AS soon as I found out I was expecting my first baby, both my husband and I got busy reading all kinds of pregnancy articles, talking to experienced parents and taking care of every move that I make.

Like most girls, I always watch my curves and do my best to stay away from chips, chocolate and a whole list of other fatty foods. When my husband found out about morning sickness he was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to eat a lot during the early days of my pregnancy. He thought that I might lose a lot of weight from vomiting all the time and that this might affect my health.

When I got about 10 weeks into my pregnancy everyone I knew was always encouraging me to eat more whenever they saw me. They were sympathetic about my morning sickness. I just nodded to whatever they said.

To be honest, I was eating quite happily. On the one occasion I thought of skipping breakfast my husband behaved as if he were about to cry so I ate just to please him. Unlike many women, my sickness only appears in the evenings. Whenever I vomited my husband felt helpless and would almost cry. I think after a few times the sickness ran away because it was scared of his reaction.

With a 3-month-baby inside me, my waist said goodbye and my figure-hugging clothes left me like a stranger. Whenever I looked at myself in the mirror I wanted to cry and did not want to go out anymore. I was also addicted to chips, cakes and juices, the very things I had spent my whole life trying to avoid. People sometimes ask me if I have a special pregnancy appetite but my immediate reply is “nope”. Any food looks good to me right now!

A woman in my office who became pregnant a week earlier than me has no appetite and is losing pounds day after day. For me, I am eating more and more and continue to put pounds on week after week. I sometimes envy her still wearing regular clothes while I am busy looking for the biggest trousers and skirt every morning.

Whenever I talk of my weight, my husband keeps saying that “It’s good you can eat well. You are healthy and getting more beaut-iful. How lucky.” Everyone around also encour-ages me not to worry about weight gain and eat more for the baby.

At 4-months preg-nant my extra pounds ceased to annoy me. I eat quite a lot, including cake, ice-cream, chips, chocolate and every food I used to avoid without worrying about my waist-line. So I began to think how lucky I am to be able to eat whatever I want and get away with it. I can also sleep as much as I want as well.

Now, I’m 26-weeks pregnant and have already put on 15 pounds. But having seen Jennifer Lopez get back into shape after her delivery my weight does not really bother me. I am confident that with a hard exercise routine I will be able to slim down back to my normal size like her, I hope!

For now though it’s important to enjoy my days eating the food I was always too scared to touch. My husband always jokes that “my wife never eats what she doesn’t like.”

Some women tell me that they are scared of the burden of carrying a baby what with labour pain and so on. For me, I feel that women should have the time — at least once in their life — to eat anything they like without having to worry about their waist-line. Pregnancy is the only time we have such freedom.