The Glow Is a Lie

My heavy suspicion as I edge closer to the third trimester with my second child is that the 'glow' from hollywood films and baby books is a damned lie!

It's a cruel, vicious like intended to trick us women folk into making babies with this expectation we'll have long flowing locks, youthful skin and a radiance akin to that of a Goddess, that we'll be full of energy and creativity. It has you clawing through the first trimester in pursuit of the second trimester glory, but then you get to the second trimester and spend the whole damed time desperately searching for the signpost marked 'glow' and by week 27 you realise that 'glow' was code for 'less tired and if you're lucky less vomiting'

My experience of 'glow' is this: I do indeed have youthful skin... it's akin to that of a pubescent teen, full of grease and spots no matter what skin care regime I try, I've paled down three shades in my foundation so have a choice between looking like a ghost or David Dickinson, and neither are particularly appealing...

I have flowing locks, my hair has skyrocketed in length but seems to have thinned, I'm almost scared to brush my hair as it comes out in clumps, and it's dry like straw... unless I use anything resembling dry hair shampoo in which case it skips straight to 'hasn't been washed for a week' grease... and dying it is a minefield as colours come out far more vibrant than expected, and then seem to wash out like tie dye! In fact the closest I am to resembling those Wella long flowing locks is the hair that's started growing everywhere, you'd have thought by now we'd have genetically evolved to not grow bump fur surely?!

I was briefly less exhausted during the second trimester, not that I really appreciated it, and now the exhaustion has set back in like a thick fog... Not least because my day time movements mostly lull bump into sleep whereas laying still in bed at night gives her a chance to wake up and have a party, keeping me and sometimes even my husband awake with the exuberant moshing.

And don't forget the stretch marks, and the piles, and the haemorrhoids, and the leaky boobs... Most of which I've managed to avoid but my fellow April ladies tell me are out in force! It's glamorous stuff this pregnancy malarky... I feel mostly like a hairy, exhausted, teenage whale, and can't help but feel I'll get more sleep when the baby is here...

#Pregnancy