Disclaimer: I am in no way unaware of how blessed and lucky I am to be pregnant and carry my own child. I am writing this for friends of mine who have asked "what is pregnancy really like?" to share my experiences, and shed light on the fact that it's not always as glamorous as celebrities and fashion bloggers try to portray it to be. The act of having children is a beautiful and miraculous thing, but getting to that point isn't always so...
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I've been thinking about writing this post for weeks but couldn't quite come up with the words to describe it until now. I've feared people would judge me for this because I'm fully aware not everyone can have children and would kill to experience these things to have their own child. I hope everyone reads the above disclaimer and realizes I am extremely happy to be having a baby, but I would be lying if I said there aren't ugly parts of pregnancy, and I'm not even to the gory birth part yet ;) This is not to complain about the hard parts, it's to let other pregnant moms and friends who are thinking about getting pregnant know I'm either sharing their struggles and don't intend to try and make it look perfect, or warn my friends to cherish their bodies now haha.
Many of my close friends know that Brian and I planned on waiting at least a year or more before getting pregnant, but that all changed (literally) the day after we got married. I've always chalked it up to Heavenly Father subtly letting me know that I needed to readjust my plan. Almost immediately after we were married, I became subconsciously obsessed with babies. I would dream about them or think about it constantly and it was really freaking me out. I made it about 3 months before finally telling Brian I couldn't stop thinking about babies. He laughed at me until I started telling him details of the dreams and the weird things that kept happening to me in relation to babies. It was finally him who suggested maybe we should pray about it to see if now was the right time.
I immediately freaked out and didn't want to pray about it, fearing I would receive the confirmation that we should indeed start preparing for children. When we finally decided to, I was surprised that I didn't feel an immediate "YES" kind of response, but the thoughts and feelings I had had before kept steadily increasing and we looked at our timeline of goals and plans and decided we would start trying in May. We were blessed to be given the opportunity to be parents so quickly.
However, there are so many things about being pregnant that I wasn't prepared for. I would look at pregnant women before and think they had the cutest baby bumps, they always dressed so fashionably, and they were truly glowing (like the most common adjective to describe pregnant women EVER). I however, am not in the category of women I mentioned before.
I'm currently sitting here writing this fresh out of a shower and the biggest annoyance I have right now is my face. EVERY DAY since around week 8, I get out of the shower and my face is BEET RED. And it lasts FOREVER. My skin is dry and itchy and I'm constantly scratching my face which only makes it even more red.
No amount of cocoa/shea butter/miracle cream has stopped stretch marks from appearing in the most undesirable places. Growing pains? THAT'S A REAL THING. This past weekend I barely got any sleep because I kept waking up in agony. Round ligament stretching KILLS. The "quickening" that people speak of when the baby starts moving? SO UNCOMFORTABLE FOR ME. It feels like someone is trying to gut me from the inside. And because my placenta is in the front apparently, Brian hasn't really gotten to feel her for the last 4 weeks that she's already been kicking the crap out of me.
I have a weird line horizontally across my middle where my pants would normally sit because all my organs are getting squished up into my stomach while the baby chills on my pelvic bones. That "baby bump" I keep taking pictures of is actually my organs causing me agony. It's so great.
I've developed a fat roll under my boobs and above my stomach, so that's awesome. Hair growth? So not what they tell you it's like. The hair on my head definitely isn't growing any faster but arm hair, leg hair, even my eyebrows? Oh you can bet your bottom dollar they're growing at 3x the speed as before. I basically have to get my eyebrows waxed once a week now. Also I have these weird baby hairs sticking straight out from the top of my head and the front of my hair line. If I do lose a ton of hair after I give birth, I'm basically going to be bald because I haven't gotten anything substantial on top of my head.
I told myself I didn't care how much weight I gained. That it's my first pregnancy and as long as I'm eating healthy that I'll be okay. I've changed my mind. I didn't realize how much my weight weighed (pun intended) on my self-esteem. As someone who has always been extremely active, playing basketball, running, etc., the amount of weight I've gained is absurd to me. Especially since my baby is currently only as big as a spaghetti squash and weighs one single pound.
I thought I owned enough big sweaters/comfy clothes to get me through for awhile. But alas. Maternity clothes are the worst because they're either super ugly or super expensive. Pants are the devil. I bought a pair of maternity jeans and I hate them because my bump isn't big enough to hold up the elastic part so I'm hiking them up all day. I can't sleep in anything but Brian's t-shirts. I'm 100% the basic white girl who wears nothing but black leggings all the time because my squishing organs are giving me mad love handles so I can't wear any of the pants I own. Also, don't even get me started on how uncomfortable sleeping is, in any position. Or on the fact that I wake up in pain every day no matter how I've fallen asleep. I won't go back and reflect on the nausea, you get the point.
I totally took for granted the way my body was before. To people's credit, I did hear that your body is never the same ever again. But I couldn't possibly imagine how true that was. So I'm trying to come to terms with the fact that I'm not going to look or feel beautiful while I'm pregnant, and I'm trying to be okay with that. People don't show how difficult it is growing a baby. The world tries to make these women look glamorous and beautiful and making us feel like that's how we need to be. For 80% of the women I've talked to, "glamorous" and "beautiful" are not words they would use to describe how they feel about themselves right now.
But that's okay. The beautiful parts are the lives we're creating, not the paths we're on to have them. I'll gladly go through this because I know despite all this, I have it pretty easy. I've had what they consider an easy pregnancy: low-risk, and everything always seems in line with how it should be at the time. I'm ecstatic that I get to be a mom and bring another life into this world. But I don't always feel good, either about myself or physically. So for the next friend who sees me and thinks, "wow, you are not glowing..." I hope you've read this and know it's for your own safety that you don't speak those words out loud. :)
