Twenty weeks

OK. So nineteen weeks was Hell Week. We were assessing students five days in a row, I had two assessments to hand in, my computer was still broken and then the new one broke too. My evil colleague complained to our boss, who complained to her boss about me because I booked my 19 week scan during Hell Week. Funnily enough I didn't have much of an option but to have my 19 week scan when I was 19 weeks pregnant. I was livid. I have found a sneaky way to get revenge though; revenge by flagging up procedural irregularities that will make her squirm. It needed sorted out, because the irregularities are causing problems, it just pleases me that she'll be most annoyed by it.

The 19 week scan was amazing. She's a girl. Esme Alice, I think. I was so worried about cleft palates that the sonographer gave me a free 4D scan of he face. She looks like her daddy; she's beautiful. I send him the pictures and we emailed a bit about legal stuff. Custody of anything happens to me, birth certificates and child support. He is quite determined that he doesn't want anything whatsoever to do with the baby. But he does want to know when she is born.

Eighteen weeks

Still knackered. This week's new pregnancy horror; heartburn. I'm sucking on antacids as I type. My laptop has died, [flattie denies all knowledge] and I have way, way too much work to do. Work politics is grim. But my first set of baby clothes arrived on the weekend and they are so utterly cute that just looking at them cheers me up.
So, on the upside...I can salary sacrifice my new laptop and it'll be very fast and have all the latest software...I'm feeling more energetic...I actually like the taste of rennies...I've met some single mothers by choice online and they are very friendly and helpful...the flattie dashed out and brought me some Philadelphia with strawberries just because I saw it advertised and fancied it.

Seventeen weeks

Approaching half way. The house sale is progressing well. Work is very busy, very political and in some ways quite frustrating. Two of the other lecturers keep harping on about me being a paediatric nurse, which I find very annoying. It's not as if I have any choice in the matter. One of them seems to think I shouldn't be in my job at all and it's been really getting to me. She wants me to not mention children at all. But children's nursing is all I know, and it's a bit part of who I am. I've tried talking to her but I think I'm going to have to have a firmer word, before I end up really upset.
On the train back from my antenatal appointment, [very dull - just a BP and a chat, no doppler], I picked up a property paper for Greensborough, Briar Hill, Eltham, Ivanhoe etc and had a sudden burst of inspiration. For 400k I can buy a 4 bed house, 20 minutes from work, and live surrounded by trees and hills. I went to Montmorency for lunch on Sunday and it's lovely there. There is a little high street with a couple of nice cafes, a Foodworks, an organic shop and a deli. There are more shops in Eltham, which is one train stop away, and a good library there too. There are good local state schools and really lovely walks and cycle tracks. It feels very adult, but I suppose I'm going to be a mother, so I need to start thinking like one.
I really need a holiday. I'm tired and fed up with work. I haven't had a holiday in months and I'm the kind of person who needs regular breaks. However, I want to save my holiday for the end of pregnancy. If I tack my annual leave onto my maternity leave I can stop work in September, at 34 weeks and have six weeks to rest and nest and hoefully sort out my new house. But it does mean I have no energy now. I had a dinner on Thursday and was useless on Friday and I've not found the energy to go food shopping yet this weekend. I just want to snuggle on the sofa and read my book.

Sixteen Weeks

Monday, 04.00am I woke up in quite a lot of pain. Hip, pelvis, lower back, lower abdomen, it was all really sore. I was awake and miserable and terrified for an hour and then it stopped. Just when I was contemplating calling the midwives. Then I had a limp and couldn't stand for more than a few minutes without nearly crying with the pain. Pregnancy isn't supposed to be this painful, apparently. So Tuesday I went to see the student osteopaths in the next building. And, result, my student is 36 weeks pregnant and having her baby at the same place as me. They had a look and declared that my pubic bone was out of alignment and my aductors way too tight. Then there was some torturous massage of my inner thighs, [really it was agony - I had no idea my thighs were so tense - must be the lack of sex], a weird knee thing which made my pelvis make this very soft click and then suddenly I was pain free. Magic. I'd limped there with an incredible sore left hip and I bounced away all better, and it only cost me $25. I came home and slept for ten hours, for the first time in tweleve weeks. Hurrah.
Today I'm a bit sore again but I know what to stretch to fix it. Shame there's no handy man to wrap my thighs around. Especially as I am one very sexy pregnant woman. Sigh.

