1. It feels really, really weird when someone rubs your pregnant belly. Before I got pregnant, I will confess: I was a serial belly rubber. When I spent time with a pregnant friend or family member, I’d instinctively reach out and pat her belly. I couldn’t help it, and maybe you can’t either! Pregnant bellies have a magnetic pull, don’t they? But had I known how uncomfortable and awkward it feels to have one’s belly rubbed, well, I would have knocked off that behavior long ago. My moment of reckoning? When I was five months pregnant, a relative walked up to me and proceeded to rub my belly in a circular motion that felt so uncomfortable, and strangely, violating. I vowed, right then and there, to never touch a baby bump again—unless it’s my own!
2. You can actually wake up seven times in one night to pee. I will confess, before pregnancy, I’d hear friends complain about having to pee a lot in the various trimesters, but I remember thinking, somehow, that this wouldn’t happen to me. Pfff! Me? Wake up in the middle of the night to pee? Not a chance! I’m such a sound sleeper! But, oh yes, I did—and then some! I remember one horrid night, in my third trimester, where I was sobbing in the bathroom at 3 a.m. I wanted so desperately to sleep, but my baby-pressed bladder kept waking me up—every single hour.
3. You can buy the most expensive creams, lotions and potions, but stretch marks are sometimes inevitable. I bought fancy oils, pricey creams and even drizzled olive oil on my belly—anything to help prevent the dreaded stretch marks. Each night I had a strict ritual of slathering and rubbing (ask my husband!). But you know what? Somewhere at the end of my second trimester, my belly erupted—and I mean erupted—in stretch marks. My once supple and smooth skin looked like a tiger had taken its claws and scratched them down my stomach, leaving angry-looking red welts in its path. I talked to my doctor about it, and she said that for most women, stretch marks are unpreventable. So much for cocoa butter! Fortunately for me, and you, stretch marks do fade over time, as mine have.
4. Pregnancy gives your boobs an excuse to behave badly. Shooting pains, bizarre sensations, milky discharge (which I later learned was colostrum, the precursor to breast milk), sensitivity—oh my! By the time I reached my third trimester, my breasts had minds of their own. At one point in my pregnancy, in fact, my nipples were so sensitive and sore, I had to take showers with a towel draped over my chest because the water droplets raining down actually hurt!
5. You can break out in a full-body “pregnancy rash.” I woke up one morning when I was 36 weeks pregnant and noticed a few hive-like bumps on my arms. “Uh-oh,” I said to my husband. “I think I’m having an allergic reaction to something.” Minutes later the “hives” started popping up on my legs and belly, and the next thing I knew, they were everywhere—on my scalp, face and even in the creases of my eyelids. After a bit of frantic Googling and a visit to my ob-gyn, I learned that I had PUPPP, or Pruritic Urticarial Papules and Plaques of Pregnancy, which is a benign but somewhat rare pregnancy “rash.” The cause of it is unknown, but it’s so incredibly uncomfortable (and itchy!) that some women have to be induced into labor early. Though difficult to endure, the rash tapered off and went away after I gave birth, and thankfully didn’t come back with my second pregnancy.
No comments:
Post a Comment