We're having a dragon baby!!

Yes. That IS a baby you can see... we are very happy to announce that WE'RE EXPECTING! We have joined the Chinese baby boom and are thrilled to be having a dragon baby! We are so blessed... life just keeps on getting better and better. In the past 3 years I have met the man of my dreams, had promotions at work, bought a house, gotten married, and now I'm going to be a MUMMY!!

The past 3 months have been amazing, exciting, a little surreal and a challenge. For a start, I'm awful at keeping a secret this exciting and big and wonderful and have been bursting to tell all my friends and family. Not tweeting and facebooking the good news has been excruitatingly difficult! It's been wonderful but it's also been difficult for other reasons... which is kind of why I wanted to blog about the first 3 months of pregnancy. The things no one tells you! I also wanted to record my own journey as a sort of pregnancy journal, so that hopefully I can read back when little bean is a lot bigger and older. I suspect you forget a lot about the early stages of pregnancy once you've had the baby, so blogging about the experience will be a nice momento.

So... when did I find out? Well, sods law, turns out I got pregnant just before my feet operation, when I had stopped taking all my prenatal vitamins (because they're bloody expensive at £18 a box!) as I figured I shouldn't get pregnant before surgery. Er. Fail! At the hospital, the nurse did a routine pregnancy test (2 actually) and one came back with a very very faint line. So, I took 3 more all which were negative and I was told the tests are very accurate so I can't be pregnant. Fast forward a few weeks later, no period and I think hmm... maybe I should check juuuuuuust in case. I asked hubby to buy me a test, and ever the sucker for marketing, he comes home with the most expensive ones in the shops... clear blue digital (but it was ok because it was buy one get one free... and the TV said they're the best... and yes I did roll my eyes at him!). Took the first test... and OMG it says 3+ weeks pregnant. I was NOT expecting that! So I took another. Same thing. I think I took 4 in the end just to be sure! I shouted for hubby and to be honest I didn't get the big excited reaction I was looking for. I think he was more stunned into silence! Of course he's thrilled though!

This was right before Christmas... and being pregnant there are a lot of things you can't eat and drink.... so, I couldn't eat ANY of the really yummy soft and blue cheeses I'd bought (boohoo). I couldn't drink the bottle of coffee Baileys I'd asked my sister to buy me. I couldn't drink the port I bought hubby, or have champagne on new years eve... and to make things worse everything tasted WEIRD. I kept on complaining things tasted off or sour. As for cravings, not so much. I was still recovering from my operation so chair bound, but there was a horrific abundance of chocolate which seemed to all be situated within arms length of dad's lazy boy chair (which I occupied for 6 weeks) and apparently still tasted just as good as before I got pregnant (which I am blaming for my abnormally huge 3 month bump by the way!). I actually was craving a rare steak before I found out (which cruelly I also now can't eat!) and had a BAD roast chicken craving at one point. Mum and dad kindly got me a rotisserie chicken from Tesco and the smell was really making me drool... I managed to get through about a quarter of what was on my plate and felt horrifically sick and had to get mum to take it away immediately! Blergh!

There are other absurd symptoms you get during the first trimester that no one tells you about... like the crazy dreams. I've always had odd dreams, but they seem to have gotten worse since I got pregnant. One night I had such a vivid dream about having a fight that I punched hubby in the arm in my sleep (hard!). Another day I dreamt I was sacrificing a cat?! I also had a really odd dream this week that dad and I went specially to Turkey to buy kebab rolls! Go figure. Sticking with the sleep theme, my sleep is now constantly broken thanks to needing to pee at least once or twice a night, and (apparently this is common) drooling in my sleep! Attractive huh?! Had to ask hubby if he'd clocked that one. Yes. He had. *shame face*!

The other nasty side effect of being pregnant is the indigestion and constipation (sorry if too much information!). The earliest symptom I got was bad bad GAS! I burped non stop for days... and my stomach bloated so much I looked 5 months pregnant at 8 weeks! Luckily the constipation has eased (it was at its worst in Hong Kong! Think the combination of time difference and long haul flight totally screwed my digestive system) and so has the burping. Still have bad gas though! Poor hubby needs a gas mask in bed each night, poor guy! Not particularly romantic when your wife is making you faint with rotten smells!! Haha!