Fifteen weeks

It has been a busy week. I've sold the house! But it'll take about three months for the sale to go through and three months to buy here, which brings me up to my due date. Fabulous timing but I will not have a baby crawling on these icky rented carpets! The nasty cold has settled down to a sniffle and there's been no more bleeding. My swabs were clear, so my cervix is just sore, not infected. The bump continues to grow. I'm now having to wear maternity clothes most days and can't do up the zip on my favorite skirt. I bought another $250 of maternity gear, including a gorgeous red wool dress. This was lucky, as they sprung an interview on me on Tuesday. 17.15 in the evening, so both they and I were quite tired and we just had a nice chat really. I doubt I'll get the job, but it was good experience putting the application together.
Phil and I have won a small grant to conduct some research. This is very good news for me as I need some publications on my CV and Phil has loads of experience. I'm very fortunate he's working with me. I've also put in for another small grant and today I'm meeting with a potential phd supervisor at Melbourne Uni.
Matty the flattie is working out well. He keeps me amused with his seemingly endless stories of new dates and is out enough that I still have enough space. He's very opinionated about baby names though. He and Justin have decided that I must call my baby Leo. I'm keen on Elliot today. Elliot or Esme, which nobody objects to. The baby is now 9.5cm from head to rump, or about 15cm in total if he has his father's beautiful long legs. He has fingernails just starting this week, and he's looking more like a real baby, just in minature. I think it's possible to feel the kicking on the outside by 20 weeks. It's just the most astonishingly intimate thing; having this baby moving inside me.
I still sometimes feel quite unsure about how I'm going to cope. I work out the maths and sometimes it's seems adequate and sometimes it seems very frightening indeed. I should have a good six months of being comfortable. After that is anyone's guess. I'm going to start buying the fun things; a baby wrap or a sling, some manchester, I'll look again at cots. Cots are so amazingly variable in price. Do I want to spend $200 or $2000? Is there really much difference? It's not like I'll be using it for ten years. The ikea $200 ones seem fine, just not so pretty and surely I'll need the extra money for food? I can always pretty it up with nice sheets. I just need one that will line up with my bed, so that I just have to lean over and grab him when he's hungry.

Fourteen weeks

Well, the last week has been fairly hellish. I can't sell my house in the UK. The market has collapsed and my estate agents are useless muppets. If I can't sell my house I'm fucked. I'm relying on that money to live on when I am at home with the baby. Moreover the rent doesn't cover the mortgage, it's costing me $230 dollars a month. I actually cried down the phone to my agents. I'm just so worried about how I'm going to look after my baby if the house doesn't sell. But I have found new agents who seem keen and say they can sell it quickly. I've dropped the price £50k of asking and hopefully if will sell.

I've also been sick for the last three days. Sore throat, headaches, cough and then abdo cramping and bleeding. So back I went to the emergancy department at Mercy. In tears, again, terrified that not only was I bankrupt but the baby was in trouble. It was that unfriendly midwife again but this time I saw a lovely gynae and his boss, who is from Northern Ireland. We had a look at the baby, who is still cute and wriggly and fine and they looked at my cervix, which is very unhappy indeed. It seems that some of the inner cervix cells have grown onto the outer cervix, because of the pregnancy hormones and they aren't happy there, which is why they are bleeding. It also looked inflamed, so they have given me some flagyl just in case it's infected too. They don't think it'll do any harm to the baby. It's a nuisance but not concerning.

I so need this long weekend.

Sexy back

This week I've been feeling more and more like myself, or perhaps I'm just becoming used to the new me. I spent another $250 on maternity wear, as now nothing from before fits and work was becoming a bit of a nightmare. So I'm two pairs of maternity jeans richer and have several new tops. I definitely look sexier, there were looks from random blokes on the tram, before they notce the bump and look a bit confused. Maternity wear helps to make me look pregnant, rather than just blobby. And it is all bump, well, bump and boobs. My boss actually stroked my belly this week, which was weird. I reckon I'll have to get used to that. The pregnancy 'glow' is settling down to be less like teenage hormonal skin and more actual glow, thankfully.

I'm working my way through recipes from 'Feeding the Bump' and I've just finished realing Adele Parks' 'Larger Than Life', which I found oddly cheering, for a book about a pregnant woman's relationship breakdown. I'm truly becoming a pregnancy bore, but try as I might, nothing else is as interesting and just about anything can be related to pregnancy and childbirth! I've mostly had a low key, relaxed weekend. Mooching round town buying clothes, breakfast out with the flattie, admiring my baby scan DVD on his HUGE, living room eclipsing, big screen tv and providing intensive care to yet another sick goldfish. I do hope my lack of success with fish isn't indicative of my maternal instincts. The stupid bugger just kept cramming himself up against the filter until he damaged his swim bladder. He was obsessed. Now he's looking very sad in a mixing bowl of salty water, which I have my doubts will work, but I don't want the others to see suicidal fish go belly up.

I think I felt a Braxton Hicks contraction in the bath last night. It felt like an involuntary clenching low down and was very weird. The bubhubbers say they felt them about 16 weeks, so I think it's probably that. My breasts have grown again and I'm finding myself in the plain but oh so comfy maternity bras more and more. I also bought some comfy, but sparkly knickers and should probably put away the glam stuff til there's somebody to appreciate it. I've had three sonographers now comment on my pretty knickers, so I think I'm in the minority and all the other women are in comfy pants! My nipples are pointier still, and definitely look like they could achieve a purpose. To think I spent so many years being concerned that my nipples were flat, inverted and impractical. I had no idea they would change so much. The hundreds I've seen have always been at the other end of pregnancy, so I just assumed those women were born like that. Justine is going to explain breast tissue differentiation to me tomorrow. I'll buy one or two of the sexy maternity bras later on, when it becomes clearer just bow big I'm going to get.

