Belly Laughs

One of the most amazing things I have ever done was carry life inside of me. I think what your body goes through to create and mold this little human inside of your womb is the most special and precious gift God ever granted me! I will, however, admit that it surprised me that even though I am a nurse and am familiar with all that goes on in your body while pregnant, I found most of the symptoms to be a shock!

First of all, in the first trimester, you are ecstatic that you are pregnant but you don't look pregnant and when you start to have a "bump" you are still in the stage where people look at you like "I don't want to ask her if she's pregnant b/c what if she just gained weight", which I hated!!! Then you are dealing with constipation (TMI- I know but I've never had this problem before and was actually hospitalized b/f they realized I just had a small bowel obstruction!) You're constantly worried b/c you cant feel the baby move so you dont know if he/she is okay and you worry about when to tell people b/c what if you were to miscarry, and so on...plus, if you are super lucky you have a ton of morning sickness, no, I take that back...ALL DAY sickness which includes gagging for no good reason and puking if you even think of something that makes you feel a little queasy. On top of that, you are exhausted ALL of the time! When you hear that precious heartbeat for the first time, you forget about these things until the next time you throw up ; )

In the second trimester, your symptoms may start to decline (yay!) and you start to get a nice bump so you may just be cute and have a little fun, until you start to develop massive heartburn...and not just when you eat jalapenos, but when you drink water or eat BREAD!!! You learn that you can no longer sleep on your stomach b/c its too round or your back b/c you can't breathe so you try and position yourself to only sleep on your side, which for me was very difficult! You may start to have sciatic pain or even go into preterm labor (LOADS of fun) Luckily, you forget a lot of this when you see that beautiful baby again on ultrasound who, this time, looks more like a baby and less like an alien. Plus, you find out the sex! Soon after, you start to feel him/her move which is just amazing!!!

If you have any false labor, the hospital/doctor's office makes you feel stupid and asks "oh, is this your first?" Funny thing is I started contracting 3-5 minutes regularly at 27 weeks and it continued until I gave birth at 39 weeks and everyone tried to reassure me by saying "You will know when its real labor, it feels different"...NOT...one clue is that everyone is different and every pregnancy is different...I couldn't tell my preterm labor from my full blown labor until after my water broke and he was well on his way!

In the third trimester, you start to get a little anxious and uncomfortable. You can't sleep anymore and when you do you may have nightmares of giving birth to a toddler. You continue to have massive heartburn and false labor pains and worry about your water breaking while your walking down the cereal aisle and "ew, I don't want them to have to clean it up!". Walking around you look like a oompa loompa and cant catch your breath. Then you pee when you sneeze or laugh too hard, seriously, wet your pants : ) Even if it hurts when your baby kicks you by now, you are learning them and feel much more connected. I remember one of the neatest things was watching Caden roll across my belly, you could just see his foot stick out or his elbow roll across the center...too cool!!!

I find all this very humorous myself b/c I've waited my whole life to become a mommy and even though I have some very amazing, wonderful memories of my pregnancy I was a little disappointed that with my very first one I had so many problems (not to mention they told me they thought I was miscarrying the day they told me I was pregnant and we found out about his kidney problem at 20 weeks!). I see all these beautiful, glowing pregnant women and can't help but feel a little jealous, since my pregnancy "glow" was really sweat from vomiting 10 times that day. The truth is that life rarely goes as planned. I would do it all over again and plan to b/c the outcome is so great. I just have a hard time with the fact that no one prepares young women for the realities of pregnancy and what it does to your body! By no means am I trying to discourage anyone from having a child, I just want all women to be aware that everyone's body is different, no two pregnancies are alike b/c the woman and child she is carrying is always different! So dont listen to what everyone says and if you think something is wrong, get it checked out! Better to be safe than sorry when it comes to your child : ) There were many obstacles we went through to get Caden here, but we were proactive with our healthcare and I suggest that everyone else be too

Remember, God created each of us different and this is one of the most amazing things you will ever do...but be prepared b/c God has a plan and our "birthing plan" or "pregnancy plan" may not be the same as his plan.