The Good, the Bad, and the Gross: Crazy, Weird, and Wonderful Things to Expect During Pregnancy
By Contributing Editor: Cherie Brunetti
- Trying to Act Normal During the First Trimester: You don’t look pregnant and you may have even made the decision not to tell people until later in your pregnancy. This means that no one knows what is going on with you except that you are acting CRAZY. Hiding morning sickness and hormonal rampages from friends, family, and co-workers is no easy task.
- Slam to the Self-Esteem: There is a difficult period during your pregnancy, usually during the second trimester where you don’t yet look pregnant; you just look like your gaining weight. This is a hard time because your regular clothes don’t fit and your tummy isn’t big enough to hold up maternity pants. This is also about the time your loathing for skinny people begins.
- Make Way for Worry: During your pregnancy, you will have multiple mini panic attacks every day. You will worry if you have morning sickness because it’s hard for you to eat healthy. You will then worry when you don’t have morning sickness because it might mean something is wrong. You will worry about everything you eat and drink and it will be really difficult for you not lose it because you cannot have your coffee, tea, glass of wine, sushi, or ‘please, please, please, all I want is one little tiny piece of blue cheese!’
- Rub the Belly: Ah, the joy of having a perfect stranger come up to you and pat your tummy. Or, better yet, the delight of standing in the cookie isle of the grocery store and having some guy walk up to you and stick his hand under the bottom of your shirt so that he can rub your bare tummy. This will then be followed by ten minutes of pleading with your husband to not brain the guy with the rack of ribs that you absolutely had to have because ‘the baby was hungry for barbeque.’
- It’s OK to Be Crazy: This is possibly the only time in your life when you can act like a complete lunatic and not only get away with it but people will happily enable you. When I was seven months pregnant, one morning I decided that I needed Oreo Cakesters immediately. I sped to the grocery store only to find a sad, empty space where the Cakesters should have been. To my complete embarrassment now, I began crying. There were three stock boys, a cashier, and two customers running around frantically trying to tempt me with other types of snack cakes and chocolate goodness to get me to calm down.
- You Will, in Fact, Have to Pee All of the Time: The first trimester, you’ll have to pee all of the time because of hormonal changes. During the third trimester, you’ll have to pee all of the time because you have a baby smooshing, kicking, and poking at your bladder. You will have to pee again as soon as you leave the bathroom.
- People Will Be Really Nice to You: Once you start showing you will not have to carry anything, open doors, or pick up things that you drop (this is actually really good because near the end, you won’t be able to see where the thing fell to or bend over to pick it up). Lots of places will even have special parking spots for your pregnant self so you don’t have to walk too far.
- You Will Swell in Places That You Never Imagined: Everyone knows that your feet, ankles, and finger swell. But the fun doesn’t end there. Your nasal passages will swell and make you feel like you have a stuffy nose all of the time. Your face will swell to gargantuan proportions. I had to get my stupid driver’s license photo taken when I was eight and a half months pregnant. My driver’s license picture looks like a cartoon hippo.
- Your Body Will Basically Leak for About Seven Months: This was probably one of the things that bothered me the most. Starting during my seventh month of pregnancy, I had a pretty constant vaginal discharge. It was so heavy at times that I thought that my water had broke. Once you have your baby, you will bleed heavily for the next couple of weeks. The doctor told me that it would be like a heavy period. Um…not so much. I couldn’t even get out of the shower without making a mess. Sanitary pads wouldn’t cut it. I had to use those giant pad thingies that are used for incontinence. Once the bleeding stopped, the vaginal discharge started again and lasted for about two months. Seriously.
- Your Breasts Will Become Their Very Own Entity: First, they will be super sensitive, then they’ll get bigger, then, to your husband’s delight, they will get even bigger. If you decide to nurse, they will go insane. They’ll go through a third growth spurt, get crazy sensitive, and begin leaking spontaneously. Well, leaking isn’t really the right word. During the first four months, milk would actually spray from my nipple and shoot across the room. Once again, I had trouble getting out of the shower without making a mess. Your breasts will leak when your baby cries, they’ll leak when another baby cries, they’ll leak when you hear a baby cry on TV. This doesn’t last too long though, once your milk supply evens out, you won’t have to worry about hosing down family members. You will still leak at times so it’s safest to always wear nursing pads.
- You Will Be Really Uncomfortable During the Last Month: Although you are going to be very nervous and possibly scared about labor and delivery, you will be so uncomfortable at the end that you will just want it over and done with.
- It’s NOT All Your Husband’s Fault: It is not his fault that men cannot get pregnant, it is not his fault that you are spending most of your day barfing, eating, farting, and not being able to poop. He is doing the best that he can but he is not a mind reader and has absolutely no idea how it feels to be pregnant. If your back hurts, don’t get mad at him for not knowing. Just TELL HIM. He will probably be more than happy to give his beautiful, pregnant wife a back rub.
- The Nurses at the Hospital Will Laugh at Your Birthing Plan: This actually happened to me. Don’t get me wrong, the nurses were amazing and wonderful. They just have way more experience with this stuff than the average first-time mom. I had it in my head how things should be during labor and, of course, nothing worked out that way. While I was beating myself up and feeling like a failure, a nurse gave me one of the best bits of advice that I have heard. She told me that I did the best that I could and that any delivery that end with a healthy baby and mom should be considered a win.