I bought the baby a rabbit. A small, brown, soft rabbit with long ears that Matt thought was a kangaroo. I considered a few baby gowns and bunny rugs but I still think it's too early. The cot shop was closed. I've looked on line and picked out one with a very sweet mossie net over it. It'll be a spring baby so I think the mossie net is a good plan. I doubt he'll have his own room for a long time, but I'm thinking a green theme for his sheets and blankets. I'm really not into gender specifics at such a young age. I'll make him an origami mobile, maybe with a range of animals, maybe just cranes. Then he'll need a capsule for emergency taxi rides, a play mat and a sling. Clothes, cloth nappies, muslins and washable wipes. That's all to begin with, I think. I'm not sure about a baby bath. Maybe somebody will give me one. I've been promised a baby bjorn and some clothes already.

I think he just rolled over.

Thirteen weeks

I'm finally beginning to understand my new body. Feeling queasy means I'm thirsty. Abdominal pain means I need to pee. Feeling dizzy means I'm hungry. And if I can't sleep...well, let's just say my sex drive hasn't been affected! I think the strange prickling sensation just behind my pubic bone may be the baby moving, as it happens when I've been running for the tram or as I'm falling asleep. Sometimes I feel a sort of tightening too, like a fist clenching low down in my belly. It's so weird, having this vastly changed organ making new sensations. My uterus used to be the size of a walnut or a hen's egg, and already it's at least a grapefruit and growing daily.
Tomorrow evening I'm going to hop of the tram early and look in the Northcote baby shops. One has a very lovely cot in the window. It's oval and very plain but quite elegant. It looks expensive. Unfortunately I think I'm going to have to spent my baby bonus on cord blood saving, [$3000!], and the plane fare to Mauritius for a conference in January. We just checked the weather today for Mauritius in January and it's cyclone season. Thankfully I'm taking a highly decorated, [I've seen the medals], army trained paediatric emergency nurse with me. She'll mind the baby whilst I give my talk and I'll cheer when she does hers. If Jane weren't coming I doubt I'd have the courage to go. The girls at work were asking about a baby shower, so I'll put in a request for mossie proof baby clothing and a travel cot.
Hmm, so on the one hand I'm saving cord blood and on the other taking my two month old infant half way round the world to a tropical island during cyclone season. I've thought long and hard about cord blood. Not only for this baby, but any other children I have, or me or even his father; any of us might need some HLA matched stem cells in the future. I think it's worth the investment.

Picture

The tweleve week scan was much more detailed and clear than I expected. Anne came with me and was just as excited as me. I was suddenly in a good mood this morning, which I took to be a good omen. The sonographer started with a whole spiel about what was going to happen but soon worked out that I had insider knowledge and started showing off her skills instead. So...he's cute. He wriggles a lot and seems to be keen onlying on his side in a corner where we couldn't see more than his bottom. So I had to cough a lot to make him roll over.
He has a brain and a nice round skill, eye sockets and a nose that looks rather like his father's. There is a nose bone, which means he's much less likely to have downs. His nuchal fold was 1.8mm, which is within the normal range. He has a beautiful spine and ribs and long legs, five finger on the one hand we could see and he is exactly the right length for his age. He has four chambers in his heart, which was beating at 170bpm. He has two kidneys and a bladder that works. His diaphragm is in the right place. All in all, he seems to be just about perfect.
It's very odd to think that there's somebody the size of a hamster inside me, wriggling about, and I can't feel a thing. I do feel some little prickles, low down, but I'm not sure that's him. No gender yet, but I think he looks like a boy. The sonographer wouldn't be drawn on the subject. We had lunch at the Richmond Hill larder to celebrate and Anne is making me go ringing tonight because she says it's good for my mental health. She's a clinical psychologist, so I reckon she's probably onto something. We just need to rig up some sort of play pen at St Pius and the small person will have ten grandparents to coo over him, when we're not making a racket with the bells.

And down again...

