Pregnancy has involved a lot more admin and a lot less sitting around cradling her bump than Zoe Cartwright anticipated. Photo: westend61.
I’ve been very popular over the past fortnight.
Lots of people have been texting me reminders about our catch-ups.
From our GP to the dentist, asthma nurse, physio and midwife, I’m in high demand.
I was fortunate enough to fall pregnant late last year, after facing a potentially long and harrowing road of infertility treatement.
Our family is absolutely overjoyed, and while pregnancy can be tough (I’m looking at you first trimester nausea), it’s much easier to face when you’ve grappled with the alternative.
What no-one warned me about though, was the admin.
Admin is my Achilles heel. Forms turn my brain to mush. Appointments disappear from my mind in the same way they seem to disappear from my diary.
I was the child whose important notes from school mouldered in the bottom of their bag, along with a forgotten mandarin and a leaky water bottle.
Luckily for me my husband is an admin whizz and has taken on most of those responsibilities for our relationship.
He makes my doctor’s appointments, navigates travel documents and fills out forms with ease.
In this way I’ve been lucky enough to be warmly insulated from the frigid consequences of my own incompetence.
Until now.
To be fair, husband does still make and keep on top of all doctor’s appointments, ultrasounds, and the dentist.
Truly, he’s the hero bub and I need – after a series of embarrassing phone calls he has begun to remind me when I have a midwife appointment coming up.
(He’s also in charge of the laundry and the dishwasher after several flooding incidents. I’d like to claim I’m a woman in the male field of weaponised incompetence, but it’s actually just plain incompetence.)
Naively, I thought after bub arrives there would be an admin respite; however, I was recently informed the appointments continue, plus extras.
It has belatedly sunk in, that I am going to go from being the child with the mouldering notes forgotten in the bottom of her bag to the adult in charge of receiving, responding to and filing said notes.
Of all the parenting horror stories we’ve been regaled with over the past several months, this realisation was the most terrifying.
I’ve worked rotating shifts, and I’ve worked in hospitality – no sleep schedule and demanding humans screaming at me to be fed are nothing new.
I’ve worked in childcare and dealt with plenty of poo.
Admin, however, is something I’ve always managed to delegate far, far away.
So, how does one go about making Dad the primary contact for all official child-related business? Just asking out of curiosity …
