The calming influence of The Other Half...

Tonight we had a horrible scare. I had my routine 31-week midwife check and all was going well until she started to listen to the baby's heartbeat. Normally this is a wonderful few minutes when yes, you do have to roll your top up, lie back and have cold jelly squirted onto your stomach, but you get to hear the amazing thudding heartbeat of your child in utero.

'It's very fast at the moment,' she said, and scribbled some numbers down on her pad. 'We'll listen again in a minute.' Repeat process. Same outcome. 'I'm going to listen for 5 minutes this time, as it's still not coming down.' Five minutes passed, more numbers scribbled. 'The baby's heart rate is very fast, and it's not coming down. It's around 190 bpm and the normal rate is between 120-140. This could be nothing to worry about; it may be the baby is just having a particulary busy afternoon in there that we've caught the middle of. But I'd like to send you up to the antenatal unit at your hospital to be on the safe side.'

We went to hospital, where I was hooked up to the fetal heart monitor (a very large, cold metal belt with a sensor on the buckle to record the baby's heartbeat) and checked and prodded by several midwives and an obstetrician. I've never seen so much graph paper in my life, and it was all coming out of the machine I was rigged up to. Finally, after three hours sitting in this room where women in varying stages of labour pain were coming and going, with The Other Half making conversation in an attempt to keep me calm, the doctor gave us the all-clear. Turns out they think I have a particulary active baby in there. But if I feel any pain at all, or the baby stops moving at all, I'm so go straight back to the unit. Relief.

Thank God everything is alright. And that The Other Half was with me - I would have been more of an incomprehensible quivering wreck had he not. He took us out for tea on the way home, and I burst into tears waiting in TGI Fridays for my chicken wrap. I think the enormity of everything hit me. I'm going to be a mother. And worry about this little person forever.

I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want...

This pregnancy continues to amaze me. A couple of nights ago I went along for a work's night out in the Salsa Cafe in town, where we were all munching on nachos and sipping sangria (virgin in my case), chatting about this, that and the other and the subject of pregnancy cravings came up. The usual tales about people eating industrial-sized jars of mayonnaise and gherkins were thrown into the mix, along with the obligatory 'I know someone who knows someone who ate chalk when pregnant (or add any other disgusting substance here - sometimes it's coal)' story, and I was asked whether I'd experienced any cravings yet.

I haven't had any, I explained. Apart from a couple of times after I'd stopped feeling car sick all the live long day and quite fancied a chocolate milkshake. But I don't think that was a proper craving, more like me really wanting milkshakes and using pregnancy as an excuse to have them. Yup, I thought I'd missed the boat with cravings.

Anyway, on my way home that evening I suddenly had an all-compassing hankering for (and this has divided the office as to whether this this absolutely rank or not) tinned mackerel and cucumber sandwiches. So much so, that I had to call The Other Half and ask him to make me some (and go and buy the bits if we didn't have the ingredients). He did both dutifully. (Even cut them into triangles as they taste better that way.) I have had mackerel and cucumber sandwiches every evening since. It's not so weird, is it? No different to tuna or salmon sandwiches? Well, that's my comeback anyway, when someone at work asks what the fishy pong emitting from my lunchbox is.

Grow, bump, grow!

I'm feeling very impatient. I'm in an awful inbetween stage of my pregnancy where I still don't really look like I'm with child, so passing folk just think I've stuffed myself with a few too many roast dinners and piled on several pounds round the middle. Urgh. However, there might be no real bump to speak of yet - but my clothes are getting a little nippy. And it's never a good thing when you can't fasten your jeans up anymore and the old elastic band and safety pin trick to get a wee bit more longevity out of them no longer works. Yup, time to go shopping for maternity clothes.

And that's what I did today. I was actually quite surprised with the range of stuff I've managed to get - it's all from stores I normally buy from, and very similar to what I'd wear anyway with a slightly different cut to make room for expanding stomachs. Apart from the best invention ever - maternity jeans! They look like regular jeans, but instead of having any buttons or zips at the top, they have an enormous stretchy jersey material piece that almost comes up to my armpits. But they're sooooooo comfy - I may actually wear them all the time, not just when I'm pregnant. (Incidentally, I had a male pal at uni who had a similar pair of pants he kept specially for nights when he ate his supper in those all-you-can-eat chinese buffets. Buffet pants, he called them.)

So I'm all set and can actually wear attire that fits to work next week. But I still want to know where this bump is. It's been four months now, surely it must be on its way? I WANT A BUMP! Please?

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.

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.

The vampire attacks...

The Other Half and I have a rare long weekend off together this weekend - ahead of him starting his new job on Tuesday. Normally we'd go out for sushi but that's gone out of the bloody window now. Sigh. Ah well. It was also my first appointment with the community midwife today. My gawd. Now, I'm not normally funny about needles and the like, but flamin' Nora did she take a lot of blood from me! It was one of those little tap things they spike your arm with and keep filling up many, many vials from...eight, to be exact. Eight vials of blood! I'm positive she took them home to drink, there can't be that many nasty blood disorder things to test for, surely?!

Anyway, aside from the stream of blood leaking from my arm and supplying the local vampire shack with their supper, we filled in lots of forms. LOTS. They covered everything from my job and health records to screening tests and what I had for breakfast. Well, perhaps not the latter- but we may as well have covered that because it felt like we touched upon everything else. For some odd reason, this first appointment with the midwife is called a 'booking in' appointment. Not sure why. Maybe all the form-filling means you're officially booked in to give birth at some point.

The midwife gave me a knowing smile when I told her I hadn't had any sickness. "Oh, give it a bit longer. It usually starts around 8-9 weeks." Fantastic. So now I've got puking to look forward to, along with excessive tiredness and wanting to go to bed at 7pm. How delightful.

Noooo! Please don't take my goat's cheese...

Today I printed off a list of food stuffs to check I'm not eating anything I really shouldn't be, especially as every food label I seem to read says things like 'contains raw eggs' or 'may be unsuitable for pregnant women'. May be? That's just not good enough - I need a definite answer! 'May be' is neither use nor ornament when I'm ransacking the fridge in a hunger rage. You might have gathered that I'd like to consider myself a bit of a foodie, so I'm not really looking forward to cutting out nice things I would normally eat without a second thought. So, here we go, the no-no list. Let's see what it says:

Raw/undercooked eggs
I hate mayo anyway, so no loss there. And I don't like dippy eggs and soldiers. But I suppose I'll have to read up on labels such as uncooked cheesecakes, mousse and lemon curd. Not so bad, as long as I can still have chocolate.

Pate and liver products
Ewww. Not something I would choose to eat anyway. So far so good. Apparently it's the vitamin A content in them or something that does something nasty.

Soft ice cream
That's fine. I'm not a fan of Mr. Whippy and listeria doesn't sound too pleasant a side effect, so we'll give this a miss.

Meat
Avoid undercooked meat - bye bye rare steaks! Ah well. I'm sure I can live without Parma ham and the like for a few months, too.

Fish
Limit intake of oily fish like salmon, mackerel etc. to two per week to cut the risk of pollutants, also tuna due to the mercury content. OK, that's doable. I will miss smoked salmon, however. But can't say I've ever eaten shark or swordfish so am unlikely to miss those.

Seafood
Only eat cooked seafood - no raw prawns etc. Which means no sushi - arrrrrgh! The Other Half better treat me to some sushi when I've de-sprogged, I tell you.

Unpasteurised dairy products
Avoid goat's and sheep's milk. Fair enough. And blue and soft cheese. Which means...horror of horror - I can't have goat's cheese, noooooo! I love goat's cheese.

The fridge better be stocked when I come home from hospital.