What's in a name?

The baby is doing well, I think. She is mostly active in the evening or if I'm playing video games or on the phone to GM. She also likes sugary foods. So yes, it's a girl. During the routine scan it was established that everything from corpus callosum to toe looks fine, and her developmental markers are good (moving and sucking fingers and drinking etc.).

I hadn't really given much thought to what it would be like to be pregnant. I guess most people don't, because it's an experience so far removed from how we normally live our lives, full of abstraction and technical gadgets and ways of doing things without actually having to deal with them. Having sex and producing babies, as long as it's done the good oldfashioned way, is pretty much the only thing we still do, all by ourselves, from one end to the other, notwithstanding an epidural or forceps helpfully applied at the home stretch.

It's weird, it's someting my body is just... doing. All by itself. And it seems to know what to do. I think the underside of my breasts is beginning to show what might be tiny stretch marks, but otherwise I look as fit as a fiddle, just rounder. And without the waist. Maybe more like a double bass seen from the side, or at least a cello.

I had expected to feel more uncomfortable about my body changing so much, because I've always really liked it the way it is, but it just feels right. Of course, having a man who professes how beautiful he thinks I am on a daily basis probably helps lubricate the bodily ego to a large extent, but really, I think it's fascinating to see the body do what it's made to do, and making it look so easy, too. At least so far.

I've started giving GM daily updates from the belly region (which actually started a lot earlier as my digestive system has been generally schizophrenic since I got pregnant), which he has the good wits to pretend he appreciates. Like yesterday, I felt my first Braxton Hicks contraction. It was a very weird feeling, a section of my belly below the navel, about the size of a handball, suddenly jutted out with the taut texture of, well, an inflated handball. It only lasted for a few seconds, and then it was over. It wasn't painful at all, it just tickled. I started laughing out loud, alone in the living room, and felt a bit crazy.

Every day I look different. Some days my belly is massive, and I can feel my diaphragm being pushed upwards at the end of the day. Other days, like today, it still looks almost flat when I get up. Also, there are definitely kicks that can be felt on the outside. I wonder if they are purposeful, like the fetus is trying to turn, or if it's just a sort of "hey, my legs! I can move them!". Or if there is no conscience at all this early on. After all, the brain is pretty undeveloped still. So I keep taking my Omega 3 and hoping all will go well.

It is lovely to have someone to share all this with. I keep thinking that being a single pregnant woman must be lonely, even if you have all the closest friends in the world. GM is pretty much contract obliged to listen to everything I have to say, and he has a personal interest in the process which is purposeful, as we will be raising this child equally. I am not saying it would be impossible for me to do this on my own, I am just saying I think I would feel a sense of something missing. It does take two to make a baby, and there is probably a reason for that. It is not something one person should have to do alone.

We have started the naming debate sort of vaguely. Somebody pointed out to me that it's actually a really important act, and it is true that Freakonomics states that there are more dentists called Dennis than one would statistically speaking expect. Any suggestions received with thanks.

Those pregnancy books all lie..

Me. Oh, and that white elephant at 17-ish weeks

I've read several pregnancy books,aimed at both mums- and dads-to-be, since I got knocked up.

So far I've managed quite successfully to avoid the most graphic ones with colour photos of fetuses and that sort of thing, but I think I would feel like a slightly neglectful prospective parent if I didn't take some interest in what's going on inside me.

But as I say, these books lie.

When GM is around his friends or even colleagues, all they talk about appears to be pregnancy-and baby-related topics such as "what is the best estate car", "what symptoms/physical abuse can one expect from a pregnant woman" and "once I shagged my gf from behind when she had just thrown up and I was holding her hair back, just because it had been so long and I thought it might be the only go I would get for the next month or so (entirely true story)".

Not only that, but there appears to be a certain strange undertone of supportiveness in this line of conversation, even when they tell him things like "when they think she might rip, they use scissors, you can actually hear them cutting the flesh" (GM was traumatised for days after that particular one).

Oh and let me emphasise, these are all men we are talking about. They do manly, physically dangerous work with their man hands and have beards and smoke cigars and drink cognac etc. OK, so some of them are nurses, but still. They are men.

My friends, on the other hand, fall into two camps. The camp completely comfortable with my growing belly, who stroke it, ask if they can look after the baby once it is born and generally concerned with the well-being of us both.

Then there's the second camp. They want to hear nothing about the pregnancy, they visibly shirk back if I mention anything about being fat or tired or having headaches or anything related to being colonised by a parasite that grows by the day.

And yes, you've guessed. The first category includes most of my male friends. The second category are all women.

Perhaps this is the punishment for being over 30 and chosing friends with higher education and a career. The female friends who act this way fall into two further subtypes: a) Single and hating it or b) Trying to have a baby but failing.

