The Truth About Pregnancy

Everybody always talks about how pregnancy is such a beautiful and magical time. You're growing a human life! It's your baby, you'll never love anything more than this.

Well, let me just tell you, it's a bunch of bull. If women ever talked about the realness about pregnancy, no one would ever want to get pregnant! Sure, feeling her kick and move is the most incredible thing I've ever experienced. It's so surreal and amazing, and every time it happens I find myself staring, smiling at my tummy waiting for more.

However, there's SO many symptoms and problems that come with it. Women have mentioned morning sickness, I'm sure. In my case, I was sick for at least 2 weeks before I even thought to take a pregnancy test. I was vomiting every single day and the only food I could keep down was potatoes, bread and sprite. After a week went by and I didn't feel any better, I realized it wasn't just a stomach bug. Another week later, 4 pregnancy tests and a visit to planned parenthood, I found out I was growing a little bean.

I thought that after the vomiting went away I'd be fine and have a great, glamorous pregnancy. Oh boy! Well, I found out I was pregnant at around 11 or 12 weeks. (First ultrasound at 13 weeks.) The vomiting, however, didn't go away until around 20 weeks. Even then I suffered from insane nausea when I woke up or moved too fast. Once it passed the severeness, I felt pretty good. I was content with growing my little bean and then we found out it was a baby girl and I cried. Around 25 weeks....things changed drastically.

I had absolutely no energy to do anything. All I wanted to do was sleep. My appetite was close to nonexistent, even with the nausea being gone. Your fingers and ankles swell. So much to the point where I had to stop wearing my wedding ring and any kind of socks that weren't loose and fuzzy. Don't even get me started on the heartburn. It wakes you up in the middle of the night, making you feel like you need to vomit pure acid. Low blood sugar is an issue even if you don't have gestational diabetes. The test for which, by the way, is like drinking PURE sugar, and very disgusting. Your hormones are completely out of wack. You get pissed and irritated at the smallest things. For me I hated being around my little cousins. Simply because they weren't well behaved and not my kids so I couldn't punish them if they needed it. You get agitated being around any people in general. I would cry, still do, at the dumbest possible things. It's like a very extreme case of Bipolar Disorder. I can't sit ANYWHERE for more than 30 minutes; I'm constantly having to readjust to get comfy. Oh god, and the lower body pain. Your lower back and hips especially because your hips are separating slowly to prepare for you to shove a small watermelon out of your body. It makes walking extremely difficult because it feels like both your hips have been dislocated. Sleeping! You want to sleep all the time but you can never get into a good position. I probably adjust every thirty minutes and get up at least three times a night to pee. Which is another thing! You have little body parts sitting on your bladder 24/7 so even if you have no urine, you still feel the need to pee! Thankfully, the duration of my pregnancy has been during the winter because these hot flashes are no joke... And not just hot flashes, you're body gets super sensitive to all temperatures (air and water). Also, because your body is super sizing so that you can fit a tiny human in you, the stretch marks most women get as a result are ungodly and itchy as hell. Lotion will absolutely become your best friend.

The most beautiful thing about pregnancy, though, is the fact that you get to feel your little crotch goblin growing inside you for 10 months. Your body stretches and does these amazing things that you would never think you'd be capable of. Once you get to a certain point in the pregnancy, probably around the last month (36 to 40 weeks), your bean starts to run out of room. As a result ANY movement she/he makes will be very uncomfortable and sometimes painful.

Oh and one more thing. Everyone always jokes about the nesting faze at the end of the pregnancy. It's no joke. I clean all the time. You'll want everything to be perfect for when you get to bring your little alien home. I'm almost 38 weeks and I've spent the past month getting her room ready and cleaning the entirety of the rest of our house. My husband quite enjoys it.

I didn't write this to scare anyone or try to convince you to not get pregnant. Growing up, no one ever talked to me about the reality of pregnancy and I had to figure all of this out for myself. I just want women who may have had the same issue as me to be prepared. While growing your baby alien is the most incredible and beautiful thing, you get so excited about anything and everything, it's not all unicorns and rainbows. It is painful and stressful and irritating and you cannot wait to get her out of you. But you get the most wonderful thing at the end of it. You get to raise a little spawn of you and your partners creating. So just know that if you want to be a mother, that's amazing!! Just be prepared to be miserable for a little while.