Right then, where were we?

Still not getting fat, which is good. All clothes are fitting as normal.(Apart from bras, but more on that another time). The husband keeps telling me I have a pod, but I put this down to chip butties for tea on Friday, and a chinese takeaway last night. He in fact spent the other night going "I did that. I put that in there. Ha ha ha" in a self-satisfied, rather preening tone of voice. We'll see who's laughing in 5 months' time. Oh shit - it won't be me though, will it?

Oh yes - I got through the midwife visit OK, I had bought posh biscuits from Marks and made her a cuppa, which she didn't see as attempts at bribery despite the warnings from my friend at work. She turned up with a padawan midwife in tow and they spent the time asking about my medical history and writing stuff down in the book they gave me. I was told not to take the antihistamines I'm usually on, I lied barefacedly and promised I hadn't been and wouldn't do. Bollocks to that. There was also lots of "don't eat this.. don't eat that.." but then she told me that I was alright to drink alcohol (despite me telling her that I'm really not a big drinker and I can take it or leave it) as long as it was in moderation, ie, don't get shitfaced. So make your bloody mind up woman. I'm not to take the tablets I've been on for years which I'm very uncomfortable without, and for which there is no conclusive proof that they're harmful in pregnancy but there's also none to say they're OK, but alcohol (which there is a lot of proof about - syndromes and nasty-sounding stuff) is fine. W-w-w-what-everrr. I really get the impression that people don't actually fully understand what the hell is happening to a pregnant woman, and they are making it up as they go along. She gave me a prime example of this herself: in the 70s (ie, when I was being born), mothers were expressly told to eat liver (for the protein content) and drink Guinness (for the iron). Now they've decided that liver and Guinness are Bad. Give it another 30 years and they'll have changed their minds again.

Then she asked me where I wanted to give birth... Now up til this point it had sort of occurred to me that giving actual birth might be a vague possibility, way off in the future, but not the kind of thing I really need to worry about right now. The two of them were chatting about it like it was a given. Hmmm.

One good thing though - I didn't get any shit off them for wanting to bottlefeed. They didn't give a stuff. We're going to get on just fine.

The pram/pushchair thingmy turned up as well (Thank you ebay woman, I take back all the pikey comments from earlier). We took it round to the Mother in Law's, and spent an afternoon learning how to put the bloody thing together. Well, I say we, I mean the Husband was happily clipping things on and turning cogs and what have you, I drank tea and watched Dick van Dyke in Diagnosis Murder with the Mother in Law's friend. Then I was told I "had to learn" so I sulkily watched as he demonstrated (the Husband, not DvD) how to attach a seating jobby to the frame. "It's your go now." I clambered around, pushed things on and stood back smugly.
The seating jobby, slowly at first, then with gathering momentum, pivoted backwards, catapulted over and ended with a solid-sounding crunch 180 degrees from where it should have been according to the picture in the instructions. I found the whole thing wonderfully hilarious, but when I finally picked myself off the floor and looked up, there was the Husband, Mother in Law, Stepfather in Law and Mother in Law's friend all looking aghast at me. The husband murmured "Must remember to buy a crash helmet for it."

Oh by the way, we've heard it, and it's still in there. I had to have an antenatal check, which just means you wee on a flimsy little plastic strip (not as easy as I thought it was going to be - as soon as the wee hit it, it sprayed off and back on my hand. Lovely) and they hold it up against a tiny paint chart to see if you're Diabetic or have Proteins or if your wee is Lemon Chiffon or Spring Breeze, then they take your blood pressure (which I think is something they do just for the look of it) and then they put a microphone thing on my stomach (more cold blue jelly again here). She couldn't find it at first, but then after a couple of pops and screeches like on the proximity detector the Marines have in Aliens, there was a very determined POW-POW-POW-POW. Then the sound of my lunch going past.