6 Mar 2010

Things I did not know about being prego before I was prego.

1. You count the weeks of pregnancy from the beginning of your last period. So you're already two weeks pregnant by the time you concieve. I'm eleven weeks now, but baby's only been in existence for nine weeks. Confusing no?. By this logic everybody is pregnant at all times.

2. Early pregnancy necessitates much snoozing. Things that are LESS exhausting than the first three months of pregnancy include
  • Working four jobs simultaneously for two months while averaging 4 hours sleep a night to save enough money to move to London.
  • Going straight from a party to work, still drunk and then shuddering into a painful hangover at about 2pm.
  • Sorting and packing 25 years worth of assorted debris from your parent's attic, alone, overnight.
  • Listening to your boyfriend talk about local planning regulations and how they may or may not affect his plans to develop the house whilst pretending you a) understand and b) care.
3. You don't just quit booze and smoking. No more coffee, soft cheese, rare meat, runny eggs, redbull, chocolate, shellfish, tuna, artificial sweetener, coke (the drink AND the drug), pate, unpasturied milk, home-made chocolate moose, painkillers, skin creams containing Retin A, hayfever pills, vicks vapour rub, sauna/jacuzzi, Bikram yoga, not wearing bras, being thin.

4. You have to should excercise three times a week and the excercise MUST be deeply boring. Much gentle walking, gentle swimming, gentle swaying etc. No body-popping, pole-dancing, cage-fighting.

5. People don't give you a seat on the tube, they just avoid eye contact. Perhaps they are worried in case I am just fat and they give offence. Or perhaps they're just knobs. I have taken to staring with intense agression at strangers for the duration of my hour long commute.

6. Other people don't find anecdotes about your cravings, mood swings, expanding girth and antenatal appointments all that interesting. My friends are also oddly reluctant to discuss the merits of natural labour vs drug-assisted delivery or the shoddy state of maternity rights for the self employed.

7. You develop a super-human sense of smell. I can smell strawberries THROUGH the fridge door.

8. Eating crackers in bed before you get up helps the all fucking  day  morning sickness. And makes satisfying crunchy sound.

9. Everyone in the universe has an opinion on what you should be eating, doing, watching, reading and preparing for and everyone in the universe assumes you want to hear said opinion.

10. Boys do not check you out anymore and when they do by accident and then realise you're prego'd, they look mortified/ashamed/disgusted depending on which age bracket they fall into.

11. At only 11 weeks baby can make a tiny fist, swallow, bend and flex tiny joints and spin around inside me like a ballerina. Baby can even frown (baby is judgemental like it's Daddy). It's definatively a girl or boy, has all it's major organs and is the size of a lime.

12. It is bizarre feeling to love someone you've never met, indeed it is bizarre to love someone who is busy growing their own digestive system.

Baby now looks a bit like this one, but more stylish.

1 comment:

  1. Roisin, I have always said this but I will again, you are a very good writer.

    ReplyDelete