Pregnancy Diary – Week 21

This week certainly had its ups and downs.

One big ‘up’ is that the Other Half’s sister Auntie Kendall was visiting from America. It’s been three years since we last saw her, which meant she had never even met Bubby D before and it was lovely having a chance to catch up, go on a couple of fun adventures, and see the kids having lots of fun with her! (Plus, she did the washing up a lot. As far as I’m concerned she can visit as often as she likes!).

It also meant that thanks to an offer of babysitting I got to go along to the ASOS Maternity Fit Day, where I and 9 other ladies in various stages of pregnancy got to parade around in matching outfits so that the tehcnical and buyer people at ASOS could see how well their clothes fit people who are actually pregnant, rather than just wearing a fake bump and boobs!

The Other Half and I also got to have a rare night out, just the two of us – and it was really nice to have some adult time and a good meal without worrying about whether the kids were flinging pasta across the restaurant or carting off one or other of them to the toilet every five minutes. (Bubby D is obsessed with telling us she needs the toilet at the moment, just so that she can play with the taps!).

But on the downside, I had my first cold of the pregnancy. And that hasn’t been fun at all.

For the first couple of days I felt like my brain had been replaced by fairly achy porridge and a small army of ants with razors on their legs were crawling up and down my throat. Then came the inability to breathe and the development of tissue mountain. And finally, the ‘it sounds like you are dying’ cough.

Since I am allergic to paracetamol, my sole remedy for all this has pretty much been hot ribena. I always forget when I’m not pregnant how debilitating a cold can be when you’re attempting to still function and look after two small children, as well as growing another, without being able to take any painkillers or decongestant. Hot ribena may have its merits, but as cold solutions go it isn’t really that effective. Halls soothers have been quite good at stopping the coughing for a minute or two, but I think I may need to take out shares in them as I’ve got through quite a few so far…

Having not been heavily pregnant over the Winter months before I’m not sure how likely I am to catch another cold or two, but I’ll definitely be staying as healthy as I can and taking my vitamins to try and stave off any more!