Does My Bump Look Big In This?

So, a cheeky mare asked me how long I had left recently. I replied with my due date and the said cheeky mare responded with, "Gosh, is that all? I'd have said you were ready to pop!"

I was unaware for a second or two whether what had run through my brain ie. "Well, I'm pregnant, what's your excuse?" had actually left my brain and blurted out through my mouth but unfortunately it hadn't and instead I stated something along the lines of, "I know, it just seems to have become this huge bump all of a sudden!" before turning around and immediately starting up a conversation with someone who wasn't the said cheeky mare.

Now, I'm not normally this defensive nor would I even care, as quite frankly I'm usually very much of the opinion that what anyone else thinks of me is quite frankly, none of my business, and so maybe it's just the hormones talking but there really does seem to be something about being pregnant that means people can suddenly comment on your appearance with no consequence.

Nor am I walking around thinking I look particularly hideous or whale-like, I'm just getting on with it really. It is what it is and being pregnant and all the expanding that goes with it (including the boob-age! Whoop! I've never been short-changed in that department but still...whoop!) hasn't really bothered me, especially when it has meant an ever expanding wardrobe too...double whoop!!

Now, I have to say that had a family or friend commented on Bump-gate, I would have laughed and agreed (genuinely), but the mare in question was a complete stranger - I'd met the woman only seconds before. In fact, I think, "Hi, I'm Louise" came AFTER I'd been judged! Looking back, I actually wish I'd have made her feel uber uncomfortable and replied, "..but I'm not pregnant.." but it has to be said, I was contemplating whether I should grab a muffin or a cookie from the table next to us at the time ;)

Yeah, it's funny how overly personal people suddenly are when confronted with a pregnant belly.

I was at a shmoozy event for work recently when a guy, who I have met before but wouldn't say know, came over to me, spotted my tum and went on to ask me if my hubbie planned to be at the 'goal end' during labour. When I replied, "Erm...no", he continued with, "Well, he's obviously been down there before or you wouldn't be in that position!" Oh how I LOL'd....hmmm.

Which, in actual fact, isn't the case in our situation. I may have said in my 'inaugural' post last week that babies come from good old S-E-X. Not in our case.

We've never been a particularly broody couple. We like kids, don't get me wrong, and love our niece and nephews to bits as we do our friends' kids. We enjoy their company but never particulalry felt that 'urge.' I was always more inclined to go completely gooey over a puppy than a baby. Plus, we've always been the type of people to throw ourselves into our hectic jobs.

We got married five years ago having been together twelve years (as I said in my wedding speech - "We've always rushed into things!"). It was then that we began to think about the future a little more and realised that, should we never have kids, then we'd potentially look back and regret it. I'd come off the Pill a couple of years previously purely to give my body a break and so it was time to definitively "not be careful."

It was funny how naughty it felt at first to not be using anything, it almost felt as though your mum was going to burst in and give you a lecture on the birds and the bees.

I wouldn't say we particularly 'tried' - we didn't exactly time 'it' nor wake up taking temperatures etc. Maybe naively and wrongly, we simply put getting pregnant down to good old pot luck and Mother Nature.

As it turns out, in the five years that followed, Mother Nature was in fact a complete bitch. My dad was diagnosed with terminal small cell lung cancer almost a year to the day after we got married, which I can't deny, did put a huge amount of stress and worry on both of us. Thank God - I'm not religious but I feel I have to thank someone to show how grateful we are that he is still with us against all odds - he's managed to fight it like a complete legend. He'll never get rid of it but for now the bastard Cancer is still in its cage.

After two years of unprotected sex it dawned on us that nothing was happening and off to the doc's it was.

Three years followed of undignified poking and prodding, pain and discomfort, crap drug after crap drug. It seems that my hormone levels apparently jumped from month to month meaning that for us to get pregnant naturally would be possible but more pot luck than normal. When you think that a 'normal' couple only have a 4% chance of getting pregnant naturally each month, it's a wonder there's so many of us on the planet!

Our 'luck' reduced again by the fact that my husband had a lot of global work trips during this time and I worked a lot of long hours..and of course sex does IDEALLY require you to be in the same room! Phones and photos when apart may be a fun little swap whilst apart (!) but you can't really pop the consequential semen in a bag with a turkey baster and courier it over can you? ;) Can you?? I never had a problem with the way it was in terms of work. It didn't help but there was no point worrying about something we just had to get on with.

We were told we had 'Unexplained Infertility' which basically means there was no real explanation as to why nothing had happened. In a weird way, we were kind of hoping that something would be wrong, because if something was wrong, then it could potentially be fixed.

So after years of the said prodding and poking (in every respect!), we were put on the list for an actual procedure as opposed to simply pill popping and being tested in every undignified way possible.

After we had reached the top of the list for a procedure, we were then told we would have to wait another three months whilst the new clinic was audited. It was a set back but we vowed to make the most of the Summer, booked a lovely holiday and drank lots of wine, and basically didn't care about it for a little while.

The day arrived to go back to the clinic and so it began. I was taught how to inject myself and did so every morning for a few weeks. That was my morning routine at least. My nightly routine was the very glamorous procedure of a torpedo sized suppository (have I spelt that correctly?) - if not, let's just say it was a 'pop up the bum' tablet. Gorgeous.

A few weeks later was procedure day. We had been offered three goes of IUI (artificial insemination) and then, if unsuccessful, IVF. After months and months of internal scans and random alien looking objects being shoved up 'there', I was beyond caring when a catheter went up alongside a needle, tubing, you name it. If the kitchen sink had been plonked up too, I wouldn't have noticed!

We didn't get off to the best start as, at the beginning of the procedure, we were told by the nurse that it was highly unlikely to work as our levels weren't the best on the morning and she gave us the option to go home whilst they figured out what they could do for us. We stated that we hadn't come this far just to give up at this hurdle and legs akimbo it was...

We knocked Mother Nature out fair and square as it happened as two weeks later, it was test time. A little faint line appeared, and there it was, we were pregnant. Mother Nature took two blows that week in fact. Only the day before my dad had been back to the Cancer hospital and was informed that the Cancer was still a caged beast and, for now, against all odds, was doing really well.

I'm 23 weeks pregnant now and it's bizarre recounting all of this as, for such a long time, it consumed our lives with appointment after appointment, drug after drug, test after test, poke after poke (again, in every sense) and suddenly we have a house full of items we never thought we'd see here - cot, pram, car-seat, Moses basket. The first time we walked into Mothercare I practically recoiled in terror! Surely this was just somewhere we visited when buying baby gifts for friends and family!

So there we are, that's our little story. Maybe that's why I'm a little more catty than most when a stranger comments on my bump or when I'm asked (again, by someone who doesn't quite come under the friends or family banner!) why I wasn't all 'cooey' over our then impending 20 weeks scan. I was in fact very 'practical' about it as, after everything we've been through and with the knowledge that this is highly likely to be our first and last child, the scan was purely, for us, about whether everything was ok - not about a cute picture or whether it was Strawberry or Blueberry flavoured. We're having a surprise flavoured one by the way.

Don't worry, do feel free to comment on my bump..I'm gonna need content for my next blog after all ;)