As I enter the last trimester of my pregnancy, I decided to concentrate on some clichés, myths and just my personal attitudes about pregnancy.
I’m not glowing-I’m sweating
When I see pictures of myself during pregnancy, I hate all of them. Most of the pictures that Dima took were to be sent to our parents. And I just love the responses of my loved ones. “How beautiful you look!!! You are glowing!! ” – no honey, I’m not glowing, I’m sweating.
Either way, even if you really hate to see yourself all fat and sweaty, take photos.
I understand that it is difficult when most people are take pictures to upload perfect pictures from their perfect life to social media.
But you can just take a picture and not publish it anywhere. Shocking- I know.
“I loved being pregnant”
I have two possible answers to this ridiculous statement: either you are a big fat liar, or you have mild dementia. Even if you did not experience the first trimester as traumatic, like most pregnant women who experience nausea, vomiting, or chronic fatigue; even if you didn’t feel heavy, you had a perfect little belly, your clothes didn’t shrink on a daily basis, and you didn’t wake in the middle of the night because you had a muscle spasms in your legs, the last trimester is neither comfortable nor fun for anyone.
It is difficult to walk, stand, lie in bed and every action leads to heavily breathing.
So do not cultivate false expectations in women and say that you love being pregnant.
“Pregnancy is feminine”
Being pregnant is definitely not being feminine. You are not feminine during pregnancy, nor sexy. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Your control on your body muscles is loose, so you can bend down and a small fart will go loose without any notice. You may also sneeze really hard and a little pee will run off. It can happen anywhere when alone or when there are people around.
Your hormones are going wild and can cause excess hair in areas where you’ve never had hair before. But don’t worry, it’s good that your body is more sensitive than ever, because that’s how it promises you won’t be able to do waxing.
Beyond these embarrassing things that no one is willing to talk about openly, there are hot flashes, excessive sweating (even at rest), swollen feet that will ensure you won’t be able to walk in closed shoes that match your normal shoe size. So we can agree that during pregnancy you can not be feminine, no matter how many “sexy” pictures you will take during that time
Take Responsibility of your moods
During my psychology studies, I had a course called “physiological psychology”. In one of the classes, we talked about an area in the human brain that was deliberately irritated and caused people to scratch their heads. When people were asked why they had scratched their heads, they provided a variety of answers, even though the truth was that they just experienced a synthetically stimulus. People like to justify their actions, because it’s just unpleasant to feel like a puppet on strings.
The same thing with pregnancy hormones. I admit that until the last trimester I was pretty good regarding moods. After that I began to cry out of every little thing.
Now it is clear that this is not a rational or proportional response, and it is the easiest thing to put the blame of the irrational hysteria onto your partner in the form of anger or insult.
Many times when I cried, Dima asked what had happened. I simply said I was not sure. Because I was offended by something that did not make any sense to be offended by.
That’s better than making your partner feel guilty. So, even when you’re in a tornado of emotions, stop for a second and take responsibility for your moods. It’s okay to get out of proportion, but it’s not okay to blame your partner.
Learn to block what people say
This section is not relevant to the Americans, since they are so polite and very politically correct and if they do not have something nice to say they will usually nod and smile.
As Israelis, we say everything without thinking twice. And it does not matter that the other side is pregnant, we really feel obligated to emit everything that comes to our mind.
My first trimester was hard. Three months of nausea and unending fatigue. In the middle of the second trimester, I already had a small belly. It started to be hard for me to bend over, get out of bed myself, lift my legs and get into a bathtub. Unnecessary statements about me being spoiled from people made me feel bad. Ignore people. It is easier than trying to ask them to be sensitive. People don’t like to get any criticism.
Everyone goes through it differently. It’s important to remember that. Do not judge, because you may have been fortunate enough to have an easy pregnancy, and perhaps you have not yet had a child and it’s just easy to be the judge on the side. Either way – it does not matter, keep unnecessary comments to yourself.
I shouldn’t ask
This is a point that is always relevant regarding couples.
A lot of fights can be saved if the woman would say clearly what she wants, instead of expecting the man to understand by himself. After all, most of them do not understand, and then women get disappointed or angry. If you want something to be done, just say it. I do not expect Dima to guess anything. If there’s anything I want him to do for me I just ask. So simple and easy.
A man does not have the understanding how hard it is
I’m a very independent person. I’ve always been. I prefer doing stuff by myself and not asking anything from anyone because I’m sure I’ll do it faster and better than anyone else, and because I really do not like to bother people. Dime is just like me and it is very easy for us as a couple to be this way.
It was about the seventh month of the pregnancy that it was hard for me to do things alone. And I asked for a lot of help.
Bring me, take me, do this, do that, and at some point I felt that Dima did not understand why I was bothering him all the time. And it was not his fault, he did not marry “this” person. At first I was a bit frustrated, I asked and asked and he responded that he would do it later, cause he was busy at the moment. After few days I burst into hysterical tears and said that I knew my response was not proportional to the situation (taking responsibility for my moods) but I needed him to do what I asked when I asked, cause I physically could not do it on own.
Dima of course took my words very seriously and corrected his ways.
Don’t get me wrong
I thank for my pregnancy, thanks for the experience, and there is probably some cosmic reason that I do not have an extra thousands of dollars to take a surrogate mom who helps to keep my stomach flat and tight. And there are some priceless moments that make a cynic like me to get excited like a little girl.
Like seeing the baby for the first time in 3D ultrasound (when it really has a shape of a live person). Or towards the end, when the baby is big enough and you can see it kicking and flipping in your belly (before it is big enough, it just feels like digestive problems).
I hope that if you have already given birth, you enjoyed reading this, and mainly identify with some of the things I have written about. If you just realize you are pregnant, look down and say goodbye to your vagina, you won’t be able to see it for a while,
If you’re planning to get pregnant – I hope I did not ruin that for you. I want to believe it’s worth it in the end.
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