For a long time, I wondered what it would be like to be pregnant. Now that it is finally here, I have to report that it’s actually rather, well, boring. There are obvious highlights, of course, and no doubt things will get more exciting the nearer to the birth we get, but for the time being my life is rather repetitive.
Every night I drive 8 miles home from work and park in the village car park and walk to the house. Where I remove the uncomfortable but still the most comfortable of my formal work clothes and replace them with jogging bottoms and ugg boots before sitting down exhausted on the sofa. I feed the cat, and summon the energy to prepare some food. Whereon I sit on the sofa with a hot water bottle and watch TV for an hour or so. By 10pm I am in bed.
Constipation, wind/gas and nose bleeds are a daily occurrence. I never knew what tiredness was until these past few months. My skin feels dry and itchy. Everything is uncomfortable, nothing fits. My finger nails and leg/underarm hair is growing at a rate of knots and my gums bleed every time I clean my teeth.
Every day I know I need to eat. Every day I struggle to eat enough. I worry that Pip isn’t growing, that his heartbeat has stopped, that I should be able to feel him moving. The next, I am convinced I can feel movement and I start daydreaming about Pip being here.
And yet, these are not complaints. I am very happy to be pregnant. Heaven knows, it took us a while to get here. But, I want to record pregnancy honestly. It’s not all amazing. It’s scary. Worrying. And, on a daily basis, extremely boring. I wouldn’t change it for anything.
THE LITTLE PIP 
“I never knew what tiredness was until these past few months.”
This is one way in which motherhood has changed me for the worst. I just can’t take anyone who is not pregnant quite as seriously as I used to when they complain of tiredness. Inside I am thinking “you really have no idea what tired means”. There’s something deep inside your bones about the tiredness of pregnancy that even the exhaustion of life with a tiny baby doesn’t touch, for me.
But then, I’ve never done shift work, or ran a marathon, or taken care of triplets, so maybe I’ve got no idea either. (And some people do those things pregnant… woah.)
I had forgotten about that but it’s so true! The last few months are so all consuming in my memory they became the whole pregnancy. But up to about week 20 is quite monotonous.
It’s also true that all those horrid symptoms are strangely tolerable. Maybe it’s because you know the root cause of them!
And urgh, bleeding gums – mine sometimes while eating; pretty horrifying if your out for dinner with friends! Are you using corsadil gel? For the other symptoms my recommendations are Bio Oil for skin and carry a packet of ginger nuts to nibble on whenever you feel nauseous. (and have some by you bedside for when you wake up!)
And know the exciting bit is coming – I’m sure those are Pip’s moves you feel.
Ha ha Cate – I had to resist saying the same about tiredness! But I think the exhaustion of pregnancy and of motherhood are totally different beasts.