Secrets of the Mummy Concierge

by Tiffany Norris

  I tilt my head to the left slightly, confused as to why she felt she had to hide this from me.

  ‘We were just so done with everyone asking us how we were doing and if this treatment or that treatment was working, so, when I contacted you, it was nice to just talk about getting pregnant like a normal mummy-to-be. It felt normal not having to talk to you about the tests we were going through and the ovulation predictors, etc.’ She took my hand and looked me straight in the eye. ‘So, I’m sorry, I hope you’re not mad.’

  I burst into laughter – it was impossible to feel anything other than happy around Victoria.

  ‘Don’t be so silly, Vic!’ I squeeze around the table to give her a hug. ‘You don’t owe me an explanation. Getting pregnant and how you choose to do it is no one’s business but your own. I’m just glad I could be there to make it a bit less stressful.’

  ‘Well, that’s the thing.’ Her smile droops slightly but it reappears quickly. ‘I’m only six weeks pregnant so it’s really early days. We haven’t told anyone – in fact, you’re the only person who knows.’

  I nod sagely. A lot of my clients are very wary about those first 12 weeks of being pregnant as a lot can happen and they feel they don’t want to tempt fate by announcing the news and then finding that the pregnancy doesn’t evolve.

  Victoria ordered a croissant and I opted for a vast mug of coffee as we got down to business. Now that she was pregnant, she wanted to know everything, so before too long our coffee table was covered in pieces of paper sprawled in brightly coloured felt tip (it was all she could find in her handbag) with lists of antenatal classes, baby brands, pregnancy cushion recommendations and excuses for why she wasn’t going to be drinking alcohol at numerous social occasions she had coming up.

  ‘I just don’t want people getting suspicious about why I’m not drinking and then realising that I’m pregnant. I want to tell them when it feels safe to do so. That makes sense, right?’

  If I told you how many of my pregnant clients worried about being ‘caught out’ in those first few months of pregnancy, you’d laugh. The amount of conversations I have had revolving around ‘reasons I’m not drinking alcohol’ or ‘clothes to disguise a baby bump’ are enough to fill a whole magazine. Let’s just say I certainly feel like an expert when it comes to giving out advice. So far on Victoria’s list for being sober were excuses such as:

  • ‘I’m on antibiotics for a urine infection so can’t drink’ (no one ever wants to hear details about a urine infection, so this promptly stops any suspicions in their tracks).

  • ‘I’ve got the world’s worst hangover from last night – I can barely keep water down’ (another wonderful excuse that works well if you’re suffering from morning sickness).

  • ‘I’ve got a huge work presentation tomorrow morning so I need to keep a clear head – but I’ll be celebrating as soon as it’s over’ (I especially like this as it feels like an ‘in joke’ – there certainly will be celebrations soon, but it will be when the announcement is revealed, rather than downing 12 Jager bombs celebratory-style).

  • ‘I’m doing “Sober October, Dry January, Dryathlon” . . .’ (yup, I hadn’t heard of that one until recently too, but apparently it’s a new campaign where you can pick ANY month and remain sober – perfect if you’re trying to disguise a pregnancy).

  It’s strange in a way, however, that I have a completely different perspective when it comes to those first 12 weeks of pregnancy. For me, keeping it a complete secret from friends and family has the opportunity of backfiring hugely if something were to go wrong with the pregnancy. I have had numerous clients who didn’t tell a soul they were pregnant and then suffered a devastating miscarriage, meaning they had no one to turn to or look after them. They had done 12 weeks alone, without anyone knowing about the baby inside of them, and then they were left having to mourn the loss of that baby completely alone too. To me, that’s just too heartbreaking to consider, so, when I was pregnant with Rupert, I told my closest friends and family members as soon as the line appeared on the pregnancy test, to ensure Patrick and I had the support should we need it if anything went wrong.

