Nosey parkers

Some people at work know that my husband and I recently bought a house. They also know how old we are. And they have already come to the conclusion, without any hints from me, that we are "nesting" and getting ready to have a baby.
I saw a colleague today that I haven't seen for a couple of months. After saying hello, her eyes pretty quickly honed in on my stomach. Now, maybe it's just that all I'm thinking about at the moment is pregnancy, but it seemed to me that she was (fairly unsubtley) checking me out for signs of there being a proverbial bun-in-the-oven. Later in the day we were at a hotel, attending an event. I was flicking through a Bridal magazine that was lying in a pile of other less-appealing glossies. This colleague of mine says, "You've done that! Isn't there a parenting magazine there?"
I understand that people might wonder if I will be having a baby soon. I might, privately, consider the same of other people of a similar age and at a similar stage in their life to me. But, come on, keep it to yourself! For all they know I could be infertile, or could have recently miscarried, or be on the verge of divorce... I think she was just probing for a suitable response from me that might confirm her thinking. I didn't give her one.

What do I do with it?

I met a work colleague for coffee this week. She is on maternity leave and her gorgeous baby girl is now 5 months old. There have been very few babies in my life and whenever I am handed one I'm very much lost. As long as they keep still and smile I'm fine, but a little wriggle or a wrinkled brow and I'm panicking and looking to hand them back to those who know better than me. Which seems to be pretty much everyone. How do you learn this basic stuff? How to hold a baby securely? How to make the kind of face that always makes a baby smile? Let alone feed one or bathe it safely!
I guess you just find your way? Rely on people who know to help you out?
This colleague that I'm talking about used to be a slightly apprehensive, indecisive individual but motherhood suits her and she has developed an air of confidence that she didn't have before. I know that looking after a baby didn't come immediately naturally to her but she seems to be taking it in her stride now.
I'm a bit of a perfectionist. Will I feel like a huge failure and the worst ever mother?

Fertile?

All of a sudden, all I seem to be hearing about is women having trouble getting pregnant. People I know who came off the Pill months and months ago and who are still not pregnant...women resorting to IVF...people adopting as a result of not being able to get pregnant. I'm sure that I used to hear more about people getting pregnant accidentally...
What will be the case for me? It would be niave to think that my body will return immediately to normal after being on the Pill for 16 years. But I'd still like to think that I will get pregnant pretty much straight away and show the world how amazingly ripe and fertile I am for a 34 year old :)

Reason #1

Work really sucks at the moment. One good reason to have kids? Not having to go to work for a few months.

Sleep

I've taken a few days off work this week. I've been feeling - and looking - really tired lately so I've been using these days to catch up on some sleep. Wondering how I would cope with limited sleep, every day, for several years.....hmmmmm

Drugs

So I took my last contraceptive pill on Wednesday. Those tiny pills have been a security blanket for most of my adult life and taking them has become just as much a part of my routine as brushing my teeth. And now, here I am, deciding to abandon them for a different, and much more adult, life. At 34, and with nearly 12 years of marriage behind me, many people might wonder why we have waited so long. What can I say except we must have been too busy enjoying ourselves with things the way they were. But we recently began to hear the nagging tick of the biological clock and so decisions had to be made.
All you seem to hear from parents is how horrendous childbirth is, how knackering, expensive and all-consuming children are, how they take over your life - and you rarely see them say these things with a smile damn it! Just give me a smile, show me it's all worth it please!!!
But we Brits don't tend to tell each other how great things are, do we. We don't tell each other how fantastic our husbands are and how much we cherish them, or how great we consider our friends to be. That would be showing off! We moan and complain about anything and everything. And so having children is the perfect opportunity for a fantastically long winded whinge.
I picture us with children and hope that we can handle the challenge and the hard-work and that we enjoy the irreversible change in our lives. I also picture us smiling and laughing a lot more :)
I've replaced those little dots of hormones with little dots of folic acid. I was so happy to see that the folic acid came in little yellow pills and in a blister pack, just like my contraceptive pill :) Psychologically that has really helped the transition!
So here we are, wondering what happens next...

And so it begins

I'm not a writer. I don't consider myself to be good with words. I don't normally do stuff like this. But I am about to embark on a big journey, taking the plunge, and I imagine that I will have some stuff to say about it. I'd like to record the adventure in some way. I take photographs and that is the usual way that I choose to record my life. And although photographs will no doubt play a big part in this...this unknown new world...I don't think that they will be enough. I'd like to have more than photographs to look back on. I am doing this mainly for myself but I'm interested to see how sharing my thoughts with others might inject more colour into the picture.