Читать книгу Blooming Birth: How to get the pregnancy and birth you want - Lucy Atkins - Страница 9

Julia’s heard some odd stories about how her clients know they’re pregnant:

‘It’s not always the obvious things that make you aware you’re pregnant – aching boobs, test kits, or late periods. Many of my clients tell me they knew they were pregnant when smells became stronger. Many – particularly second time mothers – tell me they had weird dreams that made them rush out and buy a test kit. And more than once I’ve heard of women dreaming about giving birth to a squirrel or mouse and discovering the next day that they’re pregnant.’

Finding out you are pregnant, however you do it, is a moment you’ll remember forever. The pictures of each of my three test sticks with the thin blue lines are stamped in my mind like little Polaroids. I remember where I was sitting, how I felt, what I did when I saw each one. (One thing that’s worth knowing is that while negative pregnancy tests in the very early days can be wrong, positive ones rarely are.) It can be a moment of exquisite happiness to find out you’re having a baby, but also a huge shock. Most of the literature on pregnancy assumes that you’ll simply pat yourself on the back at this point and become a saintly consumer of organic-only foodstuffs. But even if you planned meticulously, took your own temperature and peed on ovulation sticks for weeks on end, actually becoming pregnant can feel quite intimidating. Suddenly, your life (and soon your body) has taken on a shape all of its own. There’s a baby in there and it’s only going to get bigger. And it has to come out. And then you have to look after it for 18 years or more. If you’re used to at least a superficial sense of control over your own destiny, that moment of discovery can be daunting.