Not quite Oprah

It is amazing how much attention you get when you’re pregnant. People hold doors for you or offer their seats in the bus and that’s nice. People also stare a lot and that’s not quite as nice especially when you feel like a big whale and have been forced to give up on wearing anything fashionable for the past few months or when they focus on your chest rather than your bump - yes perverts also target pregnant women. And very often, complete strangers feel the compulsive need to talk to you. Now that I look unmistakably pregnant, this is a conversation I find myself having pretty much everyday with random people, in shops, at bus stops, everywhere!

- Stranger: So ... when are you due? (favourite opening line, works better than "are you pregnant or just really fat?")

- Pepette: (in auto pilot) December.

- Stranger: Oh a Christmas baby, how lovely … (yes, people tend to forget there are 30 other days in December)

- Pepette: Well actually, I’m having twins so it’ll probably be late November.

- Stranger: Oh twins, what a great surprise! (surprise, yes, that’s one word for it, try “the news that’s going to turn your world upside down forever and make you weep in an uncontrollable panic”). Do they run in the family? (what they really want to ask is : did you conceive naturally or did you have fertility treatment? Fortunately, most people are a bit too polite for asking such a personal question at a bus shelter but a lady at my antenatal class asked me the question – must have been the hospital surroundings or the pregnancy hormones ...)

- Pepette: No they do not run in the family, neither on my side or my partner’s but I guess it has to start somewhere … (I normally leave it there and don’t tell people that they might be identical twins, which is just a joke from Mother Nature and has nothing to do with genetics. Unless I really want to get rid of the person, in which case I start using words like monozygotic, dichorionic and diamniotic. It normally does the trick and ends the conversation here and then.)

- Stranger: Well, you must be pretty pleased. And do you know what you’re having/what are you hoping for?

- Pepette: (At this point, I’m generally tempted to say we’re expecting a couple of giraffes – they start walking and feeding themselves within 24 hours of birth, how great is that ? – but I guess people might not get the joke and just think I’m being rude. And they would probably be right.) No, we don’t know yet, we’ve decided to keep it a surprise…

- Stranger: Oh, a surprise, that’s the best way! (Which is a lie. Studies have shown that more than 75% of couples expecting a child want to know the sex of their child before it’s born.)

At this point, most people have satisfied their curiosity and just leave me get on with whatever it is I’m trying to do at the time. Some people though don’t seem to know when to stop and proceed to tell me ‘horror stories’ about twins being born at 28 weeks or to remind me how lucky I am because their daughter/sister has been trying for a baby for years. I once had to get in the wrong bus just to get rid of a lady who had started telling me about her own childbirth experience in rather graphic details.

I guess I’d better get used to all the attention, I have been warned by twin mums that it’s only going to get worse when I start walking around with my double pram…

Panic, me? Never!

Si jamais j’ai encore des lecteurs et lectrices, je vous rassure, je suis toujours là – je ne me suis pas perdue dans la garrigue montpelliéraine, je n’ai pas accouché prématurément, je n’ai pas été emportée par les pluies écossaises … Je suis juste revenue de vacances avec une montagne de choses à faire et pas assez d’heures dans mes journées. A force de dire qu’on a bien le temps, on se retrouve mi septembre avec des dossiers plein le bureau et 7 semaines top chrono pour tout boucler, une chambre de bébé non détapissée, non replâtrée, non peinte, non meublée, non équipée et une Pépette qui tourne au ralenti parce que finalement, on est un peu serrés à trois dans une seule peau ! Mais je reste confiante. Mes bébés ne seront pas prématurés point à la ligne et on sera prêts pour leur arrivée deuxième point à la ligne. Maintenant, où est ce que j’ai mise cette ‘To Do Before the Babies Arrive’ list ?

Public property

I guess it was only a matter of time before it happened.

Yesterday as I was drying the dishes after lunch in our work kitchen, one of my colleagues lunged in and went for a feel of my baby bump. With my two hands full I had no way of stopping her and I was so shocked anyway that I didn’t have time to think of anything to do or say.

