Mother, parent, mum...

Wet and getting colder... the air was crisp this morning!

I went to the doctor yesterday for the second of my HepB vaccinations. This is because a month or two ago, my GP recommended that I get a set of blood tests done to check things pre-baby-making. I'm not actually sure what they checked, to be honest. Whether I'd had chicken pox and what my iron levels were like? Anyway, the same week, I also had my breasts scanned as part of the routine of managing whatever risk it is that I may or may not have inherited. (This post so far makes it sound like I have a lot of medical tests which is not actually true!) The ultrasound lady had said it all looked fine, but then a week later, I got a letter from the doctor saying only that I had been 'Recalled: For Discussion of Test Results'. Of course, I panicked... but it was only that I'd apparently never been vaccinated against HepB.

Anyway, the point of all this is that while I was getting the injection, the GP casually handed me a package of pamphlets that she "always gives to people who looking to get pregnant" and recommended that I take them home to read in case there was information in there that I needed. It felt absolutely bizarre to accept the package... I felt like the honest thing to do would be to hand it back and tell her that we were actually just pretending and that she should save it for genuine prospective parents! It was precisely the same feeling as being handed my the class roll on my first day of teaching as a 'real teacher'... I really felt like I'd got into a situation where somehow I'd accidentally been mistaken for the teacher when really I should probably be joining the kids sitting with their legs crossed on the floor.

I've been thinking about this, about how having a baby makes you a parent, a mother, 'mum', since seeing the counsellor the other week. Hollie and I were talking about it in the car afterwards, because a fair bit of the session was given to explaining and working out what it was that we were imagining as roles for everyone in this situation. Anyway, some of the mother/parent/mum words feel easier to approach than others. 'Mother' and 'parent' feel relatively more simple when you make them into verbs, for example. Mothering, with all its emotional and practical tasks is something I feel strongly about even in my work as a teacher, and babies fit so snugly into my arms, so it's not something that seems like an unmanageably huge stretch to imagine myself doing - although, God, I really, really hope that I do it well. Parenting feels like an extension of this... the day to day running of a household with children - probably because this is how we've been defining it for the purposes of distinguishing between 'parent' and 'dad' when people ask about what Joey's role will be. That also seems approachable enough... I did enough parenting duties for so many of my nanny jobs that I hope I've at least got the basics. To be someone's mother, though - that seems unfathomably huge. And the idea of being called mum by a kid - and not just a kid at school who has got comfy leaning against me at silent reading and forgot I wasn't Mum after all - that also seems enormous. I guess any new role takes a bit of getting used to - and, after all, I do feel like a teacher now, I teach, I am someone's teacher... I presume the same magic will work itself so that 'mum' also feels real enough for me and Hollie by the time it comes around. I am so curious to know how we are all going to end up relating to this potential little person. Two mums is only the beginning of the web of love I hope we manage to make.

Four weeks to first try!

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