My Pregnancy: Through The Lens

A photo is said to be worth a thousand words. Therefore, following this logic, I figured 15 photos equate to 15,000 words. A word count like that (1.5 times a thesis!) kinda makes up for my absence over the last 6 months or so (?!), and simultaneously frees me from engaging my writing brain at least for the next week…Let’s face it, functioning on an average of 6 hrs (relatively a lot I know…) broken in c.3 slots a night, I need all the shortcuts this life can afford me.

Here’s a recap of my pregnancy in photos.

14 weeks pregnant: Me wearing what were to become my beloved, and pregnancy clothing staple. It was always a darker day when the dungarees were in the wash! I’m still deliberating whether dungarees could be a postpartum look.

19 weeks pregnant: I guess I was going for the fresh-faced look??

22 weeks pregnant: I know what you’re thinking…great hair. I know, I think so too. I also think that my downward trajectory of letting myself go, started here: On this day, at the precise moment I tied that horrific pony tail.

24 weeks pregnant: Christmas Day shot 1

24 weeks pregnant: Christmas Day shot 2

24 weeks pregnant: Christmas Day shot 3. Third time lucky …this was the photo lucky enough to make it onto my carefully curated Facebook feed…

26 weeks pregnant: Feeling like I’d really ‘popped’ here.

27 weeks pregnant: A good piece of advice to take on board when buying your maternity wardrobe? Avoid patterns! My goodness this tartan skirt was a challenge to ‘style’ (not sure I’m entitled to use such a word looking back at these photos).

35 weeks pregnant: I really took on board the advice that black is ‘slimming’, as my washboard abs attest to.

36 weeks pregnant: Nesting away. I want to shout at the Georgia in this photo to ‘climb into bed…you’ll never get this chance again!!’. She wouldn’t listen. She was a hormonal, stubborn character.

38 weeks + 5 days pregnant: Taken two days before my c-section. Trying to take myself seriously. Well as serious as I could, wearing a tent.

38 weeks + 5 days pregnant: Realising tent me is a joke…oh the shame.

Given I have no shame now, I have to share the photo I sent to my mum (along with the rest of my immediate family) when I decided to dress like a Crow. If you’re a GoT fan, or indeed ever seen GoT (in which case read: Game of Thrones), you (may) understand why I thought it was absolutely hilarious to send the following photo with the caption ‘Winter is coming’ to my family. I was also a little giddy at the prospect of the impending final series release date. My mum, neither a fan nor having watched a single GoT episode, responded to my shared photo with the words (verbatim), ‘why are you dressed like that???’. If I hadn’t known it wasn’t a look, I did then hahaha! I like to think my father and brother appreciated my efforts more. So here it is:

22 weeks pregnant: My first shamefully shameless look.

38 weeks + 6 days pregnant: The first day I’d get to experience someone grabbing at my bump, and shouting ‘hello baby!’ at my rounded belly. That was a good day. I didn’t even begrudge the newsagent his overly intimate welcome. I couldn’t wait to greet my baby either.

39 weeks pregnant: 6 hrs and 9 minutes before my baby would be here. No apologies for my under eye bags (you should see them now!), I hadn’t slept an unbroken night’s sleep in 33 weeks thanks to a pregnancy bladder.

In younger sibling fashion, my brother was apparently tickled to the point of hysteria upon receiving the above photo I shared in our family WhatsApp group, as I waited for my c-section slot. According to him, ‘she is absolutely terrified. That’s her terrified face’. Why this was funny I have no clue, but the idea he was amused whilst I was practically quaking in fear does tickle me too now.

Apologies for the headless, styleless, and shameless photos. They captured my pregnancy vibe: Imperfectly imperfect.