Bump, Bike & Baby Read online

  When I get back to the house, I email my biking and pregnancy guru, Susie Mitchell, to see how soon she started exercising. Though she had a C-section, so had different issues to deal with, she suggests that once I can sit on a bike saddle, I should be able to go for a spin.

  I am not convinced by Susie’s suggestion. Sitting on a bike sounds really sore. But there is ultimately only one way to find out how bad the pain will be. I wheel out Bike, who has undergone solitary confinement in the garage for nearly two months. I slowly slip myself on to the saddle.

  Much to my surprise, it is not sore at all. Within seconds I shout, ‘Pete, can I go for a bike ride?’

  Back in the day, I could hop on my bike and inform Pete when I’d be back from my spin. But now, with baby Aran about and me breastfeeding him, we need military-precise coordination for when I can and can’t leave the house.

  ‘So, if I give Aran a feed now, he probably won’t need one for another hour,’ I say to Pete, trying to work out when and for how long I can abscond.

  ‘But what if he looks for a feed while you’re away?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say, trying to escape the house with Bike. ‘Can’t you figure that out yourself?’

  Pete looks at me blankly.

  ‘Look, I’ll be back in sixty minutes,’ I say to Pete, begging him to let me go. ‘If he cries, I don’t know, sing to him or something.’ I cycle off before Pete can lodge a formal protest.

  Riding Bike is sheer heaven. I had forgotten how fast you can go, how the wind whips your hair and catches your breath, how the rhythm of the pedals soothes away all your cares. It is also wonderful to be back cycling without a baby inside me. My lungs feel as large as life, no longer squashed against my ribs. I can push myself a little harder on the hills, and not worry about raised heart rates or overheating myself. Gone too are the fears I had of falling off Bike and doing Bump permanent harm.

  It is not only the joy of being outdoors and doing some exercise that thrills me so much. It is the fact that I am getting a brief break from motherhood. Since giving birth two weeks ago, I have felt so fat and unfit. With Aran waking up every couple of hours at night, sleep deprivation is hitting me hard. Now, for this single hour, I am doing something I love that could reverse all these afflictions. I tell myself to cling to this time that it is solely mine.

  I arrive back home, on a high from my ride. It’s great to have different chemicals coursing through my veins instead of pregnancy hormones. I bounce through the front door, full of serotonin and dopamine. I feel like a completely new woman.

  Aran is starting to stir from his slumber on Pete’s shoulder.

  ‘Perfect timing!’ I shout to Pete with a smile.

  I take Aran off him and carefully slide Aran under my biking top. Though my breast milk is now laced with lactic acid from my exercise, Aran doesn’t seem to mind a bit. He drinks greedily from the supply, then falls back fast asleep.

  Though I have been away from Aran for a relatively short period, I am so happy to see my son again. Not that he has much of a personality or provides much entertainment. It’s just that I’m so full of the love hormone, oxytocin, that I can’t help but attach to him. He’s been in my life for a mere two weeks, but already I kind of like him.

  8

  Training

  Getting out on Bike gives me a new lease of life. And though Aran is less than a month old, I reckon he needs to get into the habit of regular exercise too.

  I do some research and discover there are water babies’ sessions in the local pool. Aran and I are going to start swimming together. I need to register at the local Sure Start centre before turning up for classes. Pete comes along to Sure Start out of curiosity. He also wants to see if there are activities he can do with Aran to bond with him as well.

  ‘I want to sign up for water babies,’ I tell the lady-in-charge at Sure Start. We are in her office, perched on a soft, spacious sofa. Aran is sitting snuggly on my knee. I don’t want to lean back though and get too comfortable. All I want to do is register and get out of there.

  ‘That’s wonderful!’ she says, patting her floral skirt. ‘Swimming is brilliant for mums and babies. And is Dad going to go as well?’

  Pete opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.

  ‘No, just me, thanks,’ I say.

  ‘Marvellous!’ the lady says, shuffling through some random papers before handing me a registration form.

  ‘While you’re here, would you like to join the breastfeeding support group?’ she says. ‘They are actually just meeting in the room down the corridor at the moment.’

