You would think that after nearly three weeks of owning a new human that I might’ve gotten used to the idea that I’m now a mum. Nah uh, no way, I’m still trying to get my head around the idea that this very tiny, very cute, very demanding little cub is my baby.

It’s taken a while to find the time to write because looking after a baby is hard work. I knew it would be – goodness knows enough people warned me – but knowing something will be hard doesn’t actually make it any easier.

Same goes with labour by the way, I knew it would be painful, but realism didn’t make an ounce of difference in that delivery suite when those contractions kicked in one after another after another. Epidural? Ah yes please.

I am in awe of women who have delivered babies without pain relief, if you are amongst their number then lady, you are my hero. I bow at your feet. In my case it was a good thing I was such a wuss and opted for an epidural, because when they realised my little boy was in major distress and had to be delivered in the next twenty minutes, the fact I had already had an epidural meant they could just top it up for the emergency caesarean. If I hadn’t already been a bit numb they wouldn’t have had time and that would’ve led to a general anaesthic which would’ve sucked for me, baby and Joel. This is how I make myself feel better about not being all Mother Earth and pain-relief-free on it. Turns out I couldn’t Just Say No to drugs in the end, and as a result both Joel and I got to see our baby as soon as he was born – if I’d been under general, that wouldn’t have happened.

There’s a lot of guilt associated with this having a baby lark. I went into birth with an open mind, because I didn’t want to get my heart set on a ‘birth plan’ only for that plan to be shattered, leaving me all forlorn that my precious little bundle didn’t arrive exactly the way that I had in mind. Despite that, I really didn’t think I’d end up having a caesarean, and even though it was our only option at the time I still feel a little disappointed that I wasn’t able to deliver Baby Vic the ‘traditional’ way. I still can’t bring myself to say I “gave birth” because I don’t feel that I did. I’m sure the baby doesn’t give a hoot that he came out through the sunroof rather than, well, you know, so it’s just my own insecurities at play. Damn hormones.

Perhaps we’ll talk about other guilt-laden controversial topics like dummies, bottles and wet wipes another day because I figure you’re probably more keen to see cute photos of the baby – and I don’t blame you. I mean, aside from the fact I’m totally biased, I really do think that Joel and I managed to produce one heck of an adorable kid…

Victor John Mazhar Kefali

Born 10.39pm, Sunday 6th May 2012

7lb 1oz

Perfect in every way

What the heck? How did this happen? How did I go from trying to choose between Latin and French for my language option in third form to sitting at home 8.75 months pregnant, about to become a REAL PROPER GROWN UP? Where did the time go?

We don’t have time to get into the passing of the last twenty years right now, so perhaps I should pull back a little and just say – where did the last nine months go? When I first found out I was pregnant, the days passed soooo slowly. Particularly during that difficult morning sickness phase. It seemed to take forever to get to that magical twelve-week mark. Things sped up during the second trimester, and by the time I hit the third the days were passing at an incredible rate.

Suddenly I find myself facing the prospect of going into labour anyminutenow and all my good intentions have gone out the window. I haven’t read the books I bought. I haven’t been doing ‘downstairs’ exercises. Heck, aside from waddling to the letterbox and back I haven’t really been doing any exercise at all. Also, I’ve eaten way too much McDonalds over the last nine months.

Some might say that I’m not ready to be having this baby, and to that I say – I don’t think anyone is ever really ready, right?

I mean, sure, you can prepare all you like, but nothing can actually ready you for the great unknown that is having a new little person in your life twenty-four-seven. So I’ve decided to stop worrying that I haven’t been drinking raspberry leaf tea, that I don’t know how many onesies a newborn needs, and that I haven’t been participating in aquanatal classes. I have a feeling there are going to be more important things to worry about once my son is placed in my arms.

Up until last week. I was quite happy to wait this out for as long as it takes. If our little dude decided he was going to be two weeks late then I was fine with that. I wanted the time to relax after all this renovation stuff. Sure, I’ve been off work for two and a half weeks now, but I’ve been so busy running around doing house stuff and preparing for Baby’s arrival that there hasn’t been much of a chance to stretch out on the couch in front of the telly while stuffing my face with pastries.

So yeah, I have been all ‘dude, stay where you are, that’s totally okay by me, I have some stuff to sort out before you get here’ – but in the last week my attitude has changed a little. I’ve been getting more and more tired, more and more uncomfortable. I am certain I can happily see this through to my due date without any major complaints, but the idea of going up to two weeks over? Well, now that’s starting to sound mighty unenjoyable.

