I'm not saying pregnancy is awful. (Okay sometimes I say that, but that's because I can be a little dramatic!) But people talk about pregnancy in these dreamy, whimsical terms - about the miracle of a person growing inside you, the incomparable joy of feeling your baby kick and move, the wonder of hearing the heartbeat and seeing the ultrasounds. Those are all true (well, I haven't felt Bean kick yet, but I imagine it will be out of this world). But they don't talk about the bloody noses, bleeding gums, weird gastrointestinal activity, unbelievable fatigue, unparalleled dietary stress, or itchy body parts. Sure, there's the typical warnings about moodiness and freaky food cravings but honestly, that's no big deal when you compare it with all the other unadvertised "side effects." (And, while I've gone through phases of absolutely NEEDING an entire kosher dill pickle several times a week, and obsessing over Yogurtland, I haven't had any of those cravings for absurd combinations like chocolate covered escargot.)
Books like What to Expect When You're Expecting tell you all about how these annoying symptoms are "normal." Don't worry, they write, this is completely normal. As if that makes it less of a pain in the neck. "I'm not worried," I want to yell, "I'm irritated!" That, and the fact that no one reads these books and websites unless they're already preggers - too late! It's like telling someone who just took a bite of too-hot pizza, "Careful, you might burn your mouth." Uh, thanks for the warning. (Actually some people who are TTC - dumb lingo for Trying To Conceive - read these books before they're pregnant I suppose. But these folks conveniently fail to tell the rest of the general public these pregnancy secrets, too.)
Well I'm here to tell the TRUTH. While pregnancy is definitely amazing and awe-striking, and there are parts of it that make all this junk worth it (especially the having the baby part of it, haha), it's not the picnic those dreamy-eyed romantics would have you believe.
For example, pregnancy gives you a superhuman bionic sense of smell. Some may consider this a blessing (they're wrong). And I suppose back in evolutionary history, it was useful being able to sniff out the differences between poisonous and palatable berries, predators and prey. But seeing as how we're no longer hunter-gatherers, this uncanny ability to sniff out the fact that my neighbor six houses down is using ginger in her stir-fry is pretty useless to say the least. I can smell ingredients in the neighborhood dinners, the sweat on unsuspecting strangers ten feet away, cigarette smoke left on someone's clothes from two puffs taken hours ago, and dog poop left behind by irresponsible dog-walkers half a block down. Sure I can smell really great things better too - walking into the lobby of the Ali'i Tower at the Hilton this morning I could smell gardenias. Someone had used gardenia scented lotion in the bathroom - around the corner and through a closed door. I can smell onion rings grilling at Tropics Restaurant near the beach - from the Diamond Head Apartments where our office is, at least two hundred yards away and behind two towers. Even good smells are unbelievably overwhelming. But don't worry. This is totally normal.
They say this is not only normal, but will last till I give birth. I'm considering Botox for my nostrils.
Hmmm....maybe that's your truth, and what you hear from others is their truth....maybe rather than being dreamy eyed romantics,they didn't experience the bloody noses, bleeding gums, etc., and it really was great for those people. So perhaps what should be "advertised" is that everyone has their own truth of pregnancy - some people have easy, wondrous pregnancies, and others have difficult, horrible pregnancies - but for most people, it's probably somewhere in between.
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