Adding a mid week song today as it’s my son’s birthday.
This track is often used in a romantic sense but to me, it also works for a newborn baby; that precious first day when the world just disappears and all you want is to hug that precious bundle you’ve been carrying for the past nine months.
I remember the first moment I realised I might be pregnant, leaning into the meat counter at the supermarket and feeling somewhat queasy; a home test soon confirmed my suspicions. The next few months proved quite debilitating as the nausea became a constant burden to my everyday life; it wasn’t just morning sickness, is was 24 hour a day…
I remember having to do my self assessment and they had changed the system, so I ended up calling the help line and burst into tears to the poor gentleman who answered. Bless him for not slamming the phone down on a hormonal mum to be; instead he just said, I’ll sort it all out for you and he did-thank you whoever you were.
I was really poorly with sickness and even any smell made me nauseous as well; even a lovely vanilla ice cream bought for me was met with “I can’t eat that, it’s got bits in it!” (vanilla pod extracts).
I went down to London for my 10 week check up which was done by Professor Nicolaides team – they looked after all my scans during this pregnancy as they were then the only centre able to offer the nuchal testing which helps recognise birth defects at an early stage. I was a bit shocked when my gynae told me I was severely dehydrated to the extent that it would already be affecting my kidneys; he gave me a week to try and get things back on track or we would have to terminate…
I remember him calling me late one night in response to a frantic call from my family to say “you will find something you can eat, just walk along the supermarket shelves…” I followed his advice the next day and bingo: tinned peaches! It’s funny, when I first got Covid in 2022 and went off food completely, I remembered his advice and found something I lived on for many months: Chicken Soup!
Fast forward to July of that year; my caesarian was planned for the evening of the first day of my 37th week – when the baby’s lungs are generally strong enough not to need to go into a neonatal ICU. We had planned to go to see “Armaggedon”, but for some reason, the cinema were not able to show the film until the next day and we had to make do with “Godzilla”.
I remember waking up from the anaesthetic with the nurse checking my blood pressure and meds and asked to hold my son. I’ll never forget the moment I saw him; he was tiny but definitely a boy; beautiful corn blue eyes that stared into mine before closing again and that newborn baby smell. This track will always remind me of those precious first few days…
I could stay awake just to hear you breathingWatch you smile while you are sleeping
Happy Birthday C !
