Yes, yes, no (I visit the OB).

You know  you look about a million trimesters (uncomfortably) pregnant when other women in the waiting room look twice at the sight of your majestic splay-legged approaching waddle. Forget ladylike manners, my knees haven’t been introduced to each other in some time now.

After I perched myself uncomfortably on  a chair, legs flung but-for-these-trousers-the-world-is-my-gynaecologist apart, the lady opposite picked up the courage to politely enquire ‘You’re due anyday now, aren’t you?’. I suppose that asking if I was, in fact, due some weeks ago would have been the obstetric equivalent of remarking that my arse looks big in those trousers.

It does, in the literal and the figurative sense, but it doesn’t do to say so.

I (with features composed into a beautifully martyr-like expression) remarked that I had, in actual fact, officially at least another month to go. I carelessly completely omitted to mention the twin aspect. It probably wasn’t a very nice thing to do to to all the first appointment-ers (still possessing intact waistlines), but I’m not feeling especially nice these days and certainly not up to dealing with ‘Twins!!!!!Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’ again.

Excess exclamation marks make my HEAD ache…..

I did field yet more ‘you’re carrying (pause for effect) awfully low, aren’t you?’ comments in response to my not-entirely-honest pronouncement, and resisted the urge to snarl that I was clearly simultaneously carrying high and out the bloody sides as well. It’s nobody’s fault but mine if my bladder is compressed into a flat organ of spasmy pain when I try to sit, after all.

As for my actual appointment, yes my BP is officially up despite my calcium channel blocker habit, yes I’m puffy, but mercifully no I don’t have much in the way of proteinuria. As long as I do not develop the full trifecta, I am not pre-eclamptic (just swollen, miserable and hypertensive).

The traditional palpation of The Fetii allowed me to demonstrated my prowess at having my overstuffed uterus touch my sternum (rather horrifyingly, if I made 38 weeks, I’d be reeling off a fundal height measurement starting with fifty-something. I’m not that far off now).

So we continue, albeit with a revised schedule. I have the pleasure of a growth scan later this  week, bonus home monitoring of BP and pee stick proteinuria screening and another appointment (with inserted if-you’re-still-pregnant-and-don’t-spontaneously-explode-babies mantra) next week.

I get to pee on things again, although asking a woman who can’t really reach her girly bits any more to wee in a cup is essentially the same as asking the aforementioned woman to piddle all over her hand.

The big news, after all that blather, is that should I be pregnant this time next week, I may very well not be the week after. The c-section date has been released from its optimistic-but-unrealistic attachment to 38 weeks and pinned hopefully to 36 weeks.

The countdown is on.