  I had already bumped into the support group by accident when we were looking for the lady’s office. I had opened the door and seen all the mummies and infants spread out on the carpeted floor. I didn’t mean to, but my instinctive reaction was to recoil.

  ‘No, thanks,’ I say. ‘My breastfeeding is going fine. No support needed here.’ I force a strained smile.

  I’m just not interested in talking to strangers about lactation, or anything else baby-related for that matter. Now if they wanted to chat about power outputs and cadence, electrolytes and heart rates, then I just might reconsider attending.

  ‘Well then, baby massage?’

  ‘No,’ I say adamantly.

  This woman will not give up.

  My knee has started shaking. Pete reaches over to calm down my leg.

  ‘I’ll go,’ he says. The lady and I spin round in our seats. ‘I’ll go to baby massage.’

  ‘Are you for real?’ I say to Pete once we’ve escaped Sure Start offices. ‘Or is this how you plan to bond with Aran?’

  ‘God, no!’ Pete says. ‘I have zero interest in baby massage. I was just afraid you’d get put on a child welfare watch list for not participating in mother and baby stuff.’

  ‘Ah, come on now, Pete, you’re just exaggerating.’

  ‘Listen, you said no to everything she suggested. And the tone in that room was starting to go south,’ he says. ‘I figured I should take one for the team.’

  I mope back to the car, feeling guilty that I am not an enthusiast mother who wants to participate in everything baby-related. And I thought I was doing so well wanting to sign up for baby swimming.

  A couple of days later, I am at home with Aran when I receive a visit from a community health worker. I’m petrified she’s going to take Aran away and haul me in to social services for refusing to engage with the support network.

  ‘Oh goodness, I wouldn’t worry about that,’ Bridgeen, the health worker, says when I bring up the issue. ‘Not everyone wants to go to those support things.’

  I am relieved. At last someone who understands that bump and baby classes are not everyone’s cup of tea.

  Bridgeen is a health worker pro. She is about the same age as me, but already has two teenagers at home. She’s been there before. Bridgeen is also the person who will guide me through the next two years while Aran grows and develops.

  ‘So how are Mum and baby doing?’ Bridgeen asks in her broad Northern Irish accent. I think hard and long about the question. I’m stuck in such a sleep-deprived haze that I can’t really recall much of what’s happened over the last couple of weeks.

  ‘Okay, I think,’ I say. I try to do a quick test and recollect what I had for breakfast. Actually, did I have breakfast today? Oh dear. I’m really struggling to remember pretty much anything.

  ‘Well, why don’t we have a quick look at Aran and see how well he’s growing?’ Bridgeen asks me to strip him down to his nappy so that we can weigh and measure him.

  ‘Oh my goodness,’ she says. ‘What’s that?’ She is pointing straight at Aran’s groin.

  ‘It’s a nappy,’ I reply. ‘A cloth one.’ I think the water birth experience has really affected me. Not only have I given birth like Mother Earth, but I have also become ridiculously eco-friendly. Having read about the landfills crammed with disposable nappies that refuse to decompose, I have opted to use cloth nappies.

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sp; ‘When I lived in Kenya,’ I tell Bridgeen, ‘they used to tie old jumpers around their babies’ bums to catch the pee and poo.’ At least I have a washing machine that I can throw Aran’s soiled nappies straight into. The poor Kenyan mums I knew had no option but to hand-wash theirs.

  Bridgeen places Aran carefully on the large scales she has brought along and records his current weight. She then lays him on a plastic mat marked out with lines, stretches his legs as far as they will go, and works out how tall he is. She then informs me that he is all wonderfully average in height and size.

  As he lies on the floor, Aran starts to cry, protesting at all this poking and prodding of his nakedness. Without thinking, I pick him up, cover him up with a blanket, and give him a quick feed. I’ve found that mammy’s milk seems to cure all his afflictions instantaneously.

  ‘It looks like he’s taking well to the breast milk,’ Bridgeen says.

  ‘It seems to work for me.’

  ‘Absolutely. Whatever works for Mum. The recommendation is that, if you can, to exclusively breastfeed Aran for his first six months. Then you can introduce him to solids.’

