HotToTrot
Well-Known Member
"Do you know what it is?" asked the midwife, as she delivered our baby.
"Yes", said my husband.
"No", I said, simultaneously. The midwife looked at us, confused. "I wanted a surprise, he didn't."
"So", said the midwife slowly, from between my legs, "you don't know? And you" she turned to my husband, still holding the baby, "you do?"
"Look", I said, starting to lose patience, "just pass it here and I'll see for myself. It's either a boy or a girl. Or, from the look of it, quite possibly an alien. However, none of this is of particular relevance. I don't really care what it is; more importantly, will I need any stitches and how soon can I get back on my horse?"
The answers, it turned out, were no, and (just shy of) 28 days later.
I was feeling rusty. When I say rusty, I mean that during my first XC training session, I flopped about on Vito's neck for a few minutes, and then he pulled off both back shoes, nose-dived into a pheasant feeder and scrabbled about on top of it for a bit whilst I fell off on my head. This was pretty consistent with my general approach to cross country and I was relieved to see that, one baby and a few months since my last competition, I'd lost none of my natural flair and style for the final phase of one day eventing.
I'd been given very civilised times for Munstead, and my husband, the designated timekeeper and navigator, started to work backwards from my dressage. "So we'll get there an hour before", he said "and it takes 1.5 hours to get there..." "Now hold on", I interrupted, "you've forgotten." Last season, our toddler turned one. She still had a bit of boob when she wanted it, but for the most part, she and my husband would share treats from the burger van and mooch around doing my practice jumps, leaving me free to get on with Vito. It was a bit more time-consuming than toddler-free eventing, for sure, but it was't really all that different. Now, though, we were back. Back to the position we were in in 2013, with a small screaming baby who needed to be fed every five seconds, back to breast-feeding in the collecting ring and the lorry park and this time, we also had a small toddler in tow, to boot. So we went back through my timings, we added on about three extra hours and, even with late times, I still got up in the middle of the night after about four hours' sleep.
It was cold. It was wet. It was very windy. The car was warm and dry. I switched off the ignition and we looked at each other. "Are you going to get your number?" asked my husband, shouting to be heard above the wind. "No!" I yelped. "Absolutely not! I can't possibly! I need to stay here in the warm and dry and feed the baby. Listen to him, he's starving!" The baby, of course, was absolutely silent and fast asleep. My husband glared at me, then extracted the toddler, forced a waterproof suit onto her and struggled out into the gale. I propped the baby up against the steering wheel and started to feed him. Soon my husband came back with the toddler and they clambered into the passenger seat, the four of us huddled together in the front of our car. "Change nappy" announced the toddler. I shovelled the baby onto the dashboard and whipped out the nappy kit, wet wipes and nappy bags becoming entangled in the gear stick as I spread the toddler across my lap and did battle with the poo underneath the indicator stick. "Lunch", she demanded next. I passed her back to my husband, together with her lunch, dropping some pasta into the baby's ear as I went. Suddenly, the cold and wet didn't look quite so bad in comparison, so I leapt out of the car, closing the door on a sprawling array of poo, pasta, clambering toddler, dashboard baby and harassed husband as I went.
For once, I was mildly interested in the dressage. At 7.5 months pregnant in November last year, I'd bitten the bullet and stopped riding. At a loss as to what to do with my horse, and reluctant to keep him stabled in London with nothing to entertain him, I'd sent him off to Talland for some ballet tuition with my trainer, Charlie Hutton. He'd come back a different horse and he felt amazing. Now, I thought, this was it. We were going to find out, for once and for all. Had our previous inability to do dressage lain with the now Talland-schooled Vito, or with me? Of course, this was a rhetorical question, wasn't it? There was really only ever going to be one answer. We were second last in our section after this phase, on 43.
I gritted my teeth and went to look at the showjumping. Got to keep plugging away, I told myself. Got no option. He feels better, you're riding better, keep having lessons, keep going to BD, just keep going. Now forget about it and go learn the way round these coloured poles. I knew Vito would be excited to be back out on grass and it had all been surprisingly uneventful to date. Now, though, he unleashed the crazy. He jibbed and span as I went to mount and I enlisted one half of the collecting ring to hold him down as the other half gave me a leg up. "Apologies", I said sheepishly to the lady holding my ankle "Not lost all the baby weight yet. Pretty unathletic at the best of times. Give us a good ol' heave-ho, would you?" We span sideways round the warm-up, unable to come to the practice fence as he snaked and squirmed in excitement. Reassuringly, though, the course itself looked pretty small. I sat still and we kept a nice rhythm round for one down.