  But things were very different for Victoria. A day before her 12-week scan, she called me in tears, begging me to go to her home. When I arrived, I was met by a crumpled, tiny version of Victoria I barely recognised. She was standing in her kitchen, tears streaming down her face as soon as I walked through the door. Jake, her husband, stood by her side, a heavy arm slumped over her shoulder, pulling her into him. His skin was pale and the bags under his eyes were evidence of stress and a lack of sleep. I moved swiftly, switching on the kettle and sweeping up some dead flowers from the vase on the sideboard into the bin – no one needed to be reminded of death at a time like this.

  Taking Victoria’s arm, I led her into the living room and placed a blanket around her shoulders. She held the steaming mug of tea in her hands and for a minute, I worried that it might be too hot, but she didn’t care – I could see in her eyes that nothing mattered anymore.

  Jake had filled me in on the phone earlier that day. Victoria had started bleeding a few days before and, concerned, they had ended up at their doctor’s, who swiftly insisted on a scan. The scan showed a clear image of their baby, but there was no heartbeat. In one single swipe of a sonograph, Victoria and Jake’s future had been crushed to the ground.

  And in a cruel twist of fate, it just so happened that on that day, my life had changed too.

  * * *

  That morning, just two hours before the fateful call from Victoria, Patrick and I had concluded we were going to start trying for another baby. I had sat with him in bed, my list of pros and cons in one hand, and we had gone through each and every one, making sure that the decision we made was going to be the right one for us and Rupert.

  The conclusion had actually been made when, after an hour of debating all pros and cons, Patrick had turned to me and said: ‘It comes down to this – how would you actually feel if you knew you couldn’t have another baby? Would it make you feel relieved, or sad?’

  The word ‘sad’ had spilled out of my mouth before I even realised, and as I said it, I knew how true that was. The thought of not having another baby, of not holding a newborn or smelling that newborn smell was something I wasn’t willing to never experience again. So, once all tea was drunk, we had happily concluded that baby number two was something we both wanted. I had actually skipped out of the bedroom, so excited by the prospect of expanding our family.

  Then the phone had rung, and it was Victoria.

  * * *

  ‘Tell me what happened, but only if you want to talk about it,’ I reassured Victoria, not wanting to pressurise her into going over all the details if she didn’t want to. However, a part of me knew she would want to talk – I’ve worked with enough women who have suffered heartbreak through pregnancy, and in the end the majority of them need to talk about it. So that’s when I sit and listen. I have to be their sounding board, their reassurance.

  ‘I miscarried at the public pool two days ago.’ Victoria talks quietly and thick, silent tears roll down her face. ‘I was playing with my niece Evie in the paddling bit of the pool and I started to feel a stabbing, cramping sensation in my lower belly. I said to Jake, “Can you hold Evie? I think I’m having a miscarriage.” And then I sat on the edge of the bench, lightly bleeding on a towel. I didn’t know what to do.’

  I sat and listened as Victoria went on to explain how everything had felt so surreal, as though she was looking down on herself and watching it all happen. Jake had scooped her up and, having dropped Evie back at his sister’s, driven home because they had an Ocado delivery arriving and he didn’t know how to cancel. I nod as she tells me this – so often partners have to put on a brave face and just take control in situations like this. People tend to forget that they are suffering from impending heartbreak too.

  ‘Just as we were unlocking the front door, we heard someone say hello and turned t
o see two of our friends who lived a few doors down. It felt rude not to invite them in for a coffee, so on auto-pilot, we did. We sat and drank coffee and I continued to bleed.’

  ‘Why didn’t you go to the doctor?’ I asked, horrified that Jake and Victoria hadn’t acted sooner.

  ‘I suppose I didn’t want to accept what was happening. I sat there, talking about birthday parties and the latest Netflix drama, looking as though I didn’t have a care in the world, whereas inside, my baby was dying.’

  My hand flew to my mouth and I couldn’t help but gasp.

  Poor, poor Victoria, having to go through all this.