People keep telling me to relax and enjoy this quiet time before he arrives, and I’m attempting to do exactly that. But at the same time I am feeling rather cumbersome and even sitting down to watch the telly while gorging on pastries only seems to lead to me getting sort of beached on the couch and shifting my weight every two minutes as I try to get comfy. Plus, I guess I’m eager to meet this little guy and finally have some little feeties to put these tiny socks on:

In the meantime…

PS: Do make sure you join me on Twitter. I have time on my hands so I’ve been far more tweety than usual.

Guess what we’re in the middle of? Renovation Hell. Yes! We are finally underway, and we’re not doing this thing half-arsed. I mean, why would you try and minimise upheaval and stress when you’re thirty weeks pregnant?

So what we’re doing is knocking down the wall between the kitchen/dining and living room. We’re also completely gutting and replacing both bathrooms, as well as completely gutting and replacing the kitchen. We’re putting in a new hall cupboard, and all the bathroom carry-on means we have to move the wardrobe in the baby’s room from one end of the wall to the other.

Because we’re doing such a massive overhaul, we figured we might as well replace our crappy wonky walls and ceilings at the same time (and insulate while we’re at it) so the upshot of all this is…

My kitchen used to live there

Our house is in ruins, and so we are currently residing with Mum and Dad.

Since that photo was taken on the first morning the builders had access to our house, the vast majority of our lovely little abode has been stripped back to it’s outside walls and framing. Erm, it’s just a teensy wee bit frightening. In that OH MAN TOO LATE TO GO BACK NOW kind of way.

A bit like how I feel re: Baby.

Speaking of which, we have started antenatal classes, and for those of you who have never had the joy of experiencing this rite of passage I can tell you… it’s a really weird situation to find yourself in. For those of you who have been there done that, you know what I mean.

There you are, sat in a room with a bunch of other nervous looking couples, trying to soak in everything you need to know about what should happen and what might go wrong in the rest of your pregnancy and labour. All the while you’re feeling a bit self-conscious when the teacher starts talking about your privates, and trying not to giggle when she folds up the grubby little baby doll and shoves it through a pelvis.

There are bean bags piled up in the corner and I’m wondering what we’ll have to do with those. So far the classes have been pretty close to what I’d imagined based solely on offerings courtesy of TV shows and movies, and based on those I am getting a bit nervous about what lies ahead. Roleplaying? Graphic birthing videos from the eighties? Yikes.

I’ll keep you posted…

Sorry I haven’t been doing that much lately – keeping you posted. I am tired a lot, and of course we’ve had a huge amount of stuff to look after between work/baby/renovations, so I hope you understand. Of course you do because you’re lovely.

What’s going on with you guys anyway? Please feel free to share your renovation and/or antenatal class stories!

I don’t need to fill you in on how the year started out, because you already know it started badly, so let’s just fast forward to the here and now.

Work has been really busy, which is not a bad thing. There have been music festivals and touring artists and a few key album releases that have managed to keep me exhausted enough to not bother with the housework.

Actually, come to think of it, do you remember when I had that dilemma of trying to figure out if we could justify getting in a cleaner? I felt my spare time was precious and I didn’t want to spend it scrubbing skirting boards with a toothbrush, and moreover I have a touch of the lazies when it comes to doing housework. Anyway, at the time you guys were all “go guuuurrrl, get yourself a cleaner and spend your weekends sipping margaritas by the poolside” – except that I don’t drink and we don’t have a pool, but in terms of the general gist of things, you were spot on.

So we got a cleaner in (actually, there were two of them) and they did a consistently crappy job. Each week I gave them another shot in the hope they were just getting used to what it was that needed doing in the house (yes! we would like the soap scum wiped from the soap holder in the shower please). Alas, every time I came home on cleaning day and found another grubby surface un-wiped, my patience wore further thin – but perhaps there was too much to clean and not enough time?

(In retrospect I’m starting to think I was too lazy to fire them)

THEN! Joel’s brother in law was doing some landscaping work for us when the cleaners came, and he noticed they were there for far less time than what we were paying them for. So it wasn’t that there was too much work to get through in the allotted time after all! They were just taking us for a ride!

So I steeled myself for the difficult conversation ahead… and asked Joel to relieve them from their duties. The plan was to find a new cleaner, but I guess laziness stuck its oar in there too. Anyway, the upshot of all this is that I still want a cleaner, but now we’re going down to one income (baby, maternity leave, blah blah) we can’t afford one.

I know there are bigger problems in the world, but for some reason the idea of looking after a newborn, all strung out on no sleep, while also facing a seemingly insurmountable list of household chores is my pre-baby freakout of the moment.

