The Fear. The wooze: 5 mins in my skin

So, I am 12 weeks this week. That magical number which *should* mean that I start to feel better soon, that my energy will slowly come back, that I get to see that I actually have a baby inside of me. That it is healthy, and doing all it should be. I should be excited to be so close but I have to tell you that I am just filled with worry. With anxiety. And lets not forget a whole load of sick as well.

Don’t get me wrong. I am excited. I am thrilled that we will finally get to see the little one. Our new little one. I just feel so distanced from the reality of it all. I mean it was over 2 months ago that I saw two little lines on a test (OK, more like 5 tests) and there has just been a whole lot of feeling like shit in between. I am tired to my bones. Tired so much that it makes you feel sick – or maybe that’s just the sick that I am already feeling. I have trouble sleeping at night in between Daisy waking up for something or just being WIDE awake for no apparent reason at all. Surely that has to be the cruelest of all the pregnancy symptoms – the insomnia? I had a week or so back where I thought that I had turned a corner – I started to feel better and then the last week I am back to sick, sick, sick, tired and sick. The afternoons and evening are the worst – it seems to get worse the further into the day I get so by dinner time, and Daisy bed time, bath time I feel revolting. And cranky. And sick. Last night I just cried into poor Rob’s arms at the injustice of it all! Slightly dramatic I know but just all I felt at that moment. I am also fat. Well not fat, pregnant but the early stages of pregnancy where you just look fat, and wide and no longer fit comfortably into any of your clothes. I have trotted out maternity pants already, honestly, at 12 weeks. ANIMAL. Plus I am sure that I have put on LOTS of weight because the only food that makes me feel better seems to be of the fast kind. Burgers. Fries. Mayo with fries. I see my reflection in shop windows and I honestly shudder. And the tears, the tears. Just tonight I watched a movie with Daisy – Barbie the Island Princess or something equally as revolting – and I cried, wept even. Because she was eventually reunited with her mother!Hormones anyone?

Then I have the FEAR. The worry about the scan next week. I am all too aware that it was at this scan last time with Daisy that it showed up that she had 6 fingers on each hand. Did I ever tell you about that? Well at this scan it showed that she had 6 fingers. On each little hand. Which they thought could mean that she had some terrible genetic disorder which meant that I had to wait to have an amnio at 17 weeks then waited a further 3 weeks for the results to find out that in fact, I had a perfectly healthy baby with 5 FINGERS on each hand. I am terrified that they will find something at the scan. I am just anxious, not excited to see the baby. That there will be something wrong. Paranoid anyone? Or then there is that old chestnut that they will find not 1 but 2 babies in there. My sister had twins with her second pregnancy and I have had lots of people joke about it to me. Whilst I am almost certain it won’t be the case, it could be.

I know that this will all pass. Like any challenging part of parenthood I have already faced, and am yet to face, it will pass. When you are in it, it seems eternal, like it will never change, it’s all too unfair. But it will pass. And the other thing? It’s ALL out of my control. I just have to go with whatever will happen, because that’s what will happen and there is nothing that I can do to change that. And I keep reminding myself just how lucky I am to even be here, experiencing all this. There are many people out there, friends of mine who are desperate to be pregnant, who are mourning over the loss of their children, some newer than mine and others older, and I here I am whinging. I know I am lucky, so lucky and whatever is meant to be, will be. I am trying to be zen-like about it all. It’s just that the wooze and the angst seem to get in my way! And tonight? Totally un-prompted when Daisy asked to see the baby in my tummy (we had not told her anything about the baby but last week she declared to us both that there was a “baby in Mummy’s tummy”?!) and lifted up my shirt to say hello, well I think it shows that it will ALL be worth it.