So Friday was actually a pretty good day, I had a good meeting with my professor and put in a grant application, but then Justine comes into my office and drops all sorts of ominous hints. She wouldn't tell me what the problem was only that 'I had a right to know' and that Phil was going to talk to me. Phil had spent all afternoon in the meeting where they were shortlisting for the Level B post I've applied for. Justine can be really inconsiderate sometimes.
Then tonight my mother called from England and I had to break her heart. She had decided that she was coming for three months when the baby is born and that I'd have to go back to work and she'd stay home and look after him whilst I worked. Um, no. I wouldn't have decided to have this baby if I couldn't look after him myself. I'm going to cash in a lump of my house equity and stay at home and breastfeed my baby for a year. More importantly I don't have a spare room for her to stay in and I don't imagine Matt would welcome my mother crashing on the sofa for weeks when I also have a new baby in the house. She was obviously really upset, and I feel horrid. She knows how I feel about my family and my friends, she knows why I'm in Australia and she knows the lifestyle I lead and yet she seems to think that having a baby will make me into somebody else entirely. I think she was planning on spending Christmas here, but I spend Christmas with the other gay orphans and just because I have a straight baby doesn't change that. Things are the way they are for reasons that go back before I was even born and that's why I came to Australia, to be able to bring my children up without them being effected by the rest of my crazy relatives.
And my aunt, Ruby, died today. She was nearly 90 and had pancreatic cancer. She was a grump woman who terrified me my whole childhood, and she was very old, but it's sad all the same.

Twelve Weeks

Twelve weeks is supposedly the big milestone. Three months. The end of the first trimester. The baby is now much more likely to stick. The placenta has taken over from the corpus luteum and the baby is now semi-autonomous. So just to remind me that I'm pregnant, today I've been hit by a return of the nausea and new levels of vagueness and exhaustion. I had to wimp out of teaching a class of first years how to make beds because I felt faint. It's actually quite embarrassing, but luckily my boss is very sweet. I hope she is still sweet when she interviews me for that promotion.
This evening Matt moved in his DVD collection. It's huge and diverse and probably going to be my best friend in the next six months. He didn't seem very pleased with Bruce, though. Bruce is my new huntsman. He lives on the cornicing in the living room and we're happily cohabiting, mainly 'cos he's only small and too high to reach with a swat. I think he's growing quite fast, which may mean he's eating cockroaches. I am pleased with the idea that he may be eating the cockroaches, because the venues fly trap appears to be a vegetarian.
I've been reading "The Story of V" by Catherine Blackledge, which is a sort of a social, anthropological and zoological history of the vagina. It's fascinating and, I think, has gone some way to explaining my pregnancy. It seems it's not entirely my fault for being absent minded and careless. There are a whole range of chemicals and muscles and crypts and hormones and sexual techniques and histocompatibility and stuff that all orchestrated themselves to caused me to ovulate. Histocompatibility explains a lot.

Homesick

One of the first thing most people ask me is if I'm going home to have the baby. In all honesty it hadn't occurred to me til people started asking that. I migrated here, and planned on having a family here...eventually. However, at this time of year, when it starts growing darker and colder I always pine for London. Late Autumn in London is the best time of year; there's Halloween, bonfire night, my birthday and then Christmas. The lights go up my mid November, and the shops put up their displays. Then there's mulled wine, casseroles, gingerbread and country pubs with a roaring fire. Winter in Australia is one long drudge of poorly heated homes, people in denial that's it's winter at all and like Narnia Chirsitmas never comes. I'm definitely going to go up in the mountains for Christmas in July. Even if I'm hugely pregnant and it's icy I don't care; Winter needs Christmas.

And up again...

Yesterday was a bad day. I was so tired and emotional that I was nearly in tears in a breakfast meeting with my very serious professor of nursing. Luckily she took it all in her stride and gave me an hour long talk on how great I am, how well I'm going to do and how I shouldn't listen to, [Justine and Tarnya et al], who keep quizzing me on exactly how I think I'm going to cope. After that I felt a little better and decided that I should try and achieve something positive, so I spent the afternoon completing my application for the level B post.
My house still isn't selling and it looks like I'm going to have to take $120k off the asking price, which is the money I was planning on living on while the baby is still breast feeding and I can't work. I'm going to have to buy a much smaller house, I suppose, but it's a depressing thought. The agents aren't much use, [utter muppets to be frank], and don't seem to act on anything that concerns me. I wish I could just fly home and sort them out; I'm at their mercy and they could just flog it to one of their mates for next to nothing and I'd be none the wiser. I have Amy checking up on them by pretending to be a potential buyer.
After a good night's sleep I woke up today feeling much better. Matt came over with his Dad to pick up keys, so I baked some scones. Matt had told his Mum about me being pregnant but it turns out he hadn't told his Dad, but neither of us realised this until they left. I thought he'd looked a bit confused about my being so happy about being able to eat cream and jam on my scones, as it's one of the first nice things I've found I'm still allowed. I imagine poor Matthew had to answer some tricky questions in the car on their way home.
This evening I finally found somebody to come to my 12 week scan with me. I feel like such a Billy Nomates. However, I went ringing tonight, the Cambridge Major Suprise practice, [campanology, it's not a religious thing; google it], and Anne, who gives me a lift, agreed to come to my scan with me. She's a clinical psychologist and British and had kids and grandkids. I don't know her that well, just from ringing and the odd dinner with the ringers, but she doesn't work Mondays and she can come and I'm really happy with that. She seems quite excited because she's never seen one and she's so very down to earth that I know I'll find her a reassuring prescence.

