Hi everyone,
first an apology -- I joined an earlier thread and a couple of people left me lovely messages, but then I disappeared for a few weeks and never replied. Sorry about that :( To cut a long story short, I was dealing with what I now realize was probably antenatal depression. Or at least feeling very sad and upset beyond what you'd usually think was normal, most of the time, despite knowing objectively that I was really happy about being pregnant. So sorry for dropping out of the conversation a few threads ago.
Anyhoo... Over the christmas break I caught up on lots of sleep and spent some time figuring out what was going on in my head. Also we started to tell friends and family which helped a lot. I had a couple of long, very supportive conversations with close friends who had babies last year. One of them recommended antenatal yoga as a way of getting exercise/de-stressing, but also as a way of meeting other pregnant ladies in real life for some support. So I started doing that and it's been extremely helpful.
I'm looking forward to joining in some of the conversations here now I'm feeling more myself! Quick facts: 14+6, our first baby, and I'm based in the US (in Chicago) so things are a little different here in terms of how health care works and my (lack of) maternity rights :S