Much more cheerful today. A visit to a homeopath (see below) all the way across town to East London, then to Kensal Green, then back to Waterloo, puts her right back in the super-active league. Her moods, energy and activity are a kind of bipolar thing: one day sun, next day rain. They say that this middle section is the Golden Trimester, weeks 15 to 29. After the initial trauma and stress of conception, the glow of pregnancy comes alive as the hormones settle down and the body revs up to full throttle to build the baby.
Talking of building the baby, Note to Self: the three trimesters are, in bloke's terminology, Assembly, Growth, Fat. The first few weeks are conception, turning from an egg and sperm into a ball of cells and then an embryo on which the limb buds, spinal cord, heart and gubbins form into proper organs, extremities and guts. After the Assembly is complete, the embryo becomes a fetus, with all the right components in the right places, very, very small: hence the second trimester is Growth. And when the baby is pretty much grown, the final trimester is spent sticking on weight and reserves to help survive the trauma of birth and the first week or two of life: Fat.
Assembly, Growth, Fat. Probably total cobblers, but it helps me understand what's happeing. It would be much easier if Assembly, Growth, Fat, spelled something handly like GAF or FAG, but you can't have everything.
Anyway, about her attachment to homeopathy... As part of my New Caring Self, I have kept clear of commenting on homeopathy. Let me leave it to Richard Dawkins (second mention in this blog) in the introduction to "Snake Oil" by John Diamond, as quoted by Derren Brown (in "Tricks of the Mind," page 303):
"Any homeopath who really believes his theory should be beavering away from dawn to dusk. After all, if the double-blind trials of patient treatment came out reliably and repeatedly positive, he would win a Nobel Prize not only in Medicine but in Physics as well. He would have discovered a brand-new principle of physics, perhaps a new fundamental force in the universe. With such a prospect in view, homeopaths must surely be falling over each other in their eagerness to be first in the lab, racing like alternative Watsons and Cricks to claim this glittering scientific crown. Er, actually, no, they aren't. Can it be that they don't really believe in their theory, after all?"
Clever bloke, that Professor Dawkins; Alchemy springs to mind. A bit like making babies.
Another exciting trip to the hosp, this time because the rash on her tummy is *very* raw. My big sister, ie a person who Knows Everything and has a fast internet connection, says it might be PUPPP syndrome - yessiree, a syndrome, no less. PP herself thinks it might be a reaction to drinking raspberry leaf tea, the only obvious change to her diet.
From "The Alternative Pregnancy Handbook," an amusingly titled book by Dr Tanvir Jamal & Karen Evennett, on the opening page:
