Pregnancy Diaries: The ‘Best’ Trimester
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The Second Trimester: Are We Having Fun Yet?
You’re constantly told that this is the best trimester. And maybe it is.
Your fatigue and nausea has vanished, your energy levels are back to normal. You feel more like yourself than you’ve done for months after the tsunami of hormones- and you’re finally free to travel!
Now that you’re feeling safer, you’re ready to make some moves. You go on holiday. You move houses. You work out. And just as you really relax, you have one truly scary fall that makes you realize you can’t afford to let go just yet. Once you’ve ascertained everything is okay- thankfully!- after beating yourself up- you’re back to the rigmarole of even more doctors appointments and elaborate tests.
You hadn’t processed that as the baby grows, there’s also more that can go wrong.
The scans continue- and you’re still holding your breath out of the ‘danger’ period. You uncover that there are a host of problems you haven’t thought about: genetic defects, uterine pressure, placental positioning, fetal size. And you thought scans were just about seeing the baby kick and listening to its heartbeat.
From the outside: managing pregnancy seemed so simple. What really is expected of you besides exercising and eating well? But what does that look like in practice? You want to exercise but you’re also told to be careful until your placenta rises. When you work out, you worry about putting too much pressure on the baby. You love the inversions and stretches of yoga, but it sure as hell isn’t making a difference to your increasingly thickening thighs. On the food front, you’ve been waiting for that baby bump that seems to be the only image in popular culture associated with pregnancy. At first, you put on almost no weight- and people comment on how you’re just the same. And then suddenly- you balloon. At six months, you’re looking like you’re eight. Your ribs and back hurt as you make space for the baby. You can’t sleep, you can’t lie down comfortably. But at least the baby is growing right?
And then you get told to pump up that protein: your baby is on the smaller side. You obsess over getting enough protein- even though your diet is now so restricted. You freak out about listeriosis, a disease you’d never heard of before.
Now you’re monitoring your diet and exercise obsessively: are you getting enough nuts, pulses, greens? It’s a full-time job. You eat every two hours: but you’re not mean to eat for two. You didn’t think you’d be that girl obsessing over weight gain in pregnancy: but how can you not?
As your body balloons, you worry about both your baby getting enough nutrients and you being unable to get your body back: the two are hard to reconcile.
Are you doing too much? Moving houses might have taken its toll: but you constantly feel like you’re not doing enough. You feel guilty for resting, indulgent for focusing so much on your diet. Your career is a constant concern: you want to make room to take a break, you don’t want to take on new projects: but you also don’t want to float. Rest, don’t rest: you’re told both that this is the time to take it easy and that you can’t afford to take your pedals off the break at this stage
And now- you need to think about so much more than just you: it’s time to prep for the baby! There is an entirely new universe of brands for you to get familiar with, a whole new range of choices to make about sleep, feeding, play and clothing. You couldn’t imagine these details. You start to really plan- baby showers, announcements, nursery decor, baby clothes. To Snoo or not too Snoo? Stokke or Summer Infant?
The lists are infinite. You laugh when you first see the excel sheets women have put together- what could a newborn really need? And then you learn that they can’t blow their nose, and so a snot sucker could be really handy. Suddenly the lists make sense.
You’re told to solve for practicality: get velcro swaddles and two way zip onesies. Get bottles that mimic nipples. Your elders scoff. These are all just fads: baby care can’t be made convenient. But you’re obviously going to try. You can see why it’s easy to rip off new parents now. How much are you willing to pay for a few hours of extra sleep?
Then there’s another world of actually getting ready for birth: registering at the hospital, doing the breathing classes, understanding the physiology of it to both prepare for the most physical pain you’re ever going to experience, and to help your body bounce back from the tears. As you start to research birth classes- and it seems like every third person is offering classes on labor, breastfeeding, newborn care- you wonder if you really need to do these workshops- or are people just trying to make money off you? It’s the newborn baby buying dilemma again- what do you really need?
You also learn there’s a whole world of postnatal care and recovery no one talks about. Perineal foam, disposal underwear, belly bands and witch hazel.
The first forty days post birth sound horrific, as you’re told your stomach and vaginal muscles will tear, your nipples will be cracked sore, your stomach will be hanging, your organs will be healing, all the while trying to care of a new and needy life. The word perineum- another body part you’d never considered before- but now you feel protective of — seems to come up a lot. You feel like you’re being schooled in anatomy all over again. Should you get a doula, go natural, get an episiotomy, how can you minimize the pain if you don’t want an epidural? Your doctor laughs at you when you bring up some of these concerns. You have to do what’s best for the baby- not you- there’s only so much you can plan. A birth plan is just that- a plan.
What happens after the baby- not just to your career or body, but your marriage? You worry about your relationship. No one talks about the daddies: there seem to be no daddy support groups. You know things won’t stay the same- your marriage is going to take a hit for a while as you adjust- what can you do to shockproof it? At the same time, you’re increasingly frustrated by your partner. However lovely he is, he doesn’t need to worry about supplements and stretch marks and blood tests. This is why relationships are hit: there is no middle ground here.
If you’re this big, if you can’t sleep, if you’re already losing motivation: what’s going to happen in the third trimester? Post partum? You know you’re getting way ahead of yourself. There’s so much you can’t control.Deep down, you know getting the right cot won’t help you become a better parent. You can’t buy your way out of this. You’ve been relatively lucky so far: things could be so much worse, in terms of resources, support, your health, the baby’s health.
This trimester is perhaps the best one physically- but you couldn’t have imagined the mental and emotional toll a change of this magnitude would take on you. You’ve always enjoyed and embraced change, but you find yourself feeling helpless, insecure, doubting yourself, the future. You cry more than you have in decades. Is it just the pregnancy hormones or the uncertainty?
Are we having fun yet?
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