You don’t need to have morning sickness to have a healthy baby.
It seems everyone wants to tell you that morning sickness equals a healthy baby and normal pregnancy, but hardly anyone tells you that a healthy pregnancy can be void of morning sickness. With this baby, I hardly had any morning sickness and was driven to tears with worry multiple times because I was fearful it meant something was wrong with our little one. Lesson learned: Everyone’s body reacts differently to pregnancy and every pregnancy is unique so fear not if you feel just fine.
You will feel a lot of cramps, pains and uncomfortable sensations throughout your pregnancy; more than likely it’s totally normal!
Too much time spent reading pregnancy message boards and baby books led me to fear every cramp and twinge I experienced early on. Keep in mind that your body is growing, stretching and changing to accommodate your new little passenger and that feeling some discomfort is to be expected. If you feel anything extreme or if your pain is accompanied by blood, you should contact your doctor; otherwise, it’s probably not something to get too worried about.
Your weight gain will most likely be sporadic!
My weight gain pattern has been anything besides typical. Despite eating as healthfully as possible, I gained about 11 pounds the first trimester. I was terrified it meant I was going to be off the charts in terms of weight gain, but the weight I put on in the second trimester slowed significantly. I held steady for an entire month and only gained 6 pounds in the entire second trimester, then gained 6 pounds in three weeks during my third! All the while, baby has been growing normally which goes to show that your body really does know what it’s doing.
Knowledge is power, and sometimes fear.
Today’s technological advancements and modern medicine are wonderful and horrible all at once. At some point in your pregnancy you’ll probably get told that something may be wrong with your baby. Try your best to take everything with a grain of salt and don’t spend too much time freaking yourself out on message boards and blogs. My advice? Be educated, but make sure you’re taking your advice from a knowledgeable, scientific source rather than people’s personal stories.
Expect the unexpected and set the bar low.
Perhaps it’s just my personality, but I think going into pregnancy with low expectations is the best way to enjoy the experience as a whole. I thought I would dislike being pregnant, but going into the experience with low expectations helped me to enjoy the process tremendously!
Also, I think it helps to realize that you are pregnant for 10 months and lot of life can happen in those 10 months! I went into my pregnancy with an unrealistic expectation that the months I was pregnant would be about me and our pregnancy and nothing else. When real life happens during your pregnancy and things don’t go as planned, it can lead to disappointment and sadness. Keep in mind that just because you’re pregnant doesn’t mean all other life comes to a halt. Even if you can’t give all your emotional energy to your little one it doesn’t mean that you’re a bad mom. You’re learning how to juggle the demands of life and motherhood before your little one even arrives!
Moms, what else would you add to this list?
1 comment
I would add, that if you have any fears or questions, anything that may be tugging on your gut, to ask your OBGYN. I feared some of those expecting books, and read into too many situations that did not pertain to me, but those fears led to me, to not ask questions, which resulted in me developing Pre-Eclampsia & HELLP Syndrome and I had my daughter 5.5 weeks early and spent 19 days in the hospital. Always ask questions or talk about everything that you want to know. Lesson learned for me.