The Surprise Gift of Life: Part 1

Apologies, this blog was meant to be posted before Christmas, but as it will reveal my life is suddenly turning in a different direction.
I hope that everyone, even though the current climate is very… unsettled, was able to find comfort, joy and laughter for Christmas and the start of 2021.

Back in August (2020) as I was starting back to work after a few months of Covid Lockdown, me and my husband found out that I was expecting our first baby. Needless to say that we were/are super happy and also quite nervous. My husband couldn’t wait to tell people, but for me it took another week and a second pregnancy text for it to really start sinking in.  

There is so much that you don’t get told or fully realise about the changes and impact pregnancy can bring until it happens. The journey is a unique one and at times can feel really long and endless. 

The first 12-16 weeks so much happens and yet so many keep it ‘hush hush’ I found out very early on, which differs so much to my mum’s experience. I found out at 2/3 weeks, because the tests are so advanced and accurate now. My mum was almost 2/3months along when it was confirmed by Doctor for her. There are about 30year between me and my mum giving birth.  

Much of the advice is same, but with a lot more detail, insight and openness from midwives and other mothers, talking and sharing their experiences. However, the first 12 weeks it’s advised not to tell everyone, just close friends and family. This is in case of miscarriage, which I get, but physically women go through the biggest changes in these weeks.  

I was very lucky in that my home and work environment was supportive, and I work with a lot of women, so it was easy for me to open up and know they would be understanding. I got away without heavy Morning sickness, in fact I wasn’t sick once, but the nausea was always there. The other things you can’t really escape from is the hormonal changes, for me it was really intense, I had a short fuse, which isn’t the normal me, but I was like it as a teenager. As my job is face to face with customers, the stress was also quite high at times.  
I found being able to share the emotional highs and lows with others very important. I few people at work but mainly my parents.  

My husband, I think found it quite hard, we butted heads a few times and I lost count of the times I walked out or was left fuming inside. So talking it out with my family, was needed, me and my mother-in-law also shared a lot and have become closer for it too.  

Other things that differ and can’t be predicted, are things like cravings, I didn’t have any, though my taste did change and it quite natural. Eating fresh fruit and veg, wanting less sugar or processed foods. Infact my taste went back to childhood, and what my parents used to make for us as children. I go off water, it tasted so bland so had to add flavouring else I wouldn’t have been drinking, but it lasted only a few days.  
There is a pathovar of little sensations and changes that I experienced in those 16 weeks. There were also times I forgot I was pregnant, because I felt normal.  

What’s been fascinating is the stories and excitement that has come along with everything. After 10/12 weeks I opened up to all my work colleagues and Everyone!! Has shared something different.  
Memories of when their or their partners were pregnant, the strange sensations they felt, both good and the bad, all of which has been so comforting.  
My parents are super excited, as this is their first grandchild and also their first-time seeing images of a baby at different stages.  

Image: First scan at 10-12 weeks old

Both my parents were nurses, but have been retired for over 20years. So lots of things have changed, technology has advanced and the information given to new parents is vast in comparison. If anyone has seen or heard of the series ‘Call the Midwife’ you get an amazing sense of how fast things change, along with people’s attitudes. 

Growing up in a world that is so far away from my parent's childhood, is both good and bad. I do feel we take a lot for granted, and having family, parents, grandparents even great grandparents, is really a blessing.  
One of my husband's Grandmothers is a keen knitter, one of her grandchildren has just had their first baby, she made them a lovely blanket and when she offered to make more, she was told they were going to buy all new. So when we were given our blanket, I was the opposite, I love the idea that family can pull together and create or pass things on, I only had one grandparent, and I loved her to bits. She part raised me, as my parents were working lots both as nurses and on my uncle's farm where we lived. I learned so much from her, sadly she passed away when I was 17, but I have always remembered my times with her.  
So we now have my grandmother in law, making knitted boots and matching hats, even though we don’t know if we’re having a boy or girl.  

16-20 weeks 

By 16 weeks everything has become “normal” or more balanced again, I heard baby’s heartbeat for the first time at my 16week check up and started to notice a bump appearing and clothes not wanting to fit shortly after.  

Was still a strange experience. Like seeing baby moving at 12 weeks, but feeling nothing, it was the same hearing it move and not feeling it. I was given the strangest homework ever!! 
My midwife told me that I needed to keep a note of when baby became active, e.i. after food, drinking, in the evening or morning etc... and then respond to it so that baby would respond to the midwife when I saw her next, at 25 weeks.  
For a first time to be mum, that was odd and funny to be told, when you can’t feel anything moving and are going by what others have experienced.  

I didn’t start feeling anything till about week 19, first it was little sensations then all of a sudden when I was sitting down at the computer, the movements were quite distinctive in that they were not my normal.  

For me, the movements are like pulling fabric round in a bucket of water, that is baby turning or moving. Kicks feel like flicking the skin of a drum, without the sound, but you feel the vibration.  At times it feels ticklish and I just have to move around as it’s such a strange sensation.  

To make things interesting, as at my 20 week scan I finally find out if I'm growing a boy or girl, I decided to bake a cake half blue and half pink inside, then when I was ready to let people know what it was, I cut the right side and reveal the inner colour.

I can say, I’m growing into the roll of Motherhood. The sensations have changed, stronger movements and now feeling and seeing the kicks.
I have fluttering’s, which could be fingers moving or hiccups and each week He (it’s a little boy) moves higher up my belly and my belly is now looking rather large as I sail past Week 25…

Next Blog:

Modern Art in St Ives - A glimpse into how Modern Artist’s such as Hepworth and Nicholson, came to settle in St Ives Cornwall, and the impact that has had.

Special Blanket - Inspired by quilters and knitters who pass things into the next generation. Here I pull patches which friends and family have made together, in the hope of creating a special baby blanket.

The Surprise Gift of Life: Part 2 - Continuing my journey of pregnancy