Hello and a bit of a rant!

[mel0dy]

Hi! Been lurking since just after I found out I was pregnant and thought it time to join in. Apols if this gets lengthy but not ready to tell the public yet so need to get a few things off my chest!

I'm 34 and PG for 1st time- it's all very surreal at the min. I've never been a girly girl and most of my good friends are blokes. I can't even remember the last time someone managed to trick me into holding a baby! (don't do the passing it round like a peace pipe thing).

Sometime in September last year me and DP decided "sod it lets see if we're fertile" having not been "caught" for the 9 years we've been together. Got a massive cold/flu thing early December, which disguised morning sickness until I had a week where my breasts were RIDICULOUSLY sore - then "hang on, when did I last have one of those pesky period things?" Oh. I see. Mulled over the concept of me (ME!) being PG for a few days and then slapped the knowledge on DP on New Year's Day. Cheapo test 2nd Jan, bit blurry, hmm, not sure, Clear Blue one day after said YEP PREGNANT. Right. Fair enough.

While I'm not traditionally maternal or whatever, we always planned to breed and I know I'll be fine with my own but I kind of want to skip to when it's bigger and can talk and stuff.

It's really silly but main thing that I'm anxious about is talking to other people about it-even my parents! - I'm no prude but it just seems sort of personal in a way nothing else ever has felt to me before. Only went to GP Tuesday so waiting to here from mat unit ref booking in, scans etc - complete guesswork and calc on here tells me I'm about 11 weeks gone. So far only me, DP and a very good friend know. (She's a mother and a sarky bitch so it's working very well). Don't want to be a hermit forever, do want to learn from other people's experience, will have to get over myself.

Thanks for reading so far!
Ranty bits- I want a fag! I want to enjoy a nice cup of Assam but I've developed a distaste for tea! Tea!!!! I've stopped (ish - or may be just got used to) feeling sick most of the day but I still have no appetite! I love food It's not fair - waaaah! I've started feeling weepy and whingy and woe is me too. Feel like slapping myself on the hour every hour. Also I'm an idot for not planning properly. Never planned to be heavily PG in the summer months, always thought it daft to lump a child with an end of school year birthday (10-11 months behind September babies). Should have got fitter and richer before we did this. I'm irresponsible and lazy and useless and waaaaaaaahhh!

I can remember sitting on the loo with my positive test, crying.

Baby was wanted and we were trying, but until that moment it wasn't really real - I didn't think it would happen. And I really hadn't a clue how different the world was going to look the moment after that pink line appeared.

But now at 27 weeks, I'm genuinely excited about it all. Thankfully 2nd trimester doesn't mess with your head like the first does, I was wallowing in the pity pool for most of weeks 7-10... hopefully you'll feel much more like your old self again soon.

And planning - what planning?! The kids in charge now, get used to it

Congratulations!

Thankyou!

Feel like if I just got to bed for say 2 months and wake up when my public has already been briefed and my appetite's back it'll all be fine. Not been this grateful for existence of internet forums for a long time. :)

I'm not really the girly-girly type either melody, and I've never really gone gooey-eyed over babies, although am sure (hoping!) will be more interested in my own! My pregnancy is completely planned and wanted, but I admit to since finding out thinking about the following:

1. I really want some wine, but I can't.
2. Feeling a bit bereft at the thought that in 8 months my long lie ins on my days off are a thing of the past.
3. Realising there will be no more surplus cash once baby is born for holidays, etc.
4. Not being sure about how I'll cope with giving up work for a year - potentially quite isolating for me.

I think it's normal. We're not all mother-earth types! Do you watch Scrubs? I imagine myself being a mother like Jordan. ;)

No problem in keeping it to yourself until your hormones/appetite/feelings calm down! Easier to handle everyone else's responses when you're in control of your own

I told people really early and wish I'd kept my little secret to myself a bit longer... figure out my own feelings first.

