The day we saw our baby’s heartbeat for the first time, I was six weeks pregnant, on the dot. We’d been trying to conceive for a full year, and it had been hard — with lots of emotional ups and downs, tons of money spent on pregnancy tests, and one fairly heartbreaking miscarriage . So catching a glimpse of that surprisingly strong thump-thump-thump made our hearts sing (and our inner type As loved hearing the doctor call this foetus an “overachiever,” as it’s not always possible to detect a heartbeat so early). We took the rest of the day off to celebrate, hitting a museum, then heading to local restaurant for a dinner of our favourite Greek food — and almost as soon as we sat down to eat, the nausea began. I could barely touch my food, and the taxi ride home was fairly excruciating. Considering I hadn’t had morning sickness during my first pregnancy, I was sort of comforted (it is, after all, a good sign) — but also filled with a bit of dread. Was I about to embark on 34 weeks of misery? Would all the pregnancy clichés turn out to be true?