Page 3 of So Thrilled For You

I’m not sure I know what a perfect baby shower entails. A really shortone? That’s what I thought before I got pregnant myself. I used to begrudge baby showers lasting longer than two hours, but now that today’s ismine, I’m worried people will flake or won’t stay til the end.

I bet Steffi stays for ten minutes, max, if that.

It doesn’t help that Charlotte insisted my parents’ new home is the ‘perfect’ location despite being in the middle of nowhere. They’ve retired to this converted luxury barn, miles from a train station. Their countryside vista views are less impressive than normal since this heatwave turned every surrounding field into a post-apocalyptic wasteland. I’m worried people won’t be bothered to make the journey. Regardless, Charlotte’s coming over at the crack of dawn to ‘set up’.

‘8am isn’t too early is it?’ she asked.

‘It starts at eleven. What are you setting up, Charlotte? A petting zoo? This baby shower, it’s low-key, right?’

Charlotte lives her whole life in Soprano but I don’t want anyone to think I’m going to become one ofthosemothers. You know. The ones who refer to themselves as‘mama’. I’ve warned Matt the following words are banned from our baby journey – ‘mama’, ‘baby bubble’, ‘newborn bliss’, and writing Instagram posts TO the baby, even though they’re pre-verbal and can’t legally get a social media account to read it until they’re twelve. Yet, Charlotte, bless her, is determined to turn my baby shower into my worst nightmare. ‘Don’t you worry, mama,’ she’d said. ‘It’s all in hand. Relax.’

My phone buzzes from where I left it on the bathmat but I ignore it. It can’t be anyone but Charlotte this early. I’m so tired after a sweaty night in this Grand Designs clusterfuck. It was already 25 degrees when I woke up this morning. I’m so huge and uncomfortable and permanently thirsty, and it’s been too goddamn hot for too goddamn long. I can only sleep in two- to four-hour bursts, waking to down pints of cold milk, run my wrists under the cold taps, and, of course,pee. It’s on my banned phrase list, but I’m now desperate to ‘meet my baby’ just so I can cease being a pregnant narwhale.

My baby. I still can’t believe it. I got here. Matt and I got here.

The baby wakes up and my stomach twists. I meet their movements with my hand.

‘Good morning,’ I coo. ‘Are you up too? Yes, I know, it’s much too hot.’

Sweat droplets glisten on my bump and slide down to merge with the bathwater. The back side of this barn conversion is solid glass, and everyone’s going to spend today sodden with sweat. But I push that worry from my mind and focus on connecting with this baby.Mybaby. On the day ofmybaby shower. It’s happening. Somehow, Matt and I overcame everything and did it – committed to each other in this huge way. Created life. Entwined our genes and blood and hereditary diseases and squashed them together into a living, breathing, human that we’re going to ‘meet’ in a month. It’s crazy. It’s beautiful. Thank God we made it through the dark times. Thank God we could have a baby, especially with everything Charlotte’s going through. I’m lucky. So lucky.

I sing gently to my bump and feel nothing but profound bliss – mixed with a pelvic girdle pain – until the heat of my body warms the water and makes it too uncomfortable.

I struggle out of the roll-top bath, swearing, and unable to comprehend my ginormous alien bodysuit. I wrap myself in a towel and pad back to the guest bedroom, hearing my dad’s snores muffled through my parents’ bedroom door. I let the air dry my skin, humming to myself, feeling my stomach still asthe baby sleeps again, wondering if I can squeeze a nap in now before Mum wakes up and activates.

Then I remember my phone buzzing earlier. I heave myself off the bed and waddle back to the bathroom to retrieve it. It must be Charlotte. And yet, I feel a novel chill as I deep squat to get it off the floor, one that dances instinctively down my arm, leaving me to pause before unlocking it.

Then I see the message and my phone clatters back to the floor, the screen cracking open on the geometric tiling.

Transcript: Inspector Simmons

interviewing Lauren Powell

Simmons: Can you talk us through the day of July 14th, please?

Lauren: When was that?

Simmons: The day of the fire

Lauren: Oh, of course. Sorry. All the days blur into one when you have a baby.

Simmons: In your own time, Lauren.

Lauren: Umm, do you know how long this will take? Because my baby’s currently on a wake window of 2.45 hours, and you were late letting me in, so he’s got to go down in only 1.37 hours, and he needs my boob to get to sleep . . .

Lauren

It feels like an act of violence when the baby wakes me up again.

‘No,’ I whisper, as I hear Woody start to howl. ‘Please, no.’

Tristan stirs next to me in the bed. He’s heard it too, but we remain silent, like Woody’s the T-Rex fromJurassic Park,and, if we stay still, he’ll go back to sleep and not eat us whole on a toilet. Does that make sense? I’m not sure. I’m so, so, fucking sleep deprived. Honestly, I could weep. Hang on, my pillow’s wet. Iamweeping. Great. We’ll have to start the tally again. Tristan thought it would be ‘funny’ to keep a daily tally of how often I cry. Because, you know, PND is much easier when it’s gamified.

Another howl from Woody’s cot. I reach for my phone to check the time and it’s just as bad as it feels. It’s been preciselyone hour and fifteen minutessince Woody fell asleep... Since Woody fell asleep after us spendingone hour andfiftyminutes trying to get him back to sleep. And, after he finally went down, I was so full of adrenaline and that crippling feeling that I’m trapped forever in this total nightmare, that I couldn’t get back to sleep for ages. In fact, I only dropped off twenty minutes ago.

A more urgent howl. Tristan inches closer to me.

‘Shall we leave him?’ he whispers, but not quietly enough. Woody lets out a desperate screech. One so shrill that I want to lurch up and tell him to shut up because I’m such a good mother. Make me a mumfluencer. What’s my USP? I tell mybaby to shut up. To its face. Regularly. And I’m still really fat. And I hate every minute. What do you mean I don’t have any followers? No brand deals for#AuthenticMamaBabiesFuckUpYourLife?I really am delirious, aren’t I? Oh my God, why won’t Woody stop crying? Why is he awake again?

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