hallway with a drug chart in one hand. a bedpan in the other and no idea what I was doing with either. I ran sniveling to my supervisor convinced that I was losing my mind. She told me that this was also normal and gave me a nice safe desk job where my entirely normal confusion wasn't going to endanger a patient's life. I howled with gratitude. My mother rang and, between sobs, that this was all normal and this too would pass. The blues passed and my ankles swelled to twice their normal size. My jeans retreated further back into the furthest corner of my cupboard, I got up five times a night to empty my shrinking bladder, I learnt that heartburn is more painful than oil burns and I acquired an elegant waddle. I threw myself into work to distract myself and tried to think nice things. To show what a caring and responsible company I worked for they sent me home on mandatory maternity leave which left me in an empty flat with the soapies and the telephone. As the dreaded, but entirely normal, extreme pain of labour waited for my lump to make a move, I lived in fear. I lived in fear that my next waddle to the shop would cause my waters to break in the meat department with only a hamfisted butcher in sight and my address book, overnight bag and hospital card locked in the Fort Knox that was my flat. I held to the belief that peace and joy would entail wearing my jeans and drinking a bottle of scotch in some distant future when the straightjacket came off.

My first thought was of Dennis Miller (no, I'm NOT on his payroll). Then I thought of a comedian I liked sometime back who had red-orange hair and a strange way of squinting his eyes and flicking his tongue left and right at his punchlines. I forgot his name. He died of cancer, I think. He did one heck of a story on his endoscopy (?). You know, the TV camera on the end of the cable up the colon. I enjoyed reading it very much. Maybe you have a few more descriptive "rants" to offer up.

Hmmm. most of my writing becomes lyrics. bit darker. thanks for the support. showing writing's abit like walking around naked. The sun feels nice but the mozzies can get you.

LOL... oh .. would love to hear the rants now that you have the little bundle of joy. No greater a misnomer have I, a parent of two, ever heard.

My little bundle of joy is now almost 11, over 5 foot tall and wears bigger shoes than me. But when he was small, (at 9pound9 born he was never really little)I was in the Navy. Frankly if they'd meant me to have a child they would have issued me with one themselves. I was a single mother from the day i said I was pregnant. HE wanted me to have an abortion. I'd been told I could never have kids, I was working full time and I thought that I was capable of becoming superwoman. Of course that was far from the truth of the matter. Two weeks over cooked, my son got stuck under my hip and refused to budge. They broke my water and inserted a drip around 7.30-8am on Thursday the twelfth. My superstitius and hormonal self was not going to have him born on Fri 13th. Contractions went into full swing before 10am. My friend who came to hold my hand left covered in bruises. It hurt....a lot. I wanted drugs, the same drugs I was sure I wasn't going to need. I wanted alot of drugs. Started with happy gas. Just made me feel out of control. Pethidine (this was going to be good!) was great between contractions but once he got well and truly jammed there was no 'between'contractions. Epidural was God! So much for the previous terror of anything being stuck near my spine. At 2345hrs on Thurs the 12th my son was taken out during a caeserarean. Much to my drugged-out-of-my-mind brain's disappointment I couldn't see anything. Despite what the very cute greeneyed Anathesia guy said, I wanted watch the whole thing. 'Take down the curtain, I'm a nurse I can handle it' Thankfully they didn't. Anyway just over an hr later I was feeding him, so it was all good. Went back to work when he was around 9 and 1/2 weeks old. Too proud to go home, on welfare, to my mother. I didn't have time to get Post Natal Depression, so I got Post Natal Denial. I was coping. I was! Honest. So I left him for 6 weeks to attend a course a thousand kilometres away. So What! So I spent the 6 weeks drunk and feeling guilty and panicky. So what! Remember... I was superwoman.

This is why I told my husband the only options for us having kids were: 1) Surrogate mother 2) Adoption 3) He gets pregnant BTW: You're missing a word or two in the following sentence: My mother rang and, between sobs, that this was all normal and this too would pass. It's a fun rant, and you have really good action verbs to bring the point across: you snivelled; you howled with gratitude, etc. I can almost hear Dennis Miller in it, but his voice fades at times. I'd suggested strengthening a few of your phrases to get that final, professional edge to it: "I threw myself into work to distract myself and tried to think nice things." "Nice things" is weak. I'd suggest something more like: "I threw myself into work to distract myself and tried to think nice, happy, mommy thoughts." Then again, it sounds like you've lived some Dennis Miller moments. I assume you've let your son know all about the joys of pregnancy whenever he's been in trouble? ;-)

Thanks Crescent, for the useful hints. My son wanted a brother, force grown to be his age. I told him to wait a few years and grow his own