I'm 22 Weeks Pregnant, And Here Are 17 Interesting And 2 TMI Things I've Learned So Far
Hi! My name is Audrey, and I am currently 22 weeks pregnant with my first kiddo.
Here he is at 12 weeks looking like a human-banana hybrid. Also, my UFO magnet makes it look like he's about to be abducted. I didn't do it on purpose, but I snicker so much when I see it that I'm not mad it happened like that.
Being pregnant is wild???? Like, that's all I have to say about that. Here are 17 things I've learned/observed in the process that range from "Huh, I didn't know that" to "Weird!"
1.It's so much harder to control my emotions than it normally is.
OK, so I don't, like, lash out when Starbucks gets my order wrong or start crying when I get caught at a red light, but I've noticed things that don't normally stress me out have a mental weight on me, and I get really excited over small things. I cried yesterday because I scratched my own car's bumper, which is something so small that wouldn't normally get a rise out of me. It's hard for me not to believe everything I feel.
2.My pregnancy cravings are nowhere near what they're like in the movies.
In Lady and the Tramp, I remember a scene where Jim Dear runs out in the middle of the night to the store to get Chinese food and watermelon for his pregnant wife. I thought I would be in the mood for super weird foods all of the time. I was in the mood for two different foods for a grand total of two days in the 154 days I've been pregnant so far: mushroom bisque and a steak quesadilla. I told my husband I was in the mood for mushroom bisque, and he said, "Dang, babe, where are you gonna get that?" Def not a Jim Dear scenario where he runs out the door to get it, but he did ask me later in the night what sherry was so he could try to make it from a recipe he found online. When we both decided it was too complicated, he called a local restaurant to ask when they were going to make it next, and the chef made it their soup of the day for that day! It was pretty magical.
3.My worry has taken a bell curve–type shape.
I had a "chemical pregnancy" at the beginning of the year, which is basically a miscarriage you lose before six weeks. I got pregnant again in July, and my doctor told me the biggest risk of miscarriage is between 6–10 weeks. After 10 weeks, my worry started to fade around miscarrying, but come 13–14 weeks, I didn't feel nauseous, I didn't look pregnant, and I was wondering if that meant I wasn't pregnant anymore. Now that I'm 22 weeks, I'm less nervous about losing the baby and more nervous about pushing it out of me. The only episode I've ever seen of ER, the baby survives and the mom dies, and I feel like that's really working against my anxiety.
4.I HATE not being able to lift things.
I love being self-dependent, and not being able to lift anything 25 pounds-plus really annoys me. I can't lift a jug of cat litter, I couldn't help lift furniture when my parents moved in nearby, and I can't lift my favorite cuddle bug pup, Doppler, who is a 63-pound boy (pictured). In theory, it seems awesome that I'm excused from heavy lifting, but in practice, it's extra upsetting because I have to burden other people to do stuff for me.
5.Now that I mention animals, I think my pets know.
My dogs and cats are oddly insistent on laying on my tummy. My pups will come up and rest their chins against it, and the cats will come up and lay on it. I tried looking up why they were doing it but mostly got a wide range of answers — the most likely to me is because my tummy is a little extra warm than the rest of my body, and they like that. Still, with the amount of time they're spending on me, I hope the baby comes out absolutely in love with my pets and vice versa.
6.Feeling the baby kick is all kinds of weird.
I read that most second-time moms feel kicks before first-time moms do because they know what they feel like. The word "kick" makes me think of a sensation that isn't pleasant, and my mom told me it felt like butterflies, which made me think it'd make me feel queasy like being nervous. It's not like either of those. It feels like tiny little bass drops in my stomach, and it's wild. It doesn't hurt, it doesn't ache, and it doesn't tickle. It feels exactly like a little marble plinking. While cool, it makes me more aware that there's a person wedged in my body, which, if I think about too long, starts to freak me out.
7.Being pregnant makes you feel excluded.
