If there's anything I've ever been terrified of in life - it's being pregnant & becoming a Mom. But here we are! While there's still a lot for me to learn as Mom - there's a lot of I want to share that I felt I wasn't prepared for during my pregnancy & feel it's my duty to share with others who may have similar fears of the unknown much like I had! This info below is based off of my own experience & is extremely TMI!!!
Food Aversions I feel like everyone only talks about wild cravings during pregnancy, but never food aversions. Foods you once loved may no longer sound good to you. You could crave something all day and then go to eat it and no longer want it. You may be hungry, but not feel like eating because literally nothing sounds good. Or go to a restuarant and when you're food arrives you're barley able to take more than two bites before you're disgusted and don't want it anymore. I had some crazy cravings, but the food aversions literally killed me. We ended up not grocery shopping anymore because it became a waste of money because we'd buy all kinds of stuff for the week and I wouldn't want any of it. Instead my husband just contacted me after work on what to do for dinner. And I didn't crave all bad stuff either - in fact, I craved a lot of fresh food like veggies and fruit, never sweets - mostly salty foods. Zofran was the only thing daily that got my appetite going so I could eat something. I relied heavily on protein shakes because my 1st trimester meat was barley an option. By the 2nd trimester, I started to get a little bit of my appetite back, but could only eat super small portions. 3rd trimester went a lot better for eating!
Sickness Everyone talks about morning sickness & I felt nauseas at the beginning, but it wasn't until 13 weeks that I started throwing up a lot. Not just in the morning, but all day and every day. I did all the nausea candies, ginger candies, sea bands, blah blah - everything - didn't work. I had to get on zofran and I took it nearly every day. There were some days in my 2nd trimester I went without taking it and gravely paid for it the next day when I was throwing up. Everyone makes throwing up in pregnancy seem super normal - but an excessive amount is not. Speak up to your healthcare provider because I had so many people say that's just pregnancy & then ended up in the ER multiple times with severe dehydration before getting it somewhat managed and was told the amount I was throwing up at was in fact not normal. Careful who you listen to. Also - every time I threw up - I completely peed myself due to the stress it would put on my stomach and bladder. I was informed by my provider this can be common during pregnancy. I went through a lot of pj's during that time.
Insomia I already struggle with sleep issues - I'm a 5 hours a night and I'm good type of person. However, pregnancy really screwed my with sleep. I battled every single night with insomnia from 2am-5am. I would take a huge dose of magnesium before bed, drink a magnesium drink, go to bed later so to push my body to sleep later - all the things. Nothing worked. At 2am - I was wide awake. I tried to make myself more comfortable or not get on my phone to force my self back into a slumber, but it never truly worked. I would try to just get up for the day at 5am, but by noon I was crashing and taking a nap on my lunch break. Most mornings I'd fall back asleep until 7:30am when I needed to get up for work, but the sleep schedule was wearing me down. Yes, I'm aware newborns don't let ya sleep either, but anyone saying rest up during pregnancy while you can - makes me laugh because it wasn't an option then either.
Peoples judgement on breast feeding/formula feeding I elected early in my pregnancy not do breast feeding/nursing for personal reasons that I don't feel I need to share, but it was a decision based off of the greater good for myself, my baby and my husband. In a perfect world - it'd be great if I could breast feed, but that's not always the case for everyone - sometimes there's extenuating circumstances we don't know about on why people choose what they do. But man - I never experienced so many woman in my life be so damn pushy about it. People would make comments "Well when you're nursing..." or "Just wait until your breast feeding.." or direct the conversation about breast feeding/nursing and I would simply say we weren't and then the judgement balloon filled the room enormously. I could tell many wanted to ask why or I could simply feel their judgement or they'd make passive aggressive comments like "Oh you'll change your mind!.", "It's not hard!.", "Well your baby won't have a good immune system then.", "Oh ya he'll probably cry a lot then." Formula babies are more fussy." - like give me a mf break, but okay lol. Standing on the other side - I know the decision we made for our family was the best one and I owe no explanation to anyone on the details of why we chose the path we did. If you're someone who judges somebody for not breastfeeding/nursing - you really need to get a life and worry about yourself. If you don't agree with it - then you continue to feed your child how you want, but not everyone has to live their life to your expectations. I had no idea so many people would think it's okay to ask about something so personal to my body and my family and proceed to think it's okay to be passive aggressive or pass judgement.
Constipation TMI, but lord was I not prepared. Even more TMI - I do not have a gallbladder so I usually have the opposite issue... 10-20 minutes after eating I'm heading to the potty. So I was shocked even without my gallbladder that this was an issue. I had to take stool softner daily and I ate a lot of high fiber foods, but my provider informed me that it's common and normal to go a day or two without a bowel movement.
There will people you thought that would be there for you - that won't be.
It's kinda wild, but during pregnancy you really do experience some of the biggest disappointment in your life when it comes to people showing up for you. At first everyone is super excited for you, but after that fades and the waiting game begins - you'd be surprised at the lack of reach out. Some of the most important people in my life didn't bother to check in to see how I was doing or when I tried to just vent - which wasn't often - only if asked on the rare occasion - they didn't care. I tried to not do it often, but if you're asking how I'm feeling I'm going to be honest. Sadly, me being open with my response instead of faking just resulted in "well just think of when he's here!" or similar like comments. I never said I wasn't trying to look out towards the future, but when you're in the hospital because you can't keep anything down or get out of bed & you're still only 25 weeks along & everyone said it'd better by then - just let me vent. Of course I know the greater outcome & often tried to look towards that. Somedays are hard than others and sometimes people just want to release how they're feeling. Some people who I showed up for with gifts, attended parties to celebrate their kids or life events - couldn't be so much as bothered at all for me. Huge lesson learned.
7. Heightened Anxiety
Once I started showing more - my anxiety going out in public became a lot worse. Now it's more difficult than ever to be a woman in public with all the danger we face, but being pregnant made me even more anxious. I found in speaking to other woman they too faced the same issue. Men stare more, strangers ask intimate questions or make inappropriate jokes, you're reluctant to share too much detail about how far along you are because you hear horror stories of woman being kidnapped & had their babies cut out of them by crazy people. Or just even freak accidents! I was at a dog park and this older couple let their American bulldog mix in & they shared when he gets the zoomies - which he had - he knocks people completely over. We went to go leave the dog nearly took me off of my feet face forward where I would of landed on my 27 week belly. Freak situation not totally common, but man it gets you stressed.
I could go on for days, but this is list I generated that were the top things! I'm sharing for any pregnant ladies entering this new journey so they don't feel so alone!
As always - thanks for reading & thanks for being here!
XOXOXO
Mrs. Northern Belle
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