Your response sounds perfectly normal to me! Am 31 weeks and only now beginning to feel in control of what's happening... at 33 years old, this is a big change to everything I'm used to! (Ps I miss blue cheese and cheesecake Will scoff them when it's all done, possibly even together! )

But just think getting up in the night will be much easier when it's warm, and you won't be trapped in cos of snow and you get to enjoy mat leave in the summer!

I know what you mean about telling people. I felt sick for so long that I didn't see anyone for ages so by the time I got to the face to face conversations about it I'd got used to it and stopped feeling as vulnerable about it in a way.

Thanks all! Will talk more tomoz on laptop. Gonna rewatch scrubs I think- I'm not completely Jordan but love her. :)

Yes yes and yes. I cried when I saw two lines as well - not upset as such just "fuuuuuuck!". I find babies a bit boring. I like my life and I don't particularly want it turned upside-down. It's completely terrifying. I'm fed up with feeling sick. I'm cross that the woman gets lumbered with the hard bit while the man gets to carry on as normal.

Despite all that I know this is what I want. Every so often I catch myself giving my fledgling bump a little contented rub.

I know exactly how you feel about not wanting to tell your parents etc. I'm no prude either but for some reason it felt really personal. Quite a strange feeling. It took me a couple of days after out first scan to tell them and luckily I didn't have to tell anyone else because word spread like bloody wildfire amongst family and friends

no one is rich enough or fit enough!! I was similar- planned, wanted pregnancy but still felt aaaagggh about it. I remember it felt other-worldly and at the 12 week scan me and oh both thought god it looks so real!! it is a really personal thing-perhaps the most personal of all so don't worry about that. I sort of had to avoid people until 13weeks because as soon as I said no to a glass of wine people would know!! The thing you need to remember is that pregnancy is long- you will get your head around it but don't feel you need to push it- I swear i was still not completely convinced I was actually going tohave a little person whilst packing my hospital bag! Finding out the sex helped for me so I could picture him instead of it. Also early pg isn't nearly as nice as the middle months- you might find that the taste thing changes again-I felt crappy until week 13 and loads better by week 14-15.
Now typing one handed whilst feeding 18 day old son- he's lovelybut I swear he sometimes looks at me as if to say"oh my god are you supposed to be my mum????"

Like you I'd never been into holding babies and the whole telling everyone I was pregnant just didn't appeal... yes, I'm a married adult so obviously I'm having sex but somehow telling people I was pregnant was just too public a declaration of a private action! In fact, I was so coy about it that other than doing the formal paperwork I didn't tell the people I worked with, so just had people starting to guess hesitantly at around the 25 week mark when I started to look a bit like I'd swallowed a small beach ball!

Missed drinking corona like mad and when DS arrived I remember spending the first month thinking what have I done, I want my life back.

Fast forward 2 years and I'm pregnant again and without a doubt having DS1 was the best thing I've ever done - whole new perspective on life, excuse to visit fun places again, even started enjoying baking with him (!)

So I honestly believe you will be fine (in fact, probably better than fine!) and as for not having enough money.... pah, no-one ever does!

Just be aware that mummy groups can be a vicious world - throw yourself into the lions den as soon as possible, then once you've made some like-minded friends you can extract yourself and not have to pretend you care about how organic various baby foods are or which are the best reusable nappies ever again (unless of course you think you will be an earth mother, in which case enjoy.... or you live in an area less earth-mother-ey than mine, in which case again, enjoy!)

Thanks for this thread, it makes me feel so much less of a freak! I'm 25 weeks and there are still people I've not told and have mostly felt really self-conscious when delivering the news to folk. To be honest, I feel like a big fraud, I'm 41 and this is definitely a planned and much wanted first baby, but I feel like 'people like me' (no idea who I think those are) aren't meant to have babies and that I'm kidding myself that it's going to be ok and I won't fuck it up. I said the other day that I feel like a 6 year old Mary in a nativity play, with a cushion up my jumper, doing a pretend waddle! I don't want to feel self-conscious, I want to fully embrace this experience but people fussing make me cringe.

