When it comes to discussing pregnancy in the blogging world, I find there are generally two schools of thought.
One is the romanticised version – when I read articles of this type, I imagine doe-eyed women who look like Disney princesses. They gush about how being pregnant is the most wondrous time of their lives and they use words like ‘miracle’, ‘blessed’ and ‘magical’ ad nauseum.
Then there are the people who list all the gawdawful things that happen to your body – and they title these articles ’10 things nobody ever told you about pregnancy’ or something similar. As if their readers didn’t know that growing a human being would cause various emotional and digestive issues.
I like to think I took a fairly sensible attitude to pregnancy. Sure, I had plenty of ups and downs and there were some surprises along the way. For example, there was a train ride to Scotland early on, most of which I spent in the vestible area willing myself not to vomit. There was also the day that I sat on the floor in our ‘extra’ bedroom and cried for no reason for at least an hour, and the afternoon where I laid on my bed giggling uncontrollably for the same amount of time.
But I also recognised that I was going through a very natural process. One that woman have been going through for a very long time. (Side note – at one maternity class, a midwife said that women had been having babies for ‘literally hundreds of years’. Hubby and I had to pinch each other to stop from laughing at this slight underestimation).
Pregnant me – also, barefoot and in the kitchen.
Anyway, now that baby is here, I look back at pregnancy and think about how *easy* it was compared to now. Obviously, I’m glad that baby is out and about, as well as healthy and adorable – but there are a few things I miss about being pregnant:
1. My beautiful hair, nails and skin
To be honest, I really didn’t appreciate the pregnancy ‘glow’ while I had it, but looking back on the second and third trimesters, my hair, skin and fingernails were all AMAZING. My pores were tiny, my eye-wrinkles were diminished, my nails grew strong and shiny and – most notably – my hair stopped falling out and instead became thick and silky.
In the last couple of weeks, the fact that the glow has gone has really hit home. You see, I’ve started shedding again. And my follicles are falling out with a vengeance. My current hair situation is probably, in reality, no worse than it was before pregnancy… I just forgot how bad it could be. For a good seven months, there was no hair in the bathtub drain and I could go several days without vacuuming and not having to worry about hair-based tumbleweeds rolling through the flat. I’ve also developed a notable ridge on my fingernails where the thickness dramatically changes – I’m pretty sure it delineates baby’s birthday.
2. Healthy diet motivation
Having a baby living inside me was the best inspiration I’ve ever had to eat healthy foods. If the thought of eating something fatty and sugar-laden – say a bag of cookies – crossed my mind, I was able to completely eradicate the thought by reminding myself that whatever I ate baby would eat too.
In the later months, with all the medical staff telling me how incredibly massive my baby would be, I was even more determined to eat healthily – after all, I couldn’t do anything about the super-long legs and huge head that the ultrasounds were showing, but if avoiding chocolate would help keep baby from getting any more enormous, I was happy to do so.
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Also, the stubborn part of me wanted to prove all the midwifes wrong when they kept telling me how likely I was to get gestational diabetes – and I managed to successfully avoid it.
In the end, I only gained about six pounds over the course of my entire pregnancy and, after baby was born, I was a good 20 pounds lighter than when I became pregnant. The late nights and eat-when-I-can mentality since the munchkin arrived have not been kind to my waistline.
3. Hands-free baby carrying and no pram
Don’t get me wrong, I love holding my little girl and I could sit and stare at her all day – actually, that’s basically what I did today. But having her in my belly was often simply more convenient – especially living in London. I could climb the stairs to the London-bound train platform (now I have to take a bus to another station), I could ride escalators instead of having to hunt down lifts and I didn’t have to worry about how many other mums with prams were already on (or waiting for) the bus.
My view for most of today.
4. Sleep
Okay, so during pregnancy baby may have woken me up a few times with her kicking and she liked to start hiccupping just as I was falling asleep. Oh, and there was the whole not being able to sleep on my stomach thing – but at least I was regularly getting my full eight hours. Some mums tell me that I will, eventually, get to sleep for long stretches at a time again, but for now I remain much more aware of the hours between 2 and 5am than I would like.
5. Feeling her move inside me
The unexpected kicks and punches never ceased to make me smile, even late at night, and the moments when I could look down and see my belly moving around of its own accord were surreal. Feeling baby move was also something completely private between the two of us, although I often invited hubby to put his hand on my tummy to feel the moving too.
That said, nothing beats looking down at my little girl and seeing her big toothless smile and bright eyes.
What, if anything, do you miss about pregnancy? If you’re currently pregnant, what’s your favourite bit?
Another beautifully written blog post. Almost makes me wish I was having a baby. Key word: ALMOST.