Things about pregnancy I did not know…

-It makes all food my food.

I can have just eaten my regular weekly mountain of ‘pub-grub’ at one of the many local hotels but if a plate of someone else’s food gets carried past I could happily eat that too. Pub-staff have been so convinced by my longing glance that they instinctively veer toward me with said plate.  Chris has to tell them to ‘move it along now, nothing to see here…”

-At work I am more effective in meetings (cause I don’t really care if or when I’ll get my say which makes me a better 'active listener') but a real dunder-head about language.  I said to Adrian the other day “I’m glad you’re here cause I have to ask Adrian to do a meal relief”. He said, “Well here I am then”.

-That nasal congestion just keeps getting worse.  I feel that if I press on my face snot might shoot out of my eye-sockets. Lovely image huh?

-That there is a muscle that Pilates-freaks probably know about just above the pubis that acts as a pretty major ‘big belly bra’ for the expanding womb.  I know about it now cause I’ve wrenched the fucking thing every which way when running full speed down a ramp for a train this morning. I can tell little ‘Marmaduke’ is OK cause he’s been kicking away all happy in the bliss-bubble of amniotic fluid and his own wee-wees (yes- they are very self sufficient and able to make all kinds of fun in there!).  But when I go to sit or stand I feel like some previously taut and supporting secret muscle is now flubbering around loosely down there.  No pre-natal yoga tonight.

-Telling people (particularly parents and in-laws) that you’ve decided to call the unborn son ‘Marmaduke Action Sager’ is a really good way of shutting them up about their favourite names. We figure anything else we decide on will inspire nothing but unutterable relief in all curious parties.

-Marmaduke doing somersaults makes me laugh my head off. Now. I may not forgive him for it after a few more weeks’ growth.

-Sleep is but a distant dream, and infomercials are surprisingly tempting when you are wakeful and hugging cats on the couch at 3am.  If I had a credit card I’d now be the proud owner of a Winsor Pilates machine, some Wen (not shampoo!) hair cleanser, some Principal Secret skincare and some Bare Essentials mineral powder foundation.  I have even wished for acne again so I could legitimately purchase ‘Proactiv’.

-Chanel 31 is the only alternative at this time, showing old black and white melodramas. I think my cat Damage cried with me the other night when Liza died without ever telling her Viennese lover that he’d fathered her boy-child. As he read the love-letter she’d written to him from the madhouse I looked at my fluffy feline friend and saw that he too had a tear in his eye…

 

22 weeks and counting down.

Big Lil’