Growing on up, growing on out
02.02.17, 10:56 am

28 weeks pregnant and had my first growth scan on Tuesday, where everything looks absolutely fine. Pommy is in range for all of her measurements, was alive and kicking, and all my vitals were good. So big relief all around, and confirmation that you can hammer the beta blockers and omeprazole and have no adverse effects. She’s so big now that she barely fits on the screen in one bit, but here’s a head and an arm. She’s also confirmed as definitely a girl!

We’ve bought a cot and put it together, and then a couple of weeks ago we had a little look around John Lewis and James got all soppy and bought a little fleecy sleep suit with bunnies on it. So at least that’s a start. Still lots of stuff to get, but James’s cousin is brilliantly giving us a load of stuff because a lot of it is bizarrely expensive. New prams are like £700. What the actual fuck? It seems to be a lot like wedding stuff, where everything is 100% more expensive just because.

Just back from a lovely long weekend in Hebden Bridge, which was James’s birthday present from me. Was great to get out of Sheffield for a while, and to just spend all of your time hiking and eating things. Some of the walks were pretty steep though, and have to confess I was wheezing like an asthmatic badger at times, trying to stop myself from coughing up a lung. Pregnancy fucks with your body, man. You have 50% more blood, and yet you’re 75% slower, rounder and clumsier.

Trying my best to write a vaguely up-beat entry, but I have to admit that I’m pretty down at the moment. I’m trying to keep it to myself, because there’s nothing anyone can do, but it’s hard. I’m this huge, uncomfortable Mr Greedy shape with pregnancy rhinitis, I’m slow and tired when I try and exercise, and my heart is this constant, relentless malevolent presence that lurches, palpitates and thuds, and it’s all just making me so, so miserable. Plus I’m almost certainly unemployed at the end of the year. And then the baby kicks incessantly at your ribs, and you find yourself thinking, ‘Oh fuck off, it’s your fault anyway”, even though she’s a defenceless baby that has no idea what she’s doing. It’s not her fault she’s growing and putting a strain on everything, and it’s not her fault my heart doesn’t work properly. And I want her so much, except for when I’m so sad that I find myself thinking, ‘Is this even going to be a good decision?’, but I’m sure it is because when I’m in a happier mood I’m excited that Pommy will eventually arrive.

But yeah, everything just feels relentless and dull, so you just have to go inside of yourself and wait it out. There are 82 days to go, give or take. And that’s not that long, even if right now it feels like it is.

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