What they don't tell you about pregnancy

I know I've been a total slacker in terms of blogging, but my excuse is that I'm pregnant and I took early maternity leave. Very early. I've been a slacker in many aspects, but now that I'm well and truly in the second trimester (past 5 months now) I'm feeling heaps better and more up to all the things I was avoiding before... like work. Fortunately for me, I work at home at my own pace, and even more fortunately, I have an understanding hubby who makes most of the money so I can relax and watch The Golden Girls at 4pm every afternoon with a clear conscience.

Anyway, I thought before I forget, I should write a list of all the things I had to discover for myself about pregnancy. Everyone talks about how wonderful it is and all the stuff about glowing and blah blah blah, but they don't tell you about the flatulence and discomfort. So this is my review on pregnancy for my own records.

First of all, it's an unending list of annoying discomforts. Especially early on (in the first trimester), there's a lot of uncontrollable flatulence. One time I was in a supermarket and in the middle of a sentence I let one out accidentally... okay it wasn't that much of an accident but I thought it would be silent and it wasn't. Anyway, I thought I'd just keep talking and noone would notice, but would hubby take my lead? No way. He says to me, 'uh, excuse me?' and laughs. Thank you very much.

Also in the first trimester is the general feeling of being unwell ALL THE BLOODY TIME. I just never felt quite right, quite myself, because all those hormones that are developing your baby are also totally messing with your body.

One thing that wasn't too bad for me though was throwing up. I've always been proud of my throw up history (only once in 1984 then again in 2004), but each occasion was just awful and I dreaded the possibility of throwing up during pregnancy. I did throw up a handful of times between weeks 12-14, but I found that it was a completely different experience: this time, it wasn't accompanied by hours of nausea followed by a day of illness. Each throw up was clean and efficient - just heave, heave, blow her out, then I felt fine afterwards.

Something that I'm so glad is over now is taste bud sensitivity. It wasn't so much with food, but I couldn't stand the taste of my own mouth, so I had to constantly chew gum or suck a mint or lolly. Brushing and Listerine only helped so much, and actually, most of the throwing up I did was thanks to the taste of my own morning breath.

A lesson learnt in the last month or so was that I can't eat to the same extent as I used to in a single sitting, because eating too much now causes reflux and it's so disgusting it ruins a perfectly delicious meal. I thought I could be clever and eat as much as I want then just take Gaviscon to avoid the reflux, but the cure is almost worse than the sickness. Yuck! So now I'm exercising self control to eat smaller portions but more regularly.

Thankfully, most of the worst discomforts disappeared by week 18, and I'm told many women suffer far worse than I did so I'm grateful really. But what happened to the glow I'm supposed to have right now? What I have instead of a glow is pimples all down my back (never happened before so I'm blaming it on the pregnancy) and tiredness. But I guess what I'll get in the end - a hopefully healthy and happy baby boy (we found out, couldn't resist) - will be worth it in the end. At least that's what they tell you, right? :)