I am so terribly tired of all of the alarmist posts/articles/lists of things/clickbait out there on social media and such. They're everywhere and annoying at the best of times. As soon as you're pregnant though the ridiculousness just goes through the roof. So here's my list of my 6 most irritating pregnancy myths, and also just for fun, 6 truths that either I wasn't warned about or I completely failed to understand the depth of.
Yeah, this book? Screw this. Didn't read it, don't want to, wouldn't suggest it. You might as well just go check yourself into an assisted living facility and expect everyone else to take care of you and all of your meal prep from here on out.
1. This is a two-part'r. 1st is that you will never sleep again, because you will be up all night worrying about your children forEVER and they will never learn to let you sleep either. 2nd is that you need to sleep a ton more during pregnancy in order to keep you and baby healthy. First off, if the first part were true, then why is it that I remember my mom having strict rules as a kid about when we were allowed to wake her up? I should never remember her sleeping in. Obviously parenthood can do a number on your sleep, but saying you will never sleep again is just alarmist and ridiculous. Also, pregnancy tends to be uncomfortable, and causes its own worries. So telling a sleep deprived woman who deeply wants to sleep but pees 84 times a night and has fire-breathing dragon amounts of heartburn to get more sleep or she's hurting her baby isn't doing anyone any good.
2. If I get told one more time what foods I shouldn't eat, I will beat that person's head in with a raw t-bone steak and grind sushi in their face. Ok, so I know that the listeria bacteria is particularly dangerous to babies in utero. I get that and I agree. But do you know what items have been found with listeria in them lately? Ice cream, bagged salad, and oatmeal bars. Those items also aren't cooked and were purchased from GROCERY STORES! So I'm going to eat my steaks medium rare, my deli meats uncooked, my raw fish sushi and I'm not going to worry about it. It seems that listeria is a crap shoot and I only eat rare/raw meats from places that I trust anyway. There's only so much worrying you can do and you have to eat something, so DO IT! Also, I do agree that some types of fish are known to regularly have too high of a heavy metal (usually mercury) concentration. I agree with limiting those, but honestly who regularly eats shark?
3. That you look wrong. Whether that be too large, too small, too high, too low, boobs all wrong or maybe just not pregnant or too pregnant at different angles or at the wrong time. The famous: "you're WAY TOO BIG for having x months to go". Or "you don't look pregnant at all" to the woman who has put on 20 lbs and feels like she's smuggling a basketball. Every body, every baby, every fitness level, and every digestive system affects pregnancy differently minute to minute. So every person is going to look different all the time. Why must people tell you that you're wrong? Trust me, I've spent months now staring at baby bumps and boobs, and the likelihood is that you look exactly like you're supposed to.
4. All of the stupid before & after pictures and amazing (or terrible) snap-back to your pre-pregnancy body pictures. Or "use this incredible item to snap back quickly" and there's the associated before & after shots. Now not only are there about 10 zillion ways to affect the photo with lighting, clothing, posture, and make up but THEN add in photoshop. It's all crap. Let me demonstrate. The first two pictures are me being comfortable. The next two are me trying to look fit and awesome. I took them all within the same 2 minutes. Check out how different I look, and I didn't use photoshop, makeup, or even change the lighting or clothes to help. Just assume the photos you see online are assisted in some way to help someone's process/product/body look better/worse for their own purposes.
5. Being told: you need to/you will connect with your baby during pregnancy. You know what? Everyone's in a different emotional place. For some women, that may change on a week to week or month to month basis. Don't assume that just because you aren't bonding with your baby when they stomp on your bladder that you're doing it wrong. Maybe you'll feel bonded early and lose it as you get more comfortable. Maybe you'll not be able to bond until you feel each and every movement from their little bodies. Maybe you can't bond until the baby has been in your arms for a few weeks. This is all OK and you're NOT BROKEN.
6. Any/all of the old wives tale's on sex, symptoms, etc. If I believed half of them out there, I must be carrying fraternal twins because this baby reads about 1/2 and 1/2 exactly on what sex (s)he is. So unless my leech arrives intersex and with no clear answer at all, I would say that all the tales are just wrong. Also the idea that you glow? Ha, that's hilarious. It's called overheating and greasy skin due to hormones and a lack of time/ability/desire to shower.
So here's my list of my truths that I picked up as I went along. Some are based in scientific fact, some in just historical fact, and some in crazy experiences.