I knew this would happen because something my family likes doing is mixing cocktails, but even when it doesn't come to alcohol, not being able to drink tea at dinnertime or getting a sub because I can't have lunch meat adds to a lonesome vibe that pregnancy has brought me. Recently, I went to Disney World and couldn't ride any of my favorite rides because of my bump. I also just got over a cold and wasn't able to take any of the medicine I can normally take. I thought I had the upper hand on my congestion by getting in a super hot bath, only to find out I'm not allowed in hot water for extended periods of time. It sucks.
8.Going to the doctor all the time for being pregnant is expensive.
My doctor charges $4,000 for a vaginal delivery, and that doesn't include any visits beforehand, the cost of the ultrasounds, or the cost of the hospital stay surrounding the birth. That cost obviously goes up if the baby will need to spend time in the NICU for any reason or if I need a C-section for any reason (something I'm extremely scared of).
9.There is no room to be a needle weenie.
I am a certified needle weenie. I am 100% bad at getting my blood taken, and I am so scared at the prospect of an epidural. It's not even like it's a fear. My pregnancy so far has had no complications, and I have gotten my blood drawn on five separate occasions. The worst was my prenatal blood work, which my doctor warned me would be a big draw. It turned out to be 12 vials of blood that were all drawn at once. The result was me pale, throwing up, and at the brink of passing out in the chair. It is slowly getting easier to get in the right headspace to get my blood drawn, and I'm really glad it's shifted like this because it's something I want to get better at (if that's even possible).
10.I got really excited I wouldn't get my period for a while, but pregnancy symptoms are their own genre of suck.
I get extremely bad period cramps. Like, they're the "lie in the fetal position with a heating pack wedged in my pants and pray the ibuprofen kicks in soon" kind. I was STOKED I was excused from period symptoms for a while, but honestly pregnancy symptoms, in my experience, while milder than period symptoms, last longer. Typically on my period, my cramps are an 8.75 on the pain scale. During my first trimester, I had pregnancy cramps that were about a 3.8 on the pain scale. However, while period cramps usually last around four days for me, pregnancy cramps were off and on for several weeks. Other period symptoms like back pain and nausea have been with me for a few months. I have food aversions on my period, but being pregnant meant I couldn't stomach my most favorite drink, a cold brew with chestnut praline syrup, for several weeks.
11.It's really hard to symptom-check since every pregnancy is different.
I love going online and seeing if my symptoms are normal, but a phrase I've heard so often when I've asked if my pregnancy symptoms are normal is the response "they can be normal," which means essentially nothing to me. Some pregnancies can have spotting, some can have nausea, some can have cravings, but not all pregnancies can have these (and some pregnancies can have none of them). When I look up a question online, the answers range across the board. I've been stalking the r/BabyBumps subreddit to see what other expectant moms have felt before (and how they've managed their symptoms). It's pretty hard to discern what to and not to be worried about, and I'm pretty sure my doctor's medical assistant is tired of me calling her so often with small questions.
12.A baby doppler has been crucial in quelling my anxiety between appointments.
I have had the thought Is he still alive in there? several times. It's morbid, but I have an anxiety disorder and worry a lot. I asked my husband if we could buy a baby doppler, to which he responded, "OK, but are you sure you want to take that on?" It was an excellent sitcom-level miscommunication because our dog's name is Doppler and he thought I wanted another puppy, but I really wanted an actual doppler to listen to our baby's heartbeat. The doppler works pretty well, and we were able to find one secondhand for pretty cheap. You basically take a little microphone and some ultrasound gel to go over your belly to hear the baby's heartbeat. It's a great way to make sure everything's OK between appointments.
13.Getting up and down is surprisingly difficult.
Sometimes I'll need a hand going from lying down to standing up, or from sitting to standing up. It's very strange because it's not something I'm used to asking assistance for. In addition, I'm 20% wobblier, just because I'm not used to the disproportionate weight to my front half.