I had been warned that once you’re pregnant your body becomes public property. It goes with the inappropriate questions and unwanted advice.

But I still can’t believe that people think it is acceptable to poke and prod expecting mums as if they are a lump of meat – what would they do or say if I went for a stroke of their jelly belly ?
If this becomes a regular occurrence I might have to get one of these, or even more explicit one of those!

More twin news

Et voilà, encore près de 4 semaines qui viennent de s'écouler sans un seul billet ici. 4 semaines où nous avons commencé tout doucement à s'habituer à LA nouvelle, l'ouragan qui va bouleverser notre quotidien dans un peu plus de 5 mois! 4 semaines à annoncer la nouvelle à la famille, aux amis, au travail ... Les réactions sont très variées:

- ceux qui sont vraiment contents et pour qui des jumeaux sont une bonne nouvelle, "twice the fun and all that".

- ceux qui essaient d'avoir l'air contents mais qui en vérité s'inquiètent beaucoup - ça c'est la future grand mère par exemple, à des centaines de kilomètres qui se demande comment sa Pépette va s'en sortir sans elle avec deux nouveaux nés. L'inquiétude passe petit à petit et l'excitation monte - elle a commencé par doubler son stock de laine pour tricoter les brassières!

- ceux qui sont obsédés par l'aspect pratique au point de poser des questions presque inappropriées et distribuer des conseils pas toujours bienvenus. Ca va de la taille de notre appartement ou de notre voiture (oui, oui on sait qu'une Clio c'est trop petit pour des jumeaux) jusqu'à ma capacité à porter des jumeaux à terme ou à les mettre au monde par voie naturelle ... Ou plutot d'après eux mon incapacité parce que vraiment, avec ma taille, des jumeaux, c'est pas possible et une césarienne, ça va etre obligé .... Merci mais je laisserai les spécialistes en décider le moment venu.

- et finalement ceux qui essaient de dissimuler leur horreur/pitié - ça se voit dans les yeux, derrière le faux sourire forcé ... Pour eux les jumeaux, c'est vraiment double trouble et ils nous plaignent du fond du coeur. Ce n'est pas eux que nous appellerons pour les premiers babysitting!

Merci beaucoup pour tous vos messages sur mon billet précédent, vous avez toutes l'air de faire partie de la première catégorie et c'est exactement ce dont j'avais besoin. Parce que je ne vous mentirai pas, des jumeaux ça fait quand meme un peu peur au debut!

Depuis, nous avons aussi eu une autre échographie plus sophistiquée pour vérifier que nos bébés vont bien et évaluer le risque de maladies génétiques, en particulier les trisomies 13, 18 et 21. Nous avons pu en profiter un peu plus que la première. C'est plus facile quand on s'attend à voir deux bébés, plutot que d'apprendre la nouvelle par un "oh and here is the other one" ! Je n'apprendrais rien aux parents qui sont déjà passés par là mais c'est incroyable à quel point un foetus de quelques semaines ressemble déjà à un véritable etre humain, mais en version minuscule. Nos crevettes étaient en pleine forme ce jour là et faisaient des cabrioles dans tous les sens, ça promet! Je ne résiste pas à l'envie de poster les clichés et après c'est promis, c'est retour à la normale sur Il pleut il mouille!

Et je finirai avec la bonne nouvelle de la semaine, c'est que le Petit Chomeur sera de nouveau Petit Chimiste sous peu. Le vent tourne!

PS: Profitez bien du jour le plus long aujourd'hui - ici ce sera certainement barbecue, weather permitting bien sûr - et bonne fete de la Musique à mes lecteurs/trices en France !

PPS: Mon raccourci clavier pour les accents circonflexes a l'air de s'etre mis en grève, j'espère de façon temporaire et je m'excuse donc pour les nombreuses fautes d'orthographe.

