*This post was inspired by Marianna from Snappy Surprise who’s pregnant with her first child. Let’s take a minute to welcome her to the mommyhood club!
Pregnancy is such a magical time. You start growing and growing and getting bigger and bigger. There’s some pretty wicked hormones running through your body that makes you cry over a candy commercial. Not just some crying with a light case of the sniffles… it’s the ugly cry.
And before you leave the house, you’re a bathroom ninja and you check to see where the bathrooms are in the vicinity of where your going. I’ve already written about some things I experienced in the days and weeks following my daughter’s birth. Now, it’s time to tackle pregnancy.
A case of the barfs –
I was puking throughout most of my pregnancy. The nausea would get so bad that I would get the spins. Prenatal vitamins were assholes and I would puke nightly after about an hour of feeling like I wanted to die. That was finally resolved when a nurse told me to take 2 gummy Flintstone vitamins without iron in place of the prenatal.
When I was pregnant, my sense of smell was on steroids. I would be dry heaving at things I loved prior to being pregnant, like pepperoni pizza. I would even carry plastic bags in my purse just in case I would get sick.
Cravings -
I wanted anything lemony or citrusy. My biggest cravings were anything to do with fruit, potatoes, Taco Bell bean burritos with sour cream, and orange juice. Holy hell, I would stab somebody if they fucked with my orange juice. My poor husband.
Food aversions -
That freaking rotiserrie chicken at the grocery store would give me the biggest case of the barfs. It was awful and I would dread having to go grocery shopping. I must have looked like such a sane person before I started showing because there I’d be, going down aisle after aisle, gagging at the smell of that damn chicken wafting in the air.
The sweet spot. -
It was around 6 months when my pregnancy seemed more real to me and it was also around that time that the hummingbird was really, really active at night. My favorite part of the day was late at night when I would be laying in bed and she would be doing her acrobatic circus acts. I loved that bonding time with her.
I would also love when the hummingbird would get the hiccups when she was on the inside. After she was born, I would hold her close to my chest so I could get that feeling back.
The alien inside. -
One night while watching the alien inside of me move around, I lifted up my shirt and would see her poking through my stomach. Then, holy shit, there was an elbow or a knee that really poked up and went from the left side of my stomach to the right side. My first thought was that my baby was going to burst through my stomach like a scene in the movie Alien.
Nobody ever told me stuff like that happens and I was about to wake up my husband to tell him our baby is eating its way through my abdomen. Then it happened a few more times and since my stomach was still intact and my fetus didn’t eat through it, I was pretty sure I was safe.
Peeing every 5 minutes. -
You pee, and pee, and pee, and pee, and pee some more. One thing that should be very clear is that when a pregnant woman says she has to pee right this very second, don’t respond with “But we’ll be there in 5 minutes. Just hold it until then.” Especially if you want to live. There’s a baby sitting on our bladder and once we have to pee, we have to do it then and there.
I’ll eventually be able to lift myself off the couch between now and tomorrow night -
In my 7th month, I started to slow down more because of my basketball sized belly that would have me waddling like a duck. Once I would sit in a chair or on the couch, I would feel like I needed a forklift to get me up. It was getting more difficult to try to get comfortable whether I was sitting, standing, laying on the bed, walking, and driving.
No, I’m not moody, motherfucker. -
I was moody through my entire pregnancy which by the way, I admit I would take advantage of sometimes, but in my 31st week of pregnancy, I was done, done, done. I was so ready for my daughter to be born. My mood was certainly helped by people who would say to me “Wow, you’re still pregnant! It looks like you should have had that baby weeks ago!”
Get this damn baby out of me now! -
I couldn’t get comfortable, I couldn’t sleep, I had to pee ALL THE TIME, I wanted to eat soft cheeses again, and there seemed like there wasn’t anymore room for the hummingbird to grow. It was cramped quarters in my uterus and I was so ansty and restless to meet my baby. I finally did on April 15, 2009. Her due date was May 6 and that was when we were able to bring her home from the NICU.
Post-baby breast pump nipples -
There are so many things I could go on about when it comes to post-baby but one thing really sticks out in my mind. I had been pumping for a few weeks and one afternoon, while my newborn daughter was taking a nap, I decided to pump a little extra longer than normal. When I took off the breast shield, I almost screamed.
My nipple was the size of a quarter.
Let me repeat.
My nipple was the size of a quarter!!
With my pregnancy hormones strong and having first time mom-itis, I thought I broke my nipple and it would never go back to its normal size again. I called my husband at work and as soon as he answered, I was like “Omg, Omg, I broke my nipple. It’s huge! I was pumping and now it’s the size of a freaking quarter! What do I do?!”
The hubby calmed me down (I’ll never know how he stopped himself from laughing at me) and tried to assure me that my nipple wasn’t broken and if I just gave it some time, it would go back down to its regular size.
Luckily it did. After that, I thought it was the coolest thing that my nipples could get so large. What? I blame it on being sleep deprived and the fact that I’m easily amused. If I could have, I probably would have stopped everyone I came across in my daily life and would have told them “Want to know something cool? My nipples can get as big as quarters! Wanna see?”
But then there’s that whole getting arrested for public indecency that I wanted to avoid.
What were some of your memorable pregnancy experiences?
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