Pregnancy Grumbles (aka Why I'm Only Doing This Once)

As a first-time mom (to-be), I'm often surprised at the way my body has reacted to the incubation of Little Miss Fetus. Sometimes, these surprises are pleasant (Oh, my ass isn't that huge...yet!) and sometimes not (Oh, my back feels like it's been put through a pasta maker!). Now that I'm firmly into my third trimester, I'm definitely feeling the 'sometimes not' pleasant surprises more than the pleasant ones. Since the plan is to NOT be pregnant again - and this was the plan looooong before the pregnancy even occurred - I thought I'd record some of my more recent 'surprises' for posterity's sake...and to hold over the baby's head when she's a teenager and making me crazy.

1. Boobs. Oh, the joys of pregnant boobs. It's not just that they get bigger. They get HEAVIER, too. Try strapping two 5-lb weights to your chest, harness them in with an industrial-strength bra, and wear them around all day every day, and then you'll have a basic understanding of pregnant boobs. And I haven't even gotten to Lactating Boobs yet. Eeeesh.

2. Fat stores. The pregnancy books will warn you, early on, that your body will make and stubbornly hang onto these lovely "energy bundles" called maternal fat stores. For the first six months of my pregnancy, I didn't really notice them. Now, however, I've discovered where they've been hiding: my back. Yep, I'm now the proud owner of a blubbery layer of maternal back fat. Ah, awesome. And sooooo attractive when paired with the giant boobs and industrial strength bra.

3. Heartburn (and other GI maladies). This makes sense and therefore, isn't much of a surprise. But it still sucks. Obviously, you start out pregnancy with an abdomen full of organs already. But when the little ol' uterus gets all full of baby and amniotic fluid and placenta action, it has to push those existing organs out of the way to make room. Well, this primarily affects your digestive system, if you remember where things are positioned in the human body. Your stomach shrinks, your intestines get squished and pushed around...it makes for a very unhappy GI tract on the whole. It throws hissy fits that manifest themselves as heartburn, gas, constipation, and nausea. Good times! Yet, you're still hungry. All. The. Time.

4. Sore back. This is the real bastard of them all. At least, it is for me. I'm fine with pain that can be resolved quickly...but pregnant back pain isn't like that at all. Again, this is a relatively new surprise and one that I thought might never come, since I hadn't had anything but sporadic backaches during the second trimester. However, the baby is growing very quickly now and therefore, I'm carrying a lot more weight on the front side of my body. My back, as strong as it may be, just cannot compensate for this extra weight and yelps out in pain constantly. I've heard that I can get one of those maternity belts to hold up my belly and that can help, but I'm skeptical. The weight is still there and for the next 2+ months, ain't going anywhere.

5. Hair. Okay, this is a double-edged sword. I love my pregnant hair...it's fuller, shinier, grows faster, and is just all around better than non-pregnant hair. But if you think about it, hair doesn't just grow on your head, right? Welcome to pregnancy-induced Yeti syndrome. The hair on your body grows faster too - but just for kicks, Mama Nature decided to also make your skin more sensitive at the same time. Shaving is a constant battle. I should just buy stock in Gillette (or P&G, whoever owns the brand) because I go through razor blades like water. Same with shave gel, because my skin does NOT like the shaving at all. Extra fast-growing hair + sensitive skin = pregnant Yeti-like creature.

6. Skin. Have you ever wished you could revisit your adolescent years and have the skin of your 14-year-old acne prone self? No? Then don't get pregnant. My skin full-on FREAKED OUT when I got pregnant. It still does, but to a lesser degree (I keep switching up my face wash; I have about three in the rotation, because I think it keeps my pores too busy guessing to actually produce oil). However, if I neglect ONE face washing, the very next day, I'll have two or three new blemishes to show for my laziness. Pregnant women "glow" b/c they have oilier skin then normal. And it's not attractive, it's annoying.

7. Sleep. Because this is my first go-round on the pregnancy carousel, I thought I'd be lucky enough to get plenty of sleep before the baby came. All the pregnancy books tell you to rest as much as you can before the baby arrives, because we all know sleep becomes nothing more than a sweet memory after that. What the books sometimes forget to tell you is that pregnant sleep is more like pregnant nap/doze/wake/repeat. I can (and do) go to bed at 9pm most nights, and am usually asleep by 9:30. But I never sleep through the night - especially now that I'm like a beached whale in bed. I have a body pillow and an extra pillow to help me stay positioned on my side, but I always have to wake up and roll over, reposition the pillows, get myself comfortable again, and by that time, I'm AWAKE and it takes me a good 15-30 minutes just to fall asleep again. This happens about 3-4 times a night. You do the math. Have I gotten a full, uninterrupted 8-hour night of sleep in the last several months? No. And I won't get one for the next several years, either.

8. Ligament pain. This is a fun one. You get warned about this early and often in the pregnancy books, but until your uterus starts really growing, you don't think about it much. And then one day, while you're walking to your car, you suddenly stop and grab at your sides, gasping for air because you are in so much pain. A contraction? Nope, "just" a round ligament pain. These suckers hurt - and they come on out of nowhere. My personal favorite episode of this was when the husband and I were walking from one side of Husky Stadium to the other for a tailgate a few weeks ago. I'm normally a brisk walker, so I was carrying on with my usual pace...bad idea jeans. About halfway through our jaunt, I had to stop and rest. Twenty more steps, another sharp pain, and more resting. Lather, rinse, repeat. This while the husband is toting two large bags full of our beverages and foodstuffs for the tailgate...nice, huh? Ligament pains suuuuuuck, and they definitely get worse the longer you're pregnant and the larger you get.

Now, I could wax poetic about swollen appendages and cankles, but that hasn't happened to me yet. Nor have I gotten any stretchmarks. Yet. So those have been my third trimester 'good' surprises. So far. (Are you sensing the theme here?) My time for those may very well be just around the corner, but I'll be glad for now that I haven't had to deal with them yet. Yet.