How To Gain Weight Rapidly

Let’s just get it out in the open: I hate all your pregnancy announcement posts. I hate the clichéd photos of a small pair of shoes next to a big pair of the same shoes, I hate your lame cartoon announcements telling the wonderfully generic story of “we met, we married, we have a baby on the way” and don’t even get me started on the bun in the oven posts – blergh. And while there are a lot of inane things people want to tell you about their pregnancies and being pregnant, something they never tell you is how hard it can be to actually fall pregnant in the first place. We started trying to have a baby years ago, and had no luck for a long time. So I’m not sure if these announcements irked me because I was jealous of those people who were able to fall pregnant when I was not, or if it is just that I am allergic to lame shit put together for the sole purpose of garnering facebook likes. Anyway, seeing as no one talks about how hard it can be to actually get knocked up, and therefore gives you little advice on what magical spells you can do to get pregnant, I had to make up my own magical baby spells. Please enjoy my “How to get up the duff” advice. Disclaimer: None of this actually works.

Smoothies: I tried having a green smoothie every day for breakfast. These were actual serious hard-core green smoothies. The type that people who believe kale can cure cancer would have for breakfast. They had flax seeds and spinach and cucumbers and turmeric in them. They weren’t remotely delicious and made me poo green poo, and I thought “if this won’t get me pregnant, nothing will!” Spoiler: the smoothies didn’t get me pregnant.

Vitamins: I bought myself vitamins. I bought Nick vitamins. I yelled at Nick until he took his vitamins, and then would forget to take my stupid, super expensive vitamins because they made my tummy hurt. Then one day my adverse reaction to my vitamins meant that I threw up my green smoothie in my car while I was driving over the Anzac bridge at 70km/hr. I had no time to pull over and had to vomit in a paper bag while I drove. I had to put the bag on my lap and vomit into it while trying to still look ahead. Then I had to sit with the warm, seeping bag of green smoothie vomit on my lap until I got to work.

Acupuncture: I bought a $40 groupon for two acupuncture sessions and had a random woman stick needles in me in a room she shared with a cobbler. I had spent all my money on fresh fruit and veg for my smoothies and had to scrimp somewhere. I’m not made of money you know.

Actual magic spells/talking to dead relatives: I would talk to my dead grandmother through my cat Jenny, who I believe is a conduit for said dead grandmother and ask her to ask Nanny to help me out somehow. I also googled “spells to fall pregnant” and then would immediately delete my internet history so no one would see it. Then when I was at work and someone was standing behind me when I was looking up how to spell a particular word, google suggested “spells to fall pregnant” but in that purple font like I’d looked it up before. I don’t know if she saw it, but I’m pretty sure she did. So THANKS GOOGLE, you stupid fuckhead.

As previously noted, none of these ridiculous solutions to my infertility actually worked. However, I did manage to fall pregnant by some miracle well after giving up my magical pregnancy remedies and now have a 8 month old ball of elbows living in my belly. So in the spirit of a before and after, here is my list of things that no one told me about actually being pregnant that I had to discover on my own. Thanks guys. Maybe next time you make pregnancy announcements you could include some of this stuff in them because then at least they’d be like a public service announcement.

Morning sickness: while this is definitely a thing, so are the other sicknesses no one tells you about including eating broccolini sickness, vomiting from hunger sickness, vomiting from thinking about porridge sickness and gummy bear sickness. I would have to say my least glamourous pregnancy sickness moment had to be when I ate some broccolini and roast lamb. Not only did I throw it up, I threw it up so hard that toilet water splashed all over my face and into my mouth. Then I had toilet water sickness.

Weird crushes: I know I often have weird crushes on people, compared to normal girls, but early pregnancy had me crushing on anyone from Peter Overton to Captain Planet and Stephen King.

Being suddenly special in the head: the other day when making suggestions of good places to go for breakfast I sent three messages which read something along the lines of: 
“Where should we go for breakfast? I’d suggest Zest.”
“Another good place would also be Zest.”
“But really, I’d recommend Zest”

No cravings: Here is a list of things I have been eating on the regular since well before I was pregnant: tomato paste out of the tub with a spoon, sour cream out of the tub sprinkled with salt eaten with a spoon, frozen peas, an entire jar of pickled chillies in one sitting, a one kilogram tub of sour worms. I have craved absolutely nothing new during my pregnancy, except some time with Captain Planet.

Being kicked in weird places: I am not a idiot and know that babies kick you on the inside when they are big enough. But no one told me that sometimes, somehow, when you are trying to wee, they will kick you in the vajayjay from the inside causing you to scream in surprise and then wee really weirdly. You don't know what it is to be pregnant until someone has kicked you in the vagina internally while you are on the toilet. Also hiccupping into your privates is a thing. No one told me that.

In conclusion, pregnancy is a super weird thing that doesn't always happen easily and then surprises you every day with unexpected shit. But it’s pretty awesome, vag hiccups and all.