Women - know your limits

I was always mildly amused by the Harry Enfield sketch about women and their limits, I particularly liked the bit where the man's brain filled up with information in an orderly fashion while the lady's brain was more like a child scribbling.

It is not, however, those kinds of limits to which I am referring. I am finding it really rather difficult to modulate my activity level to one appropriate to a heavily pregnant whale - sorry, woman. With regret, I have stopped cycling. I even hung up my dancing shoes because the last salsa session I had left me so exhausted I could barely get out of bed the following morning - and my bump has got sufficiently big that there would always be 'something between' me and my dance partner. But I still keep accidentally overdoing it - walking a bit too far or too fast, that kind of thing. It takes me slightly longer every day to walk to the bus and I get overtaken by little old ladies as I waddle/lumber down the street. With all this, it has gone from taking me about half an hour to cycle to work, to over an hour walking/bussing/walking. I'm trying to meet up with a friend for lunch but am having serious doubts about my actual ability to walk swiftly enough to meet her, eat, and walk back within a reasonable period of time.

You have to go against all your natural (or mine, at any rate) inclinations - usually if I start to get out of breath, it is a signal I should be working harder. If stuff starts to hurt, I am feeling the burn and it is a good thing. This is not however the way you are supposed to approach things if pregnant. As soon as you get out of breath or your heart is racing, or you feel a bit hot YOU MUST STOP NOW. Likewise if you have any sort of abdominal pain - that used to tell me that I was working my tummy muscles. I was slightly amused by some of the indications that you should stop exercising - for example, having persistent contractions, bleeding, or having poorly controlled epilepsy. Are there really women for whom this would not be a signal to slow down?

I have taken to browsing that barometer of national opinion, Mumsnet, of late. Just to read some bits and pieces about pregnancy etc. It's quite an eye-opener - clearly home to a very wide range of mums from wildly different socio-economic/class/political backgrounds. The forums seem to go off on weird tangents with everybody getting all judgemental. But they do make for interesting reading. I haven't contributed yet, I am just what they call in the trade a 'lurker'. I suspect the vitriol, dogmatic advice and occasionally blinding ignorance are no different to what you would find on any internet forum, but they are not places that I tend to hang out online.

This may all change once I am trapped at home with a squawling child. Advice on amusing internet forums welcomed...