Rough Truths of Pregnancy

Now that I am a few months post-partum, I want to write a pretty different post. My intention isn’t to scare anybody with that I am going to say. But I want to share with you some of the real truths about pregnancy and how it can be. The main reason why I want to spend some time sharing the bad and the ugly with you is because there were various stages during my pregnancy when I would have liked to take some time to find out for myself what was happening. But beyond that, I think it would have done me a favor to know what to expect. Pregnancy is a weird and wonderful thing, the more you know beforehand, the easier it will be!

 

 

Water retention.

When I was around 37 weeks, it was a lovely day and my husband and I went on a walk. It was still winter, so I threw on a pair of trainers and my leggings. By the time we had got home, my legs and ankles had swollen so much that I couldn’t move the stretchy fabric of my leggings over them. By the time my husband had helped me take them off alongside my shoes, you could see every indent from the edge of my clothes, the tongue of the shoe and even the lace holes!

 

Sickness and nausea.

From very early on in my pregnancy, I was as sick as a dog. Literally, anything could make me sick at one point. Even standing up too quickly. I bought sick bags from Amazon because there was no telling when it would suddenly creep up and bite me on the ass. It wasn’t until the 20-week mark that it seemed to subside, then the nausea came back around the 33-week mark. However, I think I had it bad. My sister didn’t have any sickness or nausea with either of her pregnancies!

 

Piles.

Quite possibly the most glamorous of the things that I am going to mention, piles. Even though thankfully this didn’t happen to me, it happened to my best friend and to my sister during both of her pregnancies. It happens because of increased blood volume during pregnancy, all the hormonal changes and the other wonderful changes that you get such as constipation and weight gain that I will come on to talk about.

 

Cramps and pains.

From around 30 weeks, the cramping and pain really kicked up a gear. I can remember one day being sat looking at my baby moving around in my belly, and I had to wonder where the fuck all of my internal organs had been squished to. Which makes it very understandable when the cramping and pain comes into play. I shared all of the cramping feelings that I was getting with my midwife and she was never nervous about them. Just said it was one of the joys of pregnancy!

 

Lightening crotch.

This was a term that I was completely unaware of before getting up the duff. For those of you that want to know, lightening crotch is a sudden jolt of pain throughout your vagina. The pain is completely unbearable. The first time it happened to me, I was walking up Bond Street and I thought that I was going into labor. Apparently, it just happens because of all of the pressure on the nerves down there but fuck me does it hurt.

 

Lack of mobility.

Numerous times I have shared that I adore my husband, but I also love my independence. So, you should be able to understand my pain when I was no longer able to put my shoes and socks on unaccompanied. To be honest, from around the 35 week mark, only because of the size of my bump, I wasn’t able to do some of the things that I had previously been able to do.

 

Constipation.

You read that right ladies, it is all glamour. It happens for a number of reasons, but the biggest ones are the inevitable hormone changes and all of the pressure that you are putting your insides through. Think about what is happening to your intestines during pregnancy and it is no surprise at all that things don’t flow just as they should. I think for me, it also didn’t help that my diet and exercise had to change rather abruptly.

 

Fatigue.

I have always prided myself on having energy and being really upbeat. Throughout pregnancy, it was bloody hard just to get the energy to get dressed and sit on my arse at work all day. There were genuine parts of the day where I could feel my eyelids getting heavy and I could have fallen asleep in a matter of seconds. It is a horrible feeling because you want to be so productive and doing so much, but your body and mind has other ideas.

 

Emotional changes.

I have mentioned many times here on this site that I am somewhat like tinman. I don’t have emotions, or at least I don’t show them. That is just how I have always been. It is obviously the hormones, but since getting pregnant, I have been all over the place. A few weeks ago I watched the movie ‘The Longest Ride’ and I cried for the best part of 4 hours because once the emotions were spilling over, I couldn’t get the lid back on!

 

Sleep changes.

For all of my life, I was one of those hateful people that fell asleep as soon as their head hit the pillow. Plus, I could sleep just about anywhere. I can remember being at a nightclub a few years ago and I fell fast asleep on a grubby sofa that was in the bar. However, as soon as the little one began growing past the 12-week stage, sleep was a thing of the past. It isn’t just trying to get comfortable; it is just that you are wired and completely unable to switch off.

 

As always, I hope you guys enjoyed this post and learning some of the rough truths about pregnancy. I mentioned it above, but I want to drive it home, this post is not intended to drag pregnancy. Nor do I want to worry about that is out there. Pregnancy is a beautiful thing, but holy shit it can do some fucked up things to the body. Educate yourself, don’t worry about anything and take each day as it comes. It is strange to say that you will one day miss being pregnant and all of the weird feelings and symptoms that you get alongside that.