Readers! Pay close attention to what I’m about to say. After talking to countless mothers and many doctors, the only “normal” thing about a healthy pregnancy is whatever you are experiencing. Based on the “normals” I read about in the pregnancy books and websites, my pregnancy was definitely not following the rules. But each check up I was reassured by my doctor that everything was looking great. Being the epic googler, daughter-of-two-lawyers, and uber-investigator that I am, I decided to do some digging around myself to find out what really goes on in the bodies of other pregnant women. I embarked on a very informal, unscientific, geographically homogenous study. I started talking to every pregnant woman or mother I could find about their experience. The more disparate the responses, the more comforted I felt. You can only compare your pregnancy to YOUR pregnancy.
So, what were some of my “abnormalities,” you ask? Let me tell you!
The first, and most concerning, was my first trimester weight gain. I can’t even tell you exactly how much weight I gained in the first trimester because I’m not 100% sure about my pre-conception weight, but let’s call it around 10lbs to a bakers dozen. Before trying to get pregnant, I was pretty slender and was actively trying to put on a few pounds (in a healthy way) to help aid the process. Immediately after getting pregnant, I no longer had to “actively try” to gain weight. It was as if I looked at a potato and its weight stuck to my body.
Every book and article and publication I read told me that first trimester weight gain should be between -3 (yes, that is a negative sign. A loss of 3 pounds) and +5 pounds. Well, that would leave me several standard deviations outside of the norm well before my 14th week. At first, my body was just growing. I was eating a bit more and working out less, that is true, but not in the magnitude of my waist expansion. My body was doing what it needed to support a healthy pregnancy, and I surrendered to it and watched it grow. Around the 6th or 7th week, the nausea and queasiness kicked in (which I’ll get to later) and that is when my diet really turned. Green foods? NO WAY! Kale was my enemy, put on menus and co-workers plates to torture me. Quinoa? HELL NO! Raw vegetables? BACK OFF! French fries? Pizza? Bagel sandwich? YES PLEASE!
The act of eating was my only reprieve to the constant wave of sickness, but the only things I could eat were salty or sweet carbs. OK body, you win. I worried that I wasn’t providing the right nutrients, or enough of them, to my growing fetus. I know where B vitamins and iron and magnesium and calcium live. I know where protein and fiber hides. (answer: not in potato chips and pasta) But I was continually comforted by my doctor telling my to listen to my body.
I quickly learned to incorporate healthy foods into the soothing ones: veggies on my pizza, spinach and broccoli added into my morning eggs or evening pasta sauce, nuts and dried apricots were good snacks. Acceptance and gratitude were my best lessons.
When conducting my survey, I learned I was not alone, and that no one was really alone in their experiences. Some women gained 40-60 pounds with each pregnancy, others gained less than 15. (remember: I eclipsed 15 lbs well before my growing baby weighed 2 lbs). Interestingly, (and I DO NOT suggest you attempt to prove this theory yourself), the women who gained the most weight in their pregnancy seemed to snap back and look the best after. Possibly the motivation of looking in the mirror after giving birth? Many women who started small front loaded their weight gain. Some women didn’t tell work they were pregnant until they were 5 months along because they could easily hide it until then.
My face expanded. My arms widened. I got a rash between my thighs because they were rubbing together with such vigor, as if they were making up for the years during which they did not touch. Bloating and water retention in pregnancy is “normal,” but most sources state it comes on in the second or third trimesters. Not for me! And the icing on the cake was that two of my best friends got married during that first trimester. I was the maid of honor in one wedding and a bridesmaid in the other. That equals a LOT of pictures documenting the awkward time when I had gained ten pounds in a few weeks but wasn’t showing a bump or talking about it. Sorry friends! Note: the face bloat went down, as did the infiltration of blemishes that hit weeks into pregnancy. 
The second strange thing I experienced before my blood test even confirmed I was pregnant was extreme shortness of breath. Walking and talking became nearly impossible. I had to stop and take a break on my 7 minute commute from my apartment to my office. My breath even became labored when speaking in meetings. During pregnancy, blood volume increases dramatically (~40%) as does blood oxygen levels. No one tells you these things.
Then there was “morning sickness” which is the biggest misnomer in all of pregnancy symptoms. My nausea knew no clock or calendar. For the first handful of weeks, I felt great. I was bee-bopping around with the little secret that my husband and I were about to have our first baby. I pictured myself with a basketball snugly under my shirt, a yoga mat strapped to my back and a smoothie in my hand, skipping down the street with a glowing smile on my face. And then one day everything changed. NYC in the hot summer became a cesspool of smells and triggers. Was a cigarette a government ordered and mandated human accessory? Did everyone leave their rotting trash on the street? Was there a road left in the city without construction?
Office co-workers had surely conspired to eat everything with an offensive odor from 7am to 7pm, causing my stomach to churn and my head to spin. And despite the consistent assurances that the suffering would ease by 13 or 16 weeks, week 17 came and went with no reprieve. I was told time and again that the worse you feel, the healthier your pregnancy. But I likened that to the myths about good luck when a bird poops on your head. We tell ourselves things to make us feel better. I spoke with many women who felt GREAT during their pregnancies, never felt better, and had healthy babies. And I spoke with women who had to hop out of the subway every other stop on their way into work to vomit in the trash cans. And my own mother who worked on the 19th floor of an office building while pregnant and had to push floors 5, 10 and 15 on her way up to run to the ladies room (until month 7). Many of my aunts were hospitalized during pregnancy from sickness. Many of my co-workers felt no nausea at all. I was somewhere between with unrelenting queasiness, frequent dizziness and overwhelming fatigue. By week 20 my symptoms eased noticeably, but were still annoyingly present. And then, at week 28, I felt a lot better (although not back to “normal” still having a hard time looking at salads, let alone eating them). Just in time to start feeling uncomfortable from the size of my stomach, which REALLY popped at week 28.
The next change I expected, to some extent, and thought I would really enjoy. Boob growth. In my case, this doesn’t quite explain it. One day I was barely an A cup, and literally overnight, I woke up with a D cup (And I’m told to just wait, as they will still grow). WHAT???!!! And for the first few weeks, they hurt. A lot. Before my stomach revealed my pregnancy, my boobs did. Dressing for work became a new challenge, as I had to think about cleavage showing for the first time ever. Was a shirt too low cut? a neckline revealing? Walking up or down stairs presented a new sensation, accompanied by a bouncing I had never experienced. I expected them to grow closer to when the baby was due, in preparation for breastfeeding, but mine changed early on in my first trimester.
I’ll conclude this post (although there are many more surprises to write about) with the claim that men don’t get pregnant. They do. Or, they think they do. My husband experienced many of my “growing pains” right in lock step with me. One evening he even came home from a work dinner and threw up. Not joking. He got “food poisoning” aka sympathy symptoms. I had little sympathy for him, I’m sorry to admit. He complained of bloating. Boo hoo. And discomfort at times. And what really threw me over the edge was when he asked (kind of sarcastically) if he could sleep with my pregnancy pillow! Ladies: this is not the time to be coddling your husbands or partners. This is not the time to be taking care of phantom illnesses. This is the time to be taking care of yourself.
EMBODY your wellness and ask others to help you do it!
