The moment I stood in my bathroom and found out I was pregnant was one that instantly flew to the top of my ‘happiest moment of my life’ list.

Prior to that, the spot had been occupied by the explosion of confetti cannons during our first dance at our wedding, meeting our first nephew, securing my dream job, basking in the spray of the biggest waterfall on planet Earth in Zimbabwe, and being within touching distance of the most enormous, chilled out giraffes on the beach in South Africa. All undoubtedly still up there, but in an instant that little blue line on that little pee-covered stick trumped everything.

Of course, I presumed it might. After all, it was the one thing in life I knew I'd always wanted. But, as it turns out, that was all I really knew.

Once you begin to tell people that you're pregnant, you're inundated with advice. Mostly unsolicited, sure, but also mostly obvious. ‘You think you’re tired now, just wait until you have a newborn!', ‘My vagina has never been the same again!’, ‘Due in August, gosh, that’ll be an uncomfortable summer!’ etc.

But if you thought that the news about newborns being bad sleepers, the lasting impact of squeezing a baby's head out of your own body and the potential discomfort being full term in peak summer were the only things to consider, think again. It turns out that there are a lot of other pregnancy quirks and perks (let's be honest, mostly quirks) that no one ever thinks to tell you about.

Almost 32 weeks in, here are a few of my personal standout surprises along the way…

