When I was pregnant, I read dozens of magazines and books that told me what it would be like to be pregnant. There is nothing more deceiving than the commercialized image of what we’re lead to believe about what is ultimately the worst nine months of our lives. Let’s start with the biggest misconception:
(1) You are pregnant for nine months.
Now, I may have failed college statistics twice, but I can still add. If you have a baby at 36 weeks, it’s considered a preemie…babies are estimated to arrive around 40 weeks. So, consider that there are four weeks in a month. Now divide 40 weeks by 4…that’s right, you get 10. To make matters much worse, many times babies hang in there for an additional two weeks…making most people’s actual pregnancy to be 10 ½ months long. That’s almost an entire year that you’ll spend feeling like a bloated, hormonal zombie.
(there may be those who argue that there are more than four weeks in each month, therefore 40 weeks actually equals less than ten months. However, when you're fat and bloated, crying your eyes out...two days will feel like a week. Nine months, ten months...it may as well be a lifetime...
Let’s move on to misconception #2
(2) Pregnancy is a great time for partner bonding.
That’s right. We’re meant to believe that hormones actually help the bonding process. We all know that tears scare men, so when we break down and cry for absolutely no reason for 10 ½ months straight, we can’t exactly expect our partners to know how to react. But let’s start at the beginning. If the pregnancy is your first, there is a lot of adjusting to do. Before getting pregnant, you and your partner probably lived the life of two childless people. You probably went out together for drinks, met friends for dinner, spent Friday nights at the local bar or club, stood outside together to smoke cigarettes. In most cases, whatever you did, you did it together. Then you get pregnant. Now, just because you can no longer go out for drinks, or step out for a smoke, or hang out with friends at the bar, it doesn’t mean your partner cant. Don’t forget…he’s not the one who’s pregnant. He doesn’t have a baby growing in his belly, so he’s not the one who has to change his lifestyle. So he’ll go on living the life that both of you once shared, while you sit at home crying yourself to sleep. It isn’t easy. You don’t want to ground him just because he decided the two of you should have a baby, but don’t the words “Let’s have a baby” mean that we’ll both have to share the suffering? Don’t be fooled ladies…there is nothing like being pregnant to make you feel alone and abandoned. This may sound harsh, but when you have so many additional hormones running through your body, this is exactly how you may feel. Two people who were once on the same page become two people on opposite sides of the fence. Did I say fence? I meant a mile high stone wall.
Misconception #3:
(3) You may feel nauseous for the first few months.
I think by a few, they meant 10 ½. I was throwing up for the entire duration of my pregnancies. The only difference is that after the first five months, you stop throwing up before you actually eat. After that you’re able to eat, but it will probably come up anyway. As gross as it sounds, I learned that throwing up wasn’t so bad if I drank a chocolate shake with my food. That way everything tasted the same coming up as it did going down.
Misconception #4
(4) Pregnant women are beautiful. Well, this is what my partner kept telling me. I’m pretty sure he was lying though. I mean, I can’t think of a single time I caught him checking out a pregnant woman. But I can’t just assume he was lying to me. I mean, there’s nothing more appealing then a fat belly, unattractive clothing, and a tear streaked face, right?
Misconception #5
(5) You’ll feel energetic and happy
Energetic and happy? How about nauseous, fat and miserable? First comes the intensified sense of smell. You start to pick up smells that you’ve never noticed before. This doesn’t help much with the nausea. You’ll start feeling sick when you do the dishes, and the smell of the laundry will bring you to tears. You’ll notice people’s perfume as if they’ve bathed in it. You’ll smell cigarette smoke as you drive down the street. This amplified sense of smell will make you turn away from people who are talking to you, hide your face when you walk by the trash and rush to the bathroom while cooking dinner. The smell of garlic always made my stomach curl, and onions made me cry in more than one sense. This made it very difficult to be close to people, and even more difficult to eat or venture out in public.
Once you start gaining weight you begin to get insecure. Insecurities and hormones do not make a nice couple. The two clash like nothing else and cause a great amount of heartache, tears and arguments. You’ll notice that you snap at your partner more, trust him less, and blame him for your feeling the way you do (he is, after all, mostly to blame). You’ll be so miserable that nobody will want to be around you, and your partner will start looking for more excuses to leave the house. This makes you feel even worse. In the beginning of your pregnancy you’ll be falsely accusing your partner of not wanting to be around you. By the end of your pregnancy, these accusations will carry much truth. You’ll feel unsociable and isolated and it will be as if you are living in a bubble, watching from behind foggy glass as the world around you goes about their business. When you become pregnant everything changes. You feel different, you look different, and you act different. It’s as if your body has been taken over by a puppet master. You cannot control your feelings or outbursts and you’ll resent all those around you who live their lives as if nothing has changed. Their lives, after all, have not changed. But this is a hard concept to grasp when you’re pregnant. People look at you and treat you as if you were “special”. When you become pregnant you become something less than human. This is how you’ll feel, and this is how you’ll be treated. You become a species of your own. Your friends (who have no children) will not understand and will start to treat you differently.
Aside from getting fat and overreacting at every opportunity, you’ll also start to experience the aches and pains associated with being pregnant. Your back will hurt, your legs will ache and your head will pound. You’ll be exhausted all of the time, but will find it difficult to fall asleep. You’ll be hungry but won’t be able to eat. When you get to the point where one more day might actually kill you…that’s when the baby comes. Unfortunately, by this time you’ve lost almost a year of your life and when you finally have that baby and step out of your bubble, you’ll realize just how much has changed around you. It’s like stepping out of a time capsule. But we’ll save that for another time…
Now, don’t believe that all pregnancies are like this. There are those women out there that have nausea-free, hormonal free pregnancies. There are women who sleep like babies at night and feel beautiful as their bodies grow larger. There are those couples that bond greatly during this time, couples who have never been closer, and couples who absolutely adore this time of trial. I have never actually met anyone as I’ve just described, but there’s no doubt in my mind that freaks like this exists.
Now that I’ve pointed out the downside of being pregnant (which hardly took time at all), let me list the upside of being pregnant.
(1) You can eat all of the junk foods that you want. Let’s face it; you’re going to get fat, so you might as well eat what you want. Chances are you’ll just throw it up later anyway.
(2) People actually go out of their way to open doors for pregnant women, even if it’s due to the frightening, menacing look on your face. Looking and feeling like a zombie may actually cause people to be more polite. They’ll help you with your groceries and let you cut them in line. Just pretend that they’re being kind rather than feeling sorry for you. Its okay if you live in a delusional world while pregnant…it helps you to cope.
(3) Being pregnant allows for an excuse to hide in your bedroom when company comes over. After all, saying you’re tired or feeling sick is never far from the truth.
(4) You aren’t expected to stay on top of everyday responsibilities. People will offer to help out and actually run errands for you. Don’t get used to this treatment however, it doesn’t last forever.
(5) Your boobs will get bigger. Of course, this is a short-lived joy. It won’t be long before your belly outgrows your boobs and you just look fat.
(6) You never have to lift heavy objects. This means there are fewer chores that you’ll have to do. (This actually goes along with number 3 and 4, but I’m running out of ideas for the positive side to being pregnant.)
There’s so much more that hasn’t been covered (about the downside, of course). All in all, for anyone thinking about having a baby, don’t let my post deter you. After all, you might be that “freak” who I mentioned above. Your pregnancy might be a happy one :)
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