Who needs pregnancy books when there’s Google?

This week: He knows more about pregnancy that I do – and I’ve done it three times before

They say ignorance is bliss. And where pregnancy is concerned, “they” are absolutely right.

When I had my first three children, back in the pre-smartphone era of Just Getting On With It, I knew three things about pregnancy: you get knocked up, you try not to do anything obviously terrible for your developing child, and nine months later you have a baby. The end.

If you wanted any more detail than that, you had two options. 1) Ask your mum (never a good idea unless you want to feel hugely inadequate, and be told that they managed to grow perfectly healthy babies just by sucking on boiled chicken carcasses, and were grateful for it).

2) Go to your local bookshop, find the Pregnancy and Birth section, generally hidden between Cookery and Self Help, and find a copy of whatever was hailed as the pregnancy bible of the day. This was often a decade out of date and contained such hugely helpful information as “your baby is now bigger than it was last month. Carry on gestating”.

Nowadays, ignorance is not an option. Information is everything. And everywhere. All the time.

Mike is doing what all good, 21st century first-time parents do, and is plugged in to every website, forum, Facebook page and Instagram account known to parentkind. His entire phone memory is taken up with pregnancy information, and, nine weeks in, he already knows more about the process than I do – even though I’ve done it three times before.

He’s basically a qualified Google-midwife. Barely a minute passes without an excited, detailed rundown of our baby’s exact dimensions and daily activities, which, somewhat disappointingly, don’t include anything useful like “clean the bathroom” or “stop making mummy sick”.

After crashing my bicycle into a wall last week, while avoiding a daydreaming pedestrian, I thankfully ended up with little more than a concussion. Now that’s wearing off, only to have been replaced by an agonising tooth abscess, caused by excessive grinding. Pregnancy means I can’t take the antibiotics usually given for such things, and because my family doesn’t know I’m expecting yet, I can’t explain why I’m in such pain but won’t treat it, and keep running to the bathroom to cry/scream/ throw up. To take my mind off it all, Mike is now infoblasting me. And I’m being all Experienced Mum Who Doesn’t Need To Know This.

“All the main body parts are developed, and it’s even got taste buds!”

“Great. So it can taste all the sick it’s making me produce. Anything else I

need to know before my infected jaw explodes?” Another page swipe. “It’s not an embryo any more – it’s a foetus!”

He leans over and kisses my still flat tummy.

“Hello foetus. It’s your dad here. Sorry I have such a massive nose. Please don’t get my nose.”

It’s quite fun having all this information, in a way. Knowing the baby has earlobes and hair follicles makes it feel so real, in a way we couldn’t imagine 20 years ago.

And it is helping to take my mind off the tooth pain, sickness and huge pressure of a business launch in two weeks’ time. I feel I’m close to the limit of what I can take, mentally. But at least we’re settled in a nice house. Mike hesitates. “Oh…” “What’s up?”

‘Our landlord wants to move back in. Next month. We need to find somewhere else to live. Like, now.”

Next time: House-hunting with unsuspecting teens

‘Ignorance is not an option. Information is everything’