A Newbie is Arriving! The Perfect Three, Preparing to Become Four

By the time you read this, the newbie will have arrived – writes an excited Simrat Ghuman of her impending birth.

Well, it was a nice 7-month break from child-rearing to poke my head into a space populated solely by intelligent humans and get paid for doing it. It was manic, sure, but I did enjoy going back to work – although they probably thought of me as the resident baby-making machine, given the speed with which I became pregnant again.

By the time you read this, the newbie will have arrived: if all goes well, Littloo will be a big brother to a new baby boy.

So here’s a low-down on the dramatis personae of this event called Simrat’s Baby Number 2.

Me:

My first pregnancy was easy, the baby was a nightmare. This pregnancy has been easy in itself, so the baby will be…. Oh please, not colicky again! Being pregnant while looking after a toddler and attempting to “work work” at the same time is no picnic. So I don’t care what you say about your first pregnancy, my only advice is, shuttup and enjoy it. No matter how much you throw up and in front of whom, first pregnancies are a luxury compared to the consecutive ones, simply because you are not responsible for keeping a little hurricane alive and healthy as well.

Darling Husband:

First, he reeled at the news that we were expecting, and now he’s reeling at how soon the due date has arrived. Having been there, done that, I am certainly better prepared, simultaneously robust – yet quaking with dread about the impending c-section. Might ignorance be a bliss? DH, however, seems to have forgotten how challenging newborns are. For example, I was stacking muslin cloths on the shelf the other day and he asked me what they’re for. Erm, for wiping up endless burps and vomits, what else? I saw the panic then on his face as he seemed to get a flashback of the trauma of a windy, colicky, screaming baby, something it seemed he’d blocked from his memory. A survival tactic perhaps?

Littloo:

The boy is both seemingly oblivious to the impending storm that will rock his world and also somehow aware that something’s brewing. He’s super clingy with me and things come to a head at bedtime. He insists on draping himself across my face or clinging on to my neck for dear life, burying his nose in my shoulder, barely able to breathe – he’s never been like this before. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a sixth sense about it… or perhaps, my behaviour is giving him clues. I hold him tighter, cuddle him longer and kiss him harder, because he’s going to have a very challenging few months, sharing his parents with a newcomer. DH, Littloo and I are a perfect threesome at the moment; we have our routines, Leo loves being the sole focus of our attention – and in less than a week’s time it’s all going to go out of the window. So I empathise, but wish it wasn’t so bleddy…depleting!

Mother:

Like clockwork, my mother has arrived to help with the birth this time too. Oh I know how lucky I am! A friend recently said that she was only going to get pregnant again while her mother was still physically able and willing to help her. Otherwise, no way, Jose! I know where she’s coming from… the thought of coping without my mother would send me into the blackest of depressions. On her first afternoon itself, mine managed to make friends with my spoilt brat – no easy task! – accompany me to a hospital appointment, bake apple muffins and onion parathas, and as usual take charge of the house. If she ain’t my guardian angel, I don’t know who is!

And finally, the soon to be born – the poor crumb’s the least considered person in all this!

DH and I already feel the disadvantage he’s at. We don’t coo and talk to him (or the bump, more precisely), we haven’t debated names for hours; in short, this one is getting none of the attention that Littloo got when I was still pregnant with him. Instead he gets to hear me lose my temper more often than I’d like, hear the toddler tantrums of his brother – and gets none of the vitamins and supplements that he should be getting.

I hope we do better for him when he actually arrives in this world.

(The author is a former TV journo who stays in London. She became Mama to baby Leo in April 2015. She started this blog as an outlet for the intense, roller-coaster experience that pregnancy and motherhood entail. And for recording the journey with as much humour – black mostly – as she can cram in. Oh and dispensing free gyan as she ticks the been there, done that milestones.)

Follow Simrat Ghuman’s blog here.