are you 38 weeks and counting?

[badmamma]

Junior magazine ? Britain's finest parenting magazine ? is looking for a witty, observant pregant woman in final weeks of her FIRST pregnancy to keep a diary until she gives birth. It should be full of the magic, awe and wonder of a first baby, but also have the comical observations about being big and hot and about to burst. It will be published in September/October and there will be a fee. Please email [email protected]
if you wish to take part. You don't need to be a journalist, just have a good sense of humour.
CUT OFF DATE FOR APPLICATIONS July 23rd.

Badmamma - I have a topic : Doulas.....

badmamma, it's probably been done, but i'm amazed at how bad the airlines are with babies and particularly mothers traveling alone with babies. The policies vary widely and are almost never consistantly adhered to....

badmamma, everyone on mumsnet will be sick of me going on about this but I've never read an article about what happens when you can't breastfeed. Everything that I've read either assumes that you are bottle-feeding through choice or makes you feel like the worse mother on earth for not b/f. I've never come across anything that deals with how mothers feel, what goes wrong, whether the support is there, how society reacts to non-bf mums etc. Personally speaking I will always feel that dd and I have missed out on a vital part of our relationship and I know a couple of people who feel the same. And going to under-ones' is just hell...

This is an interesting thread!

I've thought long and hard about why other women writing about motherhood is slightly annoying but also entertaining & perhpas informative. I'm thinking of Rachel Cusk and Noami Wolf and that lot.

Slightly annoying I think because, well, most of us just have to get on with it & don't have a nanny etc to take the kids whilst we pen a masterpiece.....laying myself open wide to charges of jealousy here but who cares.

I read Rachel Cusk when my son was about 8 months, I'd just moved to Manchester where I knew no one & was having a horrible time. Somehow it got right up my nose.

What does everyone else think?
(Now 30wks with no 2 and munching s&v crisps for England)

The Julie Walters book is hilarious, I think it goes from pre-conception through to post-natal (but its a long time since I read it). She actually goes to a party at a friend's house and wets herself in her heavily pregnant state, so she spills her drink on top of her accident to cover it up - unfortunately the accident was still steaming!

Bur then again, I'm a working class mum and Julie Walters does appeal to my sense of humour (even if I do find her voice very irritating. I find other deep and meaningful literary works a little bit heavy going after a tough day with 3 kids.

I had felt quite hopeful of the new book that's just out - How Does She Do It? (?author) but was sadly disillusioned when, on reading the interview, it turned out that she already had the proper family home and a nanny. I'm sure that I would do it too with a nanny!!! I had been looking forward some solidarity on the working mother phenomenon of getting two people out of the house in the morning (3 if you include dh!), doing the nursery run, negotiating the traffic back to the other side of town for work etc etc. Maybe I'm just down because we are still in our 2 bedroomed flat, a mortgage that we can't move until October, a new job from 1 August and a new baby from January... the thought of my maternity leave being Christmas with ds at home and both families travelling from afar to be with us (since I'm not going anywhere at 47 weeks!) exhausts me already. House prices here are just too depressing... Sorry. Slightly off on a tangent - but maybe just how ordinary people do would be of comfort, if nothing else!

Not a first time Mum - but AM 39 weeks and counting.... Can someone please do an article entitled "Have you had it yet? - How to politely handle irritating phone calls from friends & family..."
Have just had my FIL on the phone, who, after brief usual 'how are you, what's the weather like etc' asked if I'd had it yet, as he & MIL went out for lunch and forgot to take their mobile phone... (Also had childless SIL on phone with similar earlier...)
Does no-one realise how irritating this is to get numerous calls a day like this????!!!
Aaargh!!!

Motherofone, put a message on your phone saying "we'll let you know,or No not yet!" and screen your calls. I remember this, it's a right pain especially when you're overdue! All The Best.

Star, don't you think that so much of the media is geared towards London? Sorry to London mums and I really don't wish to cause offence (esp. as I don't live in England at the mo.) but this really used to p**s me off. I come from the North East of England, which is rarely mentioned in the media (except in terms of unemployment and beer). Sorry, a bit petulant really

Forgot to say, good luck, Motherofone! Fingers crossed for you xxx

I found the Rachel Cusk book very irritating although I admit I only skim read it. Interested to read the Alison Pearson book since it's had good reviews but I'm suspicious of the media mafia on that front.

oxocube, you are right about the mediacentricity of London, but even if you live there you can still feel very excluded. It seems that unless you live in Islington/Dulwich/Putney/Hampstead/Chelsea or one of the other trendy, wealthy inner suburbs, you don't exist anyway. There are whole tracts of suburban London that might as well be Newcastle or Cardiff as far as the W1 media are concerned. Not that I am complaining much - I wouldn't want to read about New Eltham either. You are not alone in your exclusion...
Wickedwaterwitch, I read quite a bit of the AP book as it started out as a serialisation in the D Telegraph. I liked her as a journalist until she wrote these columns and has now started doing interviews etc to promote the book. I thought it was pretty much press-out and assemble writing, really - and I'd give any book a wide berth that seems to be so CONSISTENTLY miserable and fed up with the drudgery of being a parent. At least Rachel Cusk's moanfest was marketed as an "opinion" book...wait until The Corrections comes out in paperback and read that instead, that is a fab book and very truthful about grown-up parents and children.