Eleven weeks

My twelve week scan is next week and it looks like I'm going alone. Lyn is on honeymoon, Susan is working, as are Amanda and Charlotte. Justine is covering my classes and that only leaves Adam, who is yet to call me back but will probably be working. Sometimes being single sucks.

Flattie

After several weeks of living solo, and amazing myself by being quite happy, I took a look at my bank balance and decided that a flattie would, in fact, save me thousands of dollars before the prawn arrives in October. I interviewed five very nice but deeply dull girls and then Matt came along. He has Foxtel, a huge TV and a massive DVD/CD/book collection, perfect for the woman with no social life to speak of. He cooks, [he's promised to roast me a chicken], and writes and seems very happy about me being pregnant, but not in a creepy way. He writes very long, very funny emails and is extremely tall and thus able to change the last remaining non-energy saving light bulb that I always forgot to have the boy do, as I was too busy being distracted by his...well you get the idea. Luckily he has a girlfriend, [taking it slow, she has kids], so I don't have to worry about how very attractive he is; it'll just be so good to have a bloke around to kill the spiders and take out the bins.

I bought my first maternity clothes this weekend, a dress, a jumper, a skirt and a top, which apparently will be suitable for breast-feeding with. It was all shockingly expensive, but the sort of things that will look OK with a flat tummy too, [I do wonder if flat is something I'll see again this decade]. It's cooler now and that means it'll be easier to disguise the growing belly with big jumpers, but honestly, it's protruding so much that after lunch there's really no hiding it. People are asking me how things are going outright, rather than in stage whisper, so it'll be great to have the 12 week scan out of the way and be able to be openly pregnant rather than having a lot of nudges and winks. 13 days til the scan. Susan is coming with me and the midwives will probably come too. I'm not worried about it, I'm looking forward to being told everything is OK. So that probably means if there was a problem I'd be inconsolable, I can't even think about it.

Ten weeks

I booked in with the midwives today and met my entourage, Amanda and Charlotte. They are lovely and made me feel a bit like a minor celebrity. The midwife in the birthing centre, Jo, who is fierce anyway, didn't seem impressed but warmed up after a while. Good news; I was completely wrong about my blood group and I'm O positive, not O negative, hurrah! So rhesus incompatibility isn't going to be a problem, although ABO incompatibility is still a potential.

The belly is growing but I haven't gained any weight since I fell pregnant, which is mysterious. I look a good 5kg heavier, really, it's quite noticable that my boobs and belly are more than woman shaped, they are pregnant looking. I lie in the bath and my belly is an island where it used to be under the water with the rest of me. There are some clothes that I just can't wear because I look so enormous in them and I think I'll have to move into maternity gear soon. But I don't feel fat, so much as womanly, sexy even.

I have four people coming to look at the spare room tomorrow, so I should be hoovering now...they all sound nice and aren't bothered by the pregnancy, which bodes well. Or maybe the rental market really is just desperate? Still no sign of my house selling. I may be here for some time. And it's bloody freezing. I could so do with living somewhere with a heated towel rail in the bathroom. It's arctic in there.

Heartbeat

There's a heartbeat! There's a heartbeat! There's a heartbeat! I saw my baby. He looks like a prawn. A prawn with a heartbeat. I'd had some cramping and some spotting, [OK a spot], so I panicked and went to see the midwives and after six hours in the waiting room, [arguing with myself for wanting to peer at him], they did a scan. They want to repeat it on Wednesday, but we'll see. I can't keep invading his privacy just cos I worry. But it was so good to see him. He's organised himself a heartbeat, he's so clever. It's amazing. Happy, happy, happy, happy.

Mood swings

Apparently the hormone levels experienced during pregnancy are hundreds of times higher than the contraceptive pill, which explains a lot. Take yesterday, for example. It's the long weekend, so I've been generally lazing around with a murder mystery, [The Broken Shore by Peter Temple - very vivid], and having a few too many trips to the local cafes for afternoon tea. I'm still feeling really good, so good in fact that when I spent an entire day without morning sickness I then spent the entire evening worrying that my pregnancy symptoms had disappeared too soon and I was about to miscarry. Today my breakfast out was ruined by waves and waves of blueberry muffin related nausea. And I'm happy about that. I feel so pregnant I allowed myself a hour of making baby name lists. I really hope it's a boy, [Patrick, Eamon, Finn, Declan, so many nice Irish names], girl names are all hideous, [Siobhan, Orlaith, Niamh, Grainne...shudder]. Family names don't help, my paternal grandmother was Matilda, [um, no], and my maternal grandmother, and aunt, who were both variations of Ellen, committed suicide. And my short surname is just difficult.

