Hillbillies, body image and peeing in Hastings Street.

I had planned for this post to be about more of my pregnancy experiences but we’ve just returned from our first family holiday and if I don’t write about it now baby brain will dissolve the memory like hot water on jelly crystals and I’ll forget all the fun, hellish, new experiences that we endured.

We planned a  trip to Noosa long ago, back in early trimester 3 when I was nursing Lach back to health from major hip surgery. We were tired, exhausted and felt a little bit depressed.

Lach was incapacitated from surgery, my dad had a heart attack, my nana was in hospital and our dog was on her last legs.

There was a lot going on and we were a sight for sore eyes.

Now imagine this… I was eight  months pregnant with a fully loaded belly, dressed in leggings, an oversized flannel shirt, ugg boots and my limp, thin oily hair slicked across my forehead… I was superbly comfortable but I looked like a hell skoz.

At this time Lach had upgraded from his wheelchair and was now hobbling around on crutches. He looked like shit too. All skinny and weak, pasty skin, with black sacks under his eyes and a slight droop to his mouth thanks to  the endones he was on.

Our dog Ash was sadly making the most of her last days with us and her hips had gone too. We were all in the front yard. I was grimacing with one hand on my back, supporting it as I clung on to a stinky garbage bag. Ash was trying to do a wee but her hips couldn’t hold her up to squat; so Lach – on his crutches  – was assisting her by holding a towel around her mid-section to give her some support as she urinated.

Here we were when my friend’s sister walked past…

Me with my knocked up guts in my skoz ‘get up’ holding the garbage with a scrunched up disgusted face.  And skinny, pasty Lach balancing on his crutches as he held up poor Ash as she attempted to wee,. We shared a greeting and a kind smile between us but my god, what we must have looked like right at that moment?! Full-on Hillbillies.

I was mortified that we’d been seen in this state. Hilarious but mortifying!

That period of time (my last trimester and Lach’s recovery) was challenging for us. I used to bawl my eyes out slumped in the shower some evenings for no reason except pure exhaustion. There’s nothing like a good howl in the shower as the sound muffles your moans and the hot water cascades over your ugly ‘cry face’,  washing the snot and tears down the drain. Being a slave to someone’s every need is exhausting and frustrating. Add pregnancy hormones  to that and you’ve got a great cocktail for an  ‘ugly cry’. I take my hat off to nurses who have to deal with sick, incapacitated  people everyday. I couldn’t be one.

So that said;we hadn’t had a ‘baby moon’ as we hadn’t had the time to because Lach’s hips were more important. I was pissed off that we didn’t have a last hoorah and Lach was in a depression from being housebound, so we just booked a trip.

Baby would be 12 weeks old (if the due date was correct) and Lach would be walking again. After much consideration we ended up booking Noosa as it was off peak (cheaper), warm, easy and a short plane trip away.

Little Lady Luca didn’t greet us with her presence until 2 weeks after her due date, so when we travelled she was 10 weeks old. In the lead up to us departing my anxiety began to rear its ugly head again (yes, I get anxiety. It comes and goes but I’ll write more about anxiety another time).

I was anxious about the plane trip, I was anxious that I might lose my shit at Lach with having to carry all the crap into the airport, I was anxious about breaking Luca’s routine.

Before Luca, I had always held my breath if I was in a plane and saw a baby being carried down the aisle. ‘Please don’t sit that thing near me’, I would pray to myself. How intolerable I was! I had no idea what those parents were going through walking down the aisle of those planes. Now here I was, about to do the same. Would people be thinking the same thing about me walking down the aisle of the plane with my perfect, gorgeous bundle of love and joy in my arms? Most likely…and that gave me anxiety. I didn’t want to annoy anyone with the gurgles, smells and potential cries of Luca.

But to my surprise, as I carried her down the aisle I received the exact opposite reaction. No-one (that I could see) was stink eyeing us. It was like Luca was parting water. Everyone moved out of our way, squishing and contorting themselves into the tiniest of spaces to let us pass. They ‘cootchie cooed’ her on passing and women gave me knowing, warm smiles. (And I just want to mention here that when you have a baby, it’s as if you are given a key into a secret and unknown world of motherhood. Women treat you differently. They’re more understanding. They smile more at you. They want to help you. You can see it in each other’s eyes; the knowing and understanding of what it takes and what you’re going through. It’s heart warming. Women are amazing and I’m only just seeing how amazing we really are for the first time since having Luca.)

