The big secret

I'm about 6 weeks pregnant, I think, and have told a lot of people. I told my family immediately. I found out on a Saturday, and told everyone at work on the Monday. I haven't told many friends, just a close few. Any others I'm going to tell as and when I see them. I'll do the big Facebook broadcast once I've had my first scan.

Last time I was pregnant, I was horribly sick - puking most mornings, the works. I came in late, left early and was a fetching shade of green. As a primary school teacher, the majority of my colleagues are women and as such many of them are mothers. Most people suspected I was pregnant and grilled my closest work friends about it (who denied all knowledge, bless 'em). But no-one actually came and spoke to me! Everyone was talking about me, but no-one was talking to me! The stupid thing is, if anybody had approached me and said, "are you pregnant?" I would have answered, "yes, but please keep it to yourself".

I posted here:

http://thegoodbodies.blogspot.com/2008/10/and-puking-began-here.html

about how unfair it is that during the first trimester, the time when you feel the worst and need the most support, you are not supposed to tell anyone. The reasons for this are that something like 95% of miscarriages happen some time in the first 12 weeks. So presumably, you wouldn't want to follow up the exciting announcement of a pregnancy with the sad one of a miscarriage.

Or would you? In a workplace full of women, mothers, children and family problems, my colleagues are a fabulous support network. We see each other through private and professional dramas, and rally round when somone is having a crisis, however large or small. In fact, I think that if I were to suffer a miscarriage - which is not that likely anyway, I'm not in any of the high-risk categories and have already had one straightforward pregnancy - my colleagues would provide me with tremendous support. If I suffered any other sort of loss or bereavement, I would want the support of the people around me. I wouldn't really want to soldier on as if nothing had happened. I wouldn't want it to be a secret. And therefore I can't see any good reason for me keeping early pregnancy a secret.

I'm lucky in that my employer is fully supportive (to the point of over-enthusiastic!) of staff having children. In other workplaces, it might be a good idea to keep it quiet until your maternity arrangments are fully in place, I don't know. But I've told everyone at work so that they know there's a good reason why I might not be keeping up properly, or be rather absent-minded, or be green. I want their support through this, because it's a big upheaval, even second time around. (Mind you, I seem to be getting evening sickness rather than morning sickness this time so maybe it would have been easy to conceal, I don't know!)

I play in a brass band and told one of my friends there, who herself has two children under the age of two, at the same time as another friend. She asked me how far along I was and I told her only a few weeks. "Well that's a bit silly, announcing it this early, isn't it?" she said, all judgemental. "Why?" I asked. "Well, you'd better hope nothing happens," she replied, implying a miscarriage. "But then I'd want people to know that as well," I said.

OK, so this particular friend is a bit like that, a bit judgy and speaks without thinking, but I reckon her comments only demonstrate the prevailing attitude in society. Where does this come from? Why should miscarriage be such a shameful secret? Why should early pregnancy be so embarrassing? Does this date back to a time when reproduction  - and naturally, women's bodies in general - was just so shameful that it wasn't mentioned in public until the physical evidence was unavoidable: i.e. the bump began to show, at the start of the second trimester? Probably.

Ugh, in other news, a friend has just found out she is expecting twins! Please God no! I haven't got room for two more, just one please! It hadn't even occured to me until she told me that of course, she hadn't known either until the scan. And mine is about 6 weeks away! Fingers crossed, just the one baby please!


Anthea

News

I am a useless person.

Well, to be more accurate, I am a person who has worked full-time since her son was less than 10 weeks old, who devotes a minimum of two evenings a week to playing in and managing a band, and who has spent the last year or so buying and moving into a property. (A key worker property. Do you know how complicated that is??) What I actually am is a busy person.

And as such I have, since S's birth, written but two posts. Both about said birth. Surely I cannot really claim to be a contributor to this blog at all.

However, I feel I must at least post this: I found out yesterday that I am pregnant with our second baby. Congratulations to me, I feel.

(Do not confuse me with Tina at this point! She might be, whereas I definitely am!)

Anthea

The old abortion debate

Oddly enough, I've found myself becoming simultaneously both more pro-choice and more pro-life than I was before. Why is this?

I have always described myself as 'pro-life in theory, pro-choice in practice'. What I mean by this is that whilst, to me, the ending of a child's life before it has begun is theoretically abhorrent, I also live in the real world and recognise that easy access to free, safe, legal abortion is absolutely necessary to ensure women's freedom. In places where this is not available, women live in dreadful circumstances. I am not going to detail those here, it's all been done elsewhere.

I have become more pro-life in that I do not understand how, after seeing scan pictures (as early as 8 weeks) and feeling movements (as early as 16 weeks) any woman could possibly contemplate the ending of that little, helpless life inside her (abortion in this country is legal up to 24 weeks). I suppose that the vast majority of terminations happen much earlier than this and that someone who was going to have one would not have a scan or reach the stage where she felt movements, but the overwhelming urge I have to protect the fetus inside me really makes me question how anyone could choose to terminate a pregnancy.

On the other hand, this pregnancy is the single biggest upheaval I've experienced in my life. I was dreadfully sick in the early stages and am sufferering just as badly in the late stages with heartburn. I've had interrupted sleep throughout the last 7 months, constipation, alarming mood swings, swollen ankles and tiredness at all sorts of strange times. It is no exaggeration that a pregnancy takes over your entire body and by extension your whole life: I no longer play in my music group due to exhaustion, I can't travel easily, various fun activities (e.g. rollercoasters, certain sports) are off-limits and I've had to cut out some of my favourite foods, such as mouldy cheeses (a big deal for a vegetarian!!). This is before we even come to the pain and trauma of the birth, and the trials and responsiblities of being a parent. As strongly as I feel about fetal rights, I now feel more strongly than ever that no woman should ever, ever be forced to go through what I've been going through or am about to experience - and I'm having a fairly straightforward preganancy! So yes, I could say that I'm more pro-choice these days.

And that is how I come to be both more pro-life and more pro-choice as a result of experiencing pregnancy for myself. Thank you and good night.

Anthea

Do all mammals experience morning sickness?

I had a thought yesterday, as I put my Maple and Brown Sugar Oatmeal to one side for fear of bringing it back up again: do all mammals experience morning sickness? I've never heard of a cat or dog (or monkey, donkey (ass) or camel, for that matter) feeling generally crappy and vomiting right after lunch, but surely it can't be just us humans, can it?

As a vegetarian, I stand firm against wearing fur and leather, and using animals as test subjects for cosmetics and other "beauty" products, but I do understand why it's important to test on creatures for pharmaceutical purposes. So, if animals do experience morning sickness, has anyone researched how to put that to good use and find a cure for us ladies? I should imagine not, as there's probably not enough money in it. Also, pharmaceutical companies are mainly run by men, who probably think morning sickness is either funny, or a sign of weakness. We all just accept that feeling crappy for nine months (in one way or another) is par for the course, and I think there's a general feeling of "Well, I had to go through it, so you should to" from women who've had children before.

But I don't want to!

When I asked someone why there isn't a good enough treatment for morning sickness, and why there has been no noticeable development in this area since the 1960s (and look how that turned out), they said "Typical! There isn't a pill for everything, you know."

Well, I think there should be. That's all.

Tina.