Sophie: oh i got you a baby AMP: thank fuck! AMP: this one's clearly not working out properly Sophie: maybe just a little sleepy? AMP: just lazy and hates deadlines can't think who he takes after in that Sophie: no me neither although why your baby would take after ME i have no idea AMP: hee hee Sophie: maybe i am The Real Father AMP: he's born to freelance Sophie: that could be a new bruce springsteen song Born To Freelance Sophie: so this baby shall i get a big poking stick? maybe tickle you with a feather duster AMP: dunno, i've tried everything sex, jumping on trampoline, eating pineapples, eating spicy food nipple twiddling raspberry leaf tea EVERYTHING Sophie: hahah happpppy thoughts little baby come out of your bum come out, come out AMP: yay today i hope GET OUT JIMMY Sophie: maybe i could induce him via IM AMP: do it Sophie: would that be a first? AMP: shove a virtual pessary Sophie: hmm AMP: up my virtual front bum i'm ready Sophie: yeah baby AMP: i'm braced Sophie: PESSARY PESSARY MAKE AMP'S FRONT BUM A MESSARY AMP: gneeee i think it's working Sophie: HERE IS VIRTUAL LABOUR FROM AN INTERNET SAVIOUR AMP: SQUEAL Sophie: JIMMY JIMMY YOU'RE INDUCED Sophie: ITS OVER NINE MONTHS SINCE YOUR PARENTS REPRODUCED SO COME ON JIMMY FEEL THE PESSARY FROTHING AND SLIDING AND MAKE TONIGHT THE NIGHT FOR YOUR WINKIE TO START SUBSIDING DOWN THE VALLEY THEY CALL MAMA ALONG THE FJORDS OF AMP TRY TO JEMMY YOUR WAY OUT DOWN THE BABY RAMP AMP: sophus, you're a geniass Sophie: is it there yet? oof i heard a splat AMP: eep Sophie: little swedish baby AMP: i think the baby is.... BROWN Sophie: OH WOW its like a benetton advert AMP: no wait wait IT'S GINGER! Sophie: a brown, ginger, scandinavian baby OH WOW ITS BROWN AND GINGER it's a double-whammy. a double-jimmy AMP: good old jimmy AMP: GET OUT JIMMY AMP: GET OUT JIMMY AMP: GET OUT JIMMY
Not that world is on bated breath for updates of this blog but still. I am alive. I have not given birth. The baby is still inside. It writhes around under the skin like an alien. Its head is slightly engaged, dipping into the pelvis, preparing for escape. I'm not writing because the baby has given me its first body-ruining gift - carpal tunnel syndrome. My fingers are stiff, their tips are numb and frozen. There are a thousand things I want to say but they're all trapped inside and stuck.
Yes, wifey, you can have my uke. You were always better at it than me anyway.
Yeah that's right bitches, it's time for your CUTE ALERT baby outfit update, and nothing you do or say - no twitch of your eyelids, no jaded eyeroll, no cocked brow, nada - can dissuade me from it. Maybe you didn't sign up for a parenting blog when you clicked the RSS feed for AMPnet but tough tits, sweetpea. It's mama time now.
With no further ado, the two places every discerning newborn should be shopping are:
1) THREADLESS KIDS
2) AMERICAN APPAREL BABY
How cute are the Threadless hoodsies? And the mini wifebeater vests with the karate pants from AA (I know their ads are evil and sexist but whatever, so are blue-for-boys / pink-for-girls baby outfits, and at least they don't do that.)
Anyways. I know. Threadless and AA. I'm such a cliche. But what are you gonna do? It's that (plus Retrokinder on Etsy, not that I can afford it) or Mothercare. And fuck Mothercare, you know? Fuck Baby Gap. The end.
This post has been brought to you by the MY BRAIN HAS GONE TO SHIT, FUCK WRITING, ALL I CAN THINK ABOUT IS THE BABY THAT IS DUE TO COME OUT OF MY FANJITA IN BETWEEN 2-6 WEEKS TIME, SORRY DUDES association of Great Britain / Sweden. Check back soon for more of the inane same!
look at that. fucking massive. apparently i have reached the stage where people are unable to see me as anything but "pregnant woman". i'm still in here though you know! quite normal!
