Pregnancy Update - 5 Months

How far along: 

5 months, 20 weeks, 140 days

We are going to the hospital for our scan soon.

Symptoms:

Tiredness, baby brain, the munchies.

The morning sickness has begun to subside. I only get waves of it if i'm tired, starving or travelling. I nibble on ginger biscuits, drink a glass of milk and take a steady walk in the fresh air to ease it off. Safe to say the Waterloo station ladies loo will have made a good fortune from me by now.

Food Cravings:

Cheese, chocolate, orange juice and caramel.

I have always enjoyed my food and thought I'd be subject to some weird cravings in pregnancy. Actually it's the usual culprits, just to the extreme. I can scoff much larger quantities than I ever thought possible. My thighs and ass are really thanking me for this, not.
I've also been a big fan of coffee, now I have discovered the caramel shot and my gosh it is the best taste on earth. Especially after one of my visits to Waterloo ladies. I'm normally found strolling to work through Lincoln's Inn Fields in the mornings, sipping on my heavenly iced caramel latte, reassuring myself that the toilet bowls are all worth it, and planning my lunch.

Movement: 

Just a few little flutterings here and there.

Occasionally I let it worry me. I've read a lot of gals feel their babies kicking away by now, one even said she felt big thumps and bumps, so strong her husband could actually feel them too. I have felt some strange ripples, bubbles and taps. I think it's a sensation I haven't grown familiar with yet. Maybe it's a good indication that we have a lovely chilled out babe in there.

Gender: 

It's a secret.

We will be finding out at the scan today and will reveal the news in time. We just want to keep it to ourselves for a little while. Enjoy our little secret and begin preparing ourselves for what is ahead of us. I think it changes a lot of people's perspective of your future family and potential parenting. M and I are entirely open minded as to what we have. At the beginning we swung from really wanting a girl to really wanting a boy, now we're in the perfect in between. We're really looking forward to finding out.

Sleep: 

Temperamental.

I have an enormous pillow to cuddle, straddle and pretty much get lost in. It's like the closest thing to sleeping on a cloud, I swear. I've been using rescue remedy occasionally If I can't switch off. I've begun to obsess over prams, nursery decor, our new house, new furniture, whether I'll breastfeed, bottle feed or both, that I should start swimming, what my birth plan will be and what the birth will actually be like, that I need to get a manicure before baby is due, that I might lose all my friends and become a nauseating dithering mother. that I need to vacuum more often etc. etc. etc. This is just the beginning right... 

Stretch Marks: 

Nope.

Moisturiser, Bio-Oil, Sanctuary stretch mark cream are all being smothered on whenever I remember. Mostly morning and night, or at least once a day. I have an inkling that I won't get them until the last few months. They'll probably appear suddenly overnight, one of those pleasant surprises of pregnancy to look forward to. At least I can admit that I'm not scared of them, I'm just preparing myself for the worst.

Miss Anything: 

Red wine, blue cheese and salami.

Please just give me a mezze board and a bottle of wine!

Best Moment: 

Hiking in Cornwall with M and my mum this weekend.

We went to the most beautiful place, Kynance Cove. Just as we arrived and approached the clifftops, the sun came out to reveal gorgeous blues and turquoise colours across the beach and sea. We stopped for lunch and a coffee, climbed up more cliff tops and although my lungs almost exploded - it was amazing to see the view, get my heart pumping again and release the tension i'd been carrying. I've been on a roller coaster of emotions in my pregnancy so far and then so excited about the scan today. It was great to let it all rest for a few hours and enjoy where I am.

Worst Moment: 

The emotional roller coaster.

The last 5 months have been gruelling. Some friends have come out of the shadows, family have been extra lovely and my best of friends have been so supportive and comforting. It's really spectacular to witness how people react, behave and treat you in pregnancy. Unfortunately I had a rose tinted idea as to what would happen when we got pregnant. It hasn't all been sunshine and roses and it breaks my heart to admit I've lost one of the most special people in my life, something I could never imagine. The past 5 months have been testing on all my relationships and friendships. It's a shame we didn't get the outcome I had envisioned. It's hard, I'm going to be honest, and it just fucking sucks.

Looking forward to:

Our baby shower.

Social Media:

One of the first rules M and I decided on when we got pregnant was that tonnes of photos of our baby will not be shared on social media. Big fat full stop. We discussed it thoroughly and both agreed that we wanted full control over what was shared with the public.


We both enjoyed childhoods that weren't shared with the world and weren't forever posted around the internet. We had our parents full attention. We had snippets of it recorded on a little camcorder, those family video tapes still get dragged out occasionally and only the special people in our lives have bared witness to our silly adventures, disastrous dated wardrobe and school plays. We want to give that luxury to our child too.


Blake Lively put it perfectly. Admittedly she is a celebrity, and comparatively we are pretty much nobodies to the internet, but it covers the same moral ground. "My husband and I chose a profession and a side effect of that is your personal life is public. Our child hasn't had the opportunity to choose whether or not she wants her personal life to be public or not," she said. "So in order to give her as much normality as possible, we want her to have a childhood like we had. So we can't really throw her into the lion's den that is LA, not that we really want to."