The things nobody tells you part one...

Here are a few things I have discovered so far about being pregnant. Nobody thinks to tell you this stuff when you're knocked up. It can be a bit of a shocker. I'm sure there's some covert operation in place to keep these delightful symptoms a secret from all women of a child-bearing age in case they never procreate. Anyway.

First trimester pregnancy awfulness:

Tiredness.
This just hits you all of a sudden. It has so far led to going to bed at 7pm and uncontrollable sobbing on my part for no reason whatsoever. And I can't even watch adverts any more for fear of seeing some homeless kitten on the RSPCA fundraising one.

Digestion.
To be blunt, it's slower. Thankfully I haven't had heartburn and fingers crossed I don't...I've heard horror stories of women drinking nothing except Gaviscon and mint tea for nine months.

Puffiness and heaviness.
This is not baby weight. It's water retention (the kind you usually get right before your period - except this time there is no relief of that for at least another 8 months.) You just feel rubbish and large, and there's not even any visible sign of a baby yet.

Boobs.
They've just grown! Out of nowhere! This is not such a bad thing in men's eyes - but they hurt like hell. They're tender and sore and the nipples are the worst. It's even painful to take a freakin' shower. And bras don't fit you anymore.

Wee.
You pee round the clock. Why? I have no idea. The baby is so teeny it can't be pushing on your bladder. But it's obviously doing something to it.

Going off stuff.
Nature's way of purging your body of bad stuff, I suppose. Gone off coffee and alcohol completely - which is no bad thing as you're not supposed to have them anyway. I've also randomly gone off bananas.

Morning sickness.
It's a big lie. Gone by lunchtime? Ha! I wish. It's all the live long day. And here's another thing: THERE IS NO CURE! It's horrendous. I'm bloody sick of ginger snaps. The only thing I've found to keep it at bay is to graze on rice crackers throughout the morning. Which is like eating drinks coasters.

Glowing.
No - it's not pregnant lady radiance, it's sweating from all the hurling and retching and the effort of constantly running to the loo. My skin has broken out in sympathy spots, and my face permanently looks like I've just sprinted up the stairs several times.

I'll do an update of everything else I'm looking forward to (I say with a hint of sarcasm - cravings, bumps, freaky movement, sleep or lack of - oh yes) as and when they happen. Oh what a wonderful time this is.

More jelly on my belly...

We (t'Other Half and I) trundled off to the hospital for our re-scan today - and we now have an official due date! Today I am 12 weeks + 4 days pregnant and the baby is apparently due on 4th January. Which is the date I'll have to go with even though I don't agree with it as it'll be on all my official forms for maternity leave etc. Hmmm. I work it out to be nearer the original date that the midwife gave me, 29th December. Oh well. (And you can use your imagination as to how I can work it out. Let's just say we only needed to try once and you get the idea.)

This is the third due date I've been given actually, 29th Dec first, then it moved to 31st Dec...and now 4th Jan. Whatever - this baby will turn up somewhere around New Year. (I've now jinxed it all and bubs will decide to make an appearance mid-Jan, and give me two weeks of overdue hell.) The hospital folk carried out some tests today, too - and took some more blood (I've never had so many blood tests in my life) to do the nuchal fold combined test which assesses the likelihood of the baby having Down's Syndrome, the results of which I'll get soon. But everything else looked fine according to them.

And at least they had the decency to warm up that sodding gel before plastering it over my stomach this time. By god, it was cold last week. It's all over my jeans, though.

It's all so very twee...

Short post today as I can't really be bothered, if I'm frank. I promise to have interesting things to write about (and actually be arsed to write them) very soon. Ooh, actually, this is good news and worth shouting about: The Other Half started his new job today. Woohoo! Well done him, it hasn't taken him long at all really - and he's slogged his heart and soul out to find a decent role. And I'm not 100% sure exactly what the job is...something to do with online marketing?? I'll really have to learn. Bad wife.

It was Fathers' Day yesterday - and I made The Other Half a little card from the bump. Overly-sentimental, syrupy and corny? Yes. But hell, this might only happen once so I feel no shame milking every soppy occasion for all its worth!

Finally, it's all official...

Yay! I had my first scan yesterday - how surreal! And flamin' Nora that gel they use is cold. Everything was fine as far as they could see except I'm not as far along as they first thought, so will need another scan next week so they can carry out some tests they couldn't do yesterday. They reckoned I'm about 11 weeks gone at the minute. It was so strange seeing teeny arms and legs waving about on the screen and knowing that was a person growing inside me! And a little bit alien.

