"A magical time you should truly embrace"

While Googling one of the many ailments from which I’m suffering right now at about 35 weeks pregnant, I came to this web page that started with the sentence, “Being pregnant is a magical time and one that you should truly embrace.” And that’s how I knew the site was total crap and immediately closed out of it.  

I will give you that pregnancy is miraculous. I am literally making a new person inside me right now. That’s pretty insane. But I would never call it magical. Magic is spontaneous and delightful. It brings us awe and wonder, not hemorrhoids and gestational diabetes. There are some women with questionable sanity who love/loved being pregnant. My mother-in-law is one of those people. (She’s worth a separate blog all her own.) She just doesn’t get how I don’t think reduced lung capacity and a misplaced tailbone are not the most amazing things that ever have happened to me. Or how I think having and raising children is just one of many things I can accomplish in my lifetime instead of my be-all, end-all purpose for existence. 

Anyway, I want to debunk the “pregnant is magic” myth right here, right now. Because I don’t want anyone who is about to embark on this journey of person-making to think they got the wool pulled over their eyes. It was a lot like that for me in my first pregnancy (more in the postpartum part, actually). So many times I wanted to scream, “Why didn’t anyone tell me this was going to happen?!” So I will, dear friends: I will tell you.

Barfing and tired

I was extremely lucky not to experience morning (really all-the-time) sickness in either of my pregnancies. But I have friends whom it has raked over the coals. Their bodies are like, “So, this is the most important time of everything developing for the baby like organs and stuff, so I’m going to make sure you have as few nutrients as possible. The very idea of eating will make you barf again, and yet it’s the only thing that will make you feel better. Ha ha!” Early pregnancy also brings a level of fatigue that is impossible to explain to someone who hasn’t experienced it. Napping is the only thing that sounds appealing most of the time. This is really fun when it’s your second pregnancy and your first kid would rather throw a tantrum about his shirt having buttons than let you lie down for five minutes.

A deceiving period of blessed relief

The second trimester is, admittedly, pretty great. You pretty much feel like you, except fatter. You don’t look pregnant, just pudgy. During my second trimester this go-round, I went to New York City and walked untold miles every day. Then I went to San Diego and presented in front of more than a hundred people at a conference. I kept on Zumbaing. My pants were snug, but I had energy and a good outlook on life.

Then. Bam.

This is when it gets real - real miserable, that is. Here’s some of the fun stuff the “pregnancy is magic” weirdos won’t talk about (and these are just my issues - everyone has different things that make them miserable in the third trimester):

* Unending sick - So pretty much since I started my third trimester, I have had one upper respiratory infection after another. I have been sick for about two straight months now, with a few days of wellness in between (the longest has been a week). Pregnancy makes you immunocompromised so your body doesn’t kill the baby, and my older kid is bringing home a smorgasbord of novel new germs from preschool. I apparently can’t fight a single one of them. Nor can I take the good medicines. (I am convinced Tylenol is ground-up paper shaped into tablets. And, oh, how I long for NyQuil and its 10% alcohol.) 

* Gestational diabetes - Despite having none of the risk factors and gaining less weight this go-round than in my first pregnancy, I got diagnosed with this for the first time. (When I explained my lack of risk factors, the nurse told me, “Well, you are 34.” She might as well have added, “grandma.” Then she suggested I could make myself a vegetable stir fry to eat for breakfast. I wanted to punch her in the throat.) So not only have I felt like shit for months now, I can’t even comfort myself in carbs. And I get to poke my fingers with needles four times a day to test blood sugar. Hurray! To convince myself it’s not my fault, I often recall that one of the prettiest, skinniest, fittest people I know - a pilates instructor - also had gestational diabetes. And then I lust for cinnamon rolls. 

* Hemorrhoids - You think this is TMI? Tough cookies. This is pregnancy. I used to think the ‘roids only happened to obese people who played on their phones too long on the crapper. Nope. They also happen to people who have a growing human being sitting on their rectum, i.e. all the pregnant ladies. They can hurt so bad that walking is painful. They can burst and bleed everywhere and make you think you had a miscarriage in the toilet. My personal favorite is how in my latest cold, I’ve had this awful cough, and when I would hack, it would make my butthole hurt. Special, no?

* Unsolicited touching - People think they can just touch your abdomen - the most central, vulnerable part of you. Like without permission. In no other situation is this OK. Make a little mental image of one guy in a business suit just walking up to another guy in a suit and putting his hands on the other’s stomach. See, it’s weird! With one chronic offender, I tried touching her belly back, saying, “Since we’re touching stomachs now,” and she still didn’t get it. She just kept touching and cooing at my stomach. No boundaries, that one. Our society has an issue with consent, and I think a good place to start some education on this topic is with pregnant women.

* Bones out of place - Your body makes this hormone in pregnancy called relaxin that basically makes all the parts of your skeleton up for moving wherever they please. Some women’s foot bones spread out, and they are forever two shoe sizes bigger. I haven’t had that, fortunately, but I did lose all the weight from my first pregnancy and still had to permanently go up a pant size because my pelvis spread out and will never be the same again. Right now, I have to have a chiropractor put my tailbone back in place twice a week because it wants to keep slipping around, making the real tricky stuff like walking and sitting excruciating. I also coughed some ribs out of place, and relaxin does not want them to go back to where they were. The baby enjoys kicking them from the inside for a little literal added insult to injury. Most people would get a narcotic painkiller for this. I get what is basically placebo (technically Tylenol, but I’m pretty sure it’s the same thing).

* Bending over = most difficult physical feat - Not so long ago, I could shake it at Zumba, shape myself into a pretzel and shock people I was helping move with how much I could carry up and down stairs. In short, I was strong and capable. Now I am whale-like and must cross my legs to put on socks. I’ve reached the point where if I drop something, and it isn’t that important, I’m just going to leave it there because bending over is way too much effort.

* All the other stuff - stretch marks, puffy hands and feet, always having to pee, accidentally peeing oneself, inability to sleep, constipation, heartburn, shortness of breath, congestion, etc. etc. 

Does all this sound like “a magical time you should truly embrace?” No. No one should truly embrace hemorrhoids. Note I’m not even getting into the perineum-ripping good time that is labor and delivery. 

The “magical time you should truly embrace” comes later. It comes when you’re sad, and your kid sees it, and he reaches out and tells you he loves you and hugs you. Or when you see that child you made learn something new or say something hilarious. Or when you get to eat a big piece of carrot cake or have a fabulous workout or are on the trip of a lifetime or do something really impactful in the world. While scientifically kind of unbelievable - I’m making a pancreas and a brain and a whole other person inside me! - pregnancy is not magical. It is something to be gotten through to get to the really magical stuff. I’m going to keep telling myself that until I can take ibuprofen and eat pasta again.