10 Things I Wish I had Known Before I Was Pregnant
I want to preface this by saying how happy I am to have our little girl here with us. I was thrilled when I found out I was pregnant, I have always wanted to be a mom. You read all sorts of things on the Internet and in books about what to expect when you are pregnant, but I feel like there are some things that have been left out. To make sure others know what to expect, I came up with this list during my pregnancy so I wouldn't forget! So here are 10 things I wish I had known before I was pregnant.
1. Everyone is going to have an opinion about your pregnancy and will compare yours to theirs, or other people they know.
I don't know what this is a thing. Everything I have read says that every pregnancy is different, even the same person can have different pregnancies. I don't understand why we are constantly comparing pregnancy symptoms to see who had it worse or whether pregnancy brain is a thing or not (it is, there is research). Can't we all just be supportive of each other, especially when it's new and scary?
2. You may not feel all happy and glowy but you might not be really sick either.
Most people talk about how sick they were or how amazing they felt while they were pregnant. I really didn't feel like I fell into either group. I had good days and bad days but I was never really sick and I never felt better pregnant than I do when I am not pregnant.
3. The hormone changes happen when they happen, there is not a schedule and everyone is different.
I know of a lot of women who talked about crying all of the time, especially during the second trimester. I didn't really experience a lot of that but every now and then I would cry for no reason at all and usually I couldn't even pin point a trigger.
4. People are going to tell you that you don't look very pregnant (DONT DO THIS)
This happened more times than I think it should have. I know that most people mean it has a compliment but I think it falls under the same category as asking people when they are going to start having kids. Keep those comments to yourself. You don't have to sleep with this baby bump! You don't have to dress it every morning, sometimes ending up in tears because everything that fit last week does not fit this week.
5. Your body is going to do weird things it has never done before, like sweat.
This didn't start until my second trimester but I noticed that I was sweating in places I have never sweated before...
6. You will have to get used to a small human moving around in side of you while you are trying to fall asleep.
Sometimes this is the most exciting thing in the world, other times it is as annoying as Hell, especially when you haven't been sleeping very well. Because of the positioning of the placenta, I have been feeling this baby move since 16 weeks. And I can feel EVERYTHING. So sometimes at 11 pm when I am trying really hard to fall asleep and she is moving like crazy, I wasn't too happy...
7. Being sick is 10 times worse when you are pregnant.
I caught a NASTY cold at the end of my second trimester. I am usually pretty good about kicking colds, I can take some DayQuil and be over it in just a few days. This cold lasted two weeks and even though I still took a lot of DayQuil, I don't think it helped much. Add a cough and I was up a lot in the night trying not to pee and cough at the same time!
8. Being pregnant is painful, and not just the ways people tell you.
Again this is all about expectations. I knew my back and hips would hurt, they do anyway. I did not know that when Baby Girl decided to change positions it would hurt. Or when she would kick just the right way, I would understand a whole new meaning of pain.
9.Your immune system is pretty much non existent when you are pregnant.
I usually get really sick about once a year, if that. But since I became pregnant, I was sick about 4 different times. When I say sick, I mean, can't get out of bed/non functioning kind of sick. I got a bad cold and ear infection very early in the pregnancy. I can't remember the last time I had an ear infection. I caught a cold in January that was so bad that we thought my cough had turned into pneumonia, luckily it didn't. The week before I delivered, I caught Flu B and couldn't get out of bed for three days. It is very common for this to happen it turns out as your body is focusing so much of its energy on developing a healthy baby.
10.You will have anxiety and there isn't much you can do about it.
The last month of my pregnancy, my anxiety would keep me up at night. None of it was rational, anxiety usually isn't. But I would spend hours in the middle of the night wondering if we would have everything ready in time or if I would meet a work deadline that really only existed in my head. I was usually able to kick the anxiety by doing something to keep busy. But it wasn't something I was expecting and was definitely not something I could control.