Week by week, portrait of my pregnancy



The day I found out I was pregnant is still as vivid in my mind as though it were yesterday.



Alastair, my partner of five years, and I had only just started trying for a baby, and suddenly - far sooner than I had expected - it was happening.



I was thrilled, of course. I called Alastair, a restaurateur, and asked to meet him for lunch.



WEEKS 13 TO 16. When she announced her pregnancy at 3 months, Natasha was a stone heavier, weighing 10st 4lb, but her friends could see no difference

He says he knew from the grin on my face what I was about to tell him, even before I produced the pregnancy test stick from my handbag. I spent the rest of the day grinning from ear to ear, trying my hardest to work, but all the while thinking: ‘Wow, I’m pregnant!’



At 31, I was more than ready to become a mother. But, like most modern women, I have put myself through many a gym class in a bid to keep the figure I had in my early 20s, and I was terrified about the prospect of losing it in just nine months.

Almost from the moment I found out I was pregnant, I felt hugely fat.



WEEKS 17 TO 20: Natasha, who's always been a size 10, finally accepted at the end of month 4 that she was a whole dress size bigger and went out to buy some size 12 jeans

Even in the first 12 weeks, while physically my body didn’t change that much, I was convinced I could see a bump beneath my clothes. But when I announced my pregnancy at three months, friends said I didn’t look any different.



I was astounded - I thought I already looked like a beached whale. Yet here I was weighing 10st 4lb - a stone heavier - and apparently looking exactly the same as I’d always done.



Once into the second trimester, however, the weight gain picked up pace.



WEEKS 21 TO 24: By month five, Natasha gave up the fight to squeeze into normal clothes



I wasn’t particularly hungry throughout the pregnancy, but it seemed as though each morning a new layer of fat had materialised across my body.



When, at 14 weeks, I was asked if I’d consider allowing myself to be photographed each week from then on, my first thought was: ‘You must be joking!’ I was feeling hideous as it was - and things were only going to get worse.

Why would I want a record of me getting bigger and bigger, when I’m the first to destroy any photograph of me that makes me look even remotely fat?



WEEKS 25 TO 28. Natasha became bizarrely confident stripping down for the photos

But after thinking about it, I decided that perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad to have a set of photos documenting the changes my body had to go through in order to grow a human life.



Still, as someone who has always been a size 10 and weighed 9st 4lb (I am 5ft 7in), it was difficult to adjust to the fact that calorie intake had absolutely no impact on my size any more.



I knew it was all ‘for the baby’, but I still hated it - especially the creeping appearance of ‘back fat’.



Natasha pictured during weeks 29 to 32 of her pregnancy

On the day of my first photoshoot, I was so embarrassed by my new state that I kept my robe on until the last minute and spent most of the time enviously eyeing the girl photographer’s flat stomach and skinny legs, and feeling depressed that I’d probably never be slim again.



When I finally had to accept, at the end of month four, that I was now a whole dress size bigger, I actually cried - and went out to buy a pair of size 12 jeans.



By five months, I had no choice but to give up the fight and stop trying to squeeze into ‘normal’ clothes. From now on, it was proper maternity clothes and unflattering bras that normally I wouldn’t be seen dead in.



Natasha pictured at weeks 33 to 35 of her pregnancy

Given how miserable I’d felt early on in my pregnancy about being ‘fat’, you might expect that by now I would be completely depressed. Bizarrely, though, I suddenly felt hugely confident.



I no longer bothered with a robe at the photoshoots, instead standing half-naked, making chit-chat, while the photographer set up.



I went to a ball and wore a bright orange and gold dress that normally I would consider far too garish.



WEEKS 36 TO 38. At the end of her pregnancy, Natasha weighed 13 1/2 stone



I even started to get a thrill from seeing the needle on the scales inching its way towards the 131/2 stone where it would end up.



And here's the result: Natasha with baby Finn at eight weeks

Friends would say reassuringly that most of that extra weight was the baby, and I actually felt rather gleeful as I replied that, no, the baby inside me weighed just a few pounds - and any extra weight was in fact me.

What's interesting is that even when your body shape is changing radically, you still preserve the same mental self-image.

In reality, I was waddling along with a big bump which could barely fit behind the steering wheel of my car; yet in my mind’s eye, I was just the same as I’d always been.

It helped that, physically, I had a very easy pregnancy and was often able to forget I was pregnant at all.



I carried on working as a journalist until the baby was born, and was still out for a few evenings each week - just as I had been before falling pregnant.

I actually went into labour just a few hours after leaving the office, while out for dinner with a friend.

At first, because the baby wasn’t due for another week, I thought I just had stomach ache. It wasn’t until 3am that I finally realised I was in labour.



Feature conceived by Glamour magazine

To our delight, our gorgeous little boy Finn arrived by natural birth at 7.30am. At 6lb 4oz, he seemed so much smaller than the vast bump which had accommodated him.

Within a few days, my stomach had started to shrink. But any visions I had of my fitting into my skinny jeans within a month or so - like some smug celebrity mother - were well and truly shattered.



The reality was that I was left with a deflated balloon and a crumpled tummy button. I weighed myself for the first and last time a few weeks ago, and found I’m still a stone heavier than I was before falling pregnant. And that is five months on!



As for the pictures - am I glad I did them? Well, yes, I am. It’s clear my body did do something amazing, and I’m glad I’ve got the process on record.