So we are now the Proud Parents of Child #5! We planned to “freebirth” (birth with no assistance) this time, after doing so by accident last time and finding it so special and natural. We learned about All The Stuff to do in various emergencies, I stocked up on herbs and homeopathic remedies and Husband sourced some scissors to cut thy cord (I tried not to be offended that they were sold for use cutting dogs’ umbilical cords – we are Country people not after all. Maybe one day we’ll get to use them for their true purpose… 😍🐶🐶🐶
After all that prep, we had the simplest birth yet. 🙏 I lay in bed until it was time to push (this has never happened before) and woke husband in time for him to catch Child #5. 🎉🙏❤️ The little man is already 9 days old and chuckles in his sleep. 🥲
That’s all well and good, I hear you say, miracle of life etc, but what of the call with Potentially Interested Agent?! Are we to be kept in the dark forever?
PIA was lovely. We spent an hour 😍 chatting about my book, what didn’t work for her and why. She gave me my narrative question 🙏❤️ which is the thing I’m now resculpting it all around. I managed (with copious help from Husband) to not let my tech:no vibes nuke proceedings, and successfully attended the zoom call from my laptop, with an ethernet connection (our WiFi is dreadfully unreliable) despite needing many adapters and an egg box to balance them on so said connection didn’t unplug itself halfway through.
It was my inaugural use of my study as an actual study (rather than for raising chicks or incarcerating cats) and didn’t I feel like an Author At Work. Despite all this careful prep to avoid disturbances, fate intervened with a fire alarm in PIA’s building, which nearly did for me as once disconnected (so PIA could relocate to the park) I of course was incapable of rejoining the zoom meeting, for reasons best know to my laptop. After a little somewhat helpless but determinedly positive email back and forth PIA provided her actual number and we finished up old school on the phone (while I frantically prayed my fickle phone reception would behave itself – and it mostly did🙏).
The call wasn’t, sadly, a list of precise things to change to secure an offer. Fair enough. What it was was a hugely encouraging experience where PIA opened my eyes to lots of stuff that was wrong with Book while encouraging me to “go wild” and fix it all. If I can convincingly rework it into something much better 🙏 and solve the issues she raised, she’d be very happy to give it another chance. No time frame, “take a year”…so obviously of course if I take too long she’ll probably have moved on, but it does mean I can probably fit in having Newbie without ruining my chances. Handy.
So that’s what I’ve been doing: working on Book (back to night time thumb typing again), learning how best Child #5 wants his new little life ordered, and recovering from the birth as hard as I can (this time round, I’ve eaten my placenta in true Country style – not that it’s a prerequisite of country living, but it definitely aligns with my personal Countrying vibes – all the animals do it after all, and thankfully 🙏 whizzed up in a smoothie it’s tasteless with just a little irony aftertaste).
Oh, and throwing the occasional packet of wet wipes out the window to see off the ever-bolder “wild” (abandoned) goats that seem determined to eat all our garden and scare our little ones. Because of course there are wild goats in our Sussex garden. It’s the Country.
Country Mum Writes 