I think Fin likes his anniversary present. Funnily enough, he gave me exactly the same thing.

Our baby girl arrived on Friday morning, just over six weeks early thanks to complications from the appendicitis. She's still being cared for in hospital but doing so well. I'm home and healing.

When Fin and I got married, my heart was light as air. Today it is full, heavy, bound completely to another tiny fluttering heart that is beating a couple of miles away from me. The last few weeks and days have been overwhelming in every way and I have no doubt I would have crumbled long ago if it weren't for Fin. After exactly four years of marriage, I have never felt as grateful to have him as my husband as I do at this moment. My daughter and I are two lucky girls.


MY DAUGHTER.


I think my heart just popped.

You know what's more fun than a kidney infection? A kidney infection that is not, in fact, a kidney infection but actually secret appendicitis! Wheee!

By the time I was rushed in for emergency surgery, after a month of feeling increasingly not so hot, my appendix was officially "obliterated". That's the word the consultant used in my notes. It was so far gone, he couldn't even find any bits of appendix left, just rampant infection as far as the eye could see. Of course, being a day shy of 31 weeks pregnant added a layer of spice to proceedings. The moment the doctor told us there was a significant risk the baby would need to be delivered while I was being operated on was memorable.

And yet, here we are, nearly two weeks later. One appendix out, one baby still in. It's a sturdy little thing, it seems. Its mother, not so much.

I'm beginning to feel like the punchline of some great cosmic joke. Losing a parent in pregnancy isn't enough, I have to lose a random internal organ as well? Can't I just get fat ankles and haemorrhoids like any normal pregnant person?

Hopefully this will be my last unsolicited medical update for you, and normal service consisting of meandering rants, impractical shoes and dogs in silly hats will resume shortly. At some point, there may even be a baby. There bloody better be, after all this.


Panni Malekzadeh, 'Feelings', 2012 via The Morning News

The second most middle-class moment of my life occurred last night.

My pregnancy yoga instructor, in attempting to help us to calm our swirling thoughts, encouraged us to picture ourselves as "coffee grounds slowly settling to the bottom of a cafetière."

PREGNANCY YOGA. CAFETIÈRE METAPHORS. Good grief.


In case you were wondering, the number one most middle-class moment of my life was the time I googled "Can dogs eat quinoa?"

(They can.)


Karolina Kurkova shot by Norman Jean Roy for Tatler Russia May 2014. Title inspired by this post of yore, which I really should repost over here sometime.

This past weekend, Fin, Smidgen and I were meant to be going on a very glamorous caravan trip to Pitlochry. Instead, I spent four days and three nights in Greece, soaking up the sweltering temperatures, being waited on hand and foot and barely getting out of bed the whole time.

Oh, wait, did I say Greece? Sorry, I meant hospital. The other parts were true though.

Fortunately it wasn't anything too serious, although a horrendous kidney infection feels pretty fucking serious when you're in the middle of it. I'm really hoping my hospital nickname of "septic lady" doesn't catch on. The best part was that I was put on the maternity ward, because of the whole being pregnant thing (the baby was completely oblivious to my plight, by the way), meaning I spent four days of writhing agony in the company of labouring women and newborn babies, who are, of course, notoriously chilled out.

On the plus side, the midwives were absolute angels. Getting admitted to hospital is probably an extreme way to get a free preview of your future maternity care, but I liked what I saw. It's definitely an  extreme way of getting out of a caravan trip to Pitlochry. Sometimes a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

I mention this only because I've exhausted all other avenues of sympathy, but I'm still stuck in bed for 80% of the day and need entertained. At least it's my own bed I'm stuck in now.

How was YOUR weekend?

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Image: Greek car park from Cara's Instagram. Bet they don't charge you 6 quid to park your car there *cough* Edinburgh Royal Infirmary *cough*

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