THREE TEENS AND A BABY DIARY OF A GAP MUM LIZ FRASER

This week: Why should I be judged for wanting to stay slim during pregnancy?

Week 19 and things are starting to take shape. Or rather, change shape. Mainly, me. I am really starting to show now and, for the first time, I love it.

During my previous three pregnancies in my 20s, the hardest thing was losing the body shape and size that I knew and liked – and felt comfortable and myself in – as I morphed reluctantly into a blancmangy hippopotamus. This time, to my huge surprise, I find I can’t get enough of my curves.

I mould my fingers around the tight little bump growing under my skin, and can’t wait for it to get bigger. Hiding in there is my child, and the more pronounced my bump gets, the closer I feel to her. I want to touch her, look at her and talk to her, already. Hurry up! Grow!

The reason this is all so surprising to me – and I am ready to be attacked on all sides for saying this, so here goes – is because I like being slim. I don’t like feeling heavy, full or losing my waist. Pregnancy, helpfully, pretty much causes of all of the above to happen, and as much as we are told we should “bloom” – like balloons being filled with water and human limbs – I admit that I have always found the physical changes difficult to deal with. I don’t so much bloom and grow, as bloat and cry.

I suspect that age has something to do with it. When we are younger, we fight things more. We fear a lack of control. Or we’ve not “come into ourselves yet”, and can’t just let go and go with the amniotic flow – I’m not sure.

As I get older, I actually feel far more fearful and anxious about a lot of things that I once breezed through. But there’s also a

laissez-faire that makes us older mums a little more accepting. And enormously grateful to be able to have the pregnancy discomforts at all. Everything about it feels so much more precious and “possibly the last time”, so however unpleasant it may be, I know I won’t feel it again. I want to hold on to every second; every sickness, backache, heartburn and movement.

That said, I don’t want to let go completely. Not just for my physical shape, but for my mental health as well. And what makes me feel better than anything else, is running.

I’ve been a runner for 25 years, and I love it. I ran through all of my previous pregnancies until it got uncomfortable. And my babies were big, healthy, and fine, thank you.

But oh, the looks I got! The scowling. The tutting. “What is she doing to her poor child?” I am hoping, in the intervening 15 years, that things have changed, and we understand that physical activity is actually good for the “poor baby”.

So off for a run I go, visible bump supported and strapped up by a spectacularly unattractive but effective combination of Rock Tape and a “Belly Bandit” (basically a giant cummerbund) for a bit of endorphin-releasing exercise. I feel great. My bump feels great. I smile. My baby probably smiles, too. But nobody else does.

There they are again: the scowls, the eyebrows, the tutting. Even now, with our understanding of fitness, and the “do what works for you” movement, it seems that in pregnancy what actually matters is what works for everyone else. Or rather, what they feel they have the right to tell you to do.

This free-for-all criticism extends to every part of parenting, in my experience, and I just don’t understand it. Nothing seems to change it. But what has changed, is me.

I know what works for me, what feels right for me and for my children. And I fully intend to carry on doing things that way.

And yes, that includes running around the park with my bump.