OK, so I've never really wished for a baby and not managed to conceive. I would imagine it's incredibly stressful. And of course I realise it was somewhat foolish to mention to one of these friends (a very close friend actually) whilst she was complaining about her fertility issues, that in fact, smoking 20 a day does nothing for your fertility rate. If I was not pregnant, it would have been bad enough. Now, it's probably like I'm flaunting my own accidental fertility in a highly annoying and condescending way.

This 20-a-day friend has snapped at me just about every time we've met since I got pregnant, saying some things that I really think are mean, despite pregnancy-related heightened social paranoia. A few examples include pointing out that I'll be really fat and saggy boobs, and also that I shouldn't complain about not being able to eat due to nausea, as at least I get a baby out of it. I'm also not allowed to avoid smoky venues or unhealthy foods without her passing some sarky remark. Right.

Another friend, when I told her I was pregnant, exclaimed "but I thought you would wait until I met someone!". A third turned to her boyfriend and shrieked "see, she can have one, why can't I!"

They say pregnant women go all irrational and hormonal, but clearly these hormones also have an effect on those around us. Several people I've hitherto thought of as close friends (we have known each other for at least 10 years) appear to be avoiding me.

This saddens me immensely. I never realised being pregnant would be so lonely. And as weeks pass, I can no longer hide my condition, so I don't even have to say anything to be considered an offensive reminder of other people's failings.

It's not that I want people around me to be eternally interesting in what goes on in my uterus. I guess I just expected more from my friends than.. this. I don't have an urge to constantly discuss pregnancy related things, it's just that I find it really, really hard to have to watch what I say in order not to upset anyone.

I hoped for some level of support, even tacit support, or at least not outright hostility. I find them selfish, I am so deeply disappointed that they cannot, despite their various personal issues, find it within them to be just a little bit happy for me that things are going my way, albeit in unexpected fashions.

So I'm taking issue with is the fact that the books all say that "women share their stories of pregnancy with each other and feel more comfortable talking about this issue than men, for whom the pregnancy feels unreal and distant". Also they say that "feel more capable of taking care of the new baby because women discuss this with other women".

I've never heard such BS. At least not since the last time I had the misfortune of reading a right-wing political party manifesto. Give me those manly men with their horror birth stories, any day.

Time, going nowhere

My head is rushing. I woke from a dream of sorting through my drawers and putting away all the bras that no longer fit me. Which was of course most of them. At the same time I was trying to dry a library book that got soaked while I was wading through a mangrove forest in the pouring rain, trying to get somewhere.

It's 3 am in the morning and I'm wide awake.

Morning sickness, I guess, starts really, really early in the morning.

I did the usual, rolling over, eating a cracker with peanut butter, drank some water. But I can't seem to go back to sleep. I got the laptop out, checked my schedule for tomorrow morning, and the lecture is about sleep disturbances in children. Not helping.

Somewhere, in your wide, comfy bed, you are asleep, my lover. I hope you are sleeping soundly, that your body is allowing you the rest you deserve.

The space next to me is empty, but somehow I can still feel you there, see you sleeping the way you sometimes do, turned on your side, hugging the duvet like a cuddly toy, the curve of your upper lip protruding slightly, in a way that makes it almost impossible not to kiss, although that would almost certainly wake you, you are a lighter sleeper than you seem to think.

Or you are sitting, propped up against a pillow in the diffuse light from an IKEA bedside lamp, your strong hand with fingers spread out, splaying open a book with way too many pages, forehead slightly creasing up now and then, as if what you are reading surprises you. Your eyes move rapidly across the page, the same way they move when you are dreaming. I love that, how you can dream your way into a book, away from everything. How you can be called back if I touch you.

Last night, I was on the sofa, watching that episode from Season 6 of Buffy where Xander stands Anya up at the altar. My belly was doming below my hand, resting at that curiously hot spot at the bottom of my breasts (the ones that no longer fit into my bra).

I am pretty sure there is still life down there, I certainly feel as pregnant as ever, moved to tears by Extreme Makeover (House Edition), even when the parents are still alive and neither of the children are crippled.

There, on the sofa, where that baby could well have been made had we spent that particular evening in my apartment and not in yours, I was wondering whether I will ever feel contained by the company of this child, what we've created together.

But I think I will continue to miss you when you are not here, I will look at the empty spot next to me like I do now, and know that I am too far away from home, which is always where you are.

Morning sickness and morning sex

So, maybe GM will get the girl he wishes for anyway.

At any rate, morning sickness has kicked in. Though, as most pregnancy books / websites / mums will tell you, "morning sickness" is a total misnomer probably invented by some man who thought it would be comforting to pregnant women to believe that they would feel better as the day went on.

