Page 12 of So Thrilled For You

Tristan finally emerges from the bathroom, phone in his hand, and, bless him, he looks shattered. Even after a half-hour break. Eyes red raw, his shirt not tucked in properly. He hovers on the threshold of our living room and visibly steels himself, before inhaling energy and bursting into a grin.

‘Woody mate?’ he says, his accent still so twangy Australian after all these years. ‘Are you cruisin’ buddy?’

Woody chuckles in delight at his newfound skill and gives Tristan a giant one-toothed grin. Tristan opens his arms wide. ‘Come here bubba. Show me those chubby frog-legs.’

I watch Woody hurl himself towards my husband, giggling like his open arms are Disney Land, and my heart warms as they hug.

This is what having a family is about,I remind myself. For this feeling. Right now. It’s worth it. It is. It has to be . . .

Tristan yawns and holds Woody out to me. ‘Wanna hug Mummy, now, do you, squirt?’

I’m an even more tantalising option, and Woody cackles as he approaches. My back hurts and I’m so exhausted but I can’t really say, ‘No, I don’t want him.’ So, I push through and smile as my baby thwacks himself into my chest.

Tristan and I end up sitting with our legs out, the bare soles of our feet touching, as Woody stumbles clumsily between us, naked apart from his nappy. I feel my husband’s skin against mine and realise this is the most we’ve touched in weeks. I take in his red raw eyes again, the purple bruises of bags under them, the skin that sags around what used to be a good jawline. He’s fucked too. Not as fucked as me, but still beyond capacity.

You do not fully know your partner until you’ve had a baby with them.

I remember a faceless older woman saying this to me at a publishing Christmas party. She’d commented on my new engagement ring, and I droned on about how happy I was to have found Tristan and what a good father he’d be when the time comes.

‘Hmm,’ was her reply. And I remember thinking that was rude. ‘You think you’ll know what they’ll be like as parents, but kids break people. You don’t know what you’re both like under torture conditions.’

‘Torture conditions?’

I laughed it off at the time and made an excuse to go refill my glass, my nose wrinkling as I walked away. Now I see this lady for the seer she was.

Woody falls on his bottom between us. And, though his nappy cushions the impact, he starts wailing. Tristan scoops him up for a cuddle and nods at me.

‘Right, Mummy. This is all under control. Go shower and get ready. We’re all good here, aren’t we, sport?’

‘Thank you,’ I say, standing up to get dressed.

Thank you for letting me fulfil a basic life function.

But my gratitude wanes when I hear theBlueytheme tune before I even reach our bedroom. I clench the door frame. We’ve agreed Woody’s only allowed ten minutes of screen time a day until he’s two. That equates to two episodes ofBluey.And Tristan’s using one up to make his life easier when I didn’t use up anyBlueyduring his 30-minute shit. I only get one episode of Bluey today and . . . Breathe, Lauren . . . Stop seeing it as a competition. Tristan is your husband, not your enemy. I turn on the shower and check my phone while I wait for the water to warm up. The DM lays there, still unread. They’ll block me the moment they see it. They always do. Then I’ll have to set up another burner account.

The hot water is a sanctuary, even though it’s sweltering outside. I turn it up as much as I can stand and watch the glass door turn to steam, before I slide down and sit with my knees up, back against the tiles. I hold out my palms and make tiny ponds that I release and re-fill, release and re-fill. I still remember my first shower after the birth. I wept as I staggered into the shitty cubicle in the shitty maternity ward of the shitty hospital, washing the dried gore from my skin, watching my deflated stomach hang down, no longer carrying a baby with me. I had only five minutes before Woody howled from his plastic container – me able to discern his cries from the other babies already. But it was the first five minutes I’d been alone in nine months. We were separate now. Untethered. I’d held my stomach and grieved and celebrated this tiny piece of aloneness in the hot water. And, still, now, today, I relish in this slice of me-ness. I stand, lather up, give my hair a long overdue wash. Try to look forward to today rather than dread how much it’s going to mess up Woody’s non-existent schedule. The girls back together again. Womenwho have known and loved me for so long. It may jumpstart me out of this swamp – remind me who I am a bit.

My optimism, however, gets strangled when I emerge dripping and stand naked in front of my wardrobe. The former clothes from my former life hang there taunting me. It’s been nine months and none of them fit yet – both literally and emotionally. They’re so bright and cheerful and jarring and go in at the waist, because, in the Before Times, I used to have one of those. I remember, on my first date with Tristan, telling him I worked in Children’s Publishing, and he’d laughed and said, ‘Of course you do. I assumed it was that or kids TV.’ It wasn’t a requirement of the job, of course, to dress as brightly as the picture books I commissioned, but I loved wearing a rainbow wardrobe of novelty prints. Dresses covered with hot air balloons, neon jeans, ’50s skirts splattered with giant banana prints – all counter-balanced with grown-up makeup. A perfect red lip, a perfect winged eyeliner, a perfect ponytail high on my head. Every day was A Look. My fashion choices used to bring me such joy, and now they hang, lifeless, in front of me. The metaphor is so obvious it’s written somewhere in someone’s GCSE English coursework.

These clothes don’t fit anymore because I am not this person anymore.

I will never fit back into these clothes again because I can never be that woman again.

When could I ever have a perfect red lip again? Woody would be a raspberry of kisses by 5am. Me too, as his favourite thing to do is jam his chubby fingers into my mouth, yanking the side of my lip like he’s fishing for me with a hook. And all my old outfits look strange and unfinished without heavy makeup – like a person who’s taken their glasses off.

Cool Mum taunts me in the reflection, twirling to showcase her returned figure, clad in her pre-baby clothes. Like everyone who worked in publishing, I’d read the Cool Girl rant inGone Girland had an epiphany. But I’d outgrown comparing myself to a Cool Girl, and, since having Woody, now ruin my self-esteem with this fictional ‘Cool Mum’. Well, I say ‘fictional’ – every fucking mumfluencer online seems to fit the part, literally.

Cool Mum bounces back after having a baby. Wow, where did this six pack come from? It’s just from perfectly breastfeeding easily, with no issues, and pushing my designer pram up the hill. Sometimes I use the baby as arm weights, lol. I exercise because it’s time for myself. I get up at 5am to work out before the baby’s up. Why lie sobbing on the carpet as your me-time when you could be doing burpees?

I sigh and hoick out my slightly stained navy maternity dress. Everything maternity is navy. When you become a mother, your life becomes navy. Practical. Invisible. Inoffensive.

I shrug it on, catching sight of the angry scar spliced across my stomach and the way my skin hangs over it like a dilapidated shelf. A scar that still feels numb to touch. My tummy still looks at least three months pregnant. I wonder what the other Little Women will wear today. Nicki – some funky pregnancy dungarees, rather than the standard floaty, 70 quid dress from Seraphine, because Nicki will want to prove she’s not a ‘typical mum’.

Yeah, Nicki, I used to think that too, but I’ve worn my hair in a gross topknot for over 200 days straight.

Steffi will showcase her amazing Peloton body in some understated sleek something-or-other from a shop I’ve never heard of in East London, where they only sell twelve items of clothing.

And Charlotte will be wearing one of her typical Anne Boleyn headbands paired with some great dress you can never buy as she’s so tiny she can shop in the kids’ section.

---