Fencing with words

After another enjoyable evening of vomiting ginger beer through my nose, I decided to work from home this morning.  Despite me moaning about the investment banking culture being unfair to women (which it absolutely is), I'm a trusted enough member of staff that I can manage my own time, so it's not the end of the world if I come in at midday, or work from home from time-to-time.  They get their money's worth out of me in other ways.  Besides which, my manager is based in New York, so is fast asleep until about 1 p.m. UK time anyway.  Result.

I felt lousy all morning, but I was running an important meeting this afternoon so had to be in the office.  I was too sick to put make-up on.  I barely managed a shower.  I crawled out of the house looking desperately unpleasant, wearing my "Baby On Board" badge from Transport for London.

Two doors down are having their fence replaced.  The two workmen were taking up almost all the pavement whilst doing this, but the road isn't busy and it wasn't hard to walk round.  However, instead of making small movements to minimise the amount of space they were taking up, both of them just stopped and stared at me.

They waited until I'd just walked past, and then one of them said, whilst dry-humping the fencepost, "Do you want to stroke my post?"

Now, normally I'd have been straight back with the witty riposte:  "I assume you're talking to your mate; he looks like he does.  I'm so glad you two can be open about your sexuality" would have sufficed.  Or maybe the less subtle, "No thanks - I saw you on that syphilis documentary last week", or even (whilst stroking the fencepost), "That'd be great thanks, but keep your tiny, tiny penis away from me."  I even considered the bitchy, "It must be hard for you to get any action.  Perhaps if you'd learned to read in school, you might have a job that's a bit more attractive to women."

But I was just so shocked.  I'm 32; it's been at least 5 years since any workman has bothered shouting at me - generally they didn't even bother then, as I dress very conservatively, and whilst I'm not a total minger, I'm nothing special in the looks department.

Additionally this was our next-door but one neighbour - it would have been so easy just to knock on their door and report them.

But finally - I looked like crap, I felt like crap, I was clearly pregnant... they must have been absolutely desperate for entertainment.

The weird thing was I actually felt quite vulnerable.  Don't get me wrong - I wasn't in (and didn't feel in) any danger; this was the middle of the day on a residential street.  But I felt violated in a way that wouldn't normally matter. That's a first for me.

We have the 12 week scan tomorrow.  Wish me luck.

Gingerly

Ginger, everybody said.

Ginger is the key to getting on top of that pesky nausea.  When you feel a bit icky, reach for some yummy ginger and it'll calm you right down.

Well, I was more than willing to try that.  I was always a fan of the dark ginger chocolates my grandma used to get for Christmas, and I'm partial to the occasional ginger ale.

So I got some ginger beer.  I checked it was made with real ginger.  And when I felt the nausea strike, I was armed.

Little sips of ginger, everybody said.  Little sips.

Well, I can tell you this much.  Ginger beer doesn't help the nausea much, but it doesn't half sting your nose when you vomit it out of your nasal cavities.

Sick note

Now, I'm not going to pretend I'm one of those super-high flyers with my own PA and a string of people I refer to as "staff", but I do have a reasonably good job for an investment bank.  Most of the time, it's fine - the hours aren't too mental - 9 until 6.30ish, but with an hour's commute each way, it can make it feel like a longer day than it actually is.

As I'm so exhausted at the moment, I decided to take off last Friday and Monday, to have a nice long weekend.  It was lovely.

What was not so lovely was the return to work.

At 9 a.m. I was frantically trying to clear 200 emails.  None of which actually mattered, if it came down to a life or death situation.  Unfortunately my manager doesn't see it this way.

At 10 a.m. I was preparing for the monthly senior management meeting; I'm the most junior person who goes to this, so I really needed to be on my game.  Unfortunately I felt like a cockroach had crawled up my nose and laid eggs in my brain.

At 11 a.m. I was sitting in the meeting.  I literally have no idea what the content was.  All I could think, on a loop over and over in my brain was, "I'm going to vomit on the Managing Director.  I'm actually going to vomit on him.  That's not a good career move."

At midday I was laid out on the floor of a toilet cubicle, regurgitating my healthy breakfast (a packet of salt and vinegar crisps and some blackcurrant squash).

It's worse than it should be for a couple of reasons: I can't tell anyone at work because it's not exactly a family-friendly organisation.  Oh, they have all the right policies in place, but time and time again I've seen women marginalised because they've left to have children.  Despite there being 50 women in my department, not a single one works part time.  Because it's not allowed.  Not officially of course - the policies are in place to support flexible working.  It just doesn't happen.

Even worse, redundancies are on the horizon, and although I'm a relatively high performer, I know that if they find out I'm up the duff, it's significantly more likely that my role will suddenly and mysteriously become null and void.

So I'm trying to be an uber-high performer, putting in the hours, getting more and more exhausted... and trying not to vomit on the MD.

Midwife crisis

So, I had my first appointment at Whipps Cross Hospital last week, to see the midwife and to have some blood tests, as per usual procedure.