1. That you might grow a beard. This inch-long peach fuzz sprouting along my jawline was not on my 2024 bingo card.
2. That (spoiler) morning sickness is not restricted to the mornings, so don't expect it to disappear in time for lunch. Or bed time, for that matter.
3. That ‘Have you decided on a name yet?’ will quickly become the most annoying question on the planet.
4. That the guilt of falling pregnant easily might consume you.
5. But that ‘falling pregnant’ isn’t the only struggle you can face in this process, and ‘staying pregnant’ - with unexpected medical complications arising for you and/or your baby - might actually be a lot more difficult and traumatic than you could've ever imagined.
6. That your skin will itch. All over. Constantly. Because of ‘hormones’.
7. That you'll have constant heartburn, thanks to a heady mixture of your growing baby squishing your stomach and pregnancy hormones making the valve at the entrance of the stomach relax so that it doesn't close properly and lets acidic stomach contents back up into the oesophagus. Cute!
8. That ‘common mild breast pain’ actually feels like someone is trying to pull your boobs clean off from the other side of the room.
9. That early scans might not involve a cute jelly-on-the-belly movie scene moment, and might instead involve a GIANT, TRANSVAGINAL WAND.
10. That salon visits look very different. You're advised not to colour your hair in the first trimester, and brow/lash tints will likely require a new patch test each time due to the fact that your fluctuating hormones can initiate new reactions.
11. That your nipples might begin to leak colostrum several months before your baby is even due (and your husband will panic buy syringes to ‘harvest’ the golden nectar after one too many Google searches. You're not actually advised to do this until around week 36).
12. That you’ll be encouraged to massage your perineum nightly. Google it.
13. That you’ll be celebrated and congratulated for your ‘miracle-working’ growing body rather than made to feel shame for your bigger bits, which can feel both joyous but conflicting after a lifetime inadvertently soaking up popular culture's ‘body ideal’ rhetoric.
14. That the list of foods you shouldn’t eat is seemingly endless. Who knew you'd be looking for that little red lion logo on every egg before you feel confident consuming it?
15. That your husband might be the one to temporarily go off the idea of sex, so terrified is he of ‘hurting’ the small human on the other side of that cervix.
16. That you will have to miss a lot of work for hospital appointments.
17. That ‘choosing your hospital’ feels like a terrifyingly big decision (spoiler again - it is). Do you go for small and intimate or enormous and well-staffed? Reputation or distance? Distance to the office - for those endless appointments- or to home - for that final, pretty urgent, visit?
18. That you’ll be a little bit sick in your mouth every time you bend over.
19. That the first 12 weeks of secrecy and lies is agonising (and quite unnecessary, in hindsight).
20. That you’ll have imposter syndrome constantly. ‘Can I really be this tired when the baby is only the size of a poppy seed?’.
21. That you’ll compare your bump to every pregnant person you see. Antenatal classes, therefore, are a particularly wild ride.
22. That sneezing serves up a fun 50/50 game of ‘will I pee myself?’.
23. That your gums might randomly bleed. A lot. So maybe let your dentist know you're expecting before they panic mid-hygienist appointment.
24. That you won’t be able to tie your laces.
25. …or shave your legs.
26. That you might lose lifelong friends who are struggling on their own journey and can’t bear to watch yours.
27. That you will have the nose of a bloodhound and taking the bins out/cooking meat might send you over the edge.
28. That you’ll forget what it was like to sleep through the night - mostly thanks to your bladder, which has seemingly shrunk to the size of a pea, being your baby’s favourite squeeze toy.
29. That, just to even things out, you might have chronic constipation for nine months thanks to increased progesterone causing the muscles in your bowels to relax, allowing food to hang around longer in the digestive tract and meaning there's extra time for nutrients to be absorbed into your bloodstream to reach your baby.
30. That ‘lightning crotch’ is a thing. A sharp, sudden, breath-taking shooting pain in the vagina courtesy of that adorable little bubs pressing on your cervix or the nerves around it.
31. That there are endless medications you’re told you can’t use (including those as basic as ibuprofen and nasal sprays).
32. That vivid dreams and disturbing thoughts - like being tempted to just step out into oncoming traffic or wondering what it’d be like to tumble from your 11th floor balcony - are common.
33. That the majority of ‘baby weight’ is not actually the baby itself. It's common to put on about 1.5-2 stone, with only around 7lbs of that being the baby. You'll also welcome around 2lbs of uterus, 2lbs of amniotic fluid, 5lbs of extra blood and fluid, 1.5lbs of placenta, 5lbs larger breasts and 6.5lbs of extra fat stores.
34. That your hair and nails might grow - and strengthen - rapidly. The catch being that that'll all be undone once your baby is earthside.
35. That you might have to sign them up for a nursery place before they’re even born. Yes, even if you're not planning on sending them at all for the first year.
36. That you can’t sleep on your front, obviously. But that you’re also advised not to sleep on your back, or it’ll compress a major blood vessel. Sleeping on your right is okay, but your left is ‘better’. Oh, but you’ll wake up with a dead leg/bum/hip if you lie on one side for longer than an hour…
37. That the subsequent rolling over in bed becomes a Netflix miniseries in itself.
38. That strangers’ inexplicable kindness will shock you. From commuters jumping up on the tube to give you their seat (or, if they too don't have a seat, telling those pretending not to see you to get up off theirs) to Pret staff giving you a free pastry with your decaf latte ‘for the baby’, in general you see quite a wonderful side to humanity.
39. That you’ll be asked repeatedly about your ‘birth plan’, when in reality it’s just a list of preferences that’ll almost always go straight out the window once things kick into gear and all you care about is keeping both you and your baby alive.
40. That feeling your baby kick for the first time might just be the most magical moment you’ve ever experienced.
41. Except when they kick you square in the butthole. Which they will. A lot.
42. That when you realise they’ve not kicked for a while, and you get that gut punch fear, you're absolutely not being a hypochondriac. In fact you're advised to go to the nearest hospital or maternity unit immediately to check the heartbeat.
43. That you might feel like you require an oxygen tank to stand and do the washing up for longer than 5 minutes/to ‘climb’ the tiny incline on the pavement outside your office.
44. That your cravings might not be a silly little marmite/peanut butter combo and might actually have you desperate to chew on dishwasher tablets (I’m honestly salivating just typing that).
45. That your feet might grow a full size and never return.
46. That pregnancy might, actually, be the happiest time of your life. I feel so lucky to be able to say that, and probably sound horribly smug, but I wish I’d known going into this that I wasn’t necessarily signing up for 9 months of inevitable suffering and emotional turmoil.