Challenge Accepted!: 253 Steps to Becoming an Anti-It Girl

Me:ARE YOU SERIOUS?

Api:Sorry, I was just trying to lighten the mood.

Me:Come here and let me cut your dick off, that will lighten my mood!

So I got on all fours and bit the metal on the side of the bath and the pushing began. They say that you should push into your bum when having a baby and it makes you feel like you are pooing.

Well, Wendy had this covered. I was 45 minutes into pushing into my bum and Wendy, my Wendy, leant over and said how important it was for me to really focus on pushing like I was pooing.

Wendy:We’re nearly there, we really are.

Me:FUCKING ARSE TIT PRICK POO AND MUTHA FUCKING BALLS!!

Wendy:You’re doing so well, Mum.

ME:AAARRRGGGHHH!!!!

Wendy:Now, just keep focusing on pushing into your bum. I don’t want you to worry if you do a little poo, as I have a poop scoop.

With this she presented a poop scoop shaped like a ladle and showed it off proudly, much as Mufasa did with Simba in The Lion King. She put it next to my face, she showed it to Api and then just for added value showed it to me one more time.

This was all going on while I was mid-contraction. I turned around – well, my head turned 180 degrees and the rest of my body didn’t move. I glared at her with bloodshot eyes and snarled through gritted teeth: ‘I’m not interested in the poop scoop, Wendy. I don’t care if I shit on your face. Just. Get. Him. Out.’

Api was scared, the trainee midwife standing in the corner staring at my shirtless #hothusband in the bath was scared, I even scared myself. But Wendy didn’t flinch. She didn’t take her eyes off me as she slowly put the poop scoop down. I think if she could have she would have told me to shut the fuck up and know my place, but as she was a professional she let it slide. Wendy and Celeste BFF status was back on track.

An hour into pushing, Wendy said they needed to monitor my heart, as they didn’t want it to be straining for too long. Turns out that being in active labour for eight hours is fine but once you hit that eight hours and five minutes mark then people start to panic.

It was around this time that the burning ring of fire was really in full flight and Wendy could feel the top of my baby’s head. GROSS! She asked if I wanted to reach down between my legs and feel his head so I could be a part of this moment.

A PART OF THIS MOMENT? I am this moment. Without me there’s no baby head, there’s no #hothusband flexing in the bath and there’s no poop scoop. THERE IS NO FUCKING MOMENT! But I get FOMO real bad and I didn’t want to feel like I was being left out of my son’s birth, so I reached down and it was as gross as I had expected. It was gooey and hairy and fucking weird.

I gave myself a ‘hands where I can see them’ rule and continued grunting.

With another massive push, his head tore out. I was on all fours so I couldn’t see him, but Api could, and he said our son looked exactly like him and immediately started to cry. I was like a cat trying to get comfortable on a leather couch in an attempt to bend around and see my baby, but as the rest of his body was still inside my body I wasn’t as agile as I would have hoped. So I just had to trust Api.

A little birthing-in-the-water trivia: babies can stay underwater for ages before they need to draw their first breath, and it’s the atmosphere around them that pushes oxygen into their lungs. So when my son stayed immersed in water for a full minute between me pushing his head out (gross) and the next contraction when his body came flying out, and I was screaming, thinking he was drowning, it turns out he was fine.

When the rest of him came shooting out, I caught him, held him on my chest, rearranged the umbilical cord that was conveniently wrapped around my thigh, and never let him go.

We named him Lou.

I now have two beautiful boys, Lou and Buddy. They are by far the best thing that has ever happened to me, second to that time I met Sporty Spice.

The only five minutes Buddy (18 months here) slept in the first two years of his life.

Lou (age two) constantly reinventing the use of props.

If it all gets too hard, just hang your head out the window and scream!

@jessicasimpson

The One Where I Discovered Ritalin, My Childhood (Not So) Imaginary Friend (#ulink_09e80a8e-aa01-582b-9088-0333913ab5e2)

I COME FROM A SMALL FAMILY; it’s just the four of us – Mum Kath, Dad Nev, my older sister Olivia and me.

My parents are such a great team. Mum has a short fuse and Dad loves nothing more than ticking her off, in a loving way of course. Mum is really creative: she has run three successful interior design businesses, and at the ripe old age of 62 decided to start up her own soy candle brand, Flame Candles, supplying wholesale candles to shops across the country. My dad is the handiest and cleverest man in the world. He is funny and patient and can fix anything. Between them they have built two houses – Mum designed them and Dad built them – had two daughters, and put a lot of effort into naming their pets as though they were a barren couple and their pets were all they had. When I was born we had a silky terrier, Phoebe Josephine, then we got a schnauzer, Lucinda May, followed by another silky terrier, Bronte Isabella, and Mum is currently treating her second schnauzer, Clover Lee, like a misunderstood genius child.

