I have mentioned this in previous posts and on my social medias but I have been nesting like crazy. I’ve purged and organized all of our closets. I’ve deep cleaned everything. I’ve dug out the baby gear (Well Brian did but same difference, right?) so that I can finish setting up the baby’s bed area in our room. I’ve purchased most of our big items and a ton of clothes, blankets, and cloth diapers. I’ve painted the nursery and as soon as the custom made items arrive, it’ll be finished. I’ve organized my kitchen and laundry room cabinets. I’ve made a list of freezer meals that I can prepare closer to his due date. I’ve even began Christmas shopping. But all of that energy was more mental than physical. I knew that I HAD to get some things done before I get farther along so I’ve convinced myself that I’m ‘feeling energetic’.
From day one of this pregnancy things have been significantly different than my other pregnancies. I had every ‘bad’ symptom possible and I never felt good. Not even in brief moments. I was miserable and barely surviving day to day life. That got a little better at around 15-16 weeks but then other things stepped up. The back aches. The stiff hips. The acid reflux. The peeing a million times a day. The all around sore body that makes movement actually hurt at times. I can’t sit too long or lay too long without everything locking up when I do try to change positions. The insomnia because I can’t get comfortable. The weight gain. I had lost 10 lbs in the first few months but now I’m already up 17 lbs from my lowest weight during this pregnancy which is 7 lbs more than my pre pregnancy weight. I’m only 24 weeks pregnant and my max weight gain goal was 20 lbs total for the WHOLE pregnancy. These things are just apart of the issues that I’ve had. I had partial placenta previa which led to a lot of heavy bleeding at random. It was terrifying to say the least. I had a pre term labor scare at 20 weeks because my uterus is constantly irritated and the placenta previa wasn’t helping. It was just adding more pressure to my cervix which put me at an even bigger risk of pre term delivery/my cervix dilating. I’ve been on a weekly injection called Makena to try and help prevent preterm labor. I also had a cervical stitch done. The Makena hasn’t seemed to help but the stitch has. I haven’t dilated any despite the constant contractions so ‘yay’ for that. Most of these problems are things that I didn’t have issues with in other pregnancies and if I did experience them, it wasn’t until the last month or so. To be feeling so, well pregnant, so early is a first for me. It’s honestly just all around been a hard pregnancy which I’m certain will continue to get worse as I grow. I joke that maybe it’s my age (almost 30) or maybe it’s that this is my 5th child and my body is boycotting me ha. I really don’t know but I do know that I wanted this baby so badly. Anyone who knows me personally can attest to the fact that it’s all that I talked about and wanted. I had some losses after my youngest child was born. Loss is always hard but for me the loss just intensified the desire to grow our family again. I wanted it so badly and I am deeply grateful to be pregnant right now. For real!!! I can not express how smitten I am with my children, including the baby boy inside of me. I feel complete in a way that makes me get emotional. It’s bliss.
I say all of that to you to get to the actual point of this post: just because you ‘whine’ about your overly hard pregnancy does not mean that you are ANY LESS THANKFUL. It does not void your joy. It does not downplay your struggles to get pregnant and/or to stay pregnant. It changes nothing in regards to how lucky you know that you are or how blessed that you feel. It is okay to not be a perfectly happy pregnant woman through the pain and hard times. Do not let people pregnant shame you for mentioning that you’re miserable. The whole ‘just be thankful that you can have kids’ or ‘oh this is nothing, you aren’t even that far along’ makes me want to vomit. As if we are any less thankful for our children. As if we don’t know better than anyone how much longer we have to go. As if the pain that we feel is irrelevant. NOT TO EVEN TOUCH ON HOW INSECURE PREGNANCY CAN MAKE US (I’ll be blogging about that later this week). You are validated, mama. You are literally growing a human being inside of you. Those words are often not actually given adequate thought. People need to think about what that means — to grow a child from basically nothing in 40ish weeks. Then there’s the prep that your body is going through to birth that human. The spreading and contracting. The ripping apart and expanding before you deliver. No wonder we are sore. What we are doing is astonishing. Seriously! You are a rock star whether you had a easy pregnancy or not. You are aloud to live wrapped around that tiny unborn baby’s finger and to cherish him/her more than anything but to still be uncomfortable. Don’t let anyone guilt you over complaining about the discomforts of growing a human. It’s the hardest work that a person’s body can do.
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