MPJ: The Second Trimester

Hello everyone!

The Milkmeister, who is now 12 weeks old, has been gifted a beautiful and high-quality merino gown. It was probably very expensive and she loves it. Unfortunately, due to its beige nature and her many many chins, it makes her look like a funny little monk.

THE CAPTION WAS GOING TO BE “THIS, BUT A BABY” BUT the milkmeister’s vibe is more friar tuck AND less friar boyband. i don’t know why all of the monk stock photos were weirdly thirst trappish.

perhaps they are trappist monks! ho! ho! ho!

come for the pregnancy journey, stay for the monk puns.

Anyway! This post is not about my monk baby who has fallen asleep with her body in my lap and her head on the dog,* it is about My Pregnancy Journey.

*don’t worry, this may seem like questionable parenting but I’m supporting her head and the dog is asleep, clutching one of the Milkmeister’s toys between his paws. The toy looks like a labrador and is called ‘Soft Roland’. The dog also looks like a labrador** and is called ‘Regular Roland’ (so as not to confuse the two, as in “Have you seen Roland?” “Soft or Regular?” ) Soft Roland will be going in the wash tomorrow. Regular Roland is sure to miss him terribly.

**because he is one. This reminds me; back when I was a reporter, I read all of the Employment Relations Authority decisions in case any of them were particularly newsworthy. They weren’t, but one stuck with me; a woman had been fired because of a dispute with a coworker. The ERA summary included this magnificent sentence: “While Ms X admitted that she had called Mr A a ‘c*nt’, it was only because she believed that he was one.” Isn’t that fantastic, in its weird formality? Can you imagine the conversation, as it played out in an investigative setting? “On the 12th of May at around 10am, Mr A alleges that you called him a c-” “WELL HE IS ONE”

Today we will be talking about… The Second Trimester!

The Four Horsemen of the Second Trimester are fatigue, tests, weird body changes, and impatience.

“FELLAS, WHY DIDN’TCHA SAY WE WERE GOING UPCOUNTRY? I WOULDA PACKED MY TROUSERS,” SAID THE HORSEMAN ON THE LEFT

1. Fatigue

This will come as a surprise to nobody but growing a tiny monk is exhausting. The monk siphons off your nutrients, so you’re left with whatever value is left in a cheeseburger after a baby has had a go at it.

I was expecting the physical fatigue, which was fine given that my main form of exercise is trundling around the supermarket deciding between biscuits, but when my brain began to give out it was a Most Terrible Surprise.

My memory went, and I started losing track of sentences and struggling to dredge up common words from the sludgy depths of my brain.

This was a wonderful time to be employed as a copywriter.

GOOD LUCK REMEMBERING WHAT THIS bitch IS CALLED. “WHERE IS THE THING,” YOU WILL SHOUT, “the THING THAT MAKES the MOUSE GO?”

AND FOR 6 MONTHS EVERYONE YOU MEET WILL just THINK YOU’RE SLIGHTLY DENSE.

The fatigue ties in nicely with your weirdly spiking hormone levels, allowing you to have extreme, heartfelt and entirely irrational responses to everyday occurrences. It’s great because you know it’s irrational and that you are behaving like a walnut, but you can’t do anything about it.

I didn’t have any righteous pregnancy fury, but I did have three or four occasions where hormones took over and I just cried.

It is unfortunate that one of these was at the Geraldine Gun Club.

AH YES, CRYING WOMAN WITH GUN, GOOD-OH!

ALSO THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO WAY TO BE PREGNANT with A GUN AND NOT LOOK LIKE An absolutE REDNECK. BELIEVE ME, I TRIED, BUT no matter how much professional shooting gear you are wearing, THE SECOND YOU PICK UP THE GUN IT GOES FULL ALABAMA.

I shot a very poor round in Geraldine and this upset me so much that I had to go and sit in the car and cry for 10 minutes. This was deeply, deeply embarrassing; target shooting is a) dominated by older men, so not really a place for Feelings* and b) very deeply rooted in being a good sport and not getting annoyed when you shoot poorly. It is not really the place to be a visibly pregnant woman who is missing every target while gamely holding back tears.

*unless you are discussing a new model of gun, in which case you can have as many Feelings as you like.

Why was I at the gun club in the first place? The Milkmeister’s dad and his family are extremely good target shooters. I started a couple of years ago, and while I’m objectively a very bad shot the battalion of kindly old chaps who frequent the gun club are resolutely polite.

We went to a three-day shoot about 5 hours’ drive away when I was 8 months pregnant with the Milkmeister, and her dad won several trophies; he was trying to think of what to say in his speech when one man shouted, “How about thanking your PREGNANT WIFE who came ALL THIS WAY and slept in a TENT” and I appreciated that.

“I hope the baby doesn’t put too much of a kink in your shooting,” said one kindly old chap, “you’re starting to get somewhere.”

also this is an actual picture from the actual shoot! that’s the milkmeister’s dad. you can’t see from here but he is very handsome.

ALSO THERE WAS TORRENTIAL RAIN AND THE TENT GAVE UP AT 2 IN THE MORNING AND WE HAD TO GO AND SLEEP IN THE UTE AND PEOPLE KEPT SAYING “IMAGINE IF THE BABY CAME NOW!”

WHICH WAS NOT VERY HELPFUL.

