MY PREGNANCY – AND OTHER SURPRISES

Journalist Rebecca Horan is just past the halfway point of her first pregnancy. So what does it hold for a career- driven woman who is excited, anxious – and has never read a baby book in her life?

Rebecca Horan on her unexpected news – and how she’s coping with it

I’m vain. It isn’t something I’m proud of and it certainly isn’t an attractive quality, but we all have our flaws. Now I’m not so absorbed in myself that I wouldn’t save someone from being hit by a passing car because I’m too busy looking at my reflection in a shop window or anything, so I’m probably a 5/6 on the vanity scale.

I may be vain but I’m also realistic. I’m no Brigitte Macron or Elle MacPherson, but I enjoy wearing a skimpy bikini or two when in the midst of the masses on a crowded beach. I enjoy exercising but I enjoy a blue cheese and chorizo pizza almost as much.

Something women don’t really understand when they first find out they’re pregnant is how much their body will change. Your first port of call is booking a scan, then your finances get a once- over – it’s best not to look twice – and finally you work out a way to tell your boss and your dog the happy news. You’re too overwhelmed at this time to really think about your size 10 jeans.

I was either naïve, unprepared, delusional or all three when I first got my news but I grew up on 1990s rom- coms and most of these Hollywood films portrayed pregnant women as the same straight up, straight down goddess, all jutting jaws and cutting clavicles with a hint of a bump peeking out from beneath their skinny cropped T-shirts. Sadly, this just isn’t the reality. In fact, as much of a privilege as it is to be pregnant, it’s also a slight indignity and a definite assault on the body.

In my case, I went from hearing ‘oh you are very neat’ for a good few months – apparently this is due to it being my first baby and also my fitness levels and perhaps because Pluto is in ascension or maybe because I was friends with three Sarahs in school, or because I’m right-handed, god knows – but a waddle past Centra recently confirmed the truth, I actually didn’t know who the woman gawking back at me was. I began to cry.

Simply put, pregnancy for anybody bar the lucky few is an all- over, out- of-body experience. Your breasts take on a life of their own, your hips suddenly tear skimpy dresses in sweaty fitting rooms, your ankles become cankles, and your waist and mid-section begin to resemble a paunch. Don’t get me started on the chin area, hello check – that’s a chin and a neck with no discernible join, you see.

I’m usually a fan of shopping, but a recent trip to a busy department store turned me into the Incredible Hulk as I fumbled with a floral floor-length dress. Hot, bothered and beaten, I exited mumbling that ‘the clothes here are terrible’ – a good workman and all that. But after enduring a recent hot spell in Dublin in my restrictive ‘past life clothes’ I diligently went online and selected a few maternity pieces. I haven’t looked back since – although to be honest, looking back is something I’m physically incapable of at this stage.

Depressing as it is, in 2017 women are still valued and judged on their appearance. Putting on a few stone in a few short months – something we are trained to avoid all our lives – is tough.

I am, however, determined not to call myself fat. I don’t want ‘Priscilla’ – as my baby-to-be has been named by my creative colleagues – to hear me say this word ever, so after the photo was taken to accompany this column at six and a half months, I had a little sob about how fat I looked, ate a mint Aero and carried on about my day.

I could go on about the pressure pictures of celebrities heap upon us mere mortals with their perfect pre and postpartum bodies but my vanity is not a reality TV contestant’s problem, it’s mine, and mine alone. I’m continuing to take my 10,000 steps a day, doing my prenatal yoga with Dublin’s yummiest of mummies and I don’t adhere to the eating for two philosophy. Well, not all the time anyway.

Plus I’m pretty sure I won’t bump into Donald Trump while I’m pregnant so I won’t have to wait to hear whether he approves of my ‘figure’ or not.

What is it that Spanish people say about women when they are pregnant? Ah yes, that they are ‘El guapo subido’ – ‘feeling radiant’. Give me some of that and a muumuu for the next two months and I’ll be grand. Thankfully I now realise the squidgy bun in the tum is much more important than my everexpanding rear.