Oh to be so lucky

I have been reading Jules Oliver's (Jamie Oliver's wife) book - Minus Nine to One - The Diary of an Honest Mum. I can't bear Myleen Klass, or Melanie Sykes and I have limited tolerance for Tess Daly so I thought old Jules' missives would be the least offensive of the celeb mum baby books. It's quite good - aside from some very annoying repetitions of words in the same sentence or phrases in the same paragraphs - but that's just me being professionally picky.

However I am rather jealous of her morning sickness - not a sentence I ever thought I'd write. Poor old Jules suffered with retching at 6am every morning for five months. Post AM retch she then reportedly had to wolf down an enormous breakfast. Now I am sure this was perfectly hideous for her and I don't mean to pee on her parade in the slightest - everyone's pregnancy is different as everyone keeps telling me. However for the sake of anyone who is newly pregnant and might be reading this - let me tell you that you, like me, might not be so lucky.

It seems there is a conspiracy amongst women when it comes to pregnancy and childbirth. I think you must be given something to sign at the end of it all - a kind of non-disclosure document which says that you're to keep the worst aspects of all things pregnancy and birth related under your hat unless you're speaking to another already pregnant person. By that time the poor sap is well and truly stuck with whatever hand she has been dealt and there is no way to escape.

So prepare yourself from some brutal honesty from me about what lengths my morning sickness has taken me to. It is unlike any form of sickness I have ever experienced in my entire life. When it comes on there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop it - as a consequence of this I have thrown up:
On myself on numerous occasions
In my handbag (luckily it was fabric and could be washed)
All over my landing, kitchen floor and bed on several occasions
Down my dry clean only coat sleeve (it went in the wash because I was too embarrassed to take it to the dry cleaners - luckily it survived)
On the recreation ground in Stamford at 5pm on a Sunday afternoon - while Mr Jones walked off in disgust and people looked as me as if I was some kind of drunk.
In a lay-by on the A1
On the verge by my Grandma's house
In the car park at work
Very nearly on a woman who got in the way of my trip to the office loos ..... you get the picture.

One day you manage to keep down a certain food and think that it's going to be your cure all - the very next day that same food has you running hell for leather for the nearest loo. You begin to eat things based on how they taste on the way back up - cheese and pineapple tastes like pizza, cake still tastes sweet. Anything with garlic, onions, tomatoes or chilli is like bringing up a ferocious, bubbling, burning lava.

You worry constantly that if you retch much more you'll do untold damage to your unborn child and that the lack of nutrients entering your body means that the little bean inside you isn't growing in the way it should.

But perhaps the worst thing is that momentary period of bliss - post vomit - when you get to enjoy what amounts to a few seconds of not feeling a wave of nausea. It literally lasts seconds before it starts all over again.

My sickness started at six weeks and two days, by week 10 I was at the doctors because I was being sick eight times a day and unable to keep even water down. I was threatened with hospital and a drip and given tablets to tuck under my upper lip that fiddle with my brain and "take away" the nausea. They work - but not for long. By week 12 I was unable to function, threatened with hospital again and forced to spend the next five weeks at home and unable to do anything remotely useful.

It's only once you're in the full swing of this barrel of laughs that all of a sudden people start confessing. My grandma was sick until 20 weeks in all FOUR of her pregnancies, my aunt vomited through three. This morning I had an email from a friend of my mum's who was hideously ill with both her girls.

I can't help but wonder why no one ever talks about this - why no one warns you - and the simple fact is that it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference. And that's because when all is said and done, when you feel those first tiny, fluttery little movements inside you and when they graduate into full-on kicks you know that all that hell is going to be worth it.

I have tried - even in my worst moments to remain stoical about my sickness - and it's been hard. At times I've wanted to break down and sob, beg for mercy and plead to someone, anyone to take it all away. But I haven't because every time I felt that way I had to remind myself how damn lucky I am to be having a baby. So this isn't a whinge - but an honest account of the trials and tribulations of something that is a little bit more than morning sickness.

I am now 21 weeks and 1 day - I retch every morning when I get up and feel queer in the evenings, but I don't feel sick during the day. I haven't been properly sick since last Thursday! Hurrah. And if this lasts until Baby Jones appears I can cope with it. If you're just starting out being pregnant then cross your fingers, hope, pray, plead and beg to the powers that be that you get Jules Oliver type sickness - but remember if you don't - it might be hellish but it must be worth it.

Poser - moi?

Unlike my child I am not afraid of a camera. I spend so much of my working life tarting about in front of them to help photographers get the right light and picture set up that if someone points one in my face I tend to just ignore them.

However I have a bit of a thing about bump pictures. I find them a bit odd. Some people look lovely with a bump and some people look awful. I generally hate pictures of naked bumps - especially when they get really big and have outy belly buttons (please don't anyone get offended - this is just my opinion). I am especially self concious about my bump, because who knows if it's a nice one or not.

My shoot fellows were having none of my "no bump pictures" rule though - and spent the entire of last Thursday slowly wearing me down, until I relented and let the lovely Ruth Jenkinson take this pic and a few others.

The girls decided my dress wasn't photogenic enough and found me a pair of jeans (size 12 from sainsburys and I could still get them done up under the bump - just) and a black top to wear - this was a relief because there was talk of me posing nude ala Demi - I think not!