I took my best pal her birthday present last night and showed her the photo. She's over the moon too, so that's lovely. And it all makes sense to her now why I've been so awkward eating out for the last couple of months. It's so good to finally be able to tell people - I let the rest of my work colleagues know today - and in grand new technological custom, announced it on Facebook tonight. So the world now knows. Phew.

Little white lies part two...

The Other Half went to see Oasis last night, and took the chap who was his usher rather than me - which is something else I have to sulk about. (I spouted off some utter tripe about working late on a webinar and not being able to make it. Grrr.) Ok, ok - I donated the ticket to him myself as I'm still feeling like absolute shit on a stick, but I wanted to go! It would have been money down the drain though I wouldn't have seen much of the concert owing to the fact I'd have been in the loos for most of the evening then either gone home early or curled up under my seat to sleep. And sleep on a stadium floor is something I never want to do, regardless of how tired I am.

On a different note, my tea tonight consisted of things I haven't eaten since I was 12 (waffles, fish fingers and beans). Interesting. But they seemed to be the only food items that didn't make me feel queasy at the thought of. Hence my cupboards are now packed to the hilt with tins of beans and I predict many meals of beans on toast in the foreseeable future. Oh, and I ended up telling the guy who sits next to me at work today the truth as he's been asking me for a while now if I'm alright, and outright asked me this morning if I was pregnant. And since at the time I was nibbling ginger snaps with a grey, sleepy-yet-ready-to-throw-up expression, I couldn't think of a viable excuse so swore him to secrecy.

Gawd almighty, I'm counting down until I can tell everyone about this small person inside me so they can stop thinking I'm a tired, cranky, hungover bint. Well, they'll think that anyway but at least they'll know why I'm such a bint.

Little white lies part one...

Urgh.

Yes, I'm irritable. Shut up. I'm getting tired of keeping schtum now. Thinking of excuses for everything is almost as exhausting as being pregnant. Well, not quite, but you know what I mean. I also feel the need to bleat on about it all here because I can't vent it elsewhere. So I'd be prepared for some boring baby ranting posts if I were you. In fact, if you're adverse to such things, just bugger off now and save yourself the time.

I had tea out with the gals tonight. Which is usually a lovely, chatty affair but between me fighting to stay awake (not the company's fault, I'm just THAT tired at the minute) and having to pretend I'm not that hungry (not like me at all), I just couldn't be bothered with it all and found myself fantasising about going to bed with new pyjamas and clean sheets rather than participate in conversations about people we went to school with. Choosing what I could have from the menu was also rather trying. Sticking to lemonade is not my scene, and neither is not having coffee. Actually I was feeling quite bleurgh and sorry for myself in general but had to keep a fixed grin and at least appear interested in the exploits of my non-knocked up chums.

I've also found it difficult keeping things concealed at work, too. Being bleurgh at work is becoming much harder to disguise. This is partly my own doing too, though. Aside from needing the loo all the live long day and nibbling on all manner of sickness 'remedies' - trying to keep Amazon deliveries of baby books to work inconspicuous is like a Russian spy operation to get the packages safely to my desk unnoticed. Must find suitcases and large newspaper with cut-out eye holes.

Oh, I've managed to irritate myself now. Good night.

The icks and yuks...

To top off my already skipping-through-a-meadow-filled-with-daisies-mood, this morning the Vampire Midwife turned out to be correct. The sickness has started. Bang on cue. Just when I thought I might be one of the lucky ones and escape this indignity - my body obviously laughed out loud and made other plans. Oh, I can't begin to describe how lovely it is. I haven't actually hurled as of yet, but spent most of the morning whilst getting ready running to the bathroom as I almost did hurl. And retching and feeling grotty is just as bad as actually being sick as you have the wonderful task of feeling like a big bag of cack without the silver lining of the sweet release of puke.

Busy looking up sickness remedies as I type. I can't eat anything. The smell, taste and very thought of food at the minute turns my stomach. And I had to go into work and spend the day pretending everything was fine and dandy in various meetings with a demonic grin on my face that while creepy, at least hid the nauseating urge to barf over my director's shoes. Which, to be fair - if you had seen her shoes you might want to do the same.