PUSH!!!

Chapter 1 - My Story

Me

‘Yes, I did a little poo’

 

At 28 years old I was more than ready. The urge to sniff babies heads in public was becoming impossible to ignore as was the nagging coming from my womb urging me to reproduce, telling me it was ready, it was primed, and the time IS now. My sex drive went through the roof, pleasing my other half no end and my desperately empty womb, which was now in a constant state of alert, was poised to accept any offerings of swimmers. There was not a day that went by when I didn’t think about having a baby; it literally consumed my every waking thought.

We had been together for six years when we sat and had ‘the talk’. By ‘we’ I mean I talked and he listened. I always thought all that talk about your biological clock ticking away was rubbish, but it is true. It was there as clear as day and it was starting to deafen me. We had already had a similar talk a year before but after the “but I like things the way they are” speech, I thought best to wait a while longer, but now I was putting my foot down. 

I came off the contraceptive pill in January but as we were not ‘actively’ trying as he put it, we would use other methods for a while. Women know most men detest using condoms so the next best thing in their minds is the withdrawal method. Contrary to popular belief, this is not a reliable method of contraception. While we are on the subject, neither is having sex whilst lying on newspaper nor lying on the floor with your legs flat against a wall. Did people really believe that worked?

The withdrawal method does, however, delay the process but I finally fell pregnant in May 2004 and I was ecstatic. It took him a little more time to come round to the idea; he had his MG Convertible to consider after all, but after all is said and done we settled in to our nine-month wait quite nicely.

I am lucky in the sense that I had a relatively stress free pregnancy compared to others you will read about. However, as with every other woman in this book, I watched helplessly as my body grew, bloated and puffed up beyond recognition, and I am not just talking about my bump. By the end of the nine months I do not think there was one part of my body that was its original size, except maybe my eyeballs.

I suffered with nausea in the first few months strangely caused by the smell of my fridge. I don’t know why but I had to physically hold my nose every time I opened the door, which was a lot thanks to my appetite. Even if I was in the kitchen when my other half opened the door, I would be left a heaving wreck. Everyone knows what a cat looks like trying to get rid of a hairball, yes that was me.

In the beginning, I craved for anything with a salad. I was like a rabbit munching away on baby spinach, rocket and cucumber, but unfortunately, this didn’t last. My cravings mutated into longings for chips and curry sauce and anything sour. Haribos were a complete let down for me as were sour laces, fizzy frogs and sour snakes. I tried them all. I eventually gave up and just sucked on lemons. I dread to think what I looked like in public walking around licking a lemon. I must have looked like a right loony. My bump was definitely noticeable by about five months. I was not a small girl, I don’t mind admitting that so it took a little more time for people to realise that I was actually with child and not just a big unit. It was quite pleasant to walk around town eating whatever I liked and people would let me off because I was pregnant.

However, with the expanding bump came stretch marks and SPD. For those readers who have not had the pleasure of meeting SPD, let me introduce you. Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction meet the readers, readers meet the most bloody uncomfortable condition of pregnancy. If you had a bike as a kid, chances are you would have slipped forward off the seat and landed on your minnie at least half a dozen times. Now try to remember the pelvic pain. Multiply that pain by about fifty and you have SPD. It is caused by excessive movement of the pubic symphysis, the lower part of the pelvis. Not everyone suffers with this, much to my annoyance at the time, and those who do can have mild pain or be so bad that they require crutches to help support them. I would say my pain was about a seven out of ten, my hips felt like they had popped out of place and I constantly felt as though I had been riding my bike far too much. The pain was especially bad when trying to get out of bed. I must have resembled an eighty year old woman/tortoise mutation as I flailed around on my back trying to roll over enough to sit up and heave my ever-increasing backside off the bed.