I remember that moment looking at the pregnancy test and not believing my eyes. You see we always wanted kids but had planned on waiting another two years before trying. I had been late a few times and freaked out but every time it turned out negative so when I told hubby I wanted to get a test he just rolled his eyes and said, ‘It won’t be positive’. But I insisted that this time I thought I was so he went to the store for me. In that moment when we saw the result we went through a wave of emotions from freaking out to jumping up and down with excitement.
Just to be clear, that big ‘ol belly belongs to the Mama in Mama.Mommy.Mom., not MommaLaura
I don’t think you ever forget that first moment when you find out.
But what came after that first moment of finding out we were pregnant and after we announced it to people was not something I was expecting.
No not morning sickness, thankfully I was lucky and escaped that.
And no I am not talking about any kind of cravings or weight gain. What happened was all of a sudden my body was everyone’s business. Your bump is too small, you need to eat this, make sure you don’t do this. Everyone suddenly knew my body better then I did or even my doctors.
It was people thinking they knew everything they need to know about my pregnancy just by looking at me. I remember when people would ask what the gender was I would say girl, they would look at me and say oh no I carried my pregnancy like you and I had a boy I bet you will get a little surprise when ‘he’ is born.
What?!
I hate to be the one that breaks the news to these people, you cannot tell tell anything about the baby by looking at their bump. It just doesn’t work that way. By the way I am proud to say I gave birth to a healthy girl. This would be no different than if I walked up to you and said ‘Oh those look like the shoes I was wearing when I broke my leg, you are probably going to break your leg’.
The only advice I really want to give is try to not stress out. The more relaxed the mom is when she is pregnancy the better the pregnancy and labor is. Yes this can be easier said than done. But trust me when I say it doesn’t matter if you don’t have the baby room finished, it isn’t likely you will even use it at first. I am sorry your best friend had a horrific labor but that doesn’t guarantee that you will and the more you worry about it the more likely your body will stay tense and that does cause problems with your labor. Don’t let other people freak you out, in the end it is your body and your body is different than theirs. I don’t know why it is that when some people find out you’re pregnant they feel the need to tell you horror stories of their pregnancy and tell how much you are going to suffer. Like any newly pregnant mom needs to hear this kind of stuff.
You won’t be able to eat meat, just the smell of certain things will send you running to the toilet, your hands and feet will double in size, your hormones are going to be so bad you are going to be miserable to be around.
No single pregnancy is alike. My doctor told me to think of every pregnancy like a snowflake. On the surface when you see them falling they look the same but on close examination they are all different. I thought this was a beautiful way to put it. The truth of the matter our pregnancy’s are as unique as we are. So there is no way to know how yours is going to be. It is even different from child to child.
Is there a way to prepare for your pregnancy? Yes and No
You can read a lot, gather opinions, make sure you continue to do light to moderate exercise, don’t use it as an excuse to develop poor eating habits, things like that do help a lot. But the biggest thing is to just trust your body and only take in advice from people whose opinion you already value and trust.
One final thing that I have wanted to say for a long time but felt too shy to say.
It is in regards to people, strangers even, walking up to you and touching you without asking. This is not normal people. If I walked up to someone that wasn’t pregnant and touched their belly they might call the cops. But for some reason pregnancy removes the commonsense in the brain that says ‘Don’t touch’.
Seriously people don’t touch the pregnant lady. That is unless she invites you to.
~MommaLaura~
I so relate to the people telling you what sex your child would be. I had no idea and all these people were telling me i was going to have a boy. I planned for either but because so many people told me I thought I probably would have a boy. Wow was I shocked when the Dr. said “It’s a girl”.