Things They Don't Tell You About Pregnancy...Part 1

I am 34 and will be 35 when we deliver our baby.  I am one of the last of my girlfriends to go through pregnancy so I am fortunate to have had hear them talk about it over the years but still there has been so much I have learned over the past 13 weeks and I am SURE there will be A LOT MORE.

• People ask THE most private questions after you announce your pregnancy.  Only a handful of people (my parents age more than anyone) have asked if we are going to get married.  The BIGGEST question both me and Dan get is:  Were you trying?   I am not kidding you.  Or the variation of that:  Was this planned?   Here's my beef with this question...among the complete rudeness of it all, HOW is that your business of what goes on with the private relationship of me and Dan?  At first we sort of went with it and stumbled upon our answer...not because we were not confident, but because the question, I feel is so appalling and private.  I am not sure the answer people are looking for, and honestly it is NEVER from our friends.  It was always from acquaintances, isn't that strange?  I remember on the beach in Nags Head, I met one of Dan's high school girl friends and within 15 minutes she asked if we were trying.  I decided right after that, that was the LAST time I answer that question.  Since then we have gotten it a few times and my answer is now, "that is a very private question between Dan and me".  That typically shuts people down.  I had one friend ask me and I said that, and she stumbled and said, but we are friends and share that stuff and I simply said AGAIN, that's between Dan and me and to please respect that.  GEEZ!  
• Constipation.  Yeah, I said it.  It's real and AWFUL.  Thankfully it comes and goes. The trick are baby wipes and lots of water and some prayer.  
• It's nothing like the movies.  I think television/media sets you up for the "extremes".  I am fortunate that I have only thrown up a handful of times...but I also have an autoimmune so not sure how out of the ordinary it is for me to toss my cookies at least once a month.  I had the "sickies" around 4-5 each night.  Some nights were worse than others and about once I week I felt like poo for most of the day.  You just need to find out what works for you.  And let me tell you, it's probably not what worked for your mom or your best friend.  My midwife suggested a half of a Unisom tab and B6 vitamin.  PTL!  That worked well and I had zofran for those days where nothing helped...it worked but please see the above bullet...that was the side effect.  So I had to weigh my options...nausea or constipation.  And 9 times out of 10, I chose the constipation.
• Speaking of the movies.  Early on I started sobbing at Cheerios commercials, documentaries, you name it.  I lost it reading a book in Barnes and Noble one night where a manager had to come up to me asking if I needed medical attention.  Your emotions are ALL over the place.  Forget about listening to music!  I had to pull over one day when Bette Midler's From a Distance came on the radio since I was crying so hard.  Now that I am almost in my second trimester, it's evened out a little...but saw a YouTube video last night and cried my eyes out. 
• The love isn't always instant.  When I went to our first ultrasound, I think Dan and I went into thinking that we would be in tears falling in love with our child.  When we saw it on the screen, it was more of relief.  We saw the heartbeat, the arms, feet and everything else, but it made it so real and truly overwhelming.  We left the appointment and talked in the elevator and made some big decisions regarding extra testing and decided rather quickly we were not doing extra testing, etc.  Whatever God has given us, is what we are meant to have and we can handle.  When I went back home to my office and he went to work we connected online and both of us thought we would feel differently than we did.  We just felt a sense of responsibility and relief.  We felt guilty we were not "in love" yet.  Little did we know that it would come in a few weeks, no doubt but I learned that everyone feels differently and that's perfectly fine.  
• Your body is not your own anymore.  I lived a pretty healthy lifestyle.   I ran daily; I ate gluten free, processed free, organic food.  I fell off the wagon so to speak.  Fried chicken, BREAD!, McDonalds breakfast sandwiches, CHEEZ WIZ, hoagies, hot dogs...off the WAGON BIG TIME.  Safe to say, I am back on the wagon eating mostly gf and eating fruit and "trying" to eat vegetables.  I have loved lemonade, lemons, lemon water ice, but HATE my typical grapefruit.  So weird.  
• Be kind to yourself.  Don't beat yourself up if you want to go to bed at 8pm (or 7).  If you NEED tater tots with cheez wiz (purely hypothetical :)) have some in moderation.  Listen to your body.  You are making a child and it's not in your head.  You are making brain cells, feet, arms, organs...It's a big freaking process!  
• STAY HYDRATED.  Drink a lot of water.  It helps with sickness and constipation.
• Listen to all advice but then take what you want from it all.  I have gotten both solicited and unsolicited advice.  Some of it very helpful and some I am letting by the wayside. As everybody is different, pregnancy in each woman is different too.
• Mommy wars do exist and to be honest there are no bad moms (I mean, with the exception of abusive mommies!).  As my oldest friend, Lauren, said...buckle up.  I am very quick to not judge moms anymore.  I think we all are doing our best.  Just because a mom is a stay at home mom, doesn't make her a better mom than one who works outside the home.  Just because one mom formula feeds, doesn't make her a worse mom than a breastfeeding one.  We are all doing our best.  Period.  End of story.  I think if I would have had a baby in my 20s I would be so caught up in it, but now I will be an "older" mom, I don't have time for that kind of competition.
• Men take longer to connect that women.  I keep hearing how men don't really feel like dads until the day they meet their baby.  I was fortunate that last week, Dan really started to connect so the day of the birth I think will take it to the next level.