Pregnancy.... a time in life where women glow!!  Apparently I missed the manual on this part of my life.  Maybe I was asleep in class!!

My first pregnancy came as a shock. I had just moved states to be with a guy I had been having a long distance relationship with for the previous 18 months.  I knew only him, had no job and was leaving this amazing, fun life in the city, as well as all my friends and family.

Well I got there, got a job and we got engaged.  Planned the wedding for the following year and celebrated.  Then a couple of weeks later, I was late.  Yep, in my mid 20's and for the first time ever, my period was late.  Shit.

A workmate convinced me to buy a test, so I did.  But I was too scared to do it for a few days.  The weekend came and I thought... now's the time.  So I pee-d on the stick and we waited. And waited. That 2 minutes seemed like 2 days.  What if it was positive? How would we both feel. 

Well, we found out didn't we...'cos it was positive.  OMG!! Needless to say, we had to bring the wedding date forward and we had to get used to the fact that we were about to be parents.

All was going fine until I was 7 weeks into the pregnancy.  Morning sickness...what sort of bullshit is that.  It was morning, noon & night sickness and it was woeful.  If I got up to pee during the night, I'd vomit.  I could not eat anything and felt nauseous 24 hours a day.

The aversions I had were to raw chicken (fairly common I'm told) and coffee, cigarette smoke (lucky I didn't smoke), car exhaust and toothpaste.  Yep, toothpaste.  If my partner brushed his teeth, I couldn't kiss him or let him breathe near me. 

I tried every nausea relief potion ever made. Ginger, herbs, ginger, seasickness bands, acupuncture, ginger.  None of them worked through any of my 4 pregnancies.  I reckon it's a revenue raiser for the companies that make them. 

Eventually the morning sickness wore off after about 11 never-ending weeks and I started to feel good.  But then no sooner does this happen than you get fat and uncomfortable.  I couldn't see my feet let alone reach them to put on shoes, without looking like a whale doing yoga.  Luckily I never got the varicose veins (until 3 weeks from the end of my 4th pregnancy), or the haemorrhoids, or the constipation or the hairy tummy.  But I think I paid more than my dues with the morning sickness.

My back ached and I had this bubble on my tummy that looked like I'd shoved a ball up my top.  I couldn't sleep on my back (uncomfortable) or my tummy (for obvious reasons) so I flipped from side to side waking my partner up everytime.  I wallowed in a cold bath 'cos it was so hot but I couldn't get out. 

Each pregnancy was very similar and I had no idea each time what the sex of the baby was.  I decided that if I had to go through labour, I wanted a surprise at the end.

So pregnancy was not the glowing, happy, healthy time everyone told me it would be.  But I will tell you more about that next time.