One of my closest friends is off on honeymoon this week, which is great because it means she will start TTC when she gets back. It would be so lovely if she were just a few months behind me; I could pass on all my maternity gear and tiny baby clothes and her husband could be a much needed heterosexual male influence for my baby. He's a super achieving karate chopping biochemist and I already have him booked into taking my kid with his kid to karate, [Fridays nights to myself - yay]. Then there's Auskick, so two hours on a Saturday to myself, [hmm, or do I have to cheer?]. Shame I'm not Italian or there could be language school too. Maybe just being European would be enough? Or I could convert and sent him to the temple to learn Hebrew. OK, so this sounds harsh, but I know single mums; they have no life. They definitely have no sex life, which is why they are all so universally narky and bitch about their ex's new girlfriends so much - lack of sex. And happy mums make for happy kids. Seeing as it's the nice husband's job to make the wife happy, and I skipped that, I'll just have to orchestrate an alternative.

My hairdresser, such a nice boy, was telling me that he was an accident. His mum had a one night stand and never saw the bloke again but decided to keep Daniel. His fatherlessness doesn't seem to have affected him, [well, he's a screamingly camp hairdresser, but I'm not sure that's related], and his opinion was that it was great that I decided to keep the baby. Which was nice, as I'm getting a few comments about how sad it is that my baby won't have a father and how hard it will be. My general take on it is that it isn't the baby who'll miss out, he'll be surrounded by people who love him and I'm going to make sure he has a fantastically happy childhood. I'll be a bit sad to have no partner to share it with, but I'll have this amazing experience, this amazing new person to get to know and I know family life will make me happy in ways I can't even imagine. I genuinely believe raising children should be a group enterprise, so it would be good for the baby to have family in Australia and it's a shame they will miss out. I sometimes mull over going home to be nearer my family for the baby's sake, but then I remember why I'm in Australia! So my baby's family will be an assortment of gay men, some nurses and midwives, an ex-girlfriend of mine and her husband and my crazy mother via the internet. It'll be interesting.

Nine Weeks

Maybe it's the holiday weekend, maybe it's the cooler weather, maybe it's the morning sickness easing off slightly, but today I'm a different woman. I feel happier than I have done in weeks and more like me. I feel pretty, as the song goes. I still felt a few waves of nausea after lunch, [Japanese - apparently the baby doesn't like Age Dashi Tofu, the little philistine still just wants KFC], but mainly I'm full of energy and generally chirpy. This being Good Friday there's nothing going on, all my mates are working extra shifts for the double pay, the shops are closed and I'm too chipper for housework, so I took the bump to see Horton Hears a Who. It's my favorite Dr Seuss, it's that line about a person being a person no matter how small, and I've always kept a copy at work to read to the small people. They like being read to, especially stories with rhyme and rhythm, and it goes down well with parents. And the film wasn't a disappointment, it was great, actually quite moving at times, [hey, I'm pregnant; I can be moved to tears by ads on TV]. I think I might even like it better than Finding Nemo, but it hasn't knocked The Aristocats from top of my favorite animated films list. A-rat-a-tat-a-tat.

I'm missing the small people a bit, although the featherbrained students are quite amusing too. Generation Y is certainly a different species. They are so much less independent and creative, they are constantly seeking instructions and guidance. I suppose their lives have been much more orchestrated than my generation. Gen X was out of the house in the moring, playing out by ourselves in packs until we were hungry or it was growing dark. Gen Y seems to have been in front of a TV or computer, in organised after school clubs and under constant surveillance. They aren't very critical or inquisitive, just accepting whatever they are told. Which is quite fun, as they are easy to provoke. I gave a fab class this week on airway management; it rocked. I made them do some actual thinking in groups and they responded really well to it. Another reason to be cheerful.

Further good news. I now have a pregnancy entourage. The Queen of the Midwives, [or Course Leader of the Post Grad Dip as she is also known], has granted me a boon of not one but two student follow-through midwives. My own students. It's like having free doulas. They are Charlotte and Amanda and will be coming to my appointments with me and to my birth and for a while afterwards. I'll probably also have the midwife next door as she's a special high risk midwife and makes me feel very safe, and Susan and maybe the Queen herself, as I reckon the more the merrier. A sort of labour party. I'm planning on staying at home for as long as possible, til 8cm maybe then only going into the Family Birthing Centre for the actual delivery then having a six hour discharge. So, sort of like a home birth with a detour. Most Aussies think this is crazy, as they are used to lounging in hospital for days, but in Europe we take our babies home and retire to our own sofas and frozen meals and the community midwives come to us and drink tea and eat chocolates and everybody is much happier. Oh and champagne. I am so looking forward to that glass of champagne. I knew I was pregnant so early I've been deprived for six weeks now. I think you're not supposed to fancy wine, but I would happily kill for a chilled glass of white wine. I'm not even that much of a drinker, I think it's just the sheer deprivation of the Island of No. And the boredom of 3 litres of tap water a day, [yes, it was me, I am single handedly responsible for the drought in Victoria].