  ‘In the end, I turned to my friends and said, “By the way, I think I’m having a miscarriage”,’ she continued. ‘No one really knew what to say. What are you supposed to do in that situation? Cancel your plans? Cry? I felt stuck in this place where I didn’t want to upset anyone or make a bigger deal of it than it was. I was hugely aware that I wasn’t quite 12 weeks pregnant and that lots of people miscarry before then.’

  Victoria went on to explain that eventually Jake snapped out of his stupor and started acting like Superman – ushering their friends out, calling the doctor and walking her to the car. They drove straight to have a scan and the miscarriage was confirmed: there was no heartbeat.

  Victoria was swiftly booked in to have a DNC, a process where they surgically remove the baby – ‘I was awake the whole time and with every scrape, I knew they were scraping away my baby.’ With that, she burst into tears. ‘I don’t think I can ever go through that again, Tiffany. I think I’m done. I can’t be a mother if there’s a chance of having to go through that again.’

  * * *

  Later that evening, I got into my car, having tucked Victoria in bed and given Jake strict instructions to call me if they needed anything. I knew, deep down, there was nothing I could actually do and perhaps having me around – someone who deals with pregnant mothers and babies – might be the worst thing for them both at that moment, but I needed to feel like I was doing something to help.

  I opened my phone and clicked ‘confirm’ on the online order I had just placed. It might seem trivial, but when I first met Victoria, she had told me how much she loved a certain brand of shoes – for every shoe you bought, a pair of shoes was given to a child in need. To me, miscarriage is an impossible thing to deal with and the only way to survive is to take things slowly. I typed out a note to accompany the shoes I had just bought for Victoria and signed my name. ‘One step at a time’ was all it said. That’s all anyone can do who has suffered any kind of loss, I feel.

  That night, I lay awake in bed for hours. What had happened to Victoria and Jake had really shaken me. I had come home from theirs and had numerous phone consultations with various mummies who were newly pregnant and excitedly planning their upcoming trimesters. Despite forcing myself to smile down the phone and answer their questions with enthusiasm, a real sense of worry had embedded itself in the pit of my stomach. Only that morning, Patrick and I had decided to start trying for baby number two and then five hours later, I was helping a mother mourn the loss of her child. It sounds so selfish to turn the situation around to me, but there was no denying it. I was suddenly feeling very scared: what if the same thing happened to us as had happened to Victoria and Jake? What if we found it impossible to get pregnant and I had to face fertility treatment again? What if our baby was poorly, or worse still, didn’t survive?

  The anxiety rolled around in my stomach all evening. I pushed away the homemade lasagne Patrick had spent hours making and stared into the middle distance, not even able to laugh at my favourite comedy show on TV. People often think that because I work as a parenting expert, I’m devoid of worries – after all, I’m supposed to know everything there is about pregnancy and babies, so what could I possibly have to worry about? The truth is, I am also a woman. A woman who worries a lot, all the time. Having just seen the horror that Victoria had to go through, there was no denying the fact I was scared.

  * * *

  As the months rolled on, one of the things that started to really play on my mind was the actual conceiving bit. Having downloaded all of my concerns about miscarriages and a baby being unwell to Patrick and being reassured that we would do everything we could to keep happy and healthy and deal with whatever life threw at us in the best way we could, we started actively trying. At first it seemed almost ‘fun’ – that normal, carefree sex where you hope there might be a positive pregnancy test at the end of it. But then it turned into what I like to call ‘Army sex’ – named because it becomes so regimented.

  Despite promising ourselves we could just ‘see what happens’ (couple language for ‘let’s just have sex and see if we miraculously do it on the right day/time and conceive a baby’), after a couple of ‘not really trying’ attempts, we then went all guns blazing. If we were going to do this, we were darn well going to do it properly!

  Foreplay was replaced with various apps. Most couples have sex because they’re horny. When you’re trying for a baby, you have sex because an algorithm on an app has estimated your fertile window and a notification has popped up on your phone to tell you it’s now or never. This notification doesn’t care if you’re tired/hungover/just had a screaming match with your other half – its sole purpose is to make sure you hop into bed that instant and try to conceive a baby.