This is too cute. Wow I wish I knew someone who was due to have a baby on May 28th. I'd totally get them a gift set containing blanket, burp cloths and bibs in this lovely vintage tattoo fabric, from Leo Designs. If only I could think of someone!
Many women are going into labour vastly underestimating how painful it can be and overly optimistic that they will be able to manage without drugs, a study suggests.
Not me, buster. I am little miss TENS machine, as much nitrous as my lungs can handle, anything opiate-based and the earliest epidural they got. I ain't getting conned with no birth orgasm bullstuffs, nosiree. (Insert joke about 'I've never refused free drugs before so why stop now?' here.) For a while I considered an elective c-section because you get loads of morphine, but I've decided a line must be drawn somewhere, and I'd rather it wasn't drawn with a scalpel across my bikini line and through my uterus. But otherwise, BRING THE DRUGS man. I want to hire a midwife to help so that I don't have to have an episiostimy (that's when they basically cut a big hole from your cunt to your ass, everyone!) but I'm scared she'll try to make me not have an epidural. She won't, will she? Anyone had a midwife or doula? I want to know what I'm getting myself into...
So there's this whole birthgasm thing going around, right? Natural birth types going on about how if you squeeze the childe out of your fanj you eventually get the most MEGA ENORMOUS RAINBOWTASTIC ORGASM YOU EVER HAD IN YOUR WHOLE LIFE, etc. And my friend Eleanor M said that after her child was born she felt this 'enormous rush of energy'. In fact everyone I know who has given birth without epidural seems quite positive about it, in contrast to everyone who has given birth in a hospital, had an epidural and then inevitably ended up in surgery anyway having a c-section to remove the placenta or the baby or whatever. (Please note, these are all in England which has an emergency c-section rate of about 1 in 4, compared to Sweden which is 1 in 10). Anyway. Yeah. Orgasmicbirth. (And one more link for luck.) A reality worth going through 12-60 hours of agonising, unmedicated labour for? Or a potentially dangerous myth? If you have any experience of this, I'd love to know about it.
Random quote: "For someone who has, for better or worse, gotten strength and power from being desired, I am now operating unsuccessfully in two parallel universes. On one hand, I have never been so desired in my life. Felix ravages my breasts as no one else ever has. It's not sexual hunger, it's actual hunger.
Even now, at a year and half, he runs from across the room at the sight of them, tackles me onto the floor or couch, climbs up my body until he's within reach, then draws back and takes a good look, grins and goes in for the attack. People always say of breastfeeding, "It's sensual, not sexual."
But it is sexual. He nuzzles and paws at me, grunts, throws his head from side to side as he latches on, his pink mouth warm on my nipple. He tries to get as much as he can into his mouth as his whole body burrows into me, his little heels digging into my thighs and still-soft belly. He kneads the breast he's nursing from with his hand to get more milk, and uses his free hand to tweak, twist and pull on my other nipple. I wonder if he's holding onto it protectively, so no one else can get it.
Who would give up being needed like that? Not me. Because the opposite universe is the one in which no one wants me. I'm a mother; I have little to no value to the outside world."
Have any of our lack of readers ever had a new baby and done a part-time M.A. at the same time? Assuming adequate childcare, is it possible? Enquiring minds need to know.
Just in case you hadn't heard from one of the many online places in which I talk shit about my private life, I'm all knocked up and having a baby in June, assuming all goes well! W00T! Here is a picture of it when it was tiny:
Here is a picture of it now it is medium:
And here is a picture of me doing an impression of a preg:
That's all really! Though I guess you could have this humorous article about the increasing 'momification' of the modern dad, should you have the temerity to not actually care about ME ME ME. Enjoy!
AMPNET is edited by AMP, a freelance writer from London.
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