I noticed one of my posts had managed to attract a Google ad that didn’t quite fit the blog’s theme. It’s the one that you see everywhere in various incarnations:

1 Rule of a Flat Stomach
Cut down 37 lbs of stomach fat in 3 months by obeying this 1 rule.

On a blog about pregnancy. Here’s a thought. First rule for a flat stomach: don’t get pregnant.


After about 12 years of obsessing to varying degrees over calorie intake and/or exercise, I have to confess it’s slightly alarming to watch my transforming shape. I know it’s supposed to be beautiful, and when I had a nice neat little bump I really thought it was, but I’m getting to that point now where the physics of the whole operation are starting to freak me out a little bit. And I still have 8-9 weeks of growing to do.

H was taking photos of me every two days at the beginning (or at least from the time we found out I was pregnant) so we could put together a “9 months in 20 seconds” clip, but then Pregnant Brain lost the camera and we haven’t documented the growing bump for the past nine weeks or so. So when my friend commented on how massive I’d become and took a photo of me on the weekend, I got to see myself for the first time in ages.

I am indeed a big pregnant fish. (A big beautiful mermaid, I suggested hopefully. But H decided I was more like Henry, the enormous and rather unglamorous fish we saw in December Boys, and has nicknamed me accordingly.)


Even my granny noticed my growth spurt this weekend. This may not have anything to do with the baby however – I suspect it's more down to the chocolate blowout I had on Wednesday and Thursday. So far in this pregnancy I’ve been pretty restrained and haven’t experienced any bizarre cravings, but my chocolate addiction got away from me this week. I made the classic mistake of shopping on an empty stomach, and ended up with a 350g box of chocolate almonds and a family block of Cadburys, and then devoured the lot over the space of 36 hours. My trouble is I am incapable of pacing myself. As with most addictions, I really should steer clear of chocolate altogether.

I’m not interested in obsessing over my weight while I’m pregnant: this time is about the baby, not me, and if I’m hungry (which I usually am) I’ll eat. But I do reserve the right to chastise myself for feeding my poor baby family blocks of preservative-laden Cadburys. If I was still in London I'd be camped outside Paul A Young's Threadneedle St store, guzzling sea-salted caramels as fast as he could make them. I miss you Paul.