  A few weeks into ‘App Gate’, I felt the need to progress onto something more hardcore: the ovulation stick. Every morning, I would pee onto a stick and wait to see if a little smiley face popped up (an indication that it’s time to get frisky). There were also the supplements – folic acid, Pregnacare vitamins, vitamin D – that I downed every morning whilst still in bed and almost before even opening my eyes. Then there was the ‘flailing around on bed like an upturned beetle’ which became a post-shag ritual, having read that sperm is more likely to reach an egg if your legs are in the air (Patrick found this equally horrifying and hysterical).

  Every time I met with a pregnant client, I subtly started up a conversation about early pregnancy symptoms, grilling them about tender boobs (mine had felt a bit sore that morning in the shower) and morning sickness until I had completely convinced myself I MUST be pregnant (and that the sick feeling had nothing to do with downing three tequilas the night before in a rare ‘sod this getting pregnant thing’ act of defiance).

  One of the things that really frustrated me when trying to conceive was the comments (usually from well-meaning friends) about it being the fun part. There were times when I wanted to upend my handbag onto the coffee table in front of them and watch their expression turn to one of horror as out came spilt ovulation tests, negative pregnancy tests and sperm-friendly lube (yup, don’t go there!). Trying for a baby is HARD and I just wish more people would talk openly about it. Of course, there are the lucky ones who get pregnant on the first go, but for the majority of mothers I have worked with, trying for a baby is one of the hardest, most draining bits. There’s a reason it’s called ‘trying’ and that’s because it really can become, well, trying!

  Eight things you only know if you’re trying to conceive

  1. Symptom spotting is a daily occurrence. If you pee more at night, you wonder if a fertilised egg is pushing on your bladder already. If your tummy so much as rumbles then you consider morning sickness.

  2. You constantly fondle your boobs. Yes, it’s suddenly completely reasonable to grab your boobs at any moment and ‘assess’ them. Do they feel more tender than usual? Do I need a slightly bigger bra all of a sudden?

  3. You’re no longer bothered about having good sex. You just want it over and done with, as quickly as possible, at the RIGHT time of the month.

  4. Your period will become your tormentor. You will dread it arriving every second of the day and will refuse to buy tampons until the very last minute (just in case . . .).

  5. You’ll notice babies and pregnant women EVERYWHERE. On the bus, on the TV – hell, even Instagram will start
targeting you with pregnancy ads!

  6. You will have a new shopping habit. Sod that expensive face cleanser you used to buy, now all your money is being spent on ovulation kits and pregnancy tests.

  7. You’ll become an expert. You might have failed GCSE biology, but suddenly you know everything there is to know that was on the syllabus for reproduction.

  8. You’ll become an over-sharer. As your obsession with getting pregnant increases, you’ll find yourself chatting away happily about cervical mucus and sperm quality.

  Chapter 30

  New parenting trends are something I have had to get used to in this industry. It certainly doesn’t happen amongst all of my clients, but there’s a fair few who have definitely taken it to the extremes. It was December in London and trying to fit in a couple of social engagements whilst in the capital before heading home for Christmas, a group of my friends and I (who all happened to work in the parenting industry) decided to meet one afternoon for hot chocolate and mulled wine. We were lifelong friends, one of whom worked as a maternity nurse, there was a baby sleep expert, a couple of baby PRs and a couple of nannies too.

  We walked along the Thames taking in the sights of the London Eye and all of the happy, smiling people stepping on and off it. Slightly further up, a couple of Christmas stalls that looked like mini chalets had been set up, selling toasted marshmallows, metallic Christmas baubles and nutcracker toys. We passed one particular stall that had been covered in fake snow and had an archway of bright pink baubles leading up to it. There were mini reindeer toys dotted around the scene and fake snow was being blown from what must have been a wind machine behind the stall – it looked completely magical.