I still couldn’t help apologising in advance to the man I sat next to though. “Sorry you have to sit next to us. Sorry if she cries” I pathetically said to him as I nestled in clumsily with Luca. Little birdy was a dream throughout the flight. Not a peep out of her. On the boob up, on the boob down with a nap in between and we were there. Noosa.

We gathered everything but the kitchen sink from the conveyor belt and lugged it onto a trolley. Our suitcase, Luca’s suitcase (what the?) her travel cot, her pram, her car seat, her beach umbrella and of course…Lach’s surfboard… and we were off. The sun was shining, the birds were singing and anxiety was dormant.

Our accommodation was perfect. (I made sure of that when booking. I was predicting I would be spending significant amounts of time there with my feeding, napping baby). It was nestled amongst the palm trees atop of Hastings street with a view of the rivers and ocean and a steep 5 minute walk to Little Cove beach. We had a large balcony with a pool, Foxtel and open plan living for 10 days. Ripper!

We cooked seafood BBQ’s, ate out, drank cervezas, bathed ourselves in the warmth of the Queensland sun and rinsed winter off us in the Ocean. Life was good…

But then we were sick. All of us.

Head colds. I felt like my face was playing ‘chubby bunnies’ with cotton wool balls without my permission. I was grossly congested. We were both more exhausted than the usual new tiredness we’d gotten used to.

But the worst of it was Luca being sick. Nothing scares you more than your teeny helpless newborn struggling to breathe.   In the middle of the night without warning, Luca woke us with her nasally shrieks. Her little confused eyes pierced mine as she gasped for air. Her little hands balled into fists with pain. Her tiny body wiggled in my arms. I hit panic stations.

Luckily Lach thinks on his feet. He is hands down the best problem solver. He jumped out of bed, grabbed Luca and sat in the bathroom with the shower running hot until the steam cleared and calmed her. Luckily Luca got over her virus quickly. Within 24hrs she had cleared. After talking with my step sister, Georgia, she told me that breastmilk contains all the antibodies your baby needs and changes those antibodies as she needs them. Like antibiotics on tap. Pretty bloody amazing us women huh!? Boobs are not only a dairy but a doctor too.

So Luca cleared quickly and Lach and I pretended we were OK and continued to pretend to be relaxed on our holiday, even though our faces were playing ‘chubby bunnies’.

One afternoon I decided to load up the pram with the beach gear and set up camp on the main beach. My problem solving husband strategically placed so much beach paraphernalia on the pram that I looked like a homeless hobo pushing a trolley with all my life belongings. Nappy bag, my bag, towels, throws, umbrella, beach chair and water bottles. It was a suuuuper steep walk down the hill to the beach so I was extremely careful and white knuckled not to let go of the pram. I was paranoid that Luca would slip out and go zooming down the hill like a bobsled.

Strolling along the insanely picturesque boardwalk, I couldn’t help but think how happy I was. “La-di-da-di-da”

Luca slept in her pram while I set up under the shade of the trees at the back of the beach. I laid out our large throw rug and towel, buried the umbrella into the sand casting shade over the towels, placed my water bottle and snacks next to my beach chair and stood there for a moment. I was thinking.

I was stupidly apprehensive about stripping down into my cozies for the first time after giving birth. I’d always been pretty fit throughout my life. I’d eaten well and generally looked after myself. But now I was soft. Soft and squishy with a big scar on my tummy from my emergency caesar. My boobs were veiny and huge and they didn’t sit perkily in my bikini top anymore. They sat half way down my chest. The skin on my body has now taken on the resemblance of cottage cheese. Even my back is cottage cheesy and my arse is trying real hard to make friends with my ankles.

So I stood there for a moment casting harsh judgement on my new body and then thought ‘fuck it’ and stripped down into my bikini. Guts out and all. I embraced my new motherly body, swept up my doughy baby as she made her sweet, first waking gurgles and sat on my beach chair and breast fed her in the warmth. One day I’ll be fit again, I promised myself. Life is different in so many ways. If only my 20 year old self could see me now.

We sat on the beach together for what seemed like hours. The world stopped as we lovingly stared at each other gooing and garring.  I wasn’t sure if Luca would like being there on the sand but she loved it. The fresh air whipped her face and the sound of the crashing waves and laughter of children surrounded her. I did feel bad though. Poor little Luca was squinting to see because it was so bright and glary, so I put her back in the pram to nap with the intention of purchasing her some baby sunnies later.  ‘Ahhh’ I thought, as I stretched out under the sun on my towel. ‘Mummy time’.