Back at the trailer, we had a dilemma. The XC collecting ring was empty and I was keen to get going and go home. It was, however, about three hours since I'd last fed the baby, who was beginning to wake up and look hungry. I'll go, I thought. I'll go quickly before the collecting ring fills up, then I will come back and feed him. Given the arctic weather, I was going XC in an outfit that pretty much amounted to wearing a duvet. My husband pushed at the EXO cage, trying to close it. We did it up on one side. Squished it together on the other. "I can't breathe!" I squealed, gasping for air. "It's definitely the duvet, not the baby weight!" I continued, trying in desperation to justify myself, "I've honestly stayed off the cake I promise I've been doing my post-natal exercises...!" I gave up. Cage and duvet didn't fit and one of them was coming off. When we'd taken off the cage and half of the duvet, I changed my mind about feeding the baby.
Now, we're old friends, right? I've been posting on here for a few years. You know all there is to know to know about boobs, poo, about sick and wee and partial nudity. But I have a new one for you. Leaking boobs. Oh yes. Wet circles. Bulls eyes, if you will, sneaky little treacherous patches that scream out: "NOT ONLY ARE YOU A NEGLECTFUL PARENT, BUT YOU ALSO HAVE DYSFUNCTIONAL NIPPLES! How dare you go XC before feeding your baby? Now tie that horse back up and get yer boobs out."
XC plans thwarted, I dived back into the car to escape the biting cold, and fed the baby. Then I handed him, still squeaking, to my husband, retrieved Vito and set out, undeterred by the delay, for the XC. I was still a bit rusty and disorganised in places, but on the whole it felt nice enough and I largely let him run around, remembering what it was all about.
"Yes", said my husband.
"No", I said, simultaneously. The midwife looked at us, confused. "I wanted a surprise, he didn't."
"So", said the midwife slowly, from between my legs, "you don't know? And you" she turned to my husband, still holding the baby, "you do?"
"Look", I said, starting to lose patience, "just pass it here and I'll see for myself. It's either a boy or a girl. Or, from the look of it, quite possibly an alien. However, none of this is of particular relevance. I don't really care what it is; more importantly, will I need any stitches and how soon can I get back on my horse?"
The answers, it turned out, were no, and (just shy of) 28 days later.
I was feeling rusty. When I say rusty, I mean that during my first XC training session, I flopped about on Vito's neck for a few minutes, and then he pulled off both back shoes, nose-dived into a pheasant feeder and scrabbled about on top of it for a bit whilst I fell off on my head. This was pretty consistent with my general approach to cross country and I was relieved to see that, one baby and a few months since my last competition, I'd lost none of my natural flair and style for the final phase of one day eventing.
I'd been given very civilised times for Munstead, and my husband, the designated timekeeper and navigator, started to work backwards from my dressage. "So we'll get there an hour before", he said "and it takes 1.5 hours to get there..." "Now hold on", I interrupted, "you've forgotten." Last season, our toddler turned one. She still had a bit of boob when she wanted it, but for the most part, she and my husband would share treats from the burger van and mooch around doing my practice jumps, leaving me free to get on with Vito. It was a bit more time-consuming than toddler-free eventing, for sure, but it was't really all that different. Now, though, we were back. Back to the position we were in in 2013, with a small screaming baby who needed to be fed every five seconds, back to breast-feeding in the collecting ring and the lorry park and this time, we also had a small toddler in tow, to boot. So we went back through my timings, we added on about three extra hours and, even with late times, I still got up in the middle of the night after about four hours' sleep.
