15 weeks

So, second trimester, here I am! Where are all those goodies you promised me? Just get through first trimester, you said, and then it’s smooth sailing all the way. I know it seems hard now, you assured me, but things will get SO much better in phase 2, trust me. You strung me along, you cad. You lied.

Hell hath no fury like a pregnant woman duped.

Oh ok, it’s not all that bad. It must be said that I am no longer nauseated by odd things (just the usual things – my reflection, screaming babies), and the teenage acne has abated. Physically, my body seems to have just decided to put its feet up and chill on out a bit, which makes a nice change. It’s good to be eating everything again (and I do mean everything), and I am ridiculously, disproportionately thankful for experiencing a slight resurgence in energy.













Here’s my bump. I don’t know about you, but D and I have been having quite a time deciding whether it’s a bump at all. We’ve been scrutinizing my belly every morning, me turning this way and that and prodding it with various things, without ever reaching a conclusion. However, in the last 3 days it seems to have become an actual bump. It just sort of popped out a bit, which is kind of nice. Most people still probably wouldn’t notice, and might just think I’ve let myself go a bit, but it’s extremely noticeable for me and I’m constantly aware of it. The starting-to-show date seems to vary wildly among different women… three of my friends started showing around 12 – 13 weeks while another has only really just started, and she’s around 20 weeks. Anyway, everyone assures me I will indeed eventually have a big enough bump and several particularly wise souls urge me to enjoy the mobility while I have it.

All the books warn the pregnant reader that once your with-child status is publicly known (either through word of mouth or physical evidence) you’ll constantly be fielding unwanted, unsolicited advice from all and sundry on a) pregnancy and b) child-rearing. I’m lucky enough to not have any such busy-bodies hanging about, and all the advice I get from those close to me is sound, and greatly appreciated. However. I have noticed a disturbing trend among women (and some men) I really don’t know all that well, which involves the highly graphic and drawn-out recounting of a friend / partner’s horrific 274-hour labour involving 756,344 stitches and countless problems which evidently occurred because the poor woman was ‘about your size’ (i.e. my size, which is to say on the small side). Well thank you very bloody much indeed, but I do think it’s within the realm of possibility that smallish women have given normal, non-horrific birth in the past. Not only is this sort of fantastically insensitive advice perturbing (of course you can’t help but dwell on those gory details), it is also utterly rage-inducing. On this matter, What To Expect When You’re Expecting advises the expecting lady thusly: ‘Don’t let unwanted advice get your dander up.’ Um, ok, I won’t. (What the hell is a dander, and what happens when it gets up??). Up The Duff advises you meet the advice with a distant stare and vacant smile, which is slightly more effective. I prefer vigorous physical violence, which has numerous added benefits such as cardiovascular exercise (good for mums and bubs!).

Apparently the bub is around 10cm long or so now, and weighs 80 grams, which doesn’t mean all that much to me (80 grams is a shitload of some things, and very little of others, wouldn’t you agree?). What To Expect and several other books attempt to make yours / baby’s changing weight more relevant by likening your growing uterus size to pieces of fruit… which is useful, but decidedly odd (having said that, it’s hard to think of anything more appropriate to compare it to… Marsupials? Whitegoods?). I’m half way between a grapefruit and a small melon apparently, so there you go

Cry me a river? Build me an ark! Weepiness…. Oh lord, the tears I’ve cried! I’ve always been a crier, it must be said, but I mean seriously. These days I will literally cry at the drop of a hat... I can inject pathos into anything, and I do, and the result is an extremely messy blubbering mess, a lot of the time. Happy things make me cry, sad things make me cry, funny things make me cry. It’s embarrassing, awkward for those around me, and completely uncontrollable. Sick kids / animals, forget it. Someone does something nice for me (like smile in my general direction), it’s all over. The washing machine stops working, I go to pieces. I am sincerely hoping this particular symptom takes leave of me soon, as it’s really rather inconvenient, striking at any time and generally hanging around a lot longer than is socially acceptable.

A rose by any other name is still a rose, sure, but a young girl named Garnet is the daughter of a very messed up woman. I encountered said girl / mother combo at the park the other day and proceeded to watch, mouth agape, as mumsy hollered after her dear little one, named not after a jewel but after a semi-precious and not particularly lovely stone. What on earth possesses some people? Did she think Ruby was too obvious? Did it have to be a gem of some sort? Why? Which is really my long-winded way of saying that D and I are up to choosing names, which is lots of fun, though paradoxically there seem to be very few good names (that aren’t taken) out there. (There apparently exists a ‘New Age Names’ book, which I just have to get my hands on for a laugh). Luckily, we tend to agree on our top 4 or 5, which is ace, though I am sure things will change and anyway, we’ll have to meet him/her before we can make a proper decision on his/her lifelong label. Anyhoo, after much agonizing, our shortlist so far: Adolf, Genghis, Digger, Strelizia, Foofoo and Petunia. All suggestions welcome!

12 Weeks

So I’ve started a blog. Woohoo. While this is in effect a pregnancy blog, it is not to be confused with a ‘pregnancy blog’. By that I mean I will not be recording fascinating weekly insights into my digestive system, swapping handy high-fibre diet hints or debating the various pros and cons of breast v. bottle (though breast is best, as any fule kno). These things are of course all very worthy of heated and lengthy discussion, but frankly a bit dull for those of us who are not presently knocked up. And I give you my word that you will not read the words ‘fundus’, ‘mucus’ or ‘discharge’ on these pages; not once, not ever, so help me.