2. Tests

Good Lord there are a lot of tests in Your Pregnancy Journey. Mostly there are tests of your patience, but you can also look forward to…

Ultrasounds. Yes yes it’s all very exciting and you can put your baby photo on Facebook. But each scan takes half an hour and after the first 5 minutes it’s actually quite boring.

You will feel bad about being bored. Miracle of life! Cherish every second! Etc! But this does not make the scans any more interesting.

It’s also deeply bizarre; the ultrasound tech, after unceremoniously coating you in warm gel, is saying something like “Look! There are the kidneys” while zooming in on a low res image of the weird pulsating blob that is currently living inside you and all you can think is, thank God there isn’t a surprise twin hanging out in there.

you may also think ‘what? i can’t see any kidneys’ but you will go ‘ah yes!’ so the ultrasound tech does not realise you are bored and bad at kidney-seeing.

this is an actual picture of the actual milkmeister, before she made her grand appearance. she looks quite different now. bigger.

Plenty of blood tests. I hope you enjoy those.

So many urine tests that you feel like a suspiciously high-performing racehorse. The pee-on-a-stick ones are particularly good because there are 10 or so little coloured boxes on the stick and you’re meant to tell your midwife if boxes 1, 4, or 8 change colour, but you forget which little coloured boxes you’re supposed to be looking at, or you forget which colour they were originally, or you forget which colour they’re meant to change to or not change to, and so inevitably you have to waddle back into the midwife’s consulting room triumphantly brandishing a stick covered in your own wees and say “DOES THIS LOOK OK TO YOU.”

There are also glucose tests to see if you have gestational diabetes! These are hideous; you have your blood taken, guzzle a sugary drink, then sit in the waiting room of the blood test place for two grim hours trying not to be sick (because you can’t eat for 12 hours beforehand and you aren’t allowed to leave in case you have a sneaky pie), then have your blood taken again. I got to do TWO of these because the first one was fine, but then the Milkmeister became alarmingly enormous and it turned out I did in fact have late onset gestational diabetes. We shall talk about that another time.

The tests are good because it’s very reassuring to know you have a nice healthy Milkmeister, but also they are time consuming and largely dull.

Did someone say time consuming and largely dull? We must be talking about the second trimester!

this lady’s facial expression is honestly the second trimester vibe in a photo

3. Weird Body Changes

Have you seen the Jeff Goldblum 80s classic ‘The Fly’?

Welcome to pregnancy, you are the Fly.

Not the part of the movie where you’re a young and somewhat disturbingly attractive Jeff Goldblum, the part where the fly serum starts to kick in and it all gets super gross and weird.

if you haven’t watched ‘the fly’ it’s about a man who turns into a fly. it’s quite good if you like being thoroughly grossed out

I found the body changes to be less “miracle of life” and more “visceral body horror” but who knows, perhaps you will find it charming. As they say, one man’s nightmare is another man’s maternity photoshoot.

The stomach goes alarmingly outwards, and the boobs become hideous distended versions of their formerly pert and sexy selves, and we shall not speak of the nipples.

Also, everything is now covered in large blue veins because your bloodal system (I know, I know, but I can’t be bothered looking it up) expands to hold 1.5x the blood it normally does so there is enough blood for you and your pal the Milkmeister, and your frontage now looks like Google Maps.

Also also, as your uterus expands to fit your rapidly ballooning Milkmeister, the ligaments around it start to stretch, so you can now enjoy random shooting pains at any hour of the day!

Also also also, you are probably constipated because all your internal organs are being squidged into random corners of yourself to make room for said ballooning Milkmeister.

Don’t worry, this won’t curb your tremendous farting.

PEOPLE ASK TO SEE THE IMAGE FROM THE SCAN, BUT THEY NEVER ask about the farts.

4. Impatience

Impatience was the overarching vibe of my second trimester. It’s a weird in-between phase where the initial novelty of being pregnant has worn off, but the arrival of your Milkmeister is too far away to be particularly exciting, and you still feel like crap most of the time, and you can’t even have a beer about it.

I love the Milkmeister very much but oh boy the second trimester was the longest 12 weeks of my life.

I also found that in the second trimester people say “You’re Looking Well” a lot, which usually means “I have noticed you are pregnant and now I feel I need to say something, and I am not afraid to lie.” Occasionally it means “I see you have taken the time to put on makeup today and I am proud of you”.

The second trimester is also the time when people start to touch your tummy without asking!

Due to my strong aura of don’t touch my fucking tummy, this only happened to me three times:

• The lovely woman I sit beside at choir went in for a spirited belly pat as soon as I told her I was pregnant, then immediately apologised. She was over-excited. I did not mind. This was extra good because I wasn’t visibly pregnant and so anyone watching would’ve just thought she was a tummy-patting sort of a person.

• My mother in law went in for a hug and did the tummy equivalent of a stealthy boob graze on the way out. It was about as stealthy as a stealthy boob graze usually is.

• A complete stranger shouted “There’s a tiny soul in there!” then confidently placed both hands on my tummy and advised me that my daughter would be an Aquarius, which wasn’t exactly rocket science given I was hugely pregnant in late December. She meant well, I think?

Anyway! Second trimester. Boring. Tiring. Frustrating. Weird boobs.

But at least you aren’t vomiting and you can still sleep!

Join us next time for Trimester Three: Electric Boogalee.