10 Things it Would Have Been Good to Know about Pregnancy

I have to admit, as far as pregnancies go, I think I've had a pretty good one. At 37 weeks, I still really don't have any major complaints about how everything has progressed or how I am feeling (except for that I really would like to meet my little man now!). I have been thinking about the things that took me by surprise during my pregnancy and I think that it makes quite an interesting tale!

When we started thinking about trying, I was reading and researching, asking questions to friends who were parents and trying to learn as much as I could about what was coming. Now that I am almost at the end of my pregnancy, I have come to the conclusion, that once the birth is done and you are holding your bundle of joy, you forget what the past nine months involved. Your memory of pregnancy is skewed so much that even if you had severe, head-in-the-toilet-every-day morning sickness, paralysing sciatica, a mere 9L of excess fluid or required a blood transfusion for a gestational kidney obstruction, you will tell anyone that asks, that your pregnancy was great and that the journey to motherhood is magical and special! So thanks to this, I was blissfully, unaware of what I was about to put myself through!!

So here is my list of things that would have been nice to know (so I could have prepared myself) when I was asking all of those questions 9 months ago!

1. Sex Means so many Different Things

In most relationships, intercourse is an intimate, private, very special moment between two people who love each other very much. It is performed for pleasure and fun. But no-one mentioned just how dynamic the role of sex becomes when you decide to start trying for a baby.

First off, during the "conception phase", sex now has a purpose. You are trying to make a baby! People did tell me to just have fun with it all but honestly, you can try your hardest to maintain romance and intimacy but how can sex on a schedule possibly be sexy?? Sadly, for now, your gorgeous husband may simply be known as a sperm donor.

Enter the First Trimester. Celebrations all around, you are pregnant. Yay! But sex, now way! How could anyone possibly consider it between the morning sickness, fatigue, sore boobs and hormones? Sex on a schedule stops straight away and in fact pretty much all sex stops. I didn't even want Mr J to look at me!

Enter the Second Trimester. Suddenly you become a nymphomaniac (a little overexaggeration, but imagine what your husband must be thinking!). A little internet research tells me that apparently it's the hormones that make you feel this way, combined with the fact that one no longer feels like a revolting, nauseous whale! Be warned, have as much fun as you can, as you only feel this way for a small amount of time!

Enter the Third Trimester. Now you can't decide what you want! One things for sure, the belly definitely gets in the way. And a little hint for dad-to-be, if your wife suggests a little playfulness, take her up on it straight away because guaranteed there will be heartburn, indigestion, round ligament pain or some other pregnancy related reason that the offer will be renegged later on!

2. You Might Clog Up

This is an issue I can understand many of my friends not mentioning before I was pregnant. But now that I am pregnant, a couple of them have asked if I've had any constipation yet! And yes I had. It turns out that constipation can be an issue for mums-to-be from as early as 8 or 9 weeks! We can thank good, old Progesterone for that. Progesterone is a hormone which relaxes your muscles, to enable bub to grow, without the early onset of contractions. It isn't muscle specific though, so it relaxes all of your muscles and your digestive system suffers some annoying consequences - one of which results in you becoming constipated very easily.

The magic, fix-all line will be quoted if you question your GP: drink more water, do more exercise, eat small meals and increase your fibre intake. I relied on a bowl of All Bran and a glass of Pear Juice for breakfast to get me through, and this was enough (I was already pretty active). Words for the wise though, if you leave it go, it can result in haemorrhoids, so get onto it!

3. Your Belly Becomes Public Property

This can start off as kind of cute but be aware that everybody will think that it is ok to invade your space and caress your stomach, while they make high pitch cooing noises. Even complete strangers! Something I realised by my third trimester was that there was no point in fighting a losing battle.  

4. It's Okay Not to Feel an Instant Connection with Your Baby

I never really spoke much to my friends about the maternal bond that they developed with their unborn baby, nor did I see much information when I was researching. I guess it could be considered a sensitive topic. When I saw the two little pink lines on the pregnancy test, I was so excited. But I really struggled, to feel love for the little flutter that was in my belly. I would see inspirational pictures on Facebook detailing the intimately intertwined world of a mother and baby, whose communion goes beyond logic, reason and conscious awareness, but I honestly couldn't relate. Prior to our 12 week scan, I remember not allowing myself to relish the fact that I was going to be a mum, simply because I was too worried of a negative outcome.

This feeling did eventually disappear though. After we were told, we were expecting a beautiful, healthy, very active, baby boy, I was able to relate better. Then we temporarily named him Marble (cause we didn't like saying "It" or "He") and this personified what was happening. It really wasn't until I felt him kicking, moving, somersaulting and hiccuping that I would say I developed a true maternal bond. Now he is my little man, who kicks like crazy at 7am and again at 8pm, who wriggles around when I have a hot shower and best of all, responds with a swift kick when I poke my belly! So rest assured, a maternal bond doesn't come instantly for everybody. 

