Things I learnt during pregnancy

1. It is true, random people do like to feel your stomach. It didn't happen as often as I thought it might and the most annoying incident involved a member of staff from a local fruit shop who followed me into the shop when he saw I was pregnant, initiated a conversation about the pregnancy and made a grab for my belly. On the other hand, most people, especially people I knew, asked me if they could 'cop a feel' as it were. I didn't mind if it was someone I knew but I did draw the line at strangers making a grab for me.
   
2. People generally offered me a seat on public transport and it was mostly young people who did the seat offering.
3. Pregnant women are public property so people feel free to make comments on your weight gain, how well or otherwise you look, whether you should be driving, walking or generally getting on with your life. This can be mildly irritating. A couple of times I had to make the observation that pregnancy is not a disease ...
4. Once people know you are pregnant stuff seems to drift into your house - maternity clothes, baby clothes, baby equipment, bath toys, etc. There is a whole other world out there of stuff I didn't know existed and didn't know I would need. Some things I didn't even know what they were for. But, I really like the fact that there is an underground economy happening out there - things are passed on to you and you in turn pass them on to someone else. This is fantastic as some things hardly get used. Chet has already grown out of some of his clothes and they will certainly be passed on so that they can be used by another small person.
   
5. I was asked many times how the 'nursery' was going. I don't have a nursery and nursery is not a word I would think of using, to my mind it sounds like something out of Mary Poppins. Chet has a corner of a room which seems to be adequate. I am sure Chet won't be unduly harmed by the experience. Obviously we will have to move somewhere bigger once he needs his own room, by which time it wouldn't be a nursery anyway, it would just be Chet's room.
6. Acid reflux is very unpleasant and uncomfortable. And it disappeared when Chet was born - instantly.
   
7. During pregnancy, it is possible to clothe yourself entirely in clothes obtained from eBay or friends and never have to set foot into the maternity section of any shop. I once strayed into the maternity section of Target and was so horrified by what I saw there that I ran, practically screaming, from the shop.
8. Pregnancy jeans are very comfortable and good to wear after the pregnancy as well. I continued to wear my pre-pregnancy jeans up until the 5 month. This was only possible because the jeans were hipsters, you couldn't do that with currently fashionable high waisted jeans. When I finally put on the pregnancy jeans a friend had given me I breathed a sigh of relief. And, there is such as thing as a maternity cape. I bought one on eBay and quite enjoyed wearing it although at the beginning I felt a little like a 19th century highway man. It covered the bump very well, you can wear anything under it and you could conceivably wear it when you weren't pregnant. Highly recommended.
9. Being the only sober person in the room can be strangely liberating. And I discovered I often had more stamina than those who were drinking plus I had the added bonus of being able to remember all the events of the night before and recount them to embarrassed and hungover parties the next day.
10. Pregnancy is a state that seems to go on forever, especially the last month (or last week if you are overdue) but afterwards it seems to have gone quickly in an underwater kind of blur.
    

Anne Enright writes very tellingly about the pregnant state in Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood. She says: "Pregnancy is a non-place, a suspension, a holiday from our fallible and compromised selves. There is no other time in a woman's life when she is so supported and praised and helped and loved. Though perhaps it is not 'she' who gets all the attention, but 'they'; this peculiar, mutant, double self - motherandchild."

Indeed.