Sarah's brain is out to lunch!

It's official, my brain has switched off. It's decided to just give up. I can't think anymore, I'm making mistakes at home and at work, I can't make decisions or remember anything. I can barely string a sentence together and people have to keep suggesting words that I'm trying to think of when I forget what I'm talking about. I cant even remember how many weeks pregnant I am and my sister has to answer when I'm asked as I haven't got a clue. It feels like my head has just decided to have a holiday, like it's gone off for a long winter break and it hasn't told me when it's coming back. I'd like to say that it's left nothing in its place, I'd like to say that there's a big vacuous space in my head, but there's not. Instead I've been taken over by The Fear. Most of the time now all I can feel, apart from the little monkey that scratches around inside my belly, is just plain terror. I'm petrified, and not of the birth, but of the sheer fact that in a few weeks time (I think it's roughly about 7) I'm going to have a baby and I'm still not 100% sure what I'm supposed to do with the thing. I know I have to feed it, and keep it clean, and basically keep it alive and well but is that it? I'm sure I'm missing something but I don't know what it is and that thought scares me.

It was my last week at NCT this week. I decided to go on my own to this one and give my sister a break from all the pregnancy stuff as goodness knows its boring. I figured this week would be about how to look after the baby, I thought we'd get our instruction manuals and our daily plans detailing hour by hour what we have to do to make sure the little one was ok, but we didn't. Instead we got a box of buttons. We had to take a handful of buttons each. I only took a small handful. Then we were told to grab two buttons symbolising ourselves and our partner. I just put one button down for me, I did find the biggest, brightest button to represent me though. Then our NCT leader told us to pick out buttons and lay them around to represent the people around us, so some buttons close to us and some further away. So I picked out a button for Mum, my sister and the dog. Then next to my sister went my Brother In Law, further out were my closest friends. The nearest one lives 100 miles away, the furthest in Australia. There were 5 of these friend buttons. Then we were told to pick out a button for the baby and put that between ours and our partners buttons. I found a silver one that fit perfectly into the centre of my button and looked at it proudly. I'd tried really hard to find a button that look a bit like the people they were representing so was quite pleased with my work till I looked around and noticed that the person next to me had about 100 buttons, then I started peering at the others and they all had quite a lot of buttons kicking about. I don't even know how they had so many buttons in the first place as I'd laid down 11 buttons including me and the baby and I still had one left in my hand. Sue (our leader) then said to rearrange the buttons, according to how these relationships will change once the baby arrived. I stared at my measly 8 buttons, my tiny support network and I couldn't think how any of them would change. Some of these buttons I'd known all my life and they were tied on pretty tightly. So I watched while everyone rearranged their thousands of buttons and I cracked a joke about not having many and one of them is a dog, there girl next to me asked if the little brown one was the dog and I laughed and said yes. She then pointed out which button was her dog, then everyone else chipped in with which button was their pet too which was comforting. I still had this one button burning a hole in my hand though and tried not to think about who it could of been.

The rest of the session seemed to be about how to support your partner and look after each other. It focused a lot on how to cope with the tiredness and not to row or put pressure on each other and as none of this was relevant to me I just switched off again and looked at Sue, who looked back at me smugly and I thought about how much I dislike her and how I've let her get under my skin and I consoled myself with at least I won't have arguments at the end of the day because I'm so tired and if I want to have a glass of wine and relax, no one is going to have a go at me because the washing hasn't been done, or the house is a mess.

We've booked in for follow up session in March to catch up with each other but a few of us have emailed and made friends of Facebook so it's all been worth it but I have to say I'm glad I don't have to go to anymore classes and I'm very glad I won't have Sue making me feel like an outcast again.
So that's, that, NCT is over, all my classes are done and at no stage have I been given a daily plan on how to look after a baby or what to do and I'm wondering if that's because actually no one really knows what to do and if you have to just wait until the baby get here and see what works then? So it's a huge step into the unknown and that thought terrifies me, and also, what if I'm wrong? What if there is something I've missed, some vital piece of information that was mentioned in a book or on a website and I've just skimmed passed it. I've got a hundred jobs to do between now and when the baby gets here. I've not sorted out the nursery, I've not packed a bag, I don't even have nappies or milk stored anywhere. On top of all this I've got Christmas presents to buy and a house to decorate, clients to entertain and a couple of trips to London to fit in. I've set up the moses basket next to the bed and I'm washing all the bedding so at least it's got somewhere to sleep if it comes early! Just typing all this out makes me break into a sweat. I'm not the most organised of people at the best of times, I sat in an airport in Mexico on my own for 3 hours once before I realised I was in the wrong terminal. People keep telling me I don't know whats going to hit me when the babies arrived and think they're probably right. I'm so scared I won't be able to cope, even with my 8 tightly sewed on buttons to help me. I keep reading the blogs I first wrote to try and remember how I felt at the beginning and it seems so far away and my brains switched off that I can't remember. I want to go to bed and curl up and sleep and be woken up with everything ready like the bear in the John Lewis ad but that's not going to happen, and I want to pick up the phone and scream and shout at Mr A, and tell him what I think but that won't achieve anything. So I keep pouring over my lists and worrying about what I'm missing and trying keep a lid on everything. When people ask how I am I say I'm fine, it's been an easy pregnancy, and I can't wait to have it and I smile then I take myself off somewhere for a little cry and to calm down and I repeat to myself that I can do this. I hope for once in my life I'm right.

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