5. Your Feet Can Swell Permanently

Up to a full shoe size actually! How had nobody mentioned this?? I remember sitting at work, around 26 weeks pregnant and my beautiful, leather work shoes (which were about 6 months old) had start to give me blisters! By the end of that working week, I had atleast three bandaids on each foot. What on Earth was going on? I couldn't figure it out. Surprisingly, it was Mr J, who informed me that your feet can swell during pregnancy. Who knew!

Turns out this is due to the hormone, Relaxin, which relaxes the ligaments in your body, including your feet, which become wider. Combine this with fluid retention plus a whole lot of baby weight and you may as well go and buy some Ronald McDonald shoes!

6. You will Cry

It is common knowledge that pregnancy brings hormones and that hormones create an emotional imbalance. But I wasn't prepared to cry. A lot. For no good reason. Read a birth story: cry. Read a dog adoption story: cry. Leave our pets to be looked after during a weekend away: sob fest. Poor Mr J had a very emotional, hormonal wife some days!

7. Insomnia Can Start Early

Obviously, lack of sleep becomes a way of life once bub is born. But I wasn't prepared for lying in bed awake for several hours, when the baby was still in my belly! Apparently, insomnia can affect up to 87% of pregnant women (that's a lot for no-one to have mentioned it!). The most annoying part is that there really was no solution! Exercise so that you are tired, but not too late in the afternoon otherwise you won't sleep. Drink a glass of milk before bed time, but not too much as you will wake to visit the bathroom! One interesting tidbit of info I did find though, was that if you wake at the same time every night this can indicate an iron deficiency! So atleast that's a solution. I do have to confess though, that I managed to get back to a full 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep within a two weeks.

8. You Might Wet Your Pants

Everybody knows that pregnant ladies need to pee.....all of the time. It is also becoming well publicised that pregnant ladies must regularly perform pelvic floor exercises to increase their strength (these muscles have a lot to do with bladder control). But no-one mentioned that you might be sitting on the bathroom floor one day, cleaning out the vanity and your control to pee might be compromised! I don't think that I have moved so fast during the past 9 months! I didn't know what was happening.....was this my waters breaking?? And then, once I realised birth was not imminent, I was disgusted (and thank goodness Mr J wasn't home)! 

The doctor reassured me this was normal. Your bladder sits right under your uterus and as the baby grows, more pressure is exerted and sometimes it can't take it! Normally sneezing, coughing, exercising or laughing hysterical will see a compromise in control but nonetheless, it isn't pleasant.

9. Your Bottom gets Pregnant Too

Do I really need to elaborate on this?

10. Worrying All of the Time is Normal

This is quite obvious and I really didn't need anybody to tell me that this might happen. I knew that it would. But the reassurance that it happens to most pregnant ladies would have been nice to hear. My worries followed a timeline. Before we were pregnant, I was worried that we wouldn't fall pregnant and that it might take years to conceive. This then evolved into would there be a heartbeat at our dating scan. From that point, any little niggle or discomfort would result in me thinking am I losing the baby? How could Mr J and I cope with miscarriage? Would thinking about miscarrying result in bad Karma? Will everything be normal at our morphology scan? Would there be ten fingers and ten toes? How would we cope with the possibility of abnormal results at the nuchal scan? 

When the baby started moving, my worries evolved again. Why haven't I felt him moving today? Could we cope with a stillborn baby? What was that pain, has labour started? Will my waters break in bed and ruin the mattress? Will Mr J make it home in time to drive me to the hospital? I would wrestle with these thoughts in my mind daily. If they were truly weighing heavy on my heart or I had a particularly emotional day, I would talk to Mr J. This was very reassuring and grounding. My advice would be to avoid Google, not to listen to horror birth stories that friends think it is ok to share and not to read the emotional pieces scattered through Facebook detailing how a little premmie baby didn't make it or how a famous actress lost her baby at 38 weeks. I only found complications that I didn't even know existed and worried more. I'm sure that once bub enters the world, my worries will evolve again, and that my little boy will eventually make my hairs turn grey!

Doesn't that make pregnancy sound special and magical! In all seriousness, there have been some wondrous moments, which make up for everything negative that I have mentioned. Hearing bubs heartbeat, seeing him bounce around during the ultrasounds, hearing his little hiccups and feeling him move, definitely make the everything worth it. And I'm pretty sure, that when I am finally holding my little man in my arms, I too will tell you that the journey to motherhood is special and magical :)

Phoebe

xo