The Yummy Mummy’s Survival Guide. Liz Fraser

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      One final thing you should be prepared for, as I wasn’t the first time, is that it doesn’t last for 12 weeks and then stop. Or, at least, it might, but it almost certainly won’t. Everyone I have talked to has had a different experience. Things always settled down for me at around this time, but for every textbook case there’s one lucky lady who never gets sick at all, and another one who throws up three times a day for nine months. C’est la vie!

      Oh, and it does tend to get a little bit worse with multiple babies and with each successive pregnancy, so count yourself lucky you’re not on baby number six yet!

       More Worries

      More? How much can one woman worry about?

      I’m afraid sections dealing with worries, concerns, fears and feelings of utter doom and gloom will crop up time and time again throughout this book. This is not because I am the world’s greatest pessimist, or because I am trying to wind you up into a panic, but because you will experience many of these worries over the course of becoming a Yummy Mummy, and I couldn’t possibly fit them all into one part. Anyway, if I did manage, you would take one look at it and run to the nearest department store for some cosmetics or footwear-related escapism, never to emerge. Fun, but very expensive, and anyway, denial is not very helpful at all, no matter how high its heels are. Better to tackle the issues head-on, and be prepared.

      Most of my worries in the early months of my pregnancies focused on all the evils I had done to my body in the past, rather than what awaited it in the immediate future. Could a baby grow inside a body which was previously best known for its pint-downing ability? What about that magic mushroom I was offered in Indonesia ten years ago? Maybe just being in the same tent had an effect on my brain, which would surely be passed on. And what about the genes from the rest of my unsuitable family? Mum used to smoke, my dad’s great-great-great-grandmother had a heart attack, my husband used to live next to an asbestos factory, there’s a phone mast at the end of our road, and I don’t drink green tea. Oh God, oh God! This baby is doomed to grow into a hallucinating piss-head, with heart trouble and a carcinogen-filled brain. What have I done? As far as I can make out from other Yummy Mummies, this sort of irrational panicking is perfectly normal.

      Heather, mother of Alex, three, and Katie, six months

      

       We went to a wedding when I was eight weeks pregnant, although I didn’t know at the time. I got hammered, and I put all the throwing up down to the ten glasses of champagne I had quaffed during the reception. When it turned out I was pregnant, I was convinced my baby would be a pickled onion rather than the healthy child she was. It was worrying, though.

       Cheering Yourself Up

      If you are feeling worried and scared about what is happening to you, and about the whole ‘becoming a parent’ thing, then read this bit as many times as you need to over the next nine months:

      

Becoming a mother is the best thing you will ever do. (Read that bit again a few more times now, if you like.)

      

Becoming a mother changes the way you feel about everything, and if you are not sure about it now, you will be absolutely sure about it, and know you have done the right thing, when the baby comes. You will manage just fine.

      

You will get your figure back, and you will look wonderful and sexy again.

      

Being a Yummy Mummy does not mean you change who you are, and you will still be able to go out, have a job, go shopping, travel and see your friends. A little less than before, but you can still do it.

      

You will get Mothers’ Day treats (yippee!).

      

You will be able to board flights first.

      

You get balloons when you go to restaurants with your baby.

      

Yummy Mummies are the luckiest people alive today, because being somebody’s mother is the happiest feeling in the world, and we still get to look fab and have a job. How good is that?

      And, finally, with the ‘mush factor’ turned up to the max, just remember:

      

Your baby will grow up to be the best friend you’ll ever know, and you’ll have many, many years of happiness, laughter, love and fun to look forward to together. Your baby will make your life better in more ways than you can imagine now, and you will wonder how you could ever have worried about it all. Awwww, sweeet.

      Anya Hindmarch, designer

      

       Being a mother is very hard. You are getting up in the middle of the night, clearing up sick and giving most of your attention, love and resources to someone who is brand new in your life and hasn’t even earned it. It doesn’t really add up on paper but somehow it is the ultimate privilege to watch this little person grow and be allowed to enjoy steering them and teaching them everything you know.

       PART THREE The Middle Bit

      In theory, after about 12 weeks you enter a new, easier, more Yummy and less vomitty phase, known as the second trimester. I call it the Middle Bit, because that’s just a lot clearer, as I’m sure you’ll agree. The middle bit brings clearly visible physical changes, and it heralds the beginning of your pregnancy ‘proper’, as opposed to some invisible affliction which makes you tired and grumpy. Now we can all see why!

      It’s during this stage that you will finally start to feel pregnant, and it can be very odd realising there really is a baby in there, and you really are going to be a mum fairly soon. Scary stuff, but something you’ll get used to in about ten years’ time. This part deals with some of the key physical and mental hurdles you will stumble ungraciously over, and hopes to make the transition into Properly Pregnant Lady a little smoother.

       Physical Changes

       15 October. 8 p.m. Hotel room in Manchester. Seven months pregnant.

       We are near the end of filming a very boring maths series for schools. My bump has grown so much over the course of the three-week shoot that we have had to resort to all sorts of clever trickery to conceal it: sitting down, holding objects at bump-level, shooting from the waist up and so on. Today wasn’t even subtle: they just stuck me behind the sofa instead of on it, and had me casually leaning СКАЧАТЬ