Third trimester. I now longer know what my vagina looks like. Sorry, but we might as well get that out of the way first.
It definitely existed at some point or else I wouldn’t be in this situation. It was there but now it’s not. My vagina is Pluto.
This is because of my belly. She has become quite the diva. Protruding from every garment like a sassy drag queen.
I now have an ‘outy’ belly button. All scrunched and up and winking at me like its protecting a secret. There is no secret. I’m definitely up the duff. I’m a sandwich board for gestation. The other day I accidentally turned the indicators of my car on with this belly.
I’m almost thirty-one weeks and it has all gone a bit quiet on the western front. My hormones have thankfully calmed down. I mean, I did cry at a Michael Bolton song this morning but I can handle that compared to when I used to swing from angry to happy to horny to tired to sad and back to angry again. All in the amount of time it takes for a Coronation street advert break.
I’m not as relentlessly shattered as I used to be either. I’ve spent the majority of this year like that hibernating bear from the John Lewis Christmas advert a couple of years ago. Except in my heavily pregnant human woman version I straight up murder the rabbit for waking me up and then eat all the other animals before grunting and going back to sleep in my lavishly furnished cave.
I’m enjoying being pregnant loads more now than I did before.
Still waiting for the glowing hair and skin though. I assume I will just wake up one of these mornings looking like I’ve been licked clean by a unicorn.
I’ll be honest I have put on quite a sum of timber being preggo. I’m a bit huge. Okay I’m not end of Ghostbusters rampaging through the streets of New York expelling marshmallow from my joints huge. I’m more thighs rubbing together huge.
I don’t know if men get this, but there is nothing more painful than chub rub. I’m not cool with getting to the end of a hot day and having inner thighs that resemble crackling.
All of those #Thighgap motherfuckers on instagram have obviously never grown a human who holds your intestines hostage and threatens you with bile until you stuff your face with chocolate.
Why couldn’t I have had cravings for lettuce or avacado? Not ferrero rocher. I’m going to start referring to my future son as ‘The Ambassador’ I’ve eaten that many boxes of the stuff.
We went to our first NCT class last Wednesday. An antenatal course for future middle class parents. A few of our chums who are parents recommended the classes as it’s a great place to meet other couples in the same position and make friends/battle comrades.
There we were in a hotel conference room on a balmy evening. One Midwife, seven terrified looking couples and one lone pregnant woman who inadvertently became the elephant in the room. With nobody wanting to be the prick who goes AWWWW WHY ARE YOU ON YOU’RE OWN LOVE? WHERE IS YOUR MALE COUNTERPART HMMMM? So none of us did.
I have to say I enjoyed it. The midwife was a softly spoken, short haired woman in crocs with surprisingly impeccable comic timing. I spent the first ten minutes of the class mouthing ‘she is really funny’ to my husband.
We started the class in the classic team building way. Talking to someone (who you haven’t touched carnally) and find one interesting fact about them and their pregnancy. Cue everybody picking the due date is the interesting fact. “This is Martin. He is married to Carol and their baby is due 19th August.” “This is Helen…AWWWW WHY ARE YOU ON YOU’RE OWN LOVE? WHERE IS YOUR MALE COUNTERPART HMMMM?”
Then we spent LOTS of time talking about the birth. My fault. I was the one who asked “I know this may seem daft, but like, how does it actually get out of me? I certainly know how it got in HAHAHA…” prompting husband to face palm and look at his watch to count how many minutes into the meeting it had taken for me to make a sex joke (Ten minutes, guys).
Hey, the other couples loved it. The men were all like, check out her pregnancy bants and the women were all like, I hope we give birth on the same day in the same ward please! I’m sure that’s what they were thinking…when none of them gave me eye contact in the tea break.
We went through pictures of the birth in detail. Large illustrated laminated pictures of the baby in various stages of being born but looking thoroughly miserable in every one. I don’t blame him. I’m furious whenever anyone makes me leave my house for a social occasion I’m not interested in going to. Birth is one party I would not RSVP to.
I learnt that movies LIE. Your water doesn’t break in a public place and then you head to the hospital. For most women, their water doesn’t break till they are halfway dilated. Blew my mind. Also you don’t birth out the placenta for like ten minutes after. WHAT? Apparantly some parents choose not to cut the cord and keep it attached to the baby untill it drops off three days later. No. The placenta isn’t like a shop price tag. You can’t keep it on just in case you change your mind and want to return the baby to the hospital. Yeah, the placenta dropped off so I know we can’t get a refund but maybe an exchange?
One of the rules of our NCT group is not to judge other couple’s choices. Oh and bring delicious snacks to share (That was my contribution to the Rules ‘idea map’).
It was comforting to be in the company of other future first time parents who seemed just as startled and worried as we were. I got to thinking of them by the end of the meeting as battle comrades.
Who knows over the coming weeks whether any of them will become lifelong pals or even just year long pals.
Although there was the woman who made a joke about not being able to see her vagina anymore. I see whatsapp in our future.
Katie Mulgrew 