1. How we got there… (no I’m not telling you THAT!)
Before I fell pregnant, we had been trying to conceive for a whole year. Although every month was a source of frustration and disappointment, I knew that it was perfectly normal for it to take a long time. I had gone to the doctor after about eight months just to make sure I was as healthy as can be and to glean any information I could, but I was surprised when he took the situation fairly seriously due to my ‘advanced age’ – I was twenty-bloody-nine!! He started the process of low-level fertility investigations straight away which was quite comforting as I knew of many other people who had to wait at least two years before anyone would take them seriously. Thankfully, there was no need to worry as we clearly did get there in the end. With the help of some mid-week booty calls… which involved four hour round trips as my husband and I live apart during the week due to work!
2. I felt bloody awful!
I had morning sickness from fairly early on in my pregnancy and it lasted for ages. I was constantly nauseous and the only way I would feel better was to eat… ALL. THE. TIME. It was pretty rare for me to actually be sick; in fact I think the first time was after the first trimester had passed when I was hoping that the end of feeling awful was in sight. Nope – I was then chucking up all the time and felt ten times worse. Thankfully my sickness finally wore off around 17 weeks and I was able to get properly excited about my pregnancy, especially as it coincided with feeling my first flutters of movement!
3. I carried on exercising as much as I could
When I first arrived in Gloucestershire, I found a local ladies running club and enjoyed going out every week doing some exercise and meeting new friends. Unfortunately within two months I’d suffered a knee injury which stopped me running for the entire summer and autumn (which really sucked because I am definitely a fair weather runner!). By the time my knee was finally healed and I finally re-joined the club, I was already pregnant but I wasn’t going to let that stop me! I ran all the way up until the end of my second trimester when I started getting Braxton Hicks whenever I did any high impact exercise, so I finally called it a day. I’d always done exercise videos such as Insanity and The Body Coach HIIT (high intensity interval training) sessions so I just switched to more low impact alternatives – YouTube is full of training sessions suitable for virtually any circumstance!
4. I was obsessed with my baby moving!
I absolutely loved the feeling of my baby moving inside me. I was constantly trying to capture the kicks and movement on video, desperately hoping to see an alien outline of a hand or foot like I’d seen on YouTube. The thing is, every time you capture a movement for the first time, it’s a big wow moment that you want to share.. then you have another, better one, making the last video fairly redundant… and on and on and on. My hard drive is probably full of videos where it could easily have just been a clip of me hiccuping, let alone the baby! (Excuse the music in this video – it is NOT mine!)
5. My husband putting his heavily pregnant wife to work…
My husband had been building his kit car for about 18 months by the time I neared the end of my pregnancy. The day before I went into labour, I was helping him lower his new engine into place! This picture still makes me laugh whenever I see it. People must have wondered what on earth we were thinking when they drove past our house! His car’s completely finished now and registered for the road but we can’t go out in it together as it’s only built for two!
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