Changes...

In March of this year I was settled back in the UK, in a retail job with a major computing and technology corporation. Not only had I come to terms with the non-tropical humdrum existence of life back home in England, but I had been involved in a romantic liaison with a work colleague for several weeks.
Towards the end of March I felt a bit peculiar - even by my standards. And so one morning I found myself perched on the edge of a toilet seat clutching a urine-soaked plastic stick in white knuckles, trembling like a leaf in the wind. It became hard to focus through tear-glazed eyes, but I was unable to look away, unable to blink, utterly transfixed by the double pink lines that glowed out from the sodden litmus paper.

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I knew what that code meant, I had checked and rechecked the leaflet ten times already. Two lines = POSITIVE

POSITIVEPOSITIVEPOSITIVEPOSITIVEPOSITIVEOHSHITOHFUCKPOSITIVEPOSITIVEPOSITIVEHOLYCRAPOHGODPOSITIVEPOSITIVEPOSITIVE... The word cycled endlessly in my head. Time stopped. My world spun. I'm pregnant, I'm knocked up, I'm having a baby, I'm well and truly up the bloody duff.

This sort of thing doesn't happen to me, I thought. It has never happened to me! I chase sharks, wrestle stingrays, run away to sea with French men, make solo expeditions to remote corners of the globe...but this? Having babies is not an adventure I'm qualified for! Marriage, mortgages, children, that's what other people do!

In the six months since then I have watched the seasons change, and with them, my body too. As I write this I'm balancing my laptop on my baby bump, which is already huge and round, swollen with the life growing within. The keyboard twitches and wobbles with every kick and sometimes I stop to stroke my belly and smile.


The relationship with the baby's father was brief and ended soon after it begun, back in spring, but he is still around and we continue to share a commitment to being the best parents possible when the time comes. Modern co-parenting is so 2011!

So now this old travel blog of mine is destined to take a different turn, a new route that will be the biggest adventure yet. What happens when this free spirited ex traveller takes on the most important job of all?

TInkerbell, pack away your fairy wings, it's time to be a mummy!



(Due date: Dec 15 2010)