On the plus side, and this is a big plus for an ironing board like me, I have already gone up 2 bra sizes! Woohoo! Ive gone from wearing padded bras to natural cleavage! That was an early on bonus... they grew huge even before I took the pregnancy test. On the downside (especially for hubby) my boobs became super super sore so I had to apply a look but don't touch rule. Poor guy. Another culprit for my disturbed sleep, which left me knackered! Luckily I was resting up housebound for the majority of my first trimester, so I didn't really feel the pregnancy fatigue until my first week back at work... and wow did I feel it then! My first week back I was getting home at 7pm, sleeping til 9pm, getting up for an hour to eat and going straight back to bed at 10pm! Thank goodness for my wonderful hubby who took over the cooking, cleaning and laundry! Bless!!!

One aspect of the first trimester I really didn't like (which I'm praying is well and truly behind me) was the bleeding. I bled a little at both 8 and 10 weeks and totally freaked out both times. I had two early pregnancy scans, one here and the second at A&E in Hong Kong. Luckily both showed baby was fine. Sometimes women bleed during pregnancy around the time they would have had their period, or as the embryo implants, or for no reason at all. Some even bleed throughout their whole pregnancies! God that would be mega stressful!! I have to admit that it's been a very very stressful three months and I'm so glad I reached the second trimester! When we finally reached the 12 week scan I was so relieved to find see little bean (the nickname we've given baby for now) and see its hands move and wriggle!

Hormones are finally kicking in 3 months in... bit delayed?!! Last week I was walking to Blackfriars train station and passed the homeless guy who begs near the entrance. I gave him a smile and he said back "aww such a lovely smile!". I apologised as I didn't have any change and he said not to worry, a smile is enough. The weather is absolutely freezing (as it's been snowing) at the moment and I felt dreadful for not giving him anything (I genuinely didn't have any money on me) and started welling up!! So the next day as I walked past, I gave him a £5 note... He was so surprised and kept saying thank you and god bless you... and that made me well up again too! I managed to squeek out a "you're welcome" before dashing off so I didn't burst in to tears! Gah! I keep welling up! I started blabbing at work telling my colleague how I felt so queasy and tired and bloated and my jeans were too tight the other week... no idea why but I started crying as I wasn't feeling upset?! Weird! But I definitely think its hormones. I also seem to be getting a tad irritable. Poor hubby, who has been FANTASTIC, got the brunt of it this week when he asked me why I was sighing and was I pissed off or ok. That just made me explode (because he asks it quite a lot) and I screamed at him to stop asking me if I'm ok and yes now I was very definitely pissed off and stop asking. Poor guy. He got quite miffed at me after that but gave me a hug after an hour to make up. Aww.

It's such a relief to finally be able to tell everyone that I'm pregnant. Keeping it a secret was so difficult as there are so many friends having babies this year and I so wanted to ask them questions! I thought I was hiding it quite well, but apparently not. So far about 10 people have either guessed or said they suspected before I announced it. Thanks to my time off from surgery, no one wanted to ask me if I was pregnant or not just in case the bump was actually just from me sitting on my ass for 2 months eating chocolate. Ha!

So what do I have to look forward to in the second trimester? Well, our second scan (where we WILL be finding out if we're having a boy or a girl!) and me getting decidedly bigger and fatter! I'm definitely going to have to start buying some new trousers (I already bought one pair of maternity jeans as my bump was getting too big for my normal trousers). I've already had to go and buy a new dress as tonight is hubby's work annual Chinese New Year party (I know a bit late!) which is a black tie affair... and I am now too FAT to fit into any of my lovely dresses in my wardrobe boohoo! I am really looking forward to getting a bigger bump though if I'm honest. I'll finally look more pregnant than fat, and REALLY want to reach that massive milestone where you feel the baby move for the first time! EEK! So exciting!!

So unfortunately, you guessed it, this blog is probably going to be full of pregnancy and baby posts going forward... but hey! I blog about what I know, and this is the biggest and most exciting journey of my life so far, so expect me to be writing about it! A lot! I'm hoping that not only will my blog posts be amusing, but also serve a purpose. If my blog posts help inform any mums-to-be about what to expect during pregnancy (and hopefully reassure them, as it's a brand new, super duper exciting but rather scary event in anyone's life) then I've done something good :)