14.I did not love the baby at first.
I am someone who is slow to fall in love, so it made me think something was wrong with me when I became pregnant and felt very neutral about it. I thought there was one of two reactions to finding out you're pregnant: being ecstatic or being upset. I'm pretty sure there's some cosmic force at play to explain why you're pregnant for 40 weeks. It really gives you time to wrap your head around the big change you're about to go through. It was around week 15 when I found a pair of tiny Winnie the Pooh pants at a thrift store that I thought, Man, I'd be bummed if something happened and I never got to meet him. I've slowly fallen more and more in love, but all this to say, I think any emotional response to being pregnant is the correct one. It's a really complicated thing to go through, and there are really complicated emotions to sort out. Being able to do so at your own pace is really important.
15.I'm desensitized to the very random little quirks my body has developed.
During the first couple weeks of my pregnancy, I grew leg hair at an astonishing rate. As someone who can't fall asleep with the feeling of my hairy legs against my covers, I was shaving my legs twice a day because the hair would grow so fast. Now I'm at 22 weeks and haven't shaved my legs in a month because the hair will just not grow anymore. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . The first couple of weeks, the bottoms of my feet were hot to the touch. Now the temperature has regulated. I had a bad zit breakout a few weeks ago, and now I tend to drool in my sleep. Now I can't sit for a while without needing to stretch my hips, which has made me need to get up and stretch at two different restaurants. It has not been awesome. Check out this really unflattering stalker pic my sister took of me during one of these impromptu stretching sessions. These are all really random things that don't usually happen to me, but have come and gone while being pregnant. I chalk it up to: Pregnancy is weird!
16.I am so worried I'm going to lose my identity.
More so than actively getting a life form out of me through an opening that is extremely sensitive, what I think I'm most scared of is losing the identity of being me to the identity of being a mom. I know being a mom changes you, but I'm trying to workshop the balance of keeping who I am and adapting it for a little one. I feel really lucky because all of the women in my family have shown that their personality is what makes them a better mom, and I'm really hoping I can follow in their footsteps. This isn't my baby, BTW. This is my cousin's kiddo, who was so squirmy. Did you know babies can be squirmy??? Where do they need to go in such a hurry???
17.I wasn't prepared for the boobs.
I have been small-chested my whole life, and TBH, it worked for me! I've heard some people with bigger boobs say they get back pain and how clothes are harder to find a fit for, but have only recently experienced it firsthand. It's quite the adjustment dealing with a sudden bigger bust size. While I wouldn't call it good or bad, I'd say different. I've heard bigger boobs be called a "perk" of pregnancy, but the reality is that they're so veiny and tender and sore that it's hard to feel super sexy. Additionally, they lactate (or discharge? IDK, I missed 31 days of anatomy my senior year of high school) pre-baby, which means, TMI, I get a weird, crusty, sticky, what I've been calling "boob cheese" over my nipples sometimes. The human body is amazing!
18.The ultrasound tech will say nothing, which I get, but it's still frustrating.
Streamline / KonLive / Cherrytree / Interscope
Ultrasound technicians aren't allowed to give any kind of results, but the thing is, I don't know what I'm looking at or what's normal! I try to read my tech's facial cues while she's scanning the baby, but she has the best poker face of all time. It really makes me regret skipping all of that anatomy in high school. If I want to know if my blood work is OK or the baby looks healthy, I have to wait until my doctor has seen the ultrasound and either tough it out a few weeks until my next appointment or call and bug the medical assistant. It kind of makes me wish there was an ultrasound app so I could just check in whenever.
19.Finally, the pregnancy glow is real, and it's awesome.
It's a nice little perk after feeling like a gross ball of sludge my first trimester. I've been having a good hair day for probably two weeks, and my husband and my sister say my skin looks enviable. I know it won't last, but I am riding the high of having a cute little bump and perfect hair!
