The video premiere

The video panned around the room, showing a woman on all fours on a bed. A man stood behind her with his hands on her back, whilst a second woman entered the fray, holding a tray of instruments in her hand. The first woman’s panting was growing louder, starting to descend into screams...

Seriously.  Who actually agrees to this shit being filmed? Oh yes, that would be me.  And not just any shit, oh no, this is me, on a bed, exposing all my bits to the world, as I pushed out my third child into the world.  As well as quite possibly a bit of poo.

But really, I’d spent the last month waddling around like the love child of John Wayne and Pingu.  Anything vaguely resembling anything edible was hoovered up my my mouth, which then gave me carte blanche to moan about heartburn for the next two hours. I had ankles with the same girth as the oak tree in our garden and had given up getting dressed, swathing myself in my husbands ratty dressing gown instead.  So when that said husband had started making noises about it being ‘our last child’ and wanting to ‘preserve the precious moments for posterity’, I’d not paid much attention to his plans until a stranger brandishing a video camera had burst into my hospital ward somewhere between being 3 to 6cm dilated.  My husband had obviously timed this perfectly, handing me the Etonox mask whilst leaning over and shaking our new visitors hand.

It’s understandable right? A nice little reminder of our beloved sons entrance into the world, for myself and my husband to coo over, every birthday after he’d gone to bed.  That might be the yummy mummy’s idea of this new and beautiful trend.

I’m willing to bet those yummy mummy’s didn’t envision their husbands inviting EVERY member of their family - including his dads uncle John who no one has seen for the past five years - round for a premiere starring moi, or rather my foof (that hasn’t seen a razor since month six, when I also gave up actual baths fearing a visit from our local firemen wielding power tools to unwedge me and my huge bump was going to become a reality.  That would have been almost as embarrassing as my current predicament.

I’m sat on the sofa now, giant maternity pad in my knickers, my husbands tracksuit bottoms (slight improvement on the dressing gown) and my gorgeous little cherub plugged onto one breast whilst the other drips like a leaky tap.  My dad is at the other side of the room nursing a glass of whisky, and my mother in law is sat at the side of me giving me a disconcerting stare, no doubt waiting to swoop in and snatch him off me, declaring I’m feeding him COMPLETELY wrong and she could do a much better job.  I could almost feel her having palpitations when she walked in the front door and saw the level of cleanliness (or lack of) from the past three days.  She’d waited until the other guests arrived before throwing herself around like a whirling dervish, so everyone could see the slovenly state her poor darling son had been reduced to surviving in.

The mortification is drawing to a close now, my brother took one look at the placenta shot, and turned green, causing my parents to hurry him outside, my dad muttering about a ‘quick stop to the local’ on the way home.  My mother in law looked like she was planning to hang around, until my husband caught a glance of my face, and edged her towards the doorway.  Usually he wouldn’t say boo to her, the thought of my hormonal self aiming a cold water steriliser in his direction must have given him a level of bravery he wouldn’t normally possess.

I hate social media.  I’m not technologically savvy - I have no idea what I’ll do if my husband decides to share my starring moment on Facebook, ensuring more than our nearest and dearest can witness the glorious moment that I vomited and farted at the same time during a contraction.

There was none of this when our two daughters were born.  The first time, my husband had taken a Polaroid camera along.  He’d taken two pictures once she was washed and wrapped in a towel, before he remembered how expensive the cartridges were and declared he didn’t ‘want to waste the rest of it’.  With our second, camera phones were becoming a thing, albeit very low quality - we had lots of shots that were so blurry you could barely tell where I stopped and baby started.  And to think I’d insisted on brushing my hair first!

It’s two days now since ‘film night’.  I think he’s clicked that actually, maybe I didn’t need anyone else witnessing such an intimate moment, anymore than he would want anyone to have witnessed our sons conception.  I can feel him tiptoeing around me, worrying no doubt about ‘unleashing the beast’.  I’ve actually only had to hint about his coffee mug and it’s increasing levels of mould three times before it actually got picked up and placed next to (not in!) the sink.  

My eldest is holding her brother.  It’s the kind of sweet tender moment that should be captured on screen, until you realise her headphones are plugged in and she’s scrolling through tiktok videos as if he’s not there.   She glances up. “What’s for dinner mum?”

I cry.  I can’t help it.  I feel like I haven’t slept in four months, which is highly possible given the frequency of my nighttime toilet visits in pregnancy.  My nipples feel like they’ve been ripped away from my body, hanging on to my breasts by a thread.  Breasts that feel like boulders crammed into a too tight hammock.  I do have a great cleavage but the effect is rather spoiled by leaking pads stuffed in my bra and a baby sick stain on my shoulder.  Every part of me below the waist feels like it’s been hit by a truck, I’ve got stitches holding me together but feeling like witches talons swinging on my labia, and I’m bleeding to the point of reenacting the elevator scene in Steven Kings ‘The Shining’.  I’m supposed to sit on a rubber ring to ease the ‘discomfort’ but that got popped on the second day when my husband dropped his fork on it whilst eating a pot noodle. Even my feet hurt, they’re still swollen to the size of dinner plates, I hear my cries become a wail as I realise I can’t even get my dr martens on anymore!

At this point, my husband realises that the slobby hormonal troll residing on his sofa is actually his postpartum wife and mother of his, now three, children.  He simultaneously lifts the baby onto his shoulder, whilst handing a takeaway menu and his mobile phone to our daughter.  He does try, I know he does.  It’s not really his fault that his mother raised him with 1940s ideals, nor that he worked away for a lot of both our daughters early years.  He doesn’t remember the times he would leave for the day, and I would open the Haagen Daaz as soon as the door shut behind him.  I smile at him fondly as he gently cradles our son, walking around the living room with him.

I smile wider when I see the trail of baby vomit down his back.