Life changes - Part 2

I had drafted a post to tell you about our good news but as if our lifes had not been eventful enough recently, fate threw us another surprise today.

This is how the post started:

On the 1st of April, I was offered my boss’s job, as his dad had finally retired and he was going to become our new managing director, leaving his current position vacant. This had been on the cards for quite a while and I was obviously delighted that it was finally confirmed. But I was also a bit worried and feeling rather deceitful accepting their offer, for that very same morning I had found out I was pregnant…

I was still trying to decide if that stick I had been peeing on, half awake and bleary-eyed, was playing an April’s Fool on me! I waited a couple of days and took two other tests; the results were all the same – undoubtedly, absolutely positive. Then, as a lot of first time parents-to-be will know, a wave of mixed feelings took over, surprise (we’d only been trying for a couple of months and were told it could take up to a year!), complete delight and excitement of course, but also sheer panic, fear, and worry…

We started counting the weeks that separated us from our first and only scan, each week the likelihood of suffering a miscarriage reducing, each week closer to finally believing this was happening. It is hard to take it in until you have ‘proof’; no blood tests here, if the stick says yes, the stick is right!

Today we finally had the scan. And this is what it looked like:

I agree, it looks more like a hurricane forecast than anything else and it is really hard to make anything out - but what is certain is that there are two of them !

Nothing prepares you for the shock of finding out you are expecting twins. As I'm writing these words, nine hours after the biggest shock of my life, my hands are still shaking and I am struggling to find the words to describe what I am feeling.
I guess it will take us several weeks to fully come to term with the news. But we are overwhelmingly happy!

So now you know, what kept me away from my laptop those past few weeks… We are now a single income family with two babies on the way. Bring it on!

Life changes - Part 1

As I was telling you a few days ago, our life has been a rollercoaster of emotions those past few weeks. I won’t go into all the details with the exception of two major events that will change the shape of things to come… So let’s start with the bad news.

At the beginning of the month, le Petit Chimiste became le Petit Chômeur – the Wee Jobseeker – after all the chemists in his company were made redundant. To all the people who praise the British employment system and its wonderful ‘flexibility’, I will only say that I don’t think that a system in which you can be told you might be made redundant one week and escorted out of the premises the very next week like a thief without even a thank you or a handshake is that wonderful. And don’t get me started on the cheap redundancy pay check or the Jobseeker’s (non) Allowance. Let’s just say, le Petit Chômeur will not be joining the queue at the nearest Job Centre à la Full Monty! Oh dear old Maggie must be so proud …

So for the time being, I have a househusband. And it is fantastic: he cooks and does the dishes, he cleans the flat and drives me to work... I could really get used to that! And so could he, he’s loving all this free time and is turning into one of those retired people who are always ever so busy! So if it wasn’t for the small matter of us needing the second income, we would happily make this a permanent arrangement.

So the search is on for a new job. And inevitably this prompted some pretty major questioning and a bit of soul searching. Is it finally time to move to France? Are we ready to sell up, uproot ourselves once again and leave Scotland? Am I prepared to turn my back on a job I really enjoy, where I am valued and where I can grow and learn so much? The answers were a resounding and unanimous triple no. As much as I love my home country, I am happy here and our love story with Scotland is far from over. Of course, there is a lot we would be happy to leave behind: the depressing winter weather and constant darkness, some of the pretty unhealthy eating and drinking habits, and more recently, the employment laws… But we still have so much to see, so much to learn about this wonderful country that never ceases to surprise and delight us. We feel like we’ve only just scratched the surface. And we finally start to feel settled, to feel as if we belong: we’ve made some good friends here, we’re getting involved in our local community. We don’t want to have to do it all over again. Not yet anyway. So for the time being we are staying put. It will be hard for le Petit Chômeur to find a new job that he enjoys and that matches his qualifications and we might have to tighten our belts for a while.

But I‘m sure we won’t regret it.

PS: please, don't feel sorry for us - we are not. And he hated the job anyway!