This Is Thirty: What They Don't Tell You About Pregnancy

It happened. I'm pregnant. I'm extremely excited to meet my baby. We're not finding out the gender because I don't think it matters.

I'm in my last stretch now, and it has not been as glamorous as Hilary Duff makes it seem. To be honest, I never thought much about pregnancy despite wanting children. I thought a lot about giving birth and having a child, but I guess my mind skipped over pregnancy for the past 25 years. I feel like not much is said about pregnancy except about the "pregnancy glow" and how "beautiful" it is. I can confidently say, none of that is accurate. Being pregnant is not fun.

My mother-in-law talks a lot about how beautiful she felt when she was pregnant and is always talking about the "glow" I have, but I don't see it. I've also read online a lot about pregnant women never feeling more beautiful, and I have no idea what these people are talking about. It's been awful. 

At first, I felt really guilty about it. All I wanted was to be pregnant, and then it happened, and now I hate pregnancy. I just felt like I was being ungrateful, but with the help of my therapist, I reevaluated that frame of mind. I'm allowed to acknowledge that pregnancy sucks and still want a baby. I've compiled a list of things that I wish people talked about more so I was more informed about what I was getting myself into.

The First Trimester 

1. The Excessive Spit

Saliva everywhere. Constantly. It's called Ptyalism. Apparently, it's common to develop more spit because of your hormones and nausea. It's disgusting. You'll spend more time spitting than talking in the first trimester. When I wasn't vomiting, I was spitting. 

2. Morning Sickness Is Constant 

It's not just in the morning, and it's not just once or twice a day. I was vomiting six to seven times a day. In the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening. I had to keep barf bags near me constantly.

The Second Trimester

3. The Swelling

I mean we all saw Kim Kardashian pregnant, but I didn't think it was common or that it would happen to me. The swelling was so bad I couldn't wear shoes. I'm not sure if it was just because of the summer heat or the traveling back and forth from province to province, but it only lasted my second trimester. It made it very hard to move around. 

4. Body Image Issues

Or in my case, body regression. You know you're growing a baby, and you know you're going to get bigger; you're growing an entire human, but I just wasn't expecting to feel so awful about myself. I'm not sure if it was because I've struggled so much with my weight in the past or if it's just something normal that happens to a lot of pregnant women. It doesn't help that everyone is constantly commenting on your body. I'm still told that I don't look big which kind of makes me worry about my baby not being big enough. It also makes me feel worse because I've gained double the amount that I'm supposed to in my pregnancy. So, if the weights not going to my belly, where is it going?

5. Heartburn

Once the nausea and excessive spit stopped, the heartburn began and it only got worse the further along I got in my pregnancy. Even if I hadn't eaten in hours, I would wake up with the worst heartburn. I don't normally get heartburn so I'm not sure what is a normal level of pain, but some nights it would make me feel so sick I couldn't sleep for hours. The heartburn follows into the third trimester too, it doesn't just magically go away. Tums has really been my best friend throughout this pregnancy.

Third Trimester

6. Hip & Back Pain

I read about this being a pregnancy symptom. I expected the back pain, but the hip pain really caught me off guard. I wasn't expecting to wake up every night with some sort of pain in my leg and/or hip and have to walk around for a half-hour in the middle of the night to be capable of lying down again. The hip pain, in my opinion, is worse than the back pain. The back pain for me is constant, but when that hip pain comes, it's always with a vengeance. 

7. Exhaustion & Insomnia 

At the same time. I'm either sleeping for 12 hours straight or not sleeping at all. Don't even ask me why, it could be all the body pains, or the heartburn, or the anxiety. Who knows. 

All Trimesters 

8. The Isolation 

I wasn't kidding about Tums being my best friend, the loneliness is real. I'm not sure if it's just being pregnant in a pandemic or if this is common among most pregnant women, but it's incredibly isolating. It really feels like you're going through it on your own even if you have a great support system. The third trimester has been the worst for this, it might just be the excessive influx of hormones I've been getting. It could also be the disconnect I feel from everyone, or maybe it could be because I no longer feel like myself. I really don't know.

I think we should normalize hating pregnancy, but still loving our baby's. There are good things about pregnancy, like feeling the baby move around. It's wild. There's a whole person inside of me just waiting to come out. What a miracle. 

This is Thirty: Are Most of My Friends Liars?

Making a baby is hard. Why don't people talk about how hard it is to conceive more often? I have one friend who would openly talk about her struggles and her miscarriage. Other than that, a lot of my friend's apparently got pregnant "by accident". I even know some people who got pregnant on their honeymoon. Now that I'm trying to get pregnant, I feel like maybe they were all lying. 

I think back to the amount of "pregnancy scares" some people had and I laugh - like, you really thought it was that easy? Maybe for some women, it is. I once knew a woman who got pregnant with her first baby while on the pill, then got pregnant with her second baby while she was on the patch, and then decided to get an IUD since nothing else seemed to work. That's when she got pregnant with her youngest. She loves her kids, of course, but how on earth does that happen to the same person three times?

According to various sources1, you should try for about a year before consulting a fertility doctor. I get that we haven't been trying that long, but I feel like I should have been pregnant at least 2 or 3 months ago. I have an idea when my ovulation dates are but it just doesn't seem to be happening, I'm not sure if I should be worried.

I've been trying to follow the tips to help me get pregnant. Well, I've been eating better. I haven't really been exercising. I like walking, but I feel like it's too cold to go for walks at the moment. I remember once upon a time I used to be a gym junkie for like 6 years, but I stopped going basically because of my current job. The hours I worked and the commute basically killed my whole day. Now with the pandemic, all gyms are closed so I couldn't go even if I wanted to. I don't exercise, but I have been eating better. I've been eating all the recommended foods, although it also says to cut caffeine and relax which I just can't seem to do. It's recommended that you should get to your ideal weight before getting pregnant. I haven't dropped to my "ideal weight" but I'm not 215 again pounds so I'm really not too focused on that. 

My friends keep telling me "it'll happen when it happens". I'm sure it will, but it's not really helpful. A lot of my friends haven't experienced this yet (or never want to), or got pregnant very quickly/by accident. I know they're trying their best to be supportive but it's just frustrating. 

I've really just come to hate the questions about when we're planning to have kids. I'm just going to start responding with "actually, I'm trying and it's not working". I mean, it's better than the alternative question which is, why would you even want kids, especially in a time like this. But that sounds like another post for another time. 

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Robin Elise Weiss, PhD, MPH,  Dr.  Th

hanos Papathanasiou