Nobody really talks about labour...

...But I will because, you really need to know what is waiting for you should you decide to have kids. Let's make it a bit of a game, shall we?

They say: Labour feels like period pains.

I say: I wouldn't wish such pain on my worst enemy. Well, maybe my worst enemy! It does feel like period pains in the same way that a pin prick compares to a knife wound... they both open the skin to some degree but that is where the similarity ends. It's like someone has tied several strings on each muscle strand in your abdomen and spends their time pulling it tighter and tighter and tighter as the night goes on. The strings extend all the way into your lower back as well.

They say: Breathing exercises help to get through the pain. Concentrating on your breathing helps you visualise all that lovely oxygen getting to your precious baby.

I say: Yes, but not in the way you'd think. Mostly it just takes your mind away from the mind-numbing, gut-wrenching, hallucinatory effects of the pain you're feeling.

They say: Pack lots of food (enough for you and your birth partner), reading material and music as well as your own pillows and scents to help you relax.

I say: HAHAHAHAHAHA! Forget it. Food? Music? You'll not even know where you are half the time. Eventually when you're driven mad by the pain, all you want is for the baby to come out...not to read the latest edition of Vogue.

They say: You may choose to support yourself by holding on to your partner with each contraction.

I say: In that primal state the last thing you're thinking about is a man to support you. More like, a man to kill.

They say: Have a birth plan which will tell your midwives what you want and how you want the labour to progress.

I say: Write a birth plan. Then rip it up and chew it. It probably is of more use to you as roughage (OK, I'm not saying it's of absolutely no use, I'm just saying it was of no use to ME. First of all, as someone with SPD I had access to a pool but there was no one to fill it because they had run out of the disposable lining for the inflatable bath. They just kept walking in, looking at the bath and walking out, like the bath was going to magically fill itself. I had to do the thing with the full effect of gravity weighing on my poor pelvis).

They say: You look at your child at the end, and it's all worth it. You'd totally go through it again.

I say: Yeah, that's about right.

Bra fitting is such a nightmare.

Funny enough, before this pregnancy. I could bankrupt myself buying lingerie, but since this pregnancy, I have hated bra fitting.

I put it down to the horrible experiences I have had so far. I have been sold 5 ill-fitting bras by Mothercare assistants, who - though nice enough - spent at least an hour each juggling my tender assets and leaving me out of pocket at £18 per bra. At my second fitting in my 20th week, the assistant was kind enough to suggest to me that I looked about 8 months.

Hurrah for sensitivity!

So, you can imagine my Mighty Dread when I approached my 36 week, nursing bra fitting. I asked Mango if it would be bizarre to go through the whole breastfeeding process supporting my mammaries with a strip of cloth. He raised an eyebrow:

"Er...I'm sure...it's not weird...buuuuuuut what about feeding in public?" I could see him tiptoeing away from the conversation in case I snapped at him. But I did concede the point.

So, I asked around not willing to risk the Mothercare fumbling and luckily I got three separate recommendations - one from the midwife at my breastfeeding workshop - for a place called The Fitting Studio in Forest Hill. I made an appointment. I went. I saw. I am ecstatic!

I arrived an hour before my appointment and was seen, even though I was quite prepared to wander around the town centre until it was my time slot. In seconds I was in the dressing room and being tested - get this - WITHOUT a tape measure. She just looked at me, asked me to strip so she could see how my current bra sat and just started fitting. I walked out within 30 minutes with a bra that is so comfortable, so supportive that I feel like I am walking straighter and can breathe better. Yes, people. A well-fitted bra can do just that.

And the best thing of all, I was back home before my appointed time slot. Amazing.

Ok, at £35 per bra, they aren't cheap but you get what you pay for and much more besides.

W-O-M-A-N

I have recently discovered a love for plastic cutlery.

It's not the taste. Nor is it the fact that I can simply dispose of them the minute I finish, although that is a definite bonus. No, I simply like plastic cutlery for the same reason as I favour drinking from plastic cups.

They are non-reflective. I cannot see my image in them - muhahah! Take that shiny/metal cutlery/surface/appliance!

And what an image it is! I almost went into labour walking past a puddle on the way to church. I look like an exaggerated fertility statue, carved after one too many shots of ogogoro local gin.

There's my nose, my nose, my nose. I'd put a before and after set of pictures up but I'm afraid that Blogger would just break down. It's fat, fleshy and flat (I'd say bulbous but it doesn't begin with an 'f'). I can't relate to this new image at all.

Pregnancy is a powerful thing and it should be feared. For what else - short of chemotherapy - can provide such genetic manipulation? I look like nobody in my family right now.

I have rings of flesh round my neck, my back is a hump of fat (honestly what am I going to use it for?) and I can fan myself with my bingo wings when I get hot. Ah! Bliss.

Finally, I am so much darker. I'm talking black, black. I'm so black that in the grey, British winter, it's quite difficult to see me if I step outside. Alek Wek would be jealous, except, well, she does get paid millions of dollars for her look.

Eh, at least I get a baby at the end of all this. Although whether that is a payment to or a fee levied from me is a whole other issue.

Just call me 'Belle'

"Arghhhh!!!!!! It's huge!"

"Lord save us!"

"We're all gonna die! It will crush us all!"

"What that coming up the stairs? Is it a monster? Is it a MONSTER?!"

No, it was just me, going to see my midwives at the Midwifery Surgery. Apparently for almost 27 weeks (2 days to go) I am huge.

But whose fault is it I ask you? I have been eating healthily, I exercise - mostly, when I am not crippled by groin and back pain - and I drink a lot of water and not much else. So, it can't be my fault, can it?

"Well, your baby is registering extreme on most of the charts so..." I look up at my midwife expectantly but suddenly the phone is more interesting to her than the rest of the conversation. I look at the chart again. Humerus - extreme. Femur - extreme. The rest is gibberish. From my knowledge of biology, I know this means it has long arms and legs. Isn't it possible that baby just looks big because its long self is all scrunched up in there?

"No, right now there is still a lot of space for it to move around." She looks at me with pity.

Right. So, let me get this straight. Not only am I having an unplanned baby, but it turns out it will most likely be the World's Most Giant Baby EVER.

That sound you can hear is my vagina ripping in resignation.

Who am I to disagree?

I had this dream - vivid, as all pregnancy dreams are - in which my baby talked.

It was small, pink and talked. It was able to say "Mum I want some breast milk". It freaked me out even in the dream but I knew that I had to feed him. So I offered my breast expecting somehow to get bitten. I'm not sure why.

And then there was everyone else in the dream. They all wanted my baby. I spent the whole time shielding the baby from harm, trying to hide it from bad people who wanted him because he could talk.

And then I was awake, and I knew what the baby was going to be called all of a sudden. I knew its name, surely as if it had whispered it. And maybe it did whisper it.

So, who am I to disagree?