Unlucky fried kitten

I have been, mainly, vegetarian since I was twelve. Chicken was the first thing to go, during a school trip to Italy. Then fish, pork, beef, I just didn't want to eat it anymore. It's never really been a moral thing. When I was travelling fish came back on the menu, but I haven't eaten meat in 22 years. So having a craving for KFC has come of somewhat of a surprise. I haven't given in yet. It's not even just when I see the adverts, it's all the time and especially in the evenings. But not just any chicken, not the chicken panini at work, they are just as ick as ever, no, it's just KFC. Why does the baby want KFC?! He doesn't get it from me...

Breasts

I've always been quite happy with my breasts. Even when I was very thin and they were small I thought they were a nice shape. One of the reasons I didn't panic about putting on a few migration kilos was that my boobs were bigger and I was enjoying having cleavage. My pregnancy is most evident in my boobs, which have been astonishingly sore, throbbing and sensitive for weeks now. They are a bit bigger, but it's the density that is more noticably different; they are firmer. My nipples being extremely sensitive, almost painful, was one of the first things I noticed, and then they started becoming darker. They are still pink, but now a deeper colour, and I think it's making them more beautiful. It's a shame there's nobody to appreciate their added glamour! My nipples are also more pronounced and I think the milk ducts are becoming more evident. I've been looking at maternity bras. Hot milk does some really pretty ones and I think I'll need pretty to stop me feeling fat and Jersey cowish. But size is a mystery to me, I've no idea how big I'll get.

Eight Weeks

One of the nice things about being pregnant is having something to celebrate every Thursday. Wednesdays are pretty good too, because it's nearly Thursday and Fridays are great because it's nearly the weekend and another milestone has passed. Eight weeks is a big one; now the baby is much more likely to stick. All his organs should be fairly well formed and he should have the beginnings of fingers; he'll be begining to make little movements. Some of the girls I talk to online are having their twelve week scans now and talking about how their babies are wriggling on the screens. I can't wait to see my baby and know there is somebody in there but I'm going to have to wait another three or four weeks.

Today has been a bad food day, sushi and sate. Oops. Raw salmon and peanuts, but after four weeks of being good I thought it was OK to treat myself, there's so little I feel like eating. It was 38 today and will be 40 tomorrow. I'm still having trouble sleeping. I don't think it's the heat, as the house is pretty cool, but my mind racing. 02.30 this morning I was wide awake for a couple of hours, full of bright ideas. I'm so pleased the clocks are going back soon. I'll be able to get up a little half and hour earlier and catch the early tram, be guaranteed a seat, and actually gain half and hour in bed.

I'm looking forward to having somebody to cuddle in seven months. My bed feels very big and empty.

Bump

I have now had three midwives and four nurses tell me I'm showing. I have a bump. I can't hold it in. I'm only eight weeks pregnant and I look twelve. I'm going to be the size of a house...

Bloody miserable

I'm so tired and so nauseous and experiencing a kind of lonliness I've never felt before. I hate being single, I hate sleeping alone. I'm in this incredibly strange, new place and I'm all alone. I just keep thinking how beautiful this could be, if I wasn't alone. It's the intimacy of it all, sharing my body, the changes I'm going through, that's what is so hard to do alone. I'm so lucky with the friends I have and I am lucky to be in a position to have this baby. My boss today encouraged me to go for the promotion despite being pregnant, she's a star. Really it's all good, but it's not easy.

I think about all the things that now won't be possible;
I won't be having a perfect, uncomplicated family with a nice husband.
I can only afford to stay at home for a few months, not the couple of years that I'd like.
Which means having to put my tiny baby into childcare and give him bottles so I can work.
And taking a baby on the tram to Bundoora will be tricky.
I'm going to have to have a lodger to help pay my mortgage.
If I do have a nice husband he will not be the father of my baby.
If I want my baby to not be an only child I won't be able to have a matching pair.
If my husband wants babies he will feel differently about this baby.

And I have to decide on names and schools and circumscision and all those sorts of thing by myself, and I'll have nobody to share the blame when my resentful teenager complains about it!

I know the baby feels what I feel, so I'm trying to be calm and happy, but somedays it is just not that easy.

Breathless

In the first six weeks of pregnancy circulating blood volume nearly doubles. Hormones relax smooth muscle, veins and arteries to accomodate the extra volume and this results is a drop in blood pressure, hence those dizzy spells. The extra volume causes strain on the heart and respiratory system, causing breathlessness, that 'glow' and increased heart rate. So, pump class has become a thing of the past; the breathlessness is just disheartening. I have a swiss ball at home instead.

I'm developing a little routine of yoga, belly-dancing style gyrations to the radio and swiss ball exercises. Long walks have replaced cycling and I have some little hand weights to combat those bingo wings. After twelve weeks I can sign up for preggibellies classes and maybe some water aerobics. I had this plan. I was going to deal with my emigration kilos, get fitter, then find that nice husband and have babies, once I'd been in my job for a year and qualified for maternity leave. Hmm. Well, I'm not going to be getting any thinner in 2008, but at least I can be fitter.