I also want beer and fags (although I gave up a year ago)!
I've never changed a nappy in my life.
If it's a boy I have even less clue what to do with it (sisters and even a girl-cat

EmFlat you can have hard blue cheese, ie Stilton and cheesecake! Get thee to a chiller cabinet, stat!

This is such a nice thread to read! I sometimes feel that everyone is so clued up....except me. I haven't held a baby for over 15 years and I am unlikely to before mine is born as I don't know anyone with children. Don't have a clue what to do with a baby, and it's going to be a bloody nightmare managing it all in a small flat....but I'm sure we'll do it. The most reassuring thing I've read, OP, is that the baby is new to the world and doesn't know how it's 'supposed' to be done - your way will be the right way to your baby

I found it really weird telling people too. It's funny - you spend from the ages of 16 to 20-odd thinking that getting pregnant would be The End Of The World. And everyone agrees with you. But then you hit a certain age, and it's suddenly not just acceptable now, it's immediately expected of you.

I reacted to the "when are you having kids" pressure by telling everyone that I didn't know that I ever would. So when I announced I was pregnant they were all pretty shocked. There were lots of examples of having things I'd said about babies in the past quoted back at me. People got over it pretty quickly though.

i have to say i want a fag to... and i want a glass... no... BOTTLE of wine! humph... hate going out and watching everyone else drink.. got to go out tonight... wish i could just sit in pj's for whole pregnancy (and beyond)...

Oh lord I want wine too. Have a bottle and a half in the fridge from before finding out I was preggers, and it's calling to me!

Also this morning sickness crap is doing my head in. Quite often I feel ravenously hungry, then after I prepare food I eat a few mouthfuls and feel nauseous. Also have absolutely no interest in chocolate, cream cakes etc, as all rich creamy things make me feel sick. Classic - First time in my life I have an excuse to eat extra calories and all my favourite treat foods make me feel sick.

Also I have nightmares of being put in an antenatal group by midwife full of women who want to talk about organic baby food and re-usable nappies whilst doing pregnancy yoga, when all I want to do is drink wine in front of television in my PJs....

Thanks for support all. :)

Main thing right now is waiting for scan appointment, cos once I know how far along I am can plan out telling people. Would really like to get it done so I don't have to think of excuses ref the Beer Festival we all go to at the end of Jan!

Here's a question - are ante natal and other mummy groups really necessary? Good friend down south had a baby last year and I know lots of Dad's whose other halves I can get to know better!

Hello, I felt exactly like you, only more so.

Just wait till you have the booking appointment and scan - they give you 'emmas diary' in the pack. That will either make you rage, weep or laugh hilariously. Depending on the hormones that day. Possibly all of them at once.

Did you not realise you should be glowing and planning the nursery decor about now? And don't forget to book in for that pregnancy massage.......

Society has a very set idea about how you should feel and it isn't 'gagging for a fag / glass of wine / bit of smelly runny Camembert'. Ignore it.

Pregnancy is a trap, one you jump into quite happily but once you are caught it is only a bit natural to panic. It's one of the few times in your life where you have very little control over what you can do - you can't vow to lose weight / get fit (starting Monday) etc. the deadline is unmovable and out of your control.

And no, the ante natal clubs aren't essential but don't dismiss out of hand. It does actually help to have someone to talk to about the challenges once the baby shows up. It's life changing. completely. And you will find you probably go through a short time when you want to talk babies. I know you will find it hard to believe but I think it hits everyone. Then you will come out the other side and be absolutely desperate for some non parent conversation!

The classes are also helpful as preparation - even if you know most of it from the books. I had read up on the stages of normal birth. After a totally low risk and easy pregnancy it seemed pretty certain birth would be straightforward. Ha ha. I ended up with an emergency c section and it was only the antenatal class which had prepared me a bit for what would happen. Otherwise I would have been totally surprised.