I loved the first 51 hours of pregnancy.
I found out I was pregnant on a Wednesday at 4 P.M. when I got home from work. I thought it was too early for the test to even work (and according to the box, it was) and I could not believe when I saw two lines. I was stunned, thrilled, and over the moon. It was fun to tell my husband when he got home from work, who was just as excited. We went out to buy some onsies and started talking about baby names.
On Friday, 51 hours later, our celebratory dinner date had to be cut short so that I could go home and throw up 5 times. When pregnant ladies throw up in movies, it is kind of cute almost. This was not like that. I slept the first part of the night on the bathroom floor. And that pretty much sums up how I felt the rest of the 9.5 months. Morning sickness did not last the whole time, thank goodness, but was replaced by a set of constantly shifting, terrible symptoms, the worst of which was probably the indescribably bad fatigue which lasted the whole time. [I want to note here that if you are currently having morning sickness, this in no way indicates that the rest of your pregnancy will be hard. You could feel better starting tomorrow and the rest of your pregnancy could be great.]
I felt so sick that it definitely drowned out all the excitement and happiness I would have felt otherwise.
During this time, I found plenty of commiseration online and with women who had had similar physical experiences to mine. What I could not find was a discussion of what goes on emotionally when your pregnancy is difficult. Here are a few of the emotions I can remember, and some retrospective reactions to each.
This is confusing. If your pregnancy was planned, but you now feel awful, it is hard to know what to feel. Something good that you wanted is happening, but it also feels like something really bad is happening to you.
I feel guilty that I’m not happier. During my pregnancy, I wanted to feel happy and excited, but I couldn’t. This led to guilt. I knew so many great couples who wanted nothing more than to become pregnant but were struggling with infertility, and here I was living their dream and absolutely miserable. Also, shouldn’t I be more excited to become a mom? Shouldn’t my happiness over the baby be enough to lift my spirits?
Looking back now, I realize that I am only human. If I told you that you just won a big award, but simultaneously dropped a hammer on your foot, you would not be able to feel the excitement. Do not make yourself feel guilty for feeling bad. We are only human. Bad feelings are how humans react to pain and sickness.
Why did I do this to myself? Imagine having the worst stomach bug of your life for months on end, but instead of it being bad luck, you chose to contract the virus. It can feel a little like that. You might be irrationally mad at yourself or confused as to why you wanted this. If you are in your first trimester, meeting your baby may feel very far off, so far off that at times you almost forget there is a baby involved. Later on in the pregnancy, when you actually have a belly and can feel the baby kicking, the baby part of it feels far more real.
People’s reactions can make it worse. If you are honest about how you feel, some people will have empathetic reactions that make you feel better, but a lot of comments can make it worse. Some people are uncomfortable with someone disliking pregnancy. This could be for any number of deep-seated reasons, but basically, I learned to share my feelings with trusted friends and family members. I just told everyone else I felt fine. I hope one day there is less judgment and less of a stigma around this.
Is pregnancy supposed to be a good or bad experience? Our expectations around pregnancy can be confusing because people’s experiences of pregnancy are so wildly varied. Once I started sharing my news, everyone started telling me about their own pregnancy experiences. Some felt similar to me, many had relatively easy pregnancies, and I even met one or two unicorns who loved the experience of pregnancy. (They exist!) Good for them, but this can make things confusing. When I had shingles that one time, nobody said, “I loved having shingles! Isn’t it the best?”
This applies to specific symptoms as well. If you have bad morning sickness like I did, some people will say something to the effect of: I had morning sickness. It’s not that bad. But what they mean by morning sickness is that they felt kind of queasy a few times or for a brief period for a few weeks. They didn’t have the type of 24/7 nausea that makes it difficult to sleep at night.
Remember that each person’s experience truly is unique. Try to manage your expectations and ignore any comments that are unhelpful.
Why me? Why is this so much harder for me than for other people? I thought about this a lot when I was pregnant, and there really is no good answer. People’s experiences are just different and this is true of all things. Think about the common cold, for example. Haven’t you had colds that felt like no big deal whatsoever and then others where you felt terrible?
Is it actually harder for me, or am I just weak? No, it is actually harder for some people than others, like many other bodily experiences. Think about periods, for example. For some women, periods are no big deal. They barely impact the way they feel. But I’ve known women who have actually passed out from the pain of cramps. Or been admitted to the hospital. It’s not in your head. If you have the thought that you are weak, think back to all the other times in your life when you were strong and tough. You are tough! You are just having a difficult pregancy.
I thought I had 9 months before my life changed. I feel cheated out of that time. When we decided to have a baby, I thought we still had at least 9 months before everything would change. I thought we could go on fun dates, have a blast decorating the nursery, go out late at night knowing how much everything would change when the baby arrived. But because I felt so bad, I could barely just get through the day. I felt cheated out of the time I thought I had before my life changed.
If you feel this way, it can feel unfair. You are trying to process the biggest transition in your life. You are trying to get a lot of things ready for the baby. You are working harder at your job to prepare for maternity leave. You are trying to make important decisions about working and childcare and living situations, and through all this, you have less energy than you’ve ever had. That feels like a cruel joke.
Is something worse wrong with than me just pregnancy? Is something else going on? Throughout my pregnancy, I felt so terrible that I wondered if something else was going on. I actually expected someone to discover I had an undiagnosed terminal illness. Looking back, I do wish I had been more vocal or asked my doctor. Sometimes pregnancy is just hard, but sometimes, there is a way to help. A small example in my case was that the routine 25-week blood test revealed I was severely anemic, which is common but can be easily treated with iron supplements. If I had spoken up, they might have figured this out soon and my fatigue might not have been quite as bad.
I feel like I can’t trust my body anymore. Is this an indication of how childbirth and/or breastfeeding will go for me? No it’s not. I don’t have any data to back up this answer, but I am fairly certain that there is no correlation here. You can have a difficult pregnancy and have everything else go well for you.
Is this an indication of what my experience of motherhood will be like? No, it’s not. I promise. You can hate pregnancy and love motherhood.
Is is possible that this is the hardest part of becoming a parent? Yes, it is possible. It was for me. Specifically, the first trimester of pregnancy was the hardest part of my whole life so far. I have never felt worse. Even in the very sleep-deprived days with my newborn, I would still say that I felt way worse physically and way more tired during pregnancy.
In the worst, hardest times, our brains tell us that our suffering is permanent. So here is what you can say to yourself.
This is temporary.
The longest it can last is 9.5 months. But probably the symptom you are feeling will last a matter of days or weeks. You are going to make it. When we feel sick, time can drag on and on, but I promise it will end soon. One day soon, this will be over.
If you had or are having a difficult pregnancy, and you think of any others you had, I’d love for you to add them in the comments.
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