If I can’t be arsed keeping the house in check now, how will I cope when there’s a baby in town?

And then there’s the impending renovations… that’s all a bit too much for my brain right now, and somehow I suspect there will be a few entries devoted to this highly-exciting topic in the weeks to come.

In the last entry I promised you a bump photo, and because you’ve been so patient, I’m going to give you three, okay?

First up, 22 weeks:

And 24 weeks:

And finally, 27 weeks:

In the first week of this year we lost a much-adored family member. I don’t feel I should go into details, for the reason explained above, except to say that it was sudden and therefore no one was prepared to deal with the grief that followed.

And so I haven’t written anything here. I knew I couldn’t just pretend everything is fine (it’s not), but I also didn’t know how to put things into words. I still don’t think I know how to, and even now as I type I am aware I’m not doing a very good job, but I just wanted to let you know why I’ve been absent, and then I just want to carry on.

Thank you for being patient with me (you always are) and I promise I’ll be back soon. And I’ll even share a bump photo with you so you can see just how fat full of baby I’m getting.

Let me set the scene for you. I’m sitting in a purpose built nursing chair that I bought on TradeMe. The chair rocks, and so does the little accompanying ottoman. It will be great for nursing I’m sure, but in the meantime it’s getting a work out as a telly-watching chair – and I can assure you it’s up to that task.

Joel has just switched off the Playstation, he’s been playing an NBA game I got him for Christmas.

It’s raining outside. It’s miserable and has been for days. The forecasters are promising wet weather for as far ahead as they can predict. Basically until I’m due back at work. Arse.

Due to the grim state of things outdoors, Stella is curled up on the couch and Sunday is curled up on an armchair. Long gone are the days of us trying to keep the animals off the furniture – just quietly, there’s something rather nice about having a little furry creature cuddle up next to you while you’re watching the telly.

Speaking of the telly, the Playstation has just gone back on. He gave it a break of around three minutes.

My little sit-down has come after an hour of sorting through letters, bills, statements and receipts that have built up in a pile over the last six months or so. We’re trying to clear out the study so that we can move in some new shelves that Joel made, and also the spare bed, which is currently in the baby’s room. We have a lot of stuff to sort through. My spidey senses tell me there’s a tiny bit of hoarder in both of us, but we keep that in check by having these huge annual clear-outs, and this year we’re being particularly ruthless. I’m even getting rid of my Tori Spelling biographies and Twilight books. Yes, I’m that serious about the de-cluttering process.

You guys, this is my New Year’s Eve. I know, I need to stop partying so hard; I am embarrassing my loved ones with my outrageous drug and alcohol-fuelled benders.

The news gets even sadder. I am not even sure I’ll be going out tonight. I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather for the last few days (oh ha ha) and the idea of being the sober pregnant one surrounded by a bunch of boozed-up friends with cabin fever doesn’t make me reach for my party shoes in a hurry.

I just read over that last paragraph and have now decided I probably will go out tonight after all. I am pregnant, not eighty-six.

Happy New Year you guys, if 2011 was a good one for you I hope that 2012 continues the upward trend. If this year sucked arse, then woo! Time to say goodbye to the suckiness and helllooooo to a brand new year.

A year that is going to see this little guy make his grand entrance… I leave you with a shot of our son (!!!) from my twenty-week scan. See you next year!

Merry Christmas my wonderful Picnic By The Motorway friends! When I threw in the Girls’ Guide towel earlier this year I didn’t know if any of you would join me here, and while I know the majority of readers dropped off, there’s still YOU. Thank you for sticking with me, I’m hoping all my time at home with the baby next year will mean you and I will have more opportunities to hang out online.

This year has been good to me, I hope it’s been good to you too. My excellent year was also reflected in an excellent Christmas – filled with food, family and good times. It lacked the dramatics of previous years, but er, that’s not exactly a problem.

This Christmas was particularly special because on Wednesday we found out the gender of our baby, but we decided to torture our family and friends by holding out on telling them until today – because what better day to make the big reveal than Christmas Day?! Now the family and friends have been informed, so it’s your turn…

Joel made this amazing little animation for us to play on the telly at each of our family Christmas do’s. For each reveal we split the room so that everyone who thought it was a girl sat on one side, and everyone who thought it was a boy sat on the other. Then, we pressed play

You guys, in May we’re having a little:

It’s that time of the year again, when I dust off the annual end-of-year meme and fill it out, then invite you to do the same. I’m sorry there are no interesting photos to add some colour to this entry. Pregnancy is exhausting, and quite frankly, posting photos is just too much effort for this grumpypants.  Enough small talk, let’s crack into it…

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?
Got pregnant – that’s pretty significant, right?

