Not Exactly Glowing

"She's not a unicorns and rainbows pregnant lady".

I was dropping off something at a family friend's house when she asked me how I was feeling and how far along I was now. Before I could answer, a beam of that rainbow-ish and high pitched positivity blinded and stopped me in my verbal tracks.

"Oh my gosh, congratulations! That's so amazing. I just loved being pregnant. Isn't it the greatest?" That was when our friend cut her sister in law off as if she had just asked me how my recently deceased relative was doing. It was the first time that the thought whizzed through my head and out of my mouth: "Yeah, I actually really don't like being pregnant."

Those words unfortunately continued to be my mantra until the day I had my son, as pregnancy didn't seem to get any easier. When I reflect back now, after being a mother to my incredible son for almost 6 months, I realize that another mantra of mine may have been at play during pregnancy: "expectations are often a thief of joy." Regardless of pregnancy being a common phenomena, I think a huge issue in how it's experienced is how it's dramatized and really glamorized in a lot of ways that hide what's real and what's actually to be expected in a pregnancy. Even the angry pregnant lady in the movies is only sick in the morning and still has a perfect body; she eats everything she craves and still has beautiful glowing skin and healthy hair. Yeah, screw that. If Katheryn Heigl was supposed to look like her pregnancy was "rough" in "Knocked Up" I would equate my pregnancy to looking like the scene in Star Wars when Han Solo and Luke Skywalker gut a tauntaun and crawl inside it to keep warm. I was that tauntaun. For 9 months. You feelin' me?

I didn't know what to expect in my pregnancy no matter how many books I read, or apps I downloaded, or movies and shows I watched about babies and pregnancy. I just assumed that I would grow a cute little belly and float around happy and excited for 9 months craving pickles and peanut butter, but unfortunately, I was wrong. It isn't books or movies or pregnancy apps that can help you to know what to expect. In fact, I don't really know if anything can. It does help talking to other people who have been or are pregnant, but the fact is, no two pregnancies are exactly alike. Here's the other tricky thing: I have it on pretty good authority (meaning: it's already happened to me) that pregnant women are not only forgetful, but nature seems to have a way of subtly repressing all of the awful things about pregnancy in that poor women's already hormonal mixed up brain so that she forgets that it was bad and want to have more babies. I'm serious. It's a real thing. There are actual scientific studies/hypothesis' on pregnancy changing actual anatomical brain structure. Nature is a cruel beast.

My point is, there were some things it seemed that people, books, even doctors forgot to tell me about my pregnancy. So if you're one of those ladies up late at night googling your symptoms, if you're a partner desperately wishing you knew how to help your confused pregnant spouse, if you're a lady who can look back and laugh at these possibly repressed discoveries, then this article just may be for you. Here are some things I wish I knew during my pregnancy.

1. "Morning" sickness isn't just in the morning.

Yeah I had heard of morning sickness, and I had heard that for most women it lasted until the second trimester and then evened out. I heard wrong, and I learned it the hard way. The good news (for you, perhaps) is that not all women get sick, and that some women really do just get a little bit of morning sickness here and there. The not so good news is that, you could be like me, throwing up morning, noon, night, and still gaining 30lbs in your first trimester regardless of not keeping any food down. So if you're like me and constantly sick, or if you're getting occasionally sick and it's not morning, it doesn't necessarily mean something is wrong, or something is wrong with baby. It's just nature being cruel again.

2. You aren't really "eating for two".

I was also told from a few sources that it was okay to eat more and eat what you craved while pregnant because growing a baby makes your body "work hard" and burn extra calories. Between that and the "treat yourself, you're literally growing a human!" I figured I could eat my way to looking like a pregnant Victoria's Secret Angel (minus the transphobia and racism and toxic eating disorder culture. Okay nevermind, not a Victoria's Secret Angel). Though it's true your body technically burns calories as your baby develops, there is not enough burning going on to eat much different than you normally would to maintain your weight and physical health. Weight gain is inevitable and is going to happen no matter what: it's healthy and a good thing to gain weight during pregnancy, but too much and you can put yourself and baby at risk of complications. You can't have a milkshake with every meal just because you're growing a baby. Unless you want to....just know you're going to have a lot more work to do afterward to shed some of the baby pounds and fit into your old clothes with your new body!

3. Your boobs might leak long before milk comes in.

This one freaked me right out because I had zero idea and I guess this doesn't happen to every woman, but it is quite common. You may already have heard that before you produce your actual breast "milk", you will produce a nutrient rich substance called colostrum that baby eats for a little while as they are learning to nurse. What no one told me is that colostrum can start being produced as early as 16 weeks into your pregnancy and can show up in your bra or on your pajama top as a clear, sticky liquid. Yeah! So fun! Order some breast pads even if you don't plan to breast feed just in case you are a big time colostrum leaker. I had a friend who leaked so much that if she forgot to put in a breast pad and laid down for a nap, her COUCH would be wet!