  I hadn’t really thought about what happens that far down the road with his feeding regime. Thus far I’ve taken each day as it comes, pleased if Aran and I are in still in one piece by bedtime. But there’s still one thing I’ve yet to figure out when it comes to feeding Aran. How can I breastfeed exclusively and still disappear for a couple of hours each day to do a bit of training? Wouldn’t Aran get hungry while I’m gone?

  ‘What type of training do you do?’ Bridgeen enquires, her curiosity taking me by surprise.

  ‘A bit of biking, a bit of running,’ I tell her, convinced she’s not interested in the details.

  ‘I’m a runner too,’ she says. ‘I do road races in the summer, and cross-country during the winter.’

  Cross-country at our age? Now that’s well hardcore. I’m surprised that I hadn’t already deduced her athletic prowess. Bridgeen is tall and muscular from years of hill sprints, with a taut, tanned face that’s used to going at speed.

  ‘I run with Sparta AC,’ she says.

  ‘Oh my God, that’s my old athletic club!’

  Maybe I can become Bridgeen’s running bosom-buddy.

  ‘It’s best you wait until Aran is around eight weeks before you introduce him to a bottle,’ Bridgeen goes on to explain. ‘If you give him a bottle too early on, he can get confused between the breast and bottle-feeding.’

  I look down at Aran on my lap. He has overdosed on milk and is busy sleeping it off. The poor thing has so much to learn in life, even when it just comes down to the subject of eating.

  ‘But once the eight-week mark has passed,’ she says, ‘you can express your milk out of your breast, either with a pump or using your hand. And then you can put that milk in a bottle, and leave it with whoever is taking care of Aran.’

  Whenever I see Pete next, I tell him this update on the breastfeeding news front. I then inform him with my latest plan: to give him the baby and a bottle, and for me to quietly disappear and go training.

  ‘But you know I can’t look after Aran every time you want to go for a bike or run?’

  I look at Pete blankly.

  ‘I have to go back to work sometime soon.’

  I had forgotten that we need an income. With both of us working as self-employed consultants, we have the luxury of working when and where we please. But Pete has already neglected his clients for nearly a month, and he is going to lose contracts if he doesn’t get back to the grindstone soon.

  ‘But you can’t leave me all alone with him,’ I say. I hear desperation in my tone as I stare over at Aran.

  ‘I know, I know,’ Pete says. ‘Sure didn’t we discuss this already? The last thing I want is to come home to a crazy wife.’

  I know I am meant to protest the suggestion that I could potentially go crazy, but I know it’s a distinct possibility if I have to constantly mind the baby.

  ‘Let’s find somewhere you can leave Aran for an hour or two a couple of days a week,’ Pete says. I like the idea. Not only will it give me a break, but it will also allow Aran to get used to other people. With just Pete and I around, I am worried that he might become a clingy child.

  I ask around and find a crèche in the centre of Derry city that has flexible operating hours. Pete, Aran, and I arrange to visit it together before Pete heads back to work.

  ‘Och, will you look at the wee love?’ the woman in charge says as she opens the crèche door. She takes Aran’s tiny fist and gives it a friendly shake. ‘How old is he?’ Her gaze is firmly fixed on Aran, but I think the question is directed at me.

  ‘Four weeks tomorrow,’ I say.

  She beckons us inside the crèche doors. It is full of brightly coloured walls and various plastic toys. There are children running riot around the place. They are all much older than Aran. I wonder if this will be an issue.

  ‘As long as he has his six-week vaccinations, we’re happy to take this wee dote.’ She seems totally besotted with Aran. I think he’ll like it here.

  We agree to leave Aran initially at the crèche three times a week for two hours. I feel guilty about leaving Aran there, but know we have few other options. Aran is not like Tom, who we can easily leave at home unattended for half a day. Pete and I are slowly coming around to the realisation that baby Aran needs constant, twenty-four-hour supervision.

  With Aran’s daytime schedule sorted, it is time to get myself checked out. I make an appointment to see my doctor six weeks after the birth.