I'll be honest, whilst I'm incredibly glad the NHS exists, honestly, I've very rarely had a good experience with it.  Perhaps it's symptomatic of living in the London area; perhaps resources are stretched by a greater demand.  Whatever, from my GP surgery (a two-month waiting list for a blood test) to my husband being clusterfucked after receiving a cricket ball to his face and the NHS not thinking it was important to do scans (eventually it was discovered he had a fractured skull and bleeding into his cavities), my NHS experiences have been less than good.

Anyway, off to Whipps Cross I went, and after some effort in actually locating the right unit (my fault, not theirs), I joined a queue seven pregnant women deep.  Finally getting to the front of the queue, I was told they were running on time... and then proceeded to be kept waiting for 30 minutes past my appointment time.

I will say for the NHS - the staff themselves generally (though not without exceptions) are fantastic.  It's just the system.  No-one knew I was waiting, apparently.  And then someone else was in the queue before me.  And when I finally went in, the midwife took a personal phone call from her bank!  (And then apologised with the words, "Sorry, but I love my money.")

At this point another tiny nurse walked in.  She was about four feet six.  She said to me, "I hope she's not using my PC.  Last time someone used my PC and there was lots of porno on it.  Porno!"  Crikey, it's a good job I wasn't an innocent.  Though, I guess, if I was, then perhaps I wouldn't have been in an antenatal unit.

I then found out the bottle they'd given me, which I'd assumed was for blood, was actually for urine.  And then I had to queue another hour for a blood test, where there was literally no queuing system - you just had to work out who you'd arrived before, and who had turned up after you.  It was rubbish.  Two easy suggestions to save 60 minutes of every patient's time:

1.  A simple ticket pull like they have at a deli to tell you who's up next.
2.  Train the midwife to take blood.  It can't be that difficult, and would also save a headcount, as you could sack the phlebotomist.

The place was also full of bleached blonde Essex girls, all called Tiffany and Brittany, which didn't add to the relaxing experience as their dulcet tones could be heard shrieking down their iPhone 4S, "Nanny!  Are you sittin' dahn?  It's a boy!  I told ya, din I?  It's a boy, Bobby after Grandad!"

Vom.

I'm such a snob.  I'd consider going private, but at £10k for the birth, I think I'll probably just have to put up, shut up or speak up.

Symptomatic

Here are the list of joyful pregnancy symptoms I've had over the last few weeks:

• Snomiting (half sneeze, half vomit)
• Vomiting, sparked by anything from the smell of bleach, the thought of dirty laundry, seeing dog poo on the street, going into our bathroom when my husband has recently been to the toilet... and the thought of my own cat's bottom.
• A furry tummy that an adult gorilla would be proud of
• A moustache that Charlie Chaplin would be proud of
• Hairy toes that the Yeti would be proud of
• Diarrhea that strikes at a moment's notice
• Constipation that can keep me clogged up for five days at a time
• Piles.  Itchy, hurty piles.
• Exhaustion meaning I'm too tired even to finish this senten

I am nine weeks pregnant.  The pessimist in me thinks things are unlikely to get better once I'm the size of a pantomime horse and trying to navigate the Jubilee Line during the Olympics.

Snomit - a new word in the pregnancy lexicon

This morning I sneezed.  This is nothing special in itself; I'm a seasoned sneezer, and it's not unusual for me to sneeze six or seven times in a row.

This morning was only four sneezes - relatively civilised... until the final sneezed turned into a kind of cough-retch, almost vomit.

My husband pissed himself laughing and now keeps asking me if I'm going to "snomit" again.

Joy.

Home is where the barf is

So a relaxing day working from home?  This is what the last hour has looked like for me:

1.00 Decide to cook myself some spaghetti bolognese

1.05  Whist spaghetti is boiling, decide to put some laundry on

1.07  As I'm putting clothes into machine, suddenly the thought of dirty laundry makes me sick.  Very sick.  I get to the kitchen sink in time and heave up the only thing I've swallowed today: a glass of milk.  Not so bad, you think?  Well, turns out, milk mixed with stomach acid = large white lumps of cheese that I then have to poke down the sink with my finger.  My finger then smells of sick.  This makes me sick again.

1.10 Turn spaghetti off on gas hob and go and brush my teeth.

1.15 Finish making spaghetti.  Serve.

1.30 Phone rings.  It's an estate agent (speculatively calling).  I suddenly realise I need to get rid of them NOW.  I ask them to call back later.  I put spaghetti down.

1.32  Make it upstairs just in time to have spectacular diarrhoea. Mostly water, with strange yellow lumps that can only be sweetcorn.  I genuinely cannot remember the last time I have had sweetcorn.  I don't think I've had sweetcorn for at least a month.

1.37 Realise excessive diarrhoea is covering back wall of toilet and will need to be wiped down.  Wipe down with wet wipe.

1.38  This makes me sick again.  Brush teeth again.

1.45  Come back downstairs to spaghetti bolognese which is a) cold and b) has my cat's face buried up to his whiskers in it. 

8 weeks down.  Daren't think about how many more to go.