But I couldn’t relax. I tried to close my eyes and soak up the sun but I couldn’t stop sitting up and checking that she was ok in the pram. I was annoying myself. Lay down, sit up, lay down, sit up. God damn it, I couldn’t relax….I kept thinking I could hear her. (You know when you smell a horrid smell like dog pooh and you think you can smell it for hours afterwards?  It gets stuck in you nose hairs and every now and then your smell memory releases the stench. That’s what Luca’s cry is like. It gets stuck in my ears and I think I can still hear her, every f*cking minute of the day….and night)  

And now I needed a wee.

Lach had said he would meet us down here after he surfed. It had been 2 hours. He should be back any minute I patiently and politely told myself as I held my bladder. Another half hour passed. I was sitting up dancing on my towel holding my bladder now.  His phone was off and that pissed me off immensely. I was busting now. I couldn’t just run into the ocean and relieve myself because the water was too far away to leave Luca in the pram, I didn’t want to take the pram to the water because it was too far away and too sandy to drag a pram through, I didn’t want to wake Luca and carry her to the water and hold her up as mummy squatted in the water with her and I didn’t want to have to pack up everything and find public toilet. I was seething at Lach now. “TURN YOUR BLOODY PHONE ON.” Where the hell is he!?

I started to get angry at him for being able to freely do whatever he wanted while I seemed to be a slave to our boss baby (As beautiful as she is).

I eventually gave in, packed the important stuff in the pram and hightailed it to look for public toilets. ‘Under construction’ they read. Faaaaaaark…. I kept walking, looking for more. I ended up at the other end of the board walk in the park. I never found the toilets. I had to take the pram and go bush. I was that busting. People were looking at me hauling the pram through the bushes. God knows what they were thinking and I didn’t care. I needed a wee and NOW. I found a shrub that would protect me from the eyes of holiday goers and I had a squat. I felt embarrassed but mostly I was searing with rage towards Lach for putting me in this position. I remember muttering to sleeping Luca that I was going to rip shreds off her father when I saw him.

So yeah…, I pretty much peed in Hastings street. Posh, old Hastings street. Yep. I took a squat.

And on my return walk I found the friggin’ toilets… I’d walked straight past them in my huff. 50 meters from my beach set up. I’m an idiot. I have a habit of getting irrational and doing stupid things.

When I got back to camp, Lach was there waiting with juice and sushi. I couldn’t be angry at him. Not because of the sushi and juice, but because I’d been embarrassingly stupid again.

I still gave him a serving for having his phone off though.

Apart from getting a bit sick, all-in-all we had a really nice first holiday as a little family. I had my birthday up there. I turned 36. It’s the first birthday ever that I haven’t demanded that Lach needed to celebrate the entire week as my birthday. I was quite content not to do anything fancy for it. In fact, I almost forgot that it was my birthday. I guess babies do that to you. Ruin birthdays. Turning 36 is the first time I have really and truly felt old. Like my youth is totally gone now. Given up. I’m done. Youth has gone. I am no longer youthful. Hipster kids will ignore me on the street now. No second looks. I am a nobody. I’m an old person. I’m closer to 40 than I am 30 now. And I don’t really care. I don’t really care about a lot of things I used to care about any more. I feel grown up. Like I’m a proper grown up now that I have a baby.  An adult baby with a baby. I did however spend the afternoon at the day spa using my surprise gift voucher from my sister and mother in law and I had a seafood BBQ cooked for me by mates at dinner time.  Heavenly…

Friends of ours from home were also visiting Noosa and doing the same thing as us with boss babies, so we spent many nights out eating dinner together… at 6 o’clock. Cause that’s what time you have to eat now we all have boss babies. No more pre dinner drinks and cocktails.They’re out the window. And during the meals, I had to bob and weave so that the flying pieces of chicken that were getting thrown across the table by our friends adorably cheeky little boss baby, didn’t slap me in the cheek. Having a baby makes you a super fast eater too. I’m a lethal, one handed bandit at the diner table these days. I shovel that shit in.

But after our trip, I feel more confident taking Luca anywhere now. Breaking routine wasn’t all that bad after all. She still managed. I still survived. And we ate many, many ice-creams. I still have to pinch myself that I actually have a daughter and I still feel like I’m faking it.