It was finally 2013 - the year my whole life would change!
Around Christmas and New Year, I suddenly had an onslaught of strangers pointing out the size of my bump to me. This baffled me, as it didn't seem that big to me - if anything, a little bit smaller than I would have expected. But people just couldn't seem to help themselves. Every other customer I served would remark, "Wow, you must be ready to pop!" or "You sure you've not got twins in there, love?". One girl even told me, without a hint of humour in her voice, that I couldn't possibly be only 6 months pregnant and that I was probably closer to 8 months because I was gigantic. I bit back the urge to scream in her face that I wasn't a liar and she'd obviously only witnessed freak show pregnancies, but instead I just smiled, corrected her and walked off plotting to accidentally on purpose trip her over in her ridiculous high heels.
Eventually I started winding my shifts at work down to one or two a week. By this point, I was essentially taking up the whole of the back bar anyway. The other staff had to give me such a wide berth that they'd end up falling into the fridges. I had lots of extra appointments and scans to attend, so at least they kept me busy when I was off work.
As it turned out, my bump being 'too big' for my stage in pregnancy was - for lack of a nicer word - bullshit. At my 28 week appointment, my midwife measured my vastly expanding tummy and said it was exactly the size it should be. It was, however, becoming obvious (to me, anyway) that I was having a boy if the old wives tales are anything to go by - the bump was completely out front and started right below my chest, like I'd stuck a giant beach ball down my top.
At the end of January, after a radiator in my room burst and spewed black water all over my floor and most of my stuff, we re-decorated, bought a unit for baby clothes and renovated the cradle I had when I was a baby. This is when I started bouncing off the walls. Every time I'd walk past a tiny vest or hat drying on the radiator, or peeked into the cradle that now replaced my old chest of drawers in my room, I'd feel a bubble of excitement build up in my chest. I now realise that most of that was probably heartburn, but honestly, I couldn't contain myself. I was willing the next two months to fly by, and every day was starting to feel like a week.
At my 34 week appointment, my midwife gave me some concerning news: Firstly, I had sugar in my blood which was the beginnings of gestational diabetes, and secondly my bump had stopped growing at the normal rate, so I'd need another scan at 36 weeks to make sure the baby was still gaining weight and getting nutrients through the umbilical cord. I freaked out, imagined the worst and convinced myself it was all my fault; that I hadn't been eating enough and what I was eating was all crap. As far as the diabetes went, though, I was starting to feel like I couldn't do anything right - there was so much contradictory advice being thrown around. First I was told to drink lots of orange juice to help my body absorb iron as I was highly anaemic. Then, after the sugar showed up in my wee, that I was probably drinking too much orange juice and ought to cut down. My doctor told me to take 2 iron tablets a day and 1 Pregnacare vitamin D tablet, while my consultant called my doctor an idiot and said I needed 2 Folic Acid tablets and 1 iron tablet a day. No one seemed to know what the hell they were talking about.
Things weren't much better at the 36 week scan, either. The sonographer started arguing with me about when my due date was, and very messily scribbled out the date my midwife had recorded on my maternity notes. Then when I saw the consultant after, she asked me why the due date had been changed and went off to have a go at the sonographer. After about an hour of miscommunication, they eventually told me that although my baby was healthy, he was smaller than he should be and that I could opt to be induced at 38 or 39 weeks if I wanted. I couldn't really see the logic in this. Surely if my baby was small, forcing him out earlier than he was expected would mean he'd have less time to gain weight before birth? The consultant couldn't really give me a straight answer as to why this might be a good idea, so I opted to be induced at 41 weeks instead, if he hadn't come along before then.
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