4. Maternity clothes SUCK.

And aside from one or two pairs of maternity pants (you're gonna need that panel, my friend), you don't need to buy a ton of maternity stuff. I was so surprised at how much of the maternity clothing on the market is so outdated in terms of style, boring, and honestly not even that comfortable. And the worst part? They bunch up the side seams, call a tee a maternity tee, and charge $30 extra for it! My favourite "maternity' clothes weren't maternity brands at all, rather, they were just soft and stretchy pieces from my already favourite labels. Buy some stretchy tank tops/tees and kimonos, baggy sweaters, etc. You know what makes clothes maternity clothes? Wearing them during maternity. DO invest in some nursing tops and bras if you are going to breastfeed, though. Those really do help.

5. Post-partum depression isn't the only mental health risk to worry about.

I had depression during my entire pregnancy, which no one seems to warn against or screen for until the very end of your pregnancy. We all know about post-partum depression and/or "baby blues", but no one told me that I could be so depressed during pregnancy, too. I struggled with depression in the time period leading up to my pregnancy, got help from a medical professional, and felt much better on anti-depressants. However, once you get pregnant, a lot of medical professionals see it as a bit of a crossroads if you are on anti-depressants. My doctor basically explained that although there is no proof that anti-depressants are harmful during pregnancy, there is also no conclusive evidence that they are not, so the best route is always to play it safe. I was given the option to re-start my medication should I see it necessary at any point during my pregnancy, but the problem is that while pregnant I was not recognizing my depression as depression: I figured I was just "hormonal" or that I was just feeling how pregnancy was "supposed to feel". You do not just need to worry about mental health once baby is born: if you aren't feeling like yourself while you're pregnant, if you're down, numb, extremely irritable, ANYTHING out of the ordinary for you mentally, then talk to your doctor. It is just as important that you are feeling okay before baby comes than after.

6. There's a thing called "lightning crotch" and it's not as cool as it sounds.

I was very disappointed to hear that this is not a superhuman ability to shoot lightning from your crotch, rather, a condition that makes you feel like someone is holding a taser to your crotch. Here's the REALLY interesting thing: in general I was told that this pain is only experienced at the end of pregnancy when baby drops closer to the birth canal and puts pressure on your pelvis. BUT, if you're REALLY special like ME (and I am VERY special), you'll get it early, I'm talking first trimester early, and never stop getting it, due to your baby stretching your muscles and ligaments. Unless you're having a 10lb 8oz baby like I did, though, you may be okay.

7. Baby may lodge themselves in your ribs.

As another added quick note on pain during pregnancy, once baby gets big enough and is facing head down, they might just find a spot that feels really comfy, and it may just be right up in your rib cage. It is super painful, and can even make your skin feel like it's bruised, but nothing will be there. My ultrasound tech actually got my baby to move and get the heck out of there eventually, and it was the greatest relief I had felt in a while during my third trimester!

8. Pregnancy sex isn't like it is in the movies.

You know that really attractive pregnant woman in the movies or on TV who is "out of control horny" and her husband is just super excited he is having so much sex? Well I'd like to know who on the writing teams of any of those movies or shows has ever been pregnant. It's not like that. I wasn't really that horny ever, and when I was, I wasn't exactly psyched to strip down to my swollen, stretch mark-laden nauseous bod and climb on top of my husband to go at it. It's hard to feel sexy when you aren't the pretty glowing pregnant lady. Hell, I have a hard time feeling sexy when I don't have a ten pound child protruding from my abdomen. It's okay not to feel sexy, it's okay to feel weird about pregnancy sex, and if your partner complains about that, they suck. Plain and simple.

9. Your feet may grow and never go back to your old size.

Yeah SUPER fun fact for anyone else who happens to love their shoe collection more than most living beings some days: your feet don't just swell, oh no, they can literally grow in length and width due to pregnancy hormones. I seriously 6 months and much less pounds post partum have had to replace every single pair of shoes I own with a size up. So beware. And don't order any beautiful shoes in your old size while you're pregnant if they don't fit because "they will when the swelling goes away". Cue the crying while hugging the beautiful size 9 shoes I'll never get to wear.

10. The best thing to do isn't always found on a website.

You're going to read, hear, be told, and even tell yourself things that don't end up being true for your own experience with pregnancy and motherhood and that's okay. You might think you'd never formula feed and end up hating breastfeeding. You might say you're going to deliver with no pain medication and then scream for all the drugs the first time you feel a contraction. You might not use the baby bath tub you got as a gift because your baby hates it, or keep washing everything you buy in baby soap before you use it because you forget to, or stay away from that crazy gossipy mom group you vowed to because you're lonely and just want to be around someone who gets you. Aside from your doctor's medical advice (and even then, you can take certain things with a grain of salt), what's important is that what you're doing is working for you, for baby, and for your partner if you've got one. That's it. Not what anyone else thinks, not what you thought was supposed to work. Just what works. If baby is happy and healthy most of the time (because hell, we know they won't be all of the time), and YOU are happy and healthy most of the time, you're doing it right. If something about pregnancy or motherhood is making you miserable, ask yourself why you're doing it.

And once that little bundle of joy is here, I promise that everything changes in the best way possible, and you are going to be and already are more than enough for that baby: you've got this.