1. 3rd trimester is a hilarious limbo, and just when you try to adapt to something it changes. You either can't sleep or all you can do is sleep. Just when you feel like you've got a handle on how to physically manage an awkward task your belly or boobs will grow or your balance will shut down and your method won't work anymore. I haven't been proud of myself for cutting my own toenails since I was about 6, but hell I told everyone about it yesterday. I think the point of the third trimester is to convince the woman by the end that no matter how bad labor/delivery/newborn phase goes, it's preferable than spending more time dealing with the baby inside and wreaking havoc on your organs.
2. People will say really dumb things to you. No, like seriously stupid things, things that just don't even make sense at all. Like "are you sure you're not having twins" or "you're completely carrying that baby in your (insert random body part that baby can't get to here)". Nope. I'm pretty sure that on my ultrasound in my second trimester they'd have found a second baby. I'm equally content in the idea that I'm carrying said single baby in my uterus, which is located in my abdominal cavity. Give me your hand, I can identify certain parts of him/her. Baby is in the stomach. No, my face or ass are not pregnant. My whole body is pregnant. Into this category also goes any and all comments about your preferences for labor/delivery such as drugs or no drugs and all that jazz.
3. A little bit of alcohol will NOT kill you or your baby. Now, I'm not suggesting that you drink during pregnancy, or that alcohol is good for the developing baby. We all have heard about fetal alcohol syndrome and/or FASD and I'm not going to argue that it's a real problem. I will make note however that when our parents were born, their mothers were encouraged to drink to get through pregnancy. So if I decide to have a few sips of my husband's drink or maybe a half a glass of wine consumed over 3 hours after dinner, I feel pretty confident that no one is being terribly harmed. I just have a rough time believing that a sip of a cocktail is worse for my baby than the Tylenol I needed to get through my several weeks straight of headaches in the 2nd trimester.
4. Your life will be completely different even if you try to keep things mostly the same. I managed to keep active, keep busy, ride my horse for a long time, and I'm still running. That doesn't mean my life is even remotely the same. This is unrelated to the fact of course that I'm living 1300 miles away from where I was when I found out I was pregnant of course. My dog doesn't respond to me the same way anymore. Nor does any member of my family, any stranger on the street, or my husband. It's just a fact, life is already terribly different. I'm convinced it will be more so as time goes on, but still. I thought things mostly didn't have to change until I hit late 3rd trimester, but I was wrong. At 5 weeks along I grew out of most of my pants and my whole life was instantly different. I only hope that I get most of my bladder back...and that I see my feet in the same size again.
5. Pregnancy can be very isolating. See above point. Your whole life is different. And while having your family and friends (and hopefully partner) be extra solicitous isn't a bad thing by any means, you will inevitably be going through things that the people around you can't participate in. Sure, other people can feel your belly and moms who have been there can commiserate. But every pregnancy is different and each woman is in a different mental/emotional/physical/financial place as well, so no one can truly understand what you are going through. Or the exact strange abuse you are taking from the inside. Who's baby kicks their ribs from the outer side while they're still in your womb? Seriously child? Either way, no one can live your exact life with you, and even your partner's life just isn't affected the same way. Unless maybe you're on bedrest from super early and your partner has to take over EVERYTHING. Well, even then they have the chance to at least leave the house.
6. Even if you do everything right, things can still go wrong. It doesn't matter how fit you are, how young, how well you follow all the "dos and don'ts" lists you cannot control a thing. There are plenty of super fit women who eat really well who end up with gestational diabetes. There are young fit women who end up with all sorts of pregnancy or delivery complications. There are babies born with all sorts of congenital problems that have NOTHING to do with what their mom ate or drank (or didn't), or chemicals she inhaled. There's nothing you can do about some situations, and many issues that can arise that you can't foresee or plan for. There is a reason we elected to forego a lot of the fetal testing, because a lot of it is not 100% accurate as a screening test and most things we just don't need to know before birth. We did screen for CF genes, as it runs in my family for sure, and we did the anatomy scan at 20 weeks because that picks up major physical problems. Anything else, we can/will find out at birth. Also, no matter what I do, it's up to this baby, not me, as to whether (s)he will flip over to allow a vaginal birth. Even though I'm fit and I'm doing all the exercises, it just might not be in my cards to have baby go head down.
In short, most of what you hear is crap and the most important stuff you can't really be told because it's different for everyone. So worry, or don't.
Mostly, being pregnant is like the rest of your life. You have no control over anything and most stuff you read on the internet is a lie anyway.
Don't sweat the small stuff, don't read too much on Google, and especially be careful not to click on things that provide absolute lists of things you cannot have/do/eat.
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