For me, I feel OK in the morning as long as I have a crispbread and some water (thank god for that ice cube machine in the fridge). In fact, I feel OK generally as long as I don't eat too much. And by too much I mean like, more than a slice of toast with spread, or a really small cereal bowl of spaghetti.

It is torture! OK so I've put on like 5 kg already and I'm only 6 weeks gone and probably don't want to end up like Catherine Zeta Jons (whom allegedely put on more than 20 kgs; that would equal more than 33% of my original body weight and would presumably not be good) but at the same time, I love eating. Love it love it love it. And I like eating lots in one go and am not very fond of chewing my food properly either.

Trying my usual style of wolfing down a whole takeaway or eating six cheeese sandwhiches has lead to lying on my right hand side in bed going "I can't eeeaaaaaattttt anymore... Poooor meeeeeee.." for about an hour and a half, by which point I'm suddenly ravenously hungry again.

I've now stuck to tinee weenee portions of food for a few days and my stomach has never been flatter.. I still feel a bit weird after and before I've eaten but not as bad.

Anyhoo. One of GMs pregnancy books, of the genre "mildly mocking and potentially misogynistic literature describing foetus in easily understandable language for men such as snack units or military jargon", mentioned that sex is a good cure for nausea.

And you know what? It works. In a way, I would say my sex drive has never been higher, but since GM and I essentially made this baby by being at it like rabbits all day long in a way I did not think possible for a man his age and a woman as intelligent as myself, that would be a bit of a lie. But it has not dipped in the way you would expect since most of my thoughts ruminate on themes like "don't chuck up, you have emetophobia" and "OMG OMG OMG I'm pregnant and we have no money", neither of which are particularily aphrodisiac.

In fact, we have over the previous days had sex 14 times. Four-teen. FOURTEEN! Geezes. And it works. It really works. He turns me on like no man has ever done before, and as soon as I get going, the nausea magically disappears.

And if I have an orgasm.. or two.. or three... I actually feel fine for like an hour afterwards. And we can do all the stuff we like, I can lie on my stomach and give oral sex, and my breasts have actually never been more sensitive than now, and I mean that in a good way.

I haven't exactly told him this yet as I don't want him to feel like some cheap remedy against morning sickness. But girls and boys out there, if you do feel queasy, do not let this go untested... And also, it can't be bad for the relationship. GM actually got access to the Cataclysm Beta, and he's barely looked at it. I'm not saying I want the nausea to last, but seriously, it's not all bad in pregnancy land...

Privacy

I think I just overstepped the mark with GM. We decided to tell two of our close mutual friends our news.. The girl in the couple has wanted a baby for ages, and we thought it would be good to get it out of the way while we had an exit strategy, as these kinds of situations tend to cause a lot of arguing in that household.

The exit strategy being that if a fight appeared to be ensuing, I would claim to have to give GM a ride to work and therefore we could both slip away unnoticed together.

Basically the girl started chatting about another friend of hers who is also pregnant, and GM and I both started giggling uncontrollably. When GM said I was pregnant, our male friend's jaw dropped to the ground almost audibly (he has a pretty square and solid jaw). The girl managed to be courteous and say congrats etc. Male friend said nothing, the poor thing.

Male friend and I plus another guy went for a guys' beer in town after GM dropped us off to go to work. The guy plus male friend were both full of great advice to me, though neither were particularly reassuring. They seemed both bemused and, as male friend said as he reluctantly let me go for the 10 min walk to GM's flat on my own instead of getting a cab (Him: "I would never let my girlfriend walk there alone." Me: "Neither would GM let me. However he is not here, and you're not my boyfriend, so I'm walking."): "It's been a happy and befuddling occasion this evening."

But that is really all besides the point.

The point I wanted to make is that I could actually see GM getting uncomfortable with having to share this really rather personal news with our friends, albeid close ones. I am not a very private person, and to me, there's no discomfort in it whatsoever. I could see him crossing his arms protectively.

I don't know what he's worried about, but I feel with hindsight that we shouldn't have told them. OK, so I'm the one who is actually pregnant, but really, holding back news for me is clearly more comfortable than letting news out is to him. I will hug him and hold him in the morning and tell him this.

It is weird, we are still learning to know each other, and all these great big issues are arising and we have to handle them in the best way we can. He says he is fine, and I think he is, but right now I think that being with me, just the two of us, is all he really wants. He has no urge to involve the whole world, like I do. It is my basic instinct to unfold in front of my friends to include them and reassure myself of their support.

GM doesn't need them, not like I do. He only needs me.

It feels like a large responsibilty, but at the same time it really is an honor.