If you are on Instagram and follow me (it's instagram.com/mumsback come on over if you don’t!) you will know that I recently ran a competition with the fabulous and beautiful Mia from @cigarettesandcalpol, to win one of our new mum gifts. As soon as I saw Mia’s page I knew we were gonna get on….I mean, the name gave it away from the off, and she sent me a really sweet DM saying she loved the concept of what Mum’s Back are all about, which gave me a very nice warm fuzzy feeling. We hit it off and decided to do a give away for her followers. The question we asked to enter the comp was the title of this blog….”what did you miss most during pregnancy?”. The answers were incredible, very funny and varied. We are led to believe in the images we see in the media and on places like instagram that pregnancy is a beautiful, magical and romantic time. It CAN be, sure! But also, we go through quite a lot don't we? And we MISS an awful lot too. I decided to compile my favourites answers for you. Here they are! Enjoy
“Reaching my ankles”
“Not farting like a trooper every 5 minutes”
“Gin & Tonic, my regular clothes, going on girly boozy nights out and not peeing 5 times a night”
“My dignity”
“Shaving my foof by myself! My boyfriend did it for me once when I was about 38 weeks pregnant and it was 10000% the worst decision I’ve ever made”
“Pate and brie. Even though I eat them rarely anyway, not being advised to eat them made me want them more!!”
“I missed a cold pint of San Miguel in the pub with my husband and going longer than 10 minutes without needing a wee”
“I missed laughing and sneezing without a little bit of pee coming out”
“Chocolate as I was sick every time I ate it. I eat so much chocolate so what a bloody pain in the arse that was”
“Sleeping on my tummy”
“The ability to eat without dying of heartburn for the rest of the day/night/my life”
“Seeing my vagina and medium/rare steak with a glass of merlot”
“Having ankles”
“Random people not asking me what genitals I was harbouring”
“Being able to walk properly without looking like a penguin”
“Caffeine. And being able to poo”
“Lying on my back”
“High waisted jeans”
“Being able to do anything without vomiting”
“Prosecco. Oh god I missed Prosecco”
“Antihistamines. Both pregnancies fell over summers with crazy high pollen counts”
“I missed being able to put my own socks on. If I didn’t get my husband to do it before he left for work it had to be bare feet all day”
“People asking me ‘are you sure it’s not twins?’ ALL the time”
“I missed not being able to fit in the shower properly”
“Having normal dreams. I’d wake up after what felt like hours of debauchery fuelled by pregnancy hormones. I wasn’t able to look local shop staff, my children’s teachers or even my local doctor in the eye without blushing, remembering what had happened in my dream the night before”
So…I think what we can establish from this is that pregnancy…..beautiful and miraculous and amazing as it is…is also quite hard work. We sacrifice a fair old amount for those gorgeous kids of ours, don’t we? I think we all deserve some recognition for this, and ideally a little treat to say well done. I think we all know what I’ll suggest for the treat, *ahem”….a new mum hamper from yours truly perhaps? You know it makes sense 🙂