Liv and I were lucky kids; we never went without. We had our own rooms, we could eat cheese whenever we wanted and, when we were annoying – and our parents sent us outside because we were being too loud – we had enough outdoor area to whip sticks at each other without doing any real damage.

I wasn’t really great at school, it just wasn’t my thing. Every now and then I’d pretend I had slipped into a deep coma, so when my dad came in at exactly 6.55am EVERY. SINGLE. MORNING to get me up for school, I would squeeze my eyes shut and go as stiff as a board, behaviour commonly associated with coma patients, so I wouldn’t have to go to school.

I just kind of hated the idea of it. I struggled academically, I couldn’t concentrate, I was bored easily and I just wanted to do anything other than having to stay still. Turns out I had ADD, and the small private Catholic school on the Far North Coast of New South Wales didn’t have that on their syllabus.

I love making people laugh – at me, with me, whatever. As long as people are laughing because of me, I’m happy. At school, I was the perfect scapegoat for my mates, who liked to stuff around, and also a good victim for teachers to unleash on.

English, PE, Science – basically any subject that didn’t require a microphone – were my least favourite. I remember Science was the most painful.

We had to line up outside before each Science class. All our bags had to be left outside, so we would get our books out and walk in single file past our teacher, who was standing at the door to see if she was happy with how we were standing. If she was satisfied with our posture, we were allowed into the classroom.

I was usually at the back of the line with my two unsuspecting partners in crime, Sean and Doug. They would have their stuff all ready to go, especially Sean – he was a really smart dude who Doug and I would playfully tease to make ourselves feel better.

On this one day, as I’ve always been a clusterfuck, I was probably asking to borrow a pencil from a girl who was already annoyed at me, and not listening to anything being said to me. As we were filing in, Mrs Science put her arm up in front of me. I thought she was looking for a high five, or at very least a fist bump, but I soon realised this wasn’t the case. She was ‘dealing with me’.

‘I’ll just get you to wait outside, Celeste,’ she said, without making eye contact.

‘What for?’ I protested.

‘We could do without the distraction today.’ And with that she closed the door.

The rest of the class had already filed in, including Sean and Doug, and I watched them longingly, much like the way Rose looked at Jack when he slipped off the door in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean at the end of Titanic.

I was so embarrassed, but because this soon became her standard practice, I learnt how to channel the shame.

But really. Distraction? You think not allowing me into the classroom, and leaving me outside with everyone’s bags and a wall of windows in which EVERYONE can see me, would stop me from being distracting? I guess not all scientists are smart.

For a comedian, being sent out of class before it even started due to the risk of being distracting is like Bill Cosby being given free Rohypnol and a private suite at The Plaza. If I had an unobstructed view of Sean and Doug, then shit got really real.

For these kinds of impromptu performances, I had a few standard gags that were my staples. The elevator travelling down and pretending to be pulled offstage were my go-to gags; they always got a laugh. Pretending to be attacked by a bee was another crowd-pleaser. Or, if I could get someone’s attention while Mrs Science had her back turned, then I’d mime asking them a question though the window, and when they responded I’d mime, ‘I can’t hear you.’ It brought the house down.

The main attraction was my disappearing act. When Mrs Science turned around to see what everyone was laughing at, I’d jump on the ground out of sight, buried in everyone’s bags. Eating people’s unattended food was the payoff.

I wasn’t a naughty kid; I was too scared to be naughty. I was just loud – loud and funny – and most of my teachers didn’t dig it. But I was OK with it. If anything it helped me. It helped me work on being a funnier lady, a stronger lady and a more resilient lady.

Being diagnosed with ADD (or maybe it’s ADHD, I can’t really remember, I wasn’t paying attention) was the greatest thing that could have ever happened to me – well, that and getting tickets to Janet Jackson’s ’98 Velvet Rope world tour. (People say Rhythm Nation was her greatest album, but I’m telling you The Velvet Rope had everything: badarse beats, haunting ballads and enough Auto-Tune to turn any of the straightest ladies gay.)

I always had the best intentions. I would organise to study like a boss. My parents had set up a study area for my sister and me, and I’d get my pens out and put them alongside my school books. My calculator was in prime calculator position, and I’d even write up a study timetable, using every colourful pen at my disposal. Red for Maths, pink for Drama, and then I didn’t care about the rest. The timetable would be stuck on the wall directly in front of me.

I’d have a lovely glass of room-temperature water ready to go, and I’d pick up my pen, keen to get my study on, then … that would be the end of it. I’d be distracted by something, anything. The dog walking past, an unfolded towel in the corner of the room, my mum sneezing from the neighbours’ living room, anything would catch my attention and I’d be out of there. This, my friends, is what they call in The Biz ‘classic ADD behaviour’. I had all the best of intentions of sitting and doing work, I was even excited about buying all the stationery and desk accessories, but I just. Couldn’t. Do. It.