The Truth About Pregnancy

Ah pregnancy. The miracle of life! The joy of growing something created out of love!

When I found out I was pregnant in February I was in complete and utter shock. In fact, The Boy thought it was hilarious that I just stood in the kitchen crying and shaking.

Of course I was happy, of course I was grateful, and of course I thank God regularly for the blessing he has given our little family – especially when so many of my friends and colleagues have had such struggles with fertility.

But here’s the thing they don’t tell you. Pregnancy is HARD. Pregnancy is WEIRD. Pregnancy, quite frankly, sucks balls. The books LIE. The movies LIE. Let me enlighten you on my pregnancy....

My Truths About Pregnancy, that the books, movies and your friends don’t tell you.

It’s Overwhelming. Not only do you have to get your head around the fact that you do have a human life force sucking all the nutrients and energy from your body, but you have to contend with the sheer amount of baby information overload. What the fuck is the difference between a travel system and a buggy? To breastfeed or not to breastfeed? Is the baby ok? Bah! It’s enough to make any sane woman sit down in the furniture section of Kiddicare and have a cry because she can’t possibly be a good mother if she doesn’t know squat about prams (Which has happened)

2Goodbye Wine. Goodbye Coffee. Yes, all women know that you shouldn’t drink or have lots of caffeine when you’re knocked up – nobody tells you just how hard it will be to give that up. Especially when pre-baby you drank 6 cups of coffee a day (the caffeine withdrawal headaches combined with extreme tiredness nearly broke me). Plus now it’s summertime in London, and the streets are full of smug twats drinking wine and cocktails in the sunshine after work– only one of my most favourite thing to do in the world. But it’s not just that, did you know you’re not supposed to have runny eggs (and if you can’t have dippy yolks what the fuck is the point?), or ham, or certain seafood, or too much sugar. And let me tell you, when you already can’t eat Gluten, pregnancy diet is a bitch.

     You will be so tired, that you will pop to the loos at work just to rest your eyes for 5 minutes because you can’t physically keep them open any more. The first trimester particularly, when you are trying to hide the fact that you are knocked up, is even more exhausting. And now, approaching my third trimester, waddling up the stairs at the station leaves me so knackered I need the 30 minute train ride to recover.Your partner will also be tired, as the bigger you get, the more you will disrupt their sleep. He'll be relegated to the spare room, and you will surround yourself with more pillows than  you even thought you had in your house.

4  Hormones. Prepare yourself ladies. Not only will they potentially make your skin flower with pimples like you are in the first flush of puberty, you will cry for absolutely no reason. You will get irrationally angry for no good reason and your partner will piss you off (he can’t complain though, after all it was HIM who did this to you!).

5 Some of my friends have been lucky enough to enjoy pregnancy sex. With all that extra blood flowing around, things get more sensitive and you'll be gagging for it right? I mean, that’s what the books tell you! It's what happened to Rachel on Friends. Bollocks. (Men, stop reading now)My penance for not having morning sickness seems to be a complete lack of sensation in my lady parts. That’s right, not only am I numb (unless it is aching after sitting down all day) they have swollen up, so it’s hard to even get in there. Even my trusty, reliable old friend that is my vibrator has now become redundant. Combine that with the sore ass, constipation and piles, and I’m doubting whether I’ll ever feel sexy again.   

Don't understimate the aches and pains.... you will be carrying around a beachball. It will hurt. Your boobs will become unbearable to touch. Your back will be done for the day by about 10am, and I have even got a strange tingling sensation in my upper back that comes and goes. Kind of like pins and needles, but more weird.  Prepare to be seriouly uncomfortable for 9 months. 

People you have only ever shared idle chit chat about the weather when photocopying invoies will insist on telling you their gory birth story, and share all their wonderful, enlightened advice for motherhood. All you will want to do is tell them to fuck off back to the hole that they came from. You will find that even with people you do like, the converstaion will 95% of the time be about the baby. The other 5% of the time it will be about Game of Thrones or work. Get used to it. You will be asked thousands of times if you plan on finding out the sex of the baby. Ir ecommend telling them you know and then refusing to tell them, just to torture them. it might be the most fun you have in all of pregnancy!      

Don't get me wrong, I love my little unborn vampire baby ( christened vampire baby as it feeds on all of my nutrients and energy) and can't wait for he or she to bust out of my swollen lady parts into the big wide world. I'm just struggling with struggling all the time. But hey, as a pregnant lady, I'm entitled to whine, right?