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about her pain. “I know I'll have to tell her myself.”

I am a woman obsessed.

I am also a woman who is slowly losing her mind.

I have gone from pretending this baby never existed to longing for my belly to show, longing to be able to tell people that no, I'm not just fat, I'm actually pregnant.

I'm still being careful at work, careful to wear big, baggy clothes to disguise my ever-growing stomach, but I'm so desperate to talk about it, for people to know, I'm accosting strangers in order to share my good news.

“Excuse me? Do you have this sweater in a large because I'm nearly four months pregnant and nothing's going to be fitting me soon?”

“Hello? You don't know me, but my name's Maeve Robertson and I'm a friend of Stella Lord. She recommended I call you because the central heating's not working properly and I'm four months pregnant and for some reason I'm getting really cold so do you think you could send a plumber around today?”

“I'll have avocado, crabsticks, and coronation chicken on granary please. I know it sounds really strange but I'm four and a half months pregnant and I'm desperately craving coronation chicken but it could be worse, ha ha. At least I'm not craving anything weird like soil. Do you have any kids yourself?”

“You look like you're just about fully cooked! How many weeks are you? Thirty-six? You poor thing. Is this your first? I'm only twenty-two weeks and I'm completely shattered so I can't imagine how you must be feeling.”

I've resisted the urge to buy maternity clothes for ages, but now I can't resist it anymore. I did actually drive up to Formes at sixteen weeks. I walked in, looked around, and wondered why everyone in there was super-skinny and the sales assistants had to give them cushions to shove under their sweaters to simulate pregnancy.

“Are any of these women actually pregnant?” I whispered to one of the younger shop assistants.

“Oh yes,” she whispered back. “I think a lot of our ladies like to come in very early on. Wearing maternity clothes is often the first real sign of pregnancy and they can't wait to show it off.”

I turned and saw exactly what she meant, as a woman with model proportions idly flicked through the racks, wearing an empire-line smock that clearly had more space underneath it than Tower Bridge.

“Would you like to try anything on?” the assistant said, reaching behind the till. “We have cushions if you like.”

“I'm fine,” I said with a condescending smile as I headed toward the door, but I spent the journey home kicking myself. Me and my bloody pride. I was dying to try everything on.

Everyone I reveal my pregnancy to is so kind, which makes it bizarre not to be able to reveal it at work, where everyone treats me as they always did. At work I'm still the same old Maeve Robertson. Only fatter. And more forgetful.

I can't tell which is worrying me more: the fact that my memory has gone absent without leave or that my waist has disappeared.

Of course no one would tell me I've put on weight, and I don't think anyone's guessed yet, but I'm definitely aware that, walking through a crowded canteen at one o'clock, I don't get anything like the admiring glances I did before.

“Do you swear I don't look enormous?” I whisper to Stella, as a floor manager on the breakfast show walks past and smiles at me, all hint of flirtation very much gone.

I want her to say I don't look fat, I look pregnant. I want her to validate me. I want her to give me permission to tell everyone.

“I swear you just look voluptuous and gorgeous.”

“So you can't see my bump?” I stick my stomach out, longing for her to say she can see my bump.

“That's no baby,” she laughs. “That's just a brie and onion baguette and a double-decker.” I laugh too. Even though it isn't the right answer.

“Are you sure I don't look enormous?” I say to Mark, lying on his sofa after we've watched the video of Lord Winston's The Human Body, marveling at the footage of a baby when it's still inside the mother.

It's a Sunday. We spend Sundays together now, Mark and I, and occasionally a couple of evenings during the week as well. But Sundays are a regular routine: I drive over to his house, he cooks a delicious meal, and I lounge about all day doing absolutely fuck