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
At the end of last year I was determined to finish that interval training programme that would end with me being able to run continuously for 30 minutes, and I’m pleased to say I reached that goal.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
My friends Djeisan and Emily had a little baby girl in October called Nina

4. Did anyone close to you die?
I went to one funeral this year – Gareth was tragically hit by a bus in August, it was (as you can imagine) incredibly sad. I feel that I should point out we weren’t close friends and I hadn’t seen him for a long time, but he was a friend nonetheless.

5. What countries did you visit?
The United States (LA and New York) and Australia (Sydney to see Pulp play)

6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?
A baby (feeling pretty confident about that one). But in all seriousness, I’d like to adopt a healthier lifestyle and more consistent routines. That whole running and gymming thing went out the window (as these things tend to do… if you’re me) and with it went any semblance of a healthy diet. Why is eating right such a massive struggle for me?

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
31st August – the day I found out I was pregnant

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Winning Best Blog at the Canon Media Awards!

9. What was your biggest failure?
Not being particularly smart or motivated when it came to nutrition. Again.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
The running led to shin splints, and so I started swimming which led to me twisting something in my back and I ended up needing physio treatment. No majors though.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
A rocking chair for nursing le bebe. I found it on TradeMe, picked it up on Saturday and have been watching Christmas movies in it. Oh, and it will be good for when the baby comes along too.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
Everyone involved on the frontline of rescue and recovery in the Christchurch Earthquake, both in terms of people’s lives but also people’s properties and livelihoods.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
It makes me really sad to say that someone close to me displayed some fairly appalling behaviour this year. For their own privacy I won’t name names, but basically someone I love (and will always love) let a few of us down.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Mortgage, renovations, food

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
That little blue line on the pregnancy test. And all the subsequent little blue lines that followed over the next few days. It took some time before I realised YES, IT’S REAL you see.

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?
‘Roman’s Revenge’ – Nicki Minaj

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) Happier or sadder?
Happier
b) Thinner or fatter?
Well, fatter I guess, but c’mon – there’s another human inside me!
c) Richer or poorer?
Less in debt, so richer I suppose

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Eating right, exercising, reading books, blogging

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Sweating the small stuff

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
With family, as always

21. Did you fall in love in 2011?
I am kinda falling in love with this little guy or gal that’s taken residence in my belly

22. What was your favourite TV programme?
Modern Family, Downton Abbey, Work of Art, Gossip Girl, Shortland Street, The X Factor (US)

23. Do you dislike anyone now that you didn’t dislike this time last year?
No, but I’ve lost a little respect for a few

24. What was the best book you read?
Didn’t read any books. Shut up, leave me alone.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Frank Ocean

26. What did you want and get?
To see Pulp play just one more time thanksverymuch!

27. What did you want and not get?
Wardrobe doors. Joel, why don’t we have wardrobe doors yet?

28. What was your favourite film of this year?
Bridesmaids

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned thirty-two this year, and when you get old your memory starts to go, so please bear that in mind when I say I think I worked on my birthday this year (I usually try to take it off), and then Joel took me out to an amazing fancypants dinner at the French Cafe

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Honestly, it’s been a pretty good year. I would’ve liked to have achieved a bit more around the house in terms of renovations/landscaping etc (wardrobe doors!), but meh, not a biggie.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
Less and less “fashionable” by the day

32. What kept you sane?
Joel

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Gosh, I think I might have fallen for Ryan Gosling a little bit after seeing Crazy Stupid Love. I know, very late on the train and all that, but better late than never right?

34. What political issue stirred you the most?
The General Election. I watched the debates on the telly and everything

35. Who did you miss?
My sister moved to the other side of the city which means I don’t see her or my niece and nephew as often as I used to, so I find myself missing them quite a bit

36. Who was the best new person you met?
Hayden Abercrombie! Okay, that’s a cheat because technically I met him last year, but I didn’t get to know him until this year.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011
I can’t actually fix everyone else’s problems

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year
“Girl, you’ll be a woman soon” – Neil Diamond

Now if you could be so kind as to fill out this wee meme with your answers (either in the comments below, or by providing a link to a post on your own blog) that would be great.

Finally… we find out if it’s a boy or a girl baby tomorrow. According to the the majority of you lot on the last entry’s guess-poll thingo we’re looking down the barrel of a boy baby (boy edged out girl by only a very small margin). Unfortunately, even though Joel and I will be finding out tomorrow, you guys are going to have to wait until Christmas Day – because that’s when we’re telling the family. Sorry about that!