Can toddlers sense pregnancy hormones? If mine can, he’s pretty darn pissed about it. This is my irrational “mumsnet” thought of the day as I collapse in a nauseous, exhausted, emotional heap after a fairly horrific few hours of parenting.

With my first pregnancy I avoided alcohol, blue cheese and unpasteurised cheese, pâté, cured meat, runny eggs, rare steak and caffeine — all the really good stuff. Oh and ibuprofen, which I think also counts as the good stuff now I’m in my thirties and don’t get out as much as I used to.

Ok, I’ve done it. I know I shouldn’t say it but I have. I’ve been thinking about it for a couple of weeks now, and I just couldn’t wait any longer. It feels wrong but now I’ve done it, it feels so right. Don’t judge me but… I’ve bought some bloody maternity jeans.

Morning sickness has ramped up a gear and I feel like I’m perpetually on that pirate ship ride at a travelling fairground. The one where you stop for a moment at the top and think you’re going to be OK, before you face another bilious plunge that sends the wind through your…

At the risk of sounding like a smug bitch, I am on top of the world at the moment. I feel physically much better and emotionally less fragile, which has lifted an enormous weight off my shoulders and made things infinitely better, in stark contrast to the last few fairly horrid weeks.

I need to open with an important disclaimer: if you are feeling particularly nauseous, constitutionally fragile or emotionally sensitive then we have an awful lot in common, and perhaps this week’s post may not be for you right now. If you are keen to plough on regardless, then please do feel free to settle in with a mug of ginger tea and a suitable receptacle, just to be on the safe side. Going in? OK, my apologies in advance.

As a child I was always a lover of fairground rides and would fearlessly relish any opportunity to whoosh through the air or plummet to the ground, whether at a shiny, big theme park or a slightly shabby, local fairground.

“Please attend with a moderately full bladder for this examination.” As a reasonably intelligent adult who pees several times a day and who has attended two previous pregnancy scans and a routine ultrasound, you would think I’d know how to do that by now, but no. What is moderately full? How much water is too much? What if I don’t drink enough? How long does it take to go through, anyway? What if I’m called early? But what if I’m called late? Oh, God.

I have just been to my first pregnancy yoga session and am basking in the afterglow. Pregnancy yoga was one of my absolute favourite things about being pregnant with my eldest and it felt like the most positive and wholesome way for me to make time for myself and connect with my baby.

After our scan we started to tell friends and family the news that we are expecting our second baby. We had confided in one or two people not long before the scan, which was largely due to unconcealable puking and my inability not to be a miserable bitch, both at their worst around weeks 9, 10 and 11. Luckily, these joyous side effects have died down a bit, and now that we know all is well it feels like a good time to share our exciting news.

This week I had my 16 week check-up, which was my third midwife appointment. So far for this pregnancy, I met with my GP around six weeks and then had an initial meeting with my midwife at eight weeks, followed by the more in depth booking in appointment at ten weeks and then my scan, which happened at 13 weeks. So pretty brilliant and consistent care all in all. God bless the NHS.

I am currently parked up in a National Trust car park while my son naps in the car and I attempt to catch up on 26 unread whatsapp messages, reply to 5 out of date texts and write three blog entries. I am not sure this is what the National Trust had in mind when they sold me my membership but if this counts as making the most of the great British countryside then I’m all for it.

Feel like you’ve been kicked in the vagina? Tada! That’s pelvic girdle pain! Thanks pregnancy. On a positive note, “pelvic pain” can be sung to the tune of the 1990s hit single “Kiss the Rain” by Billie Myers when you are doing the washing up: “Pelvic pain? Whenever you need to pee. Pelvic pain, whenever you walk for too long; if you’re hips feel twingey and achy; pelvic pain.”

“So, the immune system tends to go out the window a bit during the second trimester”. My GP delivered this line to me, followed by a chuckle. I didn’t find it quite as funny as I sat there with my double eye infection, chest infection and tonsillitis. Hilarious. I’m feeling a bit run down this week to say the least.

“Ahhh, I can see a little willy sticking up! It’s a boy!” And so we are having another boy! All I could see was fuzz if I’m completely honest, but this only makes me respect the expertise of the sonographer even more. We’ve just had our 20 week scan and are delighted and relieved that all is going well.

So, it turns out it is OK to cry uncontrollably during a pregnancy yoga class. I must point out that it should be OK to cry pretty much anywhere when you are pregnant. There should be signs up that say this and leaflets handed out to all women of child bearing age. And to men, to help them cope. It's OK to sob like a baby when you are growing one, because it's bloody hard work.

Man, am I tired this week. Bone tired. I just feel heavy and drowsy and in need of a good duvet. Afternoons are particularly snoozesome, but in all honesty, so are most parts of the day. I sometimes have a window around 10.30am when I am totally on fire, usually after my second cup of tea (no, not decaf — come on people, tea basically tastes like dirty dishwater and its only redeeming feature is the caffeine; it used to be the heat and the caffeine but I don’t often get to drink it hot these days).

We are off to a wedding this weekend. The first of three weddings during this pregnancy. The first of three tent like outfits, three attempts not to look like an out of control beach ball on the dance floor, three evenings of sober conversation with mega drunk people, but also three toddler free weekends.

Absolutely massive pants have completely saved me this week. Last week I was pretty much crippled with pelvic girdle pain, which arrived a few weeks ago just as my sickness stopped, and so felt like a double kick between the legs. I was pretty pissed off, trust me.

There isn’t much call to think about nipple cream before you have a baby, but advice from a friend on using the stuff before I had my first baby was some of the most helpful wisdom I received. During pregnancy, it can feel like there is so much to do, so much to buy, and so much to organise and it’s very easy to focus all your planning on the tiny human who hasn’t even arrived yet.