Sinead Corcoran Dye: At 20 weeks pregnant, this is what I’ve learned

Sinead Corcoran Dye is halfway through her pregnancy journey. Photo/ Sylvie Whinray

Halfway through her pregnancy, Sinead is thinking a lot about actor Pedro Pascal but her favourite screen star is her daughter, squirming in a 4D video.

I am halfway through. The end is nigh, almost, sort of. My belly nearly looks like a real pregnant tummy instead of my regular chubby version and I can now feel my daughter wriggling around like a little fish. Of all the stuff pregnancy throws at you, that’s the one cool thing – feeling them move so you know they’re real and they’re doing okay in there. But I won’t lie, there is a lot of crap when it comes to growing a person inside your body. Here’s what I’ve learned at 20 weeks pregnant.

Your social life may dry up because pregnant people are okay to have brunch with but not very much fun at the pub. And on the odd occasion you are invited out on a Saturday night, you won’t last past 9pm anyway because being the only sober person is boring and lonely. Also, I’m sorry to say, but the smug novelty of waking up not hungover on a Sunday morning wears off after the first weekend, especially when being pregnant makes you feel like s*** anyway.

It’s okay not to marvel at what a beautiful and wonderful thing your body is, creating life blah blah. I think it’s probably perfectly normal to instead look at your sore, swollen and unfamiliar shape in the mirror and burst into tears. I personally do not feel sexy and womanly, I feel achy and bloated and gross. Very normal. Try not to do what I do, which is look at your old flat-stomached Instagram photos and weep hysterically. Instead wrap your poor, sore bod up in a dressing gown, eat some peanut M&M’s and remember J. Lo birthed twins and still got her abs back eventually so all is not lost.

You might not enter a love bubble of obsession over your partner. Instead, jacked up on hormones, you may fantasise about leaving them for Pedro Pascal. Instead of browsing for breast pumps you may google “Pedro Pascal nude scenes” and sign up for the green card lottery so you can move to the US to be with him. You will convince yourself he will look past your stretch marks and haemorrhoids because he is not just ruggedly hot but also kind of heart. You know he will, without a doubt, be a great stepfather to your unborn child.

A 4D scan of Sinead Corcoran Dye's baby girl at 20 weeks. Photo/Supplied.

The mood swings are violent. One minute I am high as a kite, cooing over a pair of sheepskin booties and practically vibrating with elation like I’m at a summer festival, drunkenly boogying in the sunshine. The next minute I am crying in the shower because I’ve realised it’s probably now too late to do a single girl’s London OE, seeing as I’m married and due to give birth in four months. But it’s not just these very legitimate Sliding Doors alternate-life fantasies that set me off. Just the other day my husband came home to find me sobbing my lungs out because “Meghan Markle looks good in hats and I don’t”.

But it is not all bad, I promise. While your belly grows bigger and you hear from your drinking buddies less and less, women you haven’t spoken to in years will come out of the woodwork to tell you you’re not alone, that becoming a mum is a big adjustment, and that they get it. Since sharing my pregnancy ups and downs, former colleagues, old acquaintances and friends of friends have reached out and it’s become a lovely new little village of connections as I move from one life stage to the next.

Also, if you can get your head around your new bigger body, finally being able to wear tight body-con dresses without sucking in is very liberating. So is giving up on shaving anything below your bump.

But best of all is if your local radiology place does 4D scans. At my 20-week appointment, they gave me a tiny, two-second 4D video recording of my daughter squirming around and rubbing her hands on her face like she’s very bored and exasperated. I watch it about 200 times a day. It’s the very best thing I own. And it’s making all the hard stuff feel okay.