Mo1-2, did your FIL really think you would be calmly having a "how's the weather" conversation if the baby had been born???
Men, eh? Duh!
Anyway lots of luck for when 2 does decide to arrive...have you finished nesting?

re: media bias to London, I cancelled my Sunday Times after reading an 'article' about why Thursday night was the 'new Saturday night' in London.

Relevance to anyone not living in London?

badmamma, ionesmum's idea is brilliant - I couldn't breastfeed either - tried hard 4 times. Had 4 elective sections, 4 unsucky babies and never enough milk, whatever I did...most books and articles say "everybody can breastfeed" which makes each failure more demoralising.

I know the NHS etc are concerned that mothers might be discouraged from even trying, or be tempted to give up at the first difficulty, but they never even mention that it can be impossible. (I can see a piece like this wouldn't be a lot of laughs, however.)

Enid, I live in London and am sick of this bias in the media, I'd like to hear about other places too

Janh - about FIL -- that's what made me laugh most... "yes,it's fairly sunny down here, been out in the garden, ooh, by the way, forgot to tell you - had a baby about half an hour ago... now let's see, where did I put it?"
Think I'm still nesting - altered a pair of curtains yesterday... however feeling fairly fat & fed up today really...

LOL, motherofone and good luck!

Talking about sujects for Junior Magazine, what about an informative piece on mixed feeding? (breast milk/formula) outlining the pros and well as the cons.

I'm with Marina re: her comments about media neglect of suburban London. It's a different world down here.

Enid, it's obviously a case of 'what Aberdeen does today, London does tomorrow' as Thursday has long been a night out for Aberdonians! Lots of 'sair heids' in the office on Fridays!!

lol Motherofone - oh those phone calls. Remember them all too well. Am feeling for you in hot weather - spent most of yesterday in paddling pool with toddler myself, and it still didn't help (and I'm only 29 weeks, so eek at 39). Lots and lots of luck with soon-to-be-not hot or botheredness, anyway. Have you had any interesting toddler-type comments about increasing size? Mine keeps poking tummy and peering into tummy button, presumably expecting new baby to emerge spontaneously.

Totally agree with annoyance of London-centric magazines/papers. Great when I lived there, but now have moved to back of beyond, and they sometimes make me wistful for those long-gone days of parties and actually going out to things. Think they annoyed me then, though, too, since lifestyle was still different from any portrayed in 'style' sections etc. Who are these people with 'lifestyles' - have never, ever met a real one, in city or otherwise. Mind you, can't say much for our local paper, which is so local that it doesn't seem to report on much more than road statistics and cats up trees - with maybe an occasional front-page coverage of the opening of a new branch of Argos or something equally stimulating!

Star, I haven't read the Guardian for a while...given its Manchester origins, I think it has lost a valuable opportunity to fly the flag for life outside the M25 in a national paper, if you get my drift. I think it is the only national paper that did not originate in London?

We also get the Guardian on Saturdays, I agree with star, I always read Julie Burchill, she makes me laugh. I think we get an 'outside London' edition of the Guide at least.

I feel too old generally for all style mags in papers these days, never mind too out of London.

I've come to this thread a bit late (and you've all moved on a bit) but I just wanted to add that I was once offered, by a journo friend of mine, a lot of money for the story about me, my ex and my daughter (its quite a grim little tale if truth be told) for one of the glossies. I was very tempted with the offer of cash (and thought about putting it away for dd) but after thinking about it for a while I decided not to go ahead as they wanted photos of me and dd in the mag. A million other little things kept eating away at me too - what would everyone think of me? What would dd think in the future? I guess I'll never know...

Saying that I would love to have kept a diary of my pregnancy and I have all my emails I sent to friends around the end of the 9 months with titles such as 'the bump is still here' 'Bump 2: revenge of the bump!' Its lovely to look back on and, yes, badmamma I'd like to think I was witty and observant. Though sadly don't think I would fit in with Junior mag by the sounds of it (I also live in the sticks) I'm more topshop than prada, dahling.

On the Londoncentricity front - I kind of like looking in on a world that is so far removed from my own. It is a bit of a fairy tale place for me really!