Despite my initial protestations I actually love the pics - and now feel very proud of my little bump. Apparently my bump and me will be photographed at regular intervals between now and when I leave work so that we can watch it grow. An idea that I am actually warming too. Do vote good bump or bad?

PS - I'm pleased to report that this morning I cleaned out the bin cupboard!

The 20 week scan

Baby Jones will be 21 weeks tomorrow. On friday we had our 20 week scan to check that all was well. I was most keen to see if all the sickness had done any damage. I've been googling spina bifida and various other problems for weeks trying to establish if being unable to keep down supplements or anything in particular could have affected the babies development. It seems that hyprochiondria extends to unborn children too.

The good news is that all seems to be well. There are two legs, two arms, two hands and two feet and everything in between. We could see the little heart beating and its tummy full of the amniotic fluid that its been eating. Apparently it's already making poo - which grosses me out just a touch.

Unfortunately Baby J wasn't feeling very photogenic and kept running away from the midwife - hence the rather odd set of images above. There is a baby in there somewhere - and would you believe it - the bottom pic of of its face!!!! Hmmmm! Next time we get to see the little monkey will be when it's born, which is a mite scary. Only 20 weeks to go.

Giving up the sloven

I hold my hands up and confess to the fact that I have a cleaner - she comes once a week (15 minutes early and always catches me in my pjs or mid breakfast - or these days post vomit). She hoovers and cleans the hob and does the bathroom and generally keeps on top of the weekly clean. This however is a double edged sword - it allows me to believe that my house is clean and that I need not get out the hoover, clean under the bed, or wipe the fronts of the kitchen cupboard. So if you look closely you will see that my house really isn't all that clean - well not the sort of clean that I like anyway.

Mr Jones and I have different ideas as to what clean is - I'd like clean sheets every day - he likes the slept in feel. He therefore is perfectly happy with the weekly clean by our somewhat mute Polish "woman that does". I, on the other hand, am suffering frequent paroxysms (heard only by myself and the cats) about the state of the bin cupboard. I know it's a bin cupboard and by nature is supposed to be a bit gross - but I just feel the need to clean it. The thing is the vomiting is rather limiting when it comes to getting down and dirty with the Dettol (or Ecover as it is in our house - but I like alliteration). And Mr Jones can't be persuaded by any stretch of the imagination to clean out a bin cupboard in his rare moments at home (he's still in Scotland).

Apparently this need to clean (I want to move the sofas, sort out all the paperwork, clean under the beds, weed out the wardrobes and rearrange and wipe down the kitchen cupboards) is something to do with being pregnant. A nesting instinct as it were. So the next time I get some spare time, feel a mite human and can get my hands in my marigolds I will be found cleaning out the bin cupboard. Unless of course some kind person finds it in their heart to come and lift me out of my slovenly habits before that day.

Things my child will be having #1

I have decided that Baby Jones is now a girl - if only because I am in love with these Joules knickers! If I have a boy I may come over all 1875 and dress him as a girl until he's three - just so I can buy them.

In other news Miss P has used the "C" word on her blog - I am shocked!

Things my child will not be having #1

As a rule I love Not-On-The-High-Street but sometimes I have to question their stock. A mini cowhide chaise for your little one's room - hmmm I think not! It comes in pink floral too - but that's besides the point.

The garbage gorger

This week Baby Jones is 14cm long and weighs about 200g. There's a lot of wriggling going on - which I thought I'd hate, but actually I love it. Far from feeling like I have a weird alien like creature developing inside me - it's very comforting and I've taken to saying hello whenever it moves - much to the amusement of people around me.

Accoring to Ask A Mum - the oracle of all things baby related, it can't hear me talking yet - it's currently being entertained by a soundtrack of my heartbeat and my digestion. For which I sympathise greatly. Anyone who has had a beloved "bowel" conversation with me (Miss Haigh - you're stil the best partner for these conversations), will know that my digestion is hardly symphonic and pregnancy has done little to help matters, so I should imagine the poor thing is being deafened by rumblings and gurglings.

The sickness is waning - hurrah - but I still feel queasy. It seems the only time the queasiness lulls is when I'm eating. Now I never thought I'd say this - ever - but finding things to eat constantly is really, really hard. Currently top of the list are those bake your own rolls covered in butter. At this rate the "I've only gained 4lb" smugness isn't going to last very long.

In other news this week I have decided that I never want to be a phlebotomist. I had to go for a load of blood tests on Friday which where taken by a poor woman who spends her day drawing tube, after tube of blood from people who don't want to be there, in a small room with no natural daylight - it was positively vampiric.

Us and the sheep

One of our wedding pictures has won a bit of an award - it's the one with the sheep - we're very proud - well done Mr Taylor for taking such a lovely picture and well done the sheep. Take a look here

Kicking the cat

- I would never kick a cat - especially my own - but Baby Jones doesn't share the same values. The other night Miss Penny was asleep on my tummy, one of her favourite places to sleep, when all of a sudden Baby Jones started to kick for the first time. I was very excited, Miss Penny - less so.

It feels like a gentle tapping, but it was hard enough, and clearly annoying enough, for the cat to move with a disgruntled look on her face. Since then I've felt Baby Jones move every day - I have to squish him a bit to get him to do it - but move he does - hurrah.

In other news - I've already broken my no sick in 2010 resolution - well we all knew it was a long shot.