Would you look at the state of that??

Here is where I reveal the actual size of my new boobs. This is also where embarrassed male relations may need to look away.

I have read cheerful pregnancy books in which doting mothers reveal their partner's joy at the arrival of the boob fairy during their pregnancy. Books in which the knowing writer with a gay turn of phrase discusses the best way to reveal one's new cleavage and emphasises the importance of enjoying it while it lasts. A plunging neckline will, apparently, take people's eyes away from one's disappearing waist-band.

Disappearing, in my case, beneath the shadow of the beasts. I mean, breasts...

Should one have committed the genetic crime of having a voluptuous figure, the reality of pregnancy is something completely different from that of all those care-free day-trippers into the land of advanced cup sizes. Make no mistakes, in many circles, having no need for surgery or chicken-fillets in the balcony department is something over which the polite woman must draw a quiet veil - and nothing is more unmentionable than advancing beyond a humble 'C' cup.

In the real world of true boobs however things are very different indeed - there's a whole secret society lurking in that bra drawer. Little women in Fulham who provide Speciality Services with their measuring tape. Oh yes. Web-sites, contacts passed hand to hand, person to person, crumpled business cards pulled reluctantly from secret wallet pockets, the muttered names of far-away shops, a secret society with one qualification for entrance...

Cup size.

Not any cup size, no. We're talking Extreme Boobs here. Most bra manufacturers consider that providing attractive bras up to a 'Double D' cup is sufficient. Clearly, having large breasts are their own reward and nice bras would just be having sugar on top. Once a woman gets properly measured however and discovers her need for an 'E' cup or above, she enters the shady world of structural architecture and whispered recommendations, knowing glances across the lingerie floor. We Know Our Own.

When such a woman becomes pregnant, she naturally assumes that maternity bras at least will come in larger sizes - and on this, all the pregnancy books go suddenly silent. 'Go to your local maternity shop' they say gaily. 'Buy a good bra' they advise seriously. 'Where the hell do I go?' one screams ineffectively after a failed walk around the shops, brandishing the book over the loo and threatening to drop it in.

The sad truth is that even in pregnancy, one has to rely on the secret network - because maternity bras assume that women may go up 3 cup sizes. So, they go from 'DD' to 'G' and then stop. For those of us who started pregnancy with an 'F' cup, it's back to the woman in Fulham to get the engineering plans drawn up.

This, you see, is my life at the moment. This pregnancy lark is one thing after another and today, it was growing out of the 'G' cup maternity bra that I bought two days ago to see me through to the specialist.

God, is that the time?