It was cold. It was wet. It was very windy. The car was warm and dry. I switched off the ignition and we looked at each other. "Are you going to get your number?" asked my husband, shouting to be heard above the wind. "No!" I yelped. "Absolutely not! I can't possibly! I need to stay here in the warm and dry and feed the baby. Listen to him, he's starving!" The baby, of course, was absolutely silent and fast asleep. My husband glared at me, then extracted the toddler, forced a waterproof suit onto her and struggled out into the gale. I propped the baby up against the steering wheel and started to feed him. Soon my husband came back with the toddler and they clambered into the passenger seat, the four of us huddled together in the front of our car. "Change nappy" announced the toddler. I shovelled the baby onto the dashboard and whipped out the nappy kit, wet wipes and nappy bags becoming entangled in the gear stick as I spread the toddler across my lap and did battle with the poo underneath the indicator stick. "Lunch", she demanded next. I passed her back to my husband, together with her lunch, dropping some pasta into the baby's ear as I went. Suddenly, the cold and wet didn't look quite so bad in comparison, so I leapt out of the car, closing the door on a sprawling array of poo, pasta, clambering toddler, dashboard baby and harassed husband as I went.
For once, I was mildly interested in the dressage. At 7.5 months pregnant in November last year, I'd bitten the bullet and stopped riding. At a loss as to what to do with my horse, and reluctant to keep him stabled in London with nothing to entertain him, I'd sent him off to Talland for some ballet tuition with my trainer, Charlie Hutton. He'd come back a different horse and he felt amazing. Now, I thought, this was it. We were going to find out, for once and for all. Had our previous inability to do dressage lain with the now Talland-schooled Vito, or with me? Of course, this was a rhetorical question, wasn't it? There was really only ever going to be one answer. We were second last in our section after this phase, on 43.
I gritted my teeth and went to look at the showjumping. Got to keep plugging away, I told myself. Got no option. He feels better, you're riding better, keep having lessons, keep going to BD, just keep going. Now forget about it and go learn the way round these coloured poles. I knew Vito would be excited to be back out on grass and it had all been surprisingly uneventful to date. Now, though, he unleashed the crazy. He jibbed and span as I went to mount and I enlisted one half of the collecting ring to hold him down as the other half gave me a leg up. "Apologies", I said sheepishly to the lady holding my ankle "Not lost all the baby weight yet. Pretty unathletic at the best of times. Give us a good ol' heave-ho, would you?" We span sideways round the warm-up, unable to come to the practice fence as he snaked and squirmed in excitement. Reassuringly, though, the course itself looked pretty small. I sat still and we kept a nice rhythm round for one down.
Back at the trailer, we had a dilemma. The XC collecting ring was empty and I was keen to get going and go home. It was, however, about three hours since I'd last fed the baby, who was beginning to wake up and look hungry. I'll go, I thought. I'll go quickly before the collecting ring fills up, then I will come back and feed him. Given the arctic weather, I was going XC in an outfit that pretty much amounted to wearing a duvet. My husband pushed at the EXO cage, trying to close it. We did it up on one side. Squished it together on the other. "I can't breathe!" I squealed, gasping for air. "It's definitely the duvet, not the baby weight!" I continued, trying in desperation to justify myself, "I've honestly stayed off the cake I promise I've been doing my post-natal exercises...!" I gave up. Cage and duvet didn't fit and one of them was coming off. When we'd taken off the cage and half of the duvet, I changed my mind about feeding the baby.
Now, we're old friends, right? I've been posting on here for a few years. You know all there is to know to know about boobs, poo, about sick and wee and partial nudity. But I have a new one for you. Leaking boobs. Oh yes. Wet circles. Bulls eyes, if you will, sneaky little treacherous patches that scream out: "NOT ONLY ARE YOU A NEGLECTFUL PARENT, BUT YOU ALSO HAVE DYSFUNCTIONAL NIPPLES! How dare you go XC before feeding your baby? Now tie that horse back up and get yer boobs out."
XC plans thwarted, I dived back into the car to escape the biting cold, and fed the baby. Then I handed him, still squeaking, to my husband, retrieved Vito and set out, undeterred by the delay, for the XC. I was still a bit rusty and disorganised in places, but on the whole it felt nice enough and I largely let him run around, remembering what it was all about.
. Your husband sounds incredibly supportive. Mines not bad but he can be a bit hopeless, there were horse shows where poor Billy turned into a dirty sunburnt tomato who had missed lunch and had his nappy changed in his buggy ring side because my husband forgot things like suncream, food (even though I packed it) and changing before leaving the safety of the car!
! he was wheeled back to me in the pushchair by another mum who had seen me complete with bump 3 weeks before at the last show and guessed who he belonged to, whoops