MORNING SICKNESS DURING PREGNANCY

Nausea Gravidarum, pregnancy sickness...or whatever we want to call it affects around 80% of pregnant women and I don't know about you, but I found it a complete pain in the butt!

Unless you really can't keep any fluids or food down and are losing weight or dehydrated, morning sickness during pregnancy poses no risk to you or your baby. Nevertheless it is wretched isn't it?

I was blessed with a rather fine vintage of morning sickness and whilst breathing through the nausea paid little attention to the available [from any good supermarket] treatments. Are they really just old wives tales? Does anything actually get rid of morning sickness or are we just lessening the symptoms rather than attacking the root cause. Who the heck knows and when you're wandering around the house feeling as if you want to throw up, who actually cares!

I remember vividly sitting through university lectures feeling greener than a Birds Eye pea! I worked part time as a volunteer in the Oxfam shop in Stirling and used to serve customers with one hand over my mouth, fearing that if I let go something awful would come out. It didn't thank goodness. I just always thought it would!

I was probably a textbook case. Morning sickness for me would start in the morning and ease off about 1pm. To my delight it also ended around the 12 week period so my Oxfam shifts and university lectures became far more enjoyable. My mum on the other hand had morning sickness that lasted morning, noon and night. I think I got off lightly!

In amongst all of the recommended treatments [bar the prescription drugs for very severe cases] I am officially putting any relief I got down to the ginger biscuits I used to line up on my bedside table. If I was feeling particularly frivolous I would throw a dry cracker onto the pile! My biscuits and crackers looked very much at home alongside the industrial size bottle of Gaviscon that I used to swig quite happily for the horrendous heartburn, which disappeared as soon as my daughter was born! Who said pregnancy wasn't sexy...

As if you didn't know...some other 'treatments' for morning sickness:

• Smelling a freshly cut lemon
• Avoiding an empty stomach
• Satisfy your food cravings and aversions [a little bit of what you fancy unless it's on the banned food list...]
• Eat little and often
• Eat fruit and veg with a high water content, such as tomatoes, watermelon, cantaloupe, grapefruit, strawberries, lettuce, spinach, cucumber, courgettes, grapes, etc...
• Eat cabbage [not sure why this is seperate!]
• Embark on the BRAT diet - bananas, rice, apple sauce, toast and tea. [On the same plate?!]
• Ginger, in its various guises - capsules, tea, preserved, biscuits
• Eat dry crackers in the morning
• Drink liquids 30-45 minutes after eating solid food [Did my one bottle of Guiness Original count?!]

I am sure there are many many more and I would love to hear your morning sickness stories, no matter how graphic!

PREGNANCY - FINDING OUT

I'll skip the part about getting pregnant...let's just say in our shabby little 'studio' flat in Newcastle - bedsit to others, it was fun and whiled away the hours...ok, minutes!! I loved that bedsit; it was one of the best places I have lived. So close to St. James Park football stadium you could hear the crowds roar when the 'toon' scored.

I returned to Scotland. Did I feel different? No, not really. Was I pregnant? Well, it turned out I was. I can't remember now if I used one of those pregnancy testing kits, but it was confirmed by the University Campus Medical Centre. And so, that was that. I was going to have a baby. I could tick it off my 'to do' list. Is that how I was going to look at childbirth, another task to get on with. How clinical!

Simon and I always arranged at the start of the week when we were going to call each other. I had to queue at one of the University telephones and could sometimes wait what seemed like an eternity. I rang the day I found out and he was pleased. I didn't get the impression during the long distance call that he was doing cartwheels around the bedsit. I don't actually think it would be possible. In what way do women want their partner to react?

We launched into a conversation about the future and how having a baby wasn't going to change anything. I was going to continue my studies but would transfer to the University of Northumbria and Simon, who was 'looking for work' would stay at home and look after our baby. Easy! Oh, how wrong I was! At 27 years old, I was naive.

It was too early to tell friends and family that I was pregnant but we were looking forward to sharing our secret. It didn't really cross my mind how they would react. Did it really bother me?

I went back to my room in the student flat I shared with 5 other 'mature' students. There was studying to be done.

I'm reading this back and one may think that I am quite an unemotional person. I wouldn't say that, I just hide emotions well and have always been the listener, not the talker.

I told you this would be theraputic!

HAVING A BABY - PLANNED OR UNPLANNED?

Wow, my first ever blog...

I'd like to tell you a story about my maternity journey from deciding to have a baby to the present day. Not all of the story will be shared today, so stay tuned and enjoy the first part of a very honest account of how it was for me and the people around me. It feels very theraputic writing this as it wasn't all plain sailing!

I'm convincing myself that our decision to have a baby was planned (in a fashion!). I was 27 and in my 1st year at Stirling University doing a BA(Hons) in Human Resources Management. The baby conversation (not the baby making!) started whilst sitting on a bus to St. Andrews with Simon (the father!). He turned to me and said, 'Why don't we have a baby'? That was it really!

So, was that planned, or did I just have the inability to say 'no'? Were we having a child to stay together? Were we having a child as a celebration of our love for each other?

Or, were we just plain mad? Simon lived in Newcastle upon Tyne, I had quite happily packed my meagre belongings and moved to mature student digs' in Stirling. But, we had been together for 8 years, so it seemed like a good idea. I don't think we thought the whole baby thing through really, do you?

I'm not going to beat myself up about it (despite what people said at the time). I have absolutely no regrets. I have a beautiful 12 year old daughter to prove that. But, I often think back to the conversation on the bus and the events that have passed. We didn't really think through the practicalities. We were in the 'nothing will change' mindest. I'm a practical person and perhaps it was another item on my 'to do' list...have a baby!