There's no more womb!

It's now almost 35 weeks.  And boy am I resembling a taut zeppelin.  My dinky little set of one or two stretch marks down my left side have flourished, and I'm now gaining a pleasing zebra-like pattern along both sides.  Ace.

It doesn't really help that when I tell people how far I am (only when they're polite enough to ask!), they say "But you're so tiny!".  I feel somehow that undervalues the enormity of my gut.  But I'm not even getting any support from the Bean, who - far from swimming luxuriously in his amniotic bath - appears to spend most of his time with his elbows, knees, hips, heels, and all other bony appendages pressed solidly against my ribs and stomach.  I imagine when he finally comes out, his face will be all mushed up, rather like the kid against the sweet-shop window.

On a good note, I do have my appetite back.  On a bad note, this means that I've been stacking weight on at about a kilo a week.  I wasn't particularly concerned about this until I mentioned it to the midwife.  She 'hmmm'd and 'haaaaa'd a bit, and then suggested that I might like to take some gentle exercise.  And possibly not eat more than 4 or 5 roast potatoes in a sitting.  That's ok.  I can give up the potatoes - in lieu of sticky date pudding.

I have started to keep a diary of food intake and exercise.  The result of this is that I'm actually spurred into doing more exercise.  Virtually every day, I make an effort to do something, unless I'm feeling really vile.  Unfortunately, this discipline hasn't extended to my eating.  I simply write down how many scoops of ice-cream I've eaten that day, and stare at the record a little sorrowfully, while munching my way through some chocolate.  Swings and roundabouts.