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Home / Lifestyle

<i>Dita De Boni:</i> Tina Fey and me

Herald online
8 Apr, 2011 01:00 AM3 mins to read

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I wish I could say I had more in common with brilliant US comedian Tina Fey, but there's only one thing I can think of.

It's nothing to do with her talent, her bank balance, or her fame, unfortunately. It is only that we are both five months pregnant with
a child we agonised over having.

For Tina, who broke the news of her pregnancy to Oprah Winfrey, the question was whether to interrupt an absolutely stellar career that continues to climb into the stratosphere.

From this perspective, it seems strange that someone who appears to have it all already - not to mention the money to make having another baby much easier - wouldn't happily take a pregnant pause. She can still write and do voiceovers when she's not appearing on screen, perhaps with the exception of the hardcore first few weeks with a newborn.

Her five-year-old daughter, apparently, wanted a baby sister, and with Tina getting on (she's 40) she decided to take the plunge.

For myself, the decision to have a third child has been similarly agonising.

For someone who loved working - and who finds staying at home with toddlers tests every fibre of my sanity - the strong and ceaseless desire to have three children was baffling, and frankly, annoying.

I wish I could have felt completely 'done' as my daughter, the younger child, grew out of babyhood into toddlerdom.

I now have two children out of nappies, sleeping (well, sort of) through the night, and with one about to go to school, there would have so much more time to devote to a career which has definitely been on the back burner for the past five years. Not to mention my marriage and husband, which patiently wait for me to emerge from mummyhood!

But when I looked at pregnant women, I continued to feel envy (I was told by someone once that when you saw pregnant women, and you felt nothing but pity, you knew you were 'done'!)

Despite miscarriages that knocked the stuffing out of me, I kept thinking, 'just one more try'.

I felt bad about the carbon footprint of another child, and annoyed that having three children now seems to be a trend (that I'm following, albeit unwittingly).

I long for a bank balance which isn't always run dry at the end of each month, and look forward with great urgency to a house that isn't strewn from one end to the other with kiddie crap.

And yet. The drive to do this was so overwhelming that I think - I hope - that it meant there was some reason I now find myself bloated, exhausted, stuffed up in the nose and eating for 20.

Call it a biological imperative, or a narcissistic urge, or just plain insanity, here I am: 38, five months pregnant, and ready and willing for another round of babyhood.

At least I can say for sure now though that there is no way - and I mean, absolutely no way - that I will be going again for round four!

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