Thursday 28 July 2011

Duffed - A bridge too far...

Two words designed to strike a cold shard of fear through the heart of any first time mum....

Perineum Gel.

AAARRRGGGHHHHH!!!!

Mentioning this to a friend of mine and my sister yielded some particularly intriguing ideas as to how *exactly* one is meant to apply this stuff. Particularly in the later stages of pregnancy when there are parts of ones own person that one will be unable to reach, let alone see.

Duffed - Caffeine

Health Guidelines 1
Consuming over 200mg of caffeine a day increases risk of miscarriage.

I don't normally do more caffeine than this in a day normally because large quantities make me ill.  However since becoming pregnant, this chemical has become quite essential. The judicious use of said stimulant allowance since getting up the duff is what's preventing me from sending out work e-mails to people that contain the following content......or going through life with the delicate imprint of the middle section of my keyboard on my face because I've succumbed to fatigue:

Dear Stupid Person,


Why aren't you doing this yourself? 


I've told you already and under the circumstances it's pretty obvious that you have functioning eyes and a brain that works well enough to allow you send e-mails that have sentences in them. This leads me to believe that a) it isn't just the case of someone has fed your Blackberry to a Shire horse, or b) you've been inadvertently sending bum mail because you've put your phone in your back pocket, forgotten about it and then sat on it. 


Look into it yourself, quarter wit. Who am I, your mother?


Kind Regards,
Blah, blah, blah....

Sheesh!!

I like to think of caffeine as the last barrier between the world and my barely restrained inner misanthrope...

Saturday 23 July 2011

Duffed - Boobs

Things about boobs that had never occurred to me before I embarked on this little adventure...
  • No matter how big your boobs are under normal circumstances, pregnancy will make them much bigger. You will be able to cut the cups out and wear them on your head in cold weather with no difficulty whatsoever. In fact, stitch on a nicely colour co-ordinated pom-pom and it'll look like someone brought it back as a gift for you from a nice ski-ing jaunt in Val d'Isere. You'll also find that the sizing variations mean that, from the beginning to end of your pregnancy, you'll be able to kit out the entire family, including the one person everyone secretly calls "Football heed". Or at least you would do if everything didn't come in white, greige and black. I know that most of the time, all one cares about is that the damn things are tamed, but pretty and not the cost of a Bentley would be good.
  • If you felt mildly discomfited by the people who would stare at your breasts before this takes place, now you are permanently sober and at times, a touch "feisty", wearing the cardboard box that your fridge came in or, if you feeling a little more bohemian, a yurt, has never been more appealing. As does wearing a t-shirt that says "Oi! I've got a ****ing face! Look at that! Tw*t!"
  • They cease to be "Fun" bags and become slightly itchy "Ouch" bags. In fact, should you ever have been curious about how you get warm fleshy cannon balls into an extremely utilitarian and aesthetically unappealing elasticated hammock, now's your chance. What previously was an inconvenience is now a trial. Lying on your front? Ha! Suddenly crossing one arm across your body without thinking? Bad idea. very, very, bad idea. Sleeping free range? Not a cat in hell's chance. You will now own bras for sleeping, waking, nursing and sport. And several other sets of circumstances that currently elude me.
  • You are permanently pointy as though you've been standing the chiller isle of Tesco's for a bit too long.
  • Likelihood of being defeated by gravity and falling flat on your face due to sheer weight of the darn things increases by the power of ten. Coupled with general normal levels of clumsiness and yes, it's fair to say, I'm going to spend the following months rocking on my front like a tortoise that's been rolled or in a heap after executing a perfect commando roll to prevent injuring bump.
  • The sheer bewildering range of things, products and advice relating to sucking out and manual or electrical extraction of, mopping up of excess, general containment and control of all things breasty and milky.

Tuesday 5 July 2011

Duffed - An introduction

I've been slacking on the old blogging front - however there is a pretty compelling reason - several weeks ago I found out I was up the duff, with child, in the family way - so due to a variety of reasons I've been trying not to drop myself in it by sticking this piece of happy news (for us) on a public forum.

So anyway, now I'm out of the closet to my friends and family, I can now come out to the internet as well....