When five women from Berkhamsted sat down to document their experiences of first-time pregnancy and childbirth, their instinct was to be as blunt on paper as they were with each other. Shortsighted of them, or what? Hilary Gardener, nurse and farmer's wife, now regrets comparing her nipples to chapel pegs. The practical "girl on top" details of her sex life make Andrea Bettridge, a 33-year-old police officer, cringe the most. And as for Sarah Groves, the multilingual international jetsetter of the group, she can't even bring herself to talk about the mucus testing. Unlike Gardener.
"Oh God, wasn't yours the mucus testing?" she says, joggling in her seat. "You're so embarrassed, aren't you? Because you were at the church toddler morning and you said to another mum, 'Would you like me to get you a piece of cake?' and she said, 'No thanks. I know what you do with your pants.'"
Gardener howls with laughter. Bettridge and Lyndsay Lawrence, 38, (a scientist) grin. Grove mouths, "Vaginal mucus."
The Fat Ladies' Club is meeting at Lawrence's house in a small village on the Oxford/Hertfordshire borders. Lawrence's father is on coffee and sandwich duty. Her mother is upstairs, keeping four-year-old Bethan, with chickenpox, away from Gardener who, at nine months pregnant (with her third), is the only genuinely fat lady of the group. It is a neat, homely house, all peach and lemon, which seems to reflect the personality of its neat, quietly spoken owner.
Lawrence, who doesn't own up to an embarrassing moment, sits on the edge of the pastel sofa, nursing her newborn baby (number two). She smiles occasionally and volunteers a fact or a date here or there (with her PhD, she is the group's "boffin"), but otherwise doesn't say very much. Not that Gardener, 33, who can talk the hind leg off a ewe (which must be useful when it comes to lambing), lets anyone get much of a word in edgeways. As for Groves, 34, the posh one with camel boots to match her camel polo-neck and little daisies on the bottom of her jeans, she is sitting next to the football-mad Bettridge - who has never owned a lipstick in her life and whose nickname in the force is Chops (don't ask). What is going on here? Surely none of these women have anything in common?
"Sense of humour," says Bettridge.
"It's a bond. A kind of sisterhood," says Groves.
"We respect each other's differences," adds Lawrence.
"Oh God, differences!" says Gardener, jumping up. "We were on the phone, me and Sarah, the other day, and there was an article a paper had asked us to write about how friendships change in pregnancy and we had both had a think, and where I started in my head was this image of friends holding back your hair as you vomit in the gutter, you know, to stop you puking on your boots, and Sarah's first thought was how people who have already had children welcome you into the bosom of the fellowship of motherhood. I thought, that's why our book works. I'm vomiting in gutters; she's welcomed into the fellowship of motherhood."
Bettridge, Gardener, Groves and Lawrence and the fifth member of the group, Annette Jones, met at antenatal classes before the birth of their first children in the summer of 1997. ("Vintage year," says Gardener.) Unlike the other 19 members of the class, the five of them saw the funny side of the his-and-hers breathing exercises, just as they were later to see the funny side of haemorrhoids and breast pumps. They ganged up, kindred spirits despite themselves, and at one of their weekly lunches, full of jokes about inverted tummy buttons and digs at each other (Bettridge was "Miss Punctuality"; slim Lawrence "Miss Stretch and Shrink"), someone said, "We should write this down!" By the next day, Gardener had organised their thoughts into chapter headings ("Boobs: From Beach Balls to Bee Stings"; "Below the Belt"). For the next few months, "the book", a sort of eavesdrop on a conversation between girlfriends, provided a focus and a form of therapy through the physical and emotional changes of motherhood - "You sort of spurted it out and then you could think, 'Phew, I'm human.'" But it was only after Annette Jones became ill that they thought of doing anything with it.