My boss asked me to apply for a promotion, I'm undecided about it. It's a job I don't really want, minding international students, but 16k more a year and better benefits. I'd be on a permanent contract, but only able to do it for six months before sodding off for a year. I suppose if nobody else applies I might as well go for it. But if I'm teaching cultural studies, [well I am international, I suppose I must know something about it?], I'm worried I might have to give up child health, which would be annoying. Or do both, and be eight months pregnant...

Porridge

The nausea/unable to cook problem has been making me somewhat miserable, but I think I've found a solution. I bought a rice cooker, some frozen veg, some little bits of salmon and a bottle of teriyaki sauce. Voila, no effort, minimal smell cooking. Then this morning, bonus, I've discovered it also cooks great porridge. OK, so it's goin to be 35 today, but right now this house is chilly and I'm in a jumper on the sofa watching video hits. Porridge and maple syrup and some juice and I'm a happy girl.

Seven Weeks

Ah, the emotional roundabout that is early pregnancy. Yesterday I was nearly in tears because I felt so shockingly grim. I hadn't slept; it was too hot and my boobs were too sore and the waves of nausea were disgusting; I had to give a two hour lab stood up and could barely function; and I looked like an extra from Dawn of the Dead. Today I'm feeling loads better; I slept well, the nausea is barely noticable, I have a bit of a glow and it's a long weekend. Obviously the ebb and flow of nausea is nerve-wracking, when it eases up I worry there's been a drop in the hormones, but when it's on the rise it's hard to feel cheerful about it.

At seven weeks the small person should be looking a bit more like a person and less like a prawn. The might be limb buds, dents where the eyes will be and the beginnings of a circulatory system. The tail will begin to shrink and the brain to form this week. The heart cells, which should be beating, form a tube and then twist and fold in a complex dance over the next four weeks. The throat and windpipe start out as one tube and divide into two, the stomach forms separately and somehow grows up to join into the throat. The gut begins as a solid tube and hollows out to a pipe. All this happens in the next three weeks. I really must eat my greens and reds and oranges.

Lovely, beautiful, fabulous Susan has volunteered to come to my scans with me. I would rather have another NICU nurse with me, somebody with the same knowledge base. If it's good or bad news, at least I won't have to explain stuff to her or worry that she'll freak out about something. And Susan is eternally cheerful and smiley, so she'll be good to celebrate with, if there really is a small person in there.

This weekend is three days. I need the extra time to catch up on my housework and shop. Work is OK, I'm managing, but with nodody to help out I'm struggling to keep everything else together at home. I think I'll buy a rice cooker/steamer. I reckon I can sling a bit of fish and veg and rice in one of those and it would be less vile than cooking, which is simply out of the question at the moment. This evening I had frozen pasta, [the nice kind] with sauce from a jar. But there were brussel sprouts in my lunch and lemon cake. Lemons have vitamins, right..?

The Small Island of No

I have been exhiled to the small Island of No. No tea, no coffee, no sushi, no smoked salmon, no hollandaise, no soft-boiled eggs, no pre-packed salad, no deli olives, no brie, no soft-serve ice cream, no deep sea fish, no mussels, no wine, no massage oil, no cycling, no worrying, no highlights and, apparently, no sex either because the only one I want has run for the hills and anyone else would be unseemly. Although my mother informs me that pregnant women on Neighbours still date I suspect it's not the Australian norm. I reckon pregnant women don't date and, most likely, breast-feeding women don't date either. Write me off til 2010 and rename me Rachel.

Six Weeks

I nearly threw up in a meeting at work today. Although I've been vaguely queasy for a couple of weeks, especially in the evenings, this was the first time it really hit me; a wave of hot, sweaty nausea unlike anything else. Luckily I was in a room full of midwives, so they just ignored me and carried on regardless. Suggestions were made about ginger biscuits and keeping small plastic bags in one's pocket.

About three the walking-through-treacle tiredness struck and it was time to come home or sleep under my desk. So much for evening classes. I'm too tired to hang up my clothes, too tired to cook, the fish tank is green but thankfully it rained so I don't have to worry about the garden. I'm living off takeways and whatever the work canteen has to offer and hoping that the expensive vitamins compensate for the lack of nutrition. This is why I needed a husband. Damn, I knew I'd forgotten something...

The baby seems to want me to sit still, he's organising himself a heartbeat this week, growing some limb buds. Apparently progesterone is a sedative, I think it must be a tranquiliser too. The high levels in early pregnancy cause tiredness, mood swings and nausea. Hopefully most of that will only last another six weeks, but time is passing so slowly for me right now. Every day is a week long. But underlying the calm/sad/exhausted/queasy waves is a core of strange joy. I have a mystery passenger and nothing is ever going to be the same again.