  ‘So how are things going?’ the doctor asks me. I am asked this question with amazing regularity these days. Its consistent posing has allowed me to refine my answer to perfection.

  ‘Fine,’ I say, surprised by how convincing I sound. Contrary to my own expectations, the last six weeks have gone amazingly quickly. Time flies when you’re ridiculously sleep-deprived. I try to recall what I’ve done for the last month and a half. All I can remember are feeds, nappy changes, and frequent nap interruptions. The occasional hour-long walks or cycles have served well to break the monotony of it all. The baby blues were a minor hiccup on what has been, in general, a well-managed upheaval in my life.

  The doctor who does my check is the same one who came close to scuppering my Ethiopia trip when I was pregnant. We don’t mention that incident, and mutually decide to move on. All’s well that ends well, apparently.

  The six-week check takes a lot less time to complete than expected. I have healed up pretty well. And I appear somewhat emotionally stable and generally happy enough. So, in less than fifteen minutes, I am given the all-clear.

  I pick up the phone as soon as I get home and call Eamonn, my new coach.

  ‘All good to go,’ I tell him.

  ‘Great stuff,’ he says. ‘So let’s get started and set ourselves a few ground rules.’

  Eamonn tells me that, from now, I’ll keep a training diary that’s accessible online.

  ‘I’ll work out what you need to do each day,’ he says. ‘Your job is to get the sessions done.’

  I am relieved. My brain has become a little fuzzy since childbirth and I struggle to make decisions. When I get a chance to train, it takes me forever to work out if I want to bike or run. Then I can’t decide how far or for how long I will go. When it comes to training, Eamonn will do all this taxing thinking for me.

  ‘You’ll need to use a GPS and heart rate monitor during all of your workouts,’ Eamonn continues. ‘If you upload the data, I can then review it, and give you feedback every couple of days.’

  ‘So you’ll be checking up on me to see if I’ve done the session or not?’ I say, unsure if I like this new level of scrutiny.

  ‘Listen, it’s up to you if you want to do the training or not,’ Eamonn says. ‘I know what it’s like when you’ve young children.’

  ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ I say. ‘I want to do all the sessions. I’m just not sure how feasible it will be.’

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nbsp; I’m still not convinced my childminding strategy at the crèche will pan out, that I’ll be free to do all of Eamonn’s proposed sessions. And I’m wondering if I’ll be physically able to train, what with the surprises post-natal bodies can unexpectedly spring.

  But even with all these doubts buzzing through my mind, there is part of me that knows that I have no choice but to prepare to race again. Racing is something I enjoy, and was once good at before all this baby stuff. This reality I cling to more than ever, especially now that I’m faced with dealing with parenthood, an activity I’m a total novice at. Racing is an identity that I am proud of. I cannot abandon it right now.

  Eamonn and I agree to take it slow, see how it goes, and revise the training plan when required.

  The first week of training with Eamonn is mild-mannered enough. He gives me a paltry twenty-minute run to do at barely jogging speed, with instructions not to exceed a heart rate of one hundred and thirty. Although painfully slow, it is nevertheless marvellous to run without carting around a bump.

  Eamonn then gives me an hour’s bike session to do, but it is still at a snail’s pace. And though the biking and running training is easy, he kills me with strength and conditioning. Not once, not twice, but three times a week I am now doing squats, lunges, press-ups, skips, and planks. My poor body doesn’t know what’s hit it. My core muscles that drifted apart during pregnancy are now being forcibly reunited. My glutes, quads, and hamstrings scream when I even look at a flight of stairs. I do a bit of yoga to try and relieve the pain. Everything just about folds and stretches like before, but it is a very creaky affair.

  Painful though the training is, it gives me something very definite to look forward to each day. I now have a clear break marked into my daily schedule when I can totally forget about crying, feeding, and nappy changing.

  Pete is now back at work and I leave Aran at the crèche for my bike sessions. It takes me a while, but I eventually figure out the most efficient sequencing. I rock up to the crèche’s front door all kitted out in helmet, clip-in shoes, and padded shorts. Aran is strapped to my body, while I wheel Bike inside with my free hand. I then stash Bike in the corridor beside the other baby strollers that belong to the other kids.