14 weeks and counting

So there we have it... pregnancy is not only the most exciting thing to ever happen to me, it's also the damned hardest work I've ever done in my life. I haven't been here in 4 weeks because I've hardly had the strength to sit upright to drive my car to work, never mind to sit at the computer when I come home in the evenings. Who knew?

So far it's been pretty tough going... I've had a few weeks of vomiting every time I've moved (and that isn't an exaggeration... I have to walk about the house with a towel, and drive with plastic bags in my lap) and sheer exhaustion. Thank God (and I don't mean that blasphemously... I'm so grateful!!) I'm now starting to feel slightly more human. The sickness seems to have eased a bit in the last 10 days or so, although it has been replaced at the top of the list of 'most annoying pregnancy symptom' by the capacity I now have to faint, anywhere, at any time, if i have to stand for more than a few minutes at a time. I've had a few embarrassing moments - primarily fainting in the changing rooms while out with the MIL (giving her the fright of her life!), and when standing in line to buy a bottle of water in the middle of a busy shopping centre.

Although my pregnancy has been going unrecorded on my online blog I have been making a more important record; a beautiful journal I'm writing in every few days with letters to my baby. Full of sentimental soppiness I hope that some day my little tot will be able to appreciate how very wanted, loved and adored s/he has been right from the very start. It's already turning into a lovely momento as I've stuck in the congratulations cards, appointment letters and that first picture.

So apart from the sickness, fainting and exhaustion, what else has been happening in the last month? Well my baby is now a proper official little person who has it's very first portrait taken. I won't bother posting the scan picture... it's exactly the same as every other dating scan picture you've ever seen... a little kidney bean shaped blob with a bigger blog for a head. I had expected that having the scan itself would be quite emotional but it didn't really make much of an impression on me. I felt like I went into it knowing what I was going to see, and in complete faith that it was going to be okay. 'Daddy-to-be' on the other hand cried when he saw that little heart beating away on the monitor and thinks that 'it's got a boys face... and he's grumpy'... hmm.. not sure quite how he saw that in the miniscule blurry screen but I'm really glad that I pushed him into coming along. Somehow I think he was expecting them to tell us I'd been making it up!

Since then he's started switching into protective Daddy mode and has been taking very good care of me. Most evenings it's all I can do to make dinner when I get home and then crawl into bed, and for the rest of the evening he'll be down every half hour or so to see if there's anything he can bring me or anything he can do to make me more comfortable. It's very sweet and I've been trying not to take advantage TOO much... having said that, I AM growing a baby!!

Baby seems to be growing well as well, if my tum is anything to go by. My waist has now gone from 30" to 39" and last week people started patting it!! It's just a lovely feeling and I keep telling baby in my letters how loved they are already - and still just the size of a weetabix!! It's bizarre to be growing so much when I've actually lost weight so far - just over half a stone in fact! It's great in a way because I'd been trying to lose a little bit of weight before conceiving and since then I've been eating like a horse and am still at my target weight...hopefully it will make it that bit easier to get back to normal afterwards (or as normal as things will ever be again!). So far my belly and boobs are the only bit of me that have grown (I'm now a H cup!!!). I couldn't help feel smug when I saw a friends wife recently who is expecting at the same time as me - she's normally very glam and has always made me feel quite inferior (she's one of these people who three appointments a week to get her hair blow dried and never goes out in flat shoes) - her face has blown up to the size of a football! Not that I'm going to gloat but I did leave her house feeling a bit happier than usual!!

As my pregnancy has been so tough so far it's made it easier for me to make a decision about leaving work. A combination of factors including the beginnings of SPD, my scary family history of cervical imcompetence and my terror of driving down our tiny country lanes in the snow and frost mean that I'm giving up work at Christmas - only 9 more working days for me!!! I'm really looking forward to being able to take some time to just relax and concentrate on growing a healthy baby as well as getting my little nest ready for it.