Here’s me now. I haven’t gained any weight yet which is a bit unusual, in a bloody fantastic kind of way. There’s a small bump there, but that’s bloat.


12 weeks down…

So, first trimester. Thank CHRIST that’s over. Things are back to being quasi-normal in our nest, after what can only be described as a prize cunt of a time. Finding out we were pregnant was fun of course, though D was a tad unprepared - I sprung it on him while he was washing up and really quite annoyed (I have never in my life known a male who is not annoyed whilst washing up). For a day we were all high and warm-fuzzied and amazed at ourselves, which was nice. If only we’d known how good we had it that day.

If you are not and have not been pregnant, don’t ever let anyone tell you first trimester is ‘fun’ (or worse, ‘magical’). It’s not. It’s foul. Firstly, the moodiness. Oh lordy, the moodiness… Unlike PMT, where your irrational weepiness / anger / lethargy is easily identifiable and therefore able to be put aside somewhat, pregnancy moods are literally like being possessed. You deeply, truly believe in your moods, and act accordingly. I have been so angry at certain times that my heart rate has started racing and I can hear my own blood pumping in my ears. As Ms. J said to me, it’s like you’re trapped inside yourself – you know you’re being evil, but there’s nothing you can do about it. My advice to anyone new to the preggers game is to just go with it, and don’t think you need to be all ‘hail-me-and-my-innate-nature-mother-goddess-within’ about it. If you feel shit, you feel shit. Go to bed with a good book.

Something a lot of the books and whatnot tend to skip over is the initial shock of a lifestyle shift. And I don’t mean giving up fags and drinking exactly (though that’s not a walk in the park either, frankly). I was unprepared for the sense of loss I experienced for a couple of weeks in the very beginning… it’s hard to put my finger on exactly what I mean by ‘loss’, but it very much felt like I was leaving a large part of my life behind, and that some significant things in my life had come to an end. I guess it’s to do with becoming a mother, the looker-afterer, and the leaving behind of the last vestiges of hedonistic youth (I have a deep and pathological fear that once bub comes I will just –poof! – turn into a MUM, wearing too-high mum jeans and saying things like ‘Oh and I suppose Mr. Nobody took it, did he?’). Obviously, this does not mean I resented or regretted being pregnant – au contraire! - but the two feelings, joy and loss, co-existed in equal parts for a time, and that was pretty overwhelming (at these times I could’ve murdered a few ciggies and glass or 3 of wine, let me tell you).

Then there’s the sickness. Mine was quite bad, and struck while I was in the middle of a 6-week teaching prac. I don’t believe there is any environment more suited to inducing ‘morning’ sickness than a large primary school. That coupled with the psychotic moodiness made for some pretty interesting teaching experiences. Several times I burst into tears spontaneously, experiencing a rush of heart-cockles-being-warmed (some little tacker running his heart out in an athletics race, for example) and at others I could quite literally have back-handed one of the little effers across their smart little face without thinking twice (luckily, common sense prevailed). The sickness meant I quite literally could only eat fruit and cheese sambos at this stage, and anything more exotic than that made me retch violently. And believe me, kids eat wayyyy more exotic things than that.

I promised I would not talk digestion, and I won’t, except to say that the expulsion of waste from my body became a temperamental business ( lots of one, none of the other – pregnant women know what I mean). Boobs, much bigger. Skin, acne-prone. Dizzy spells. Exhaustion: That was probably the hardest bit. Ms. L, who is also currently up duff, was so exhausted through her first trimester recently that during her workday she would nip into the toilets to rest her poor weary head on the toilet roll holder for a few minutes several times a day. It’s a glamorous business, pregnancy.

This is getting dangerously close to the ‘pregnancy blog’ side of things, so I’ll get her back on course and wrap her up. Pregnancy books. Very handy, naturally. Everyone in the whole entire world who has ever had a baby has What To Expect When You’re Expecting. I do too. It’s a great book, full of sound information and advice. I only have two problems with it. One is the constant referring to ‘your husband’ (blergh), and the other is the front cover. To wit:


Doesn't she just look like a barrel of laughs? Though to be fair, this image probably freaked me out more than it should have, as at this point in my pregnancy I was feeling less like that, and more like this:

I also have Kaz Cooke’s Up The Duff which is good – irreverent, funny, more realistic and all that, though a tad too cool for school if you ask me (never happy, am I?)

Apart from that I am not allowed to eat anything that I like or that I might accidentally enjoy, I have the mental computation rate of a single cell organism, and have just embarked on the great Hospital / Midwife Choosing Adventure which has already had me in tears twice, and which last week resulted in a bitchy battle of wills with a sour, nasal-voiced woman named Janette (it was over the phone, but I just know she wore those stupid bangle things that hold your sleeves up, and had glasses with a jeweled neck strap).

But of course it’s not all bad… all my nasty bastard first trimester symptoms just disappeared overnight last week, just like that. This of course sent us into a tailspin, convinced as I was that something terrible had happened, and we rushed off for an emergency ‘reassurance’ scan. Everything was fine of course, and seeing the little grub’s heart beating furiously away, its funny wriggly movements and its tiny little face was pretty bloody awesome indeed (even maybe magical). And here's a lovely photo of the happy couple...