Sickness, Sex and Placentas – 20 Week Pregnancy Update  

Yes, there is a bun in my lady oven! I know most people who follow me on social media will already be aware of this fact but I haven’t blogged about this pregnancy yet (bar referencing my constant urge to wee in the recent tale of the pissy frying pan) and now that I have whizzed past the halfway mark it felt about the right time to offer something by way of an update. I suppose I should start at the very beginning. Well, not the very beginning, you probably don’t need know how and when the bun got there, though evidently there are some people who would like this information (slightly disconcerting that Bev from Warminster reckons she's 'pinpointed the weekend of conception' and messaged to tell me so - she wasn't far off actually, round of applause for Bev). 

I found out that I was pregnant at around four weeks but decided to wait until sixteen weeks to ‘go public’ with an announcement and I did so for a number of reasons. The first was that I had an almighty ‘do I really want to live this pregnancy online?’ wobble which culminated in a dramatic ‘I’m going to shut down all my social media accounts until after the baby is born!’ episode. I am mostly blaming my hormones for that one, I just felt in that instant that I wanted to protect our baby secret and not start splashing him or her on the internet before they were the size of a fig. I’ll be totally honest, I also had an underlying feeling of dread that people would think our decision to have another baby was somehow grounded in a desire to produce more blog/book material, which couldn’t be further from the truth. There are, in fact, a multitude of reasons why we felt three was our magic number and I think perhaps those warrant a blog post of their own (I know, I know, it may not have been the motive but being preggers really does provide a wealth of blog material). 

So, how have the first five months of pregnancy been, this time around? Well, I’m feeling pretty spritely now but I would be lying if I told you that the first four months were anything but shit. The pregnancy sickness was by far the worst I have ever had, kicking in at around six weeks and lasting until week seventeen. I wasn’t alarmingly ill during any of those weeks and having read several accounts of Hyperemesis Gravidarum, including this one from Susie Verrill (who was effectively bedridden for two months and spent Christmas Day trying to nibble a potato over a sick bag), I considered myself lucky to be functioning at all. I promised myself that I wouldn’t moan, constantly reminding myself of how fortunate I was to be carrying another baby and yet there were days when I struggled to see the light. Feeling sick all the time is simply exhausting. I don’t think there was a single moment in those eleven weeks when I didn’t feel nauseous and at around 4PM every day 'feeling off' turned into retching and vomiting. I counted forty-three consecutive days when my evening meal came back up and sometimes that ‘meal’ was half a slice of dry toast. At week eleven I gave myself a ‘mind over matter’ pep talk and headed out for dinner with friends where, after catching a whiff of moules marinière, I threw up in the toilet, blamed my lack of appetite on a large lunch and then cried all the way home. 

There were several bizarre occasions when I craved massive platefuls of carbs, almost to the point of compulsion (frozen Yorkshire puds with gravy were a go-to snack) yet after eating them I would feel so rotten that I would either have to be sick or go to bed to sleep off the dirty carb-coma. My freelance articles went completely by the wayside, I made feeble ‘stomach bug’ excuses for almost all my pre-booked work engagements, I snapped at the boys for making too much noise and I stopped replying to texts from friends who were in the know because I was just not in a positive enough mindset to start thinking about baby names and pushchairs. Even writing this is making me sound mardy but I wanted to share it because I have had so many messages from women who are beating themselves up for not ‘cherishing’ the first trimester (and beyond) and I believe so strongly that saying, ‘Jesus, this is a bit shit’ doesn’t make you ungrateful for the bigger baby-carrying picture. 

Sickness aside, there are a great many pregnancy quirks, for want of a better word, that I’d forgotten about and some of these have proved more comical than others (now that I have shaken off the feeling-rotten cloud I am laughing a lot). My boobs are massive, which, as the owner of ‘B cup on a good day’ breasts (the bra-fitter’s words) is no bad thing. However, they are also dry and itchy (I guess from where the skin has been stretching?!) and when I removed my over-shoulder-boulder-holder the other day a shower of body dandruff flaked out. I know. 

I’ve become so sexually disinterested that I think my vagina has gone inverted. Figuratively speaking, that is, because in a literal sense quite the opposite has happened and there are now parts down there that look like they are on steroids. This is at month five. I can only assume that by month nine people will be renting out the inflatable space for a quick game of Total Wipeout. 

The cellulite on my arse and upper thighs has quadrupled in surface area and the growing baby pip in my tummy has given me the world’s worst wind. I also have the chin of a pubescent teenager, with new spots appearing out of nowhere. You have all been so kind with your comments on the pregnant photo of me on holiday but you should know that I made my husband take at least twenty snaps before deleting nineteen of them and putting two filters on the sole survivor because I have never felt less attractive. If my first and second pregnancies weren't evidence enough then the first half of this pregnancy has well and truly confirmed that I am a grower and not a glower. 

On a more serious (and non-fanny-related note) I’ve found myself worrying a LOT. The more time I have spent on social media, the more I have come to realise that carrying a healthy baby to full term is not something that should ever be taken for granted and I can’t help but feel that, on reflection, I was a bit blasé (albeit unintentionally) during my previous pregnancies about the enormity of bringing another life into the world. I am way more on edge this time, like it's all too good to be true somehow. My brain went into overdrive on the way to our 20-week scan and hearing that everything was as it should be with the baby at this stage was just such a relief. We do have to go back at 32-weeks for another scan because at present the placenta is covering my cervix (and if it doesn't shift it’ll be delivery via the sun-roof) but my thoughts about that are: a) there’s ages for it to shift yet, and b) I honestly don’t care how he comes out as long as he’s ready. 

So there you have it, a slightly rambling write up of how things have been and how I am feeling at this halfway stage. I am not planning a regular ‘pregnancy update’ style feature as I’m sure there is only so much you’ll want to hear about my body dandruff and blow-up vulva but I will document any significant developments because despite my initial wobble about ‘oversharing,' it struck me while writing this post that oversharing is all I know. And I am truly very happy to be oversharing this third-baby adventure with you. 

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