Because we conceived just after the settlement on OH's divorce was made final it's meant we're able to get stuck straight into redecorating the entire house and I think the expected arrival is a pretty good motivator... in the last few weeks we redecorated the spare bedroom (previously with pink walls and stencilling!) which is now a beautiful creamy refuge where my Mum can come and stay for a few days after the birth. The hall is no longer orange but has had it's first coat of white paint, and next weekend will be a beautiful linen colour that compliments the natural stone tiles. The next room after that will be our bedroom which will go from bright yellow to lovely natural creams.

The room I'm most excited about it the bathroom - as it currently has a forest green ceiling and dark green walls with lighter green sponged effects and gold stencilling, and NO BATH!! I've picked some lovely calm colours for in there, and a beautiful traditional cast iron bath... I can't wait to get that done. To be able to have a bath in my own house again will seem like the utmost in luxury.

The nursery will be next after that... it still seems a long way off though!

The only little niggling worry is money: I bought my own house at a very bad time (just before the market crash) and because a lot of the properties around me were buy-to-let it's now sitting in between three or four houses to let. Whilst I've got a room rented in mine it comes nowhere close to paying the mortgage, but I can't put him out because there are so many empty rental properties available I can't guarantee being able to let mine to anybody else. It means that while I'm not working I'll still need to pay my share of the mortgage and bills. I'm going to just about be able to cover it, but i don't know what i'll do if the interest rates go back up, and I'm not going to have a penny spare for the next year or so. The other worrying thing about that is being dependant on OH for paying our day to day bills and looking after baby.

Before getting pregnant it didn't overly concern me that he isn't fantastic at dealing with money...he had his and I had mine. Now I've realised that I'm going to be dependant on him means that it is SCARY that he won't budget. He knows that he spends more than he earns every week / month - but he doesn't know how much and he doesn't seem terribly bothered. As part of his settlement he got a cash lump sum and i kept urging him to put it into a different account so that it doesn't just gradually disappear on the every day stuff without him noticing, but he hasn't done that - and I don't know how much of it he's spending. I know that nagging won't help - I just don't know what I can do that will make any difference.

Whilst i know he's going to be a great Daddy I do worry about what he's going to be like as a partner. It has been a definate role shift in the house already as before I very much looked after him, and now he has had to look after me and I'm hoping that once I start to feel better and once we're settled into family life we'll find a better balance.

I'm also already worrying about how we'll ever get around to producing a second baby (not that i want to get ahead of myself or anything!!). Ever since the very start of our relationship it always niggled at me that i was always the one to initiate sex, and that i had a much higher sex drive. During the first trimester I felt so sick and my boobs were so sore that the thought never even entered my mind, however in the last few weeks I've been feeling more like myself in that respect but OH is definately not on for the 'three in the bed' situation. He won't even hug me properly in case he bumps baby!!!

Rubbing my 'miracle oil' into my boobs and belly every morning and night makes me feel really sensual and I love my changing shape... I feel like a goddess and I deserve to be worshipped!! I just sometimes wish that we shared a bit more passion and a bit more chemistry. I do worry that we could end up stuck in a completely platonic relationship... I don't want to force him into something he's uncomfortable with at the minute but I know that it isn't going to improve as I get bigger and by the time baby arrives and I've physically recovered it could easily be close to a year - to my mind that's just far too long for a couple to go without physical intimacy.

Apart from that, I'm very content looking forward to mummy-hood. I've got so much support from both of our families and I'm really looking forward to all that is to come. While a lot of women seem to be already worrying about the birth I can't wait to have that experience. I've been reading lots of positive birth stories and am preparing myself for a natural home water birth. I've started a pregnancy yoga programme, and have bought a birth ball that I intend to use after Christmas. I've also been walking, and once I have more time in the New Year I hope to swim a couple of times a week.. I'm hoping that the better condition my body is in the more natural my birth can be but we'll see what happens when we get there.

Before I get that far the next big milestone I'm looking forward to is feeling the baby move... I expect that to happen in the next 4-6 weeks or so - what better Christmas present could I have than to finally feel that precious little person I already love so much and feel I know so well?!

That's all for now....