Jones, an accountant, was diagnosed with bowel cancer shortly after the birth of her second daughter. Her illness and death at the age of 31 in April 2000 created the real bond between the other women. Bettridge: "It was such a mind-blowing experience to go through the births together and then to go through losing a mate." Gardener: "Many women in our position might have started drifting apart about then, moving house, going back to work, but Annette tied us. We leaned on each other during that time." Jones's illness also spurred them on to do something concrete with the book. They decided to self-publish in order to leave something for Jones's daughters. They got Gardener's mum to draw some pictures ("Never drawn before? Come on, Mother, you can do it!"). They learned about page layout on the internet. They found somewhere to print the book. And for an initial outlay of £1,000, they produced 100 copies - enough for friends and families. The last time they vis ited Jones in hospital - she and her husband had moved to be closer to his family - they were able to take the finished product with them. "She was so thrilled," says Bettridge. "Though she didn't think much of our accounts," adds Lawrence.
As far as they were concerned, they had done what they had set out to do. But then, when they weren't looking, the book began to sell out. They printed 5,000 more. Bookshops were taking them on a sale or return basis. There were no returns. They were local bestsellers. They were the talk of every antenatal group from Oxford to Princes Risborough. They were a Berkhamsted phenomenon. And then they got the call from Penguin.
"We went in very calm," says Gardener. "We had all told ourselves nothing was going to come of it, it was just a meeting. But when we got there they pretty much told us straight away that they loved it and wanted it and we sat there, very calmly, nodding. We went downstairs, said goodbye, shook hands and we walked outside and we went, 'Aaaagh!' and Andrea did one of those big football diving skids down the street."
"That's why they call me Chops," says Bettridge. "Like Chopper Harris. Chops for short."
Life has changed a lot for the Fat Ladies since they met five years ago. There is something innocent in the jolliness of most of the book - the path of first-time pregnancy for all of them is mainly smooth - but there is a chapter of updates at the end. Most tragic of all, of course, is the death of Jones. But the four others have since had five miscarriages between them (Groves had two in the second trimester), and Bettridge's second child was born very premature. At such moments of crisis, it was to each other that they turned, rather than to family or friends of longer standing, a testament to the bond between them. "First the pregnancy, and the elation of that, then Annette, and then the book. A three-way bond, if you like," says Groves. Now they all have two children and Gardener is about to have her third.
Their jobs have altered too. Groves, the jetsetting marketing manager, is now a full-time mother. Gardener, the special-needs nurse, has cut down to one day a week. Bettridge, who was in the drugs squad and heading for the CID, is back on the beat. "Before I had children I was being bleeped all night, which wasn't on. But I still get to arrest people, which is good."
And Lawrence, who is involved in drug trials for a pharmaceutical company, is on maternity leave, already anxious about how she will manage with childcare later.
Three of them have moved house since the book was first written, but despite the distance between them, they see each other regularly. They have letters, which Jones left in Bettridge's care, to deliver to her children every few years. Her widower, says Gardener, "puts up" with them well - "bit of a 'mare for a bloke" - but none of the husbands has ever had much to do with each other (too busy babysitting). Groves's son, Jack, is at school with Bettridge's son, Max, while Lawrence's daughter Bethan and Gardener's Molly both go to their local primary schools. They tell off each other's children. Or rather, Gardener tells off their children. And nobody minds.
And in a small sense, these five women, who started off so very differently, have changed each other a bit, too. Groves, the "girlie", couldn't give a damn about football before she met Bettridge, "but now when I hear a result, particularly if it's Arsenal, I perk up and think, ooh!"
"And I'm going to make jam tarts." Everybody stops talking and looks at Bettridge when she says this. "I've bought a dish," she adds.
Groves says, "A dish?"
"Yeah. Maybe more of a pie dish. But I'll make you jam tarts with the left-over pastry. I can do that, can't I?"
"Well..."
"Oh." Bettridge shrugs, as if it couldn't matter less. She smiles, thumbs in the side pockets of her jeans, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. "One day, then," she says.
· The Fat Ladies' Club is published by Penguin, price £6.99.
