The Yummy Mummy’s Survival Guide. Liz Fraser

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СКАЧАТЬ for a less-than-ideal reaction. Perhaps the idea of becoming grandparents is too much to take in, and they just say whatever pops into their heads first. Or perhaps they really are that tactless.

       3. To your friends

      Oooooh, lots and lots of fun. Friends are so great at this kind of thing because, being friends, they know exactly what they should say to make you feel fantastic, and they deliver every time. This kind of news is usually cause for a party and lots of gorgeous presents, so pick a time when your diary is looking free.

       When Should We Tell?

      Because the first few months of pregnancy can be a bit risky, and miscarriages are most common within the first twelve weeks, you might want to try and hold off breaking the news until you have passed this milestone. Another advantage of holding off as long as possible is that friends don’t get bored of the whole thing by the time you’re only halfway there. Nine months is a heck of a long time for someone to be excited about something which only affects them at a distance. Waiting until you first start to show (usually at around four months) means that before they know it you’re into the final stage and ready to go. Much more exciting.

      That said, if you tell your friends and family the moment you know, they will be able to help you through this difficult, vomitty, sore-boobs, random-tears stage, and if things do go sadly wrong after all that, as they do sometimes, you will have a lot of much-needed support.

      Work: Mum’s the Word? When to Tell, What to Expect

      How you play your cards when it comes to spilling the beans to your employer is up to you. Maybe you have a fantastic relationship with them, and they are super family-friendly, in which case you’ll probably walk away with a bunch of flowers and your first pair of baby booties. If, on the other hand, you are instrumental in a huge company buyout, which is due to complete three weeks before your due date, then you should expect less jubilation.

      I had one bad experience of this, which happened during the final round of auditions for a career-making presenting job. I was newly pregnant for the second time, and I decided that the honourable thing to do was to let them know, because Saturday morning kids’ TV wasn’t, and still isn’t, exactly awash with pregnant presenters. When I didn’t get the job I spent the next few months fuming at the injustice, and quite convinced that I missed out because of my expanding waistline. (I now realise it was because I was rubbish, but it was hard to see that at the time!)

      Once bitten, twice very devious, and the next time I was in a similar position I decided to keep schtum. I still didn’t get the gig, but at least this time I knew it was because I wasn’t right for the job, and not because I was gestating. There are, however, some legal and practical guidelines to be aware of:

      

You cannot be dismissed (sacked, fired, booted out, shown the door) for being pregnant.

      

To qualify for statutory maternity pay you must tell your employer that you are pregnant by the fifteenth week before you are due, and tell them when you intend to take your maternity leave.

      

You don’t have to tell your boss that you are pregnant (but he or she will probably notice eventually).

      

You can take time off for antenatal appointments and classes without missing out on any pay…

      

You don’t have to tell a potential employer at a job interview, and if you do, they can’t discriminate against you. (Even though they probably will, but will claim it’s because you are overqualified, underqualified, or some other nonsense like that.)

      The details of your maternity rights are far too dull for this beautiful book, but if you want all the useful facts then go to www.tiger.gov.uk.

      Olivia, mother of Clemmie, eight months

      

       I had to take a bunch of journalists on a flight to Scotland at nine weeks pregnant, and I couldn’t let on that I felt like throwing up the whole time. I had to concentrate so hard on overcoming the constant feeling of nausea, and I sucked Murray Mints the entire day. Twelve hours later, after I’d dispensed with the press packs and waved everyone a jolly goodbye, I dashed back to the car and immediately threw up.

      Hello Boys! Some Physical Changes You (and Others) Might Notice

      The starting gun will still be smoking when your body starts to change all over the place, and the rate at which this happens can be alarming. One of the good side-effects of pregnancy is that your breasts get bigger: even if you have practically no breasts at all you will develop something worthy of a decent ‘Phwoooaaar!’ if you happen to pass a building site. This is just one of the changes you’ll notice within weeks of fertilisation, along with the following:

      

Your boobs become tender and harder (oh great) before getting noticeably bigger (great!).

      

The skin around your nipples gets darker (this part is called the areola, if you really want to know).

      

You might get light-headed easily.

      

It gets harder to pull your abdomen in successfully and pretend you have a washboard stomach: it’s like having permanently bad premenstrual fluid retention, except this time it doesn’t go away—it just gets worse.

      

You have trouble sleeping, despite being exhausted.

      

You start having very complicated, frantic dreams, in which you already have a baby but you keep doing all sorts of dreadful things to it, such as dropping it off the top floor of Selfridges, leaving it at a bus stop, forgetting you put it in the bath while you went out for a meal, only to find…well, it’s not pretty, but it’s just a normal reaction to your huge news.

      

You might start to feel sick, or even be sick (see Morning Sickness below).

      Morning Sickness: If Only it Were That Simple…

      What a misnomer! Firstly, as millions of women every year discover, it does not only occur in the morning, and secondly, it does not always involve being sick. The (presumably male) genius who came up with the term ‘morning sickness’ should have spent a month or two in our house during the first trimester of my pregnancies, and then maybe we’d have had something more realistic to work with: 24-Hour Nausea, Early Evening Retch, or Twelve-Week Hell, for СКАЧАТЬ