So despite taking precautions and having around a 50% chance of conceiving due to botched surgery several years ago, I seem to have found myself well and truly up-the-duff. For those that don’t speak English slang, that is a colloquialism for pregnant, or as I have been referring to it; ‘preggers AF’.
To say this wonderful news was a surprise would be something of an understatement but of course, we are both overjoyed at the impending arrival of Baby Balkanista, or “Shqiptari Vogel”. One of the things with surprise pregnancies is the fact that you haven’t had any time to prepare; you haven’t done any in-depth googling on doulas and water births, you haven’t immersed yourself in mummy-to-be books, and you certainly haven’t had time to prepare yourself for the total tidal wave of side effects that pregnancy unleashes on your body, soul, existence, and very being.
For those that have found themselves pregnant without any preparation, here are some things I learned in my first trimester.
Boob pain is real.
I used to hate wearing a bra and would spend my day counting the minutes until I could rush home and release the twins from their over-the-shoulder-boulder-holders for them to be free and at one with the world around them. Those days are long gone because my breasticles feel like two overfilled water balloons, and even the fart of a passing mosquito is enough to irritate them and me to the point of unequivocally losing my shit. So sensitive are they that even the soft caress of the finest lace or a passing glance from my other half is enough for me to grasp them in horror and run screaming, looking for a sports bra to contain them.
Hormones are bastards
I am one of those people who has a somewhat “tempestuous” temperament at the best of times, without introducing the raging hormones that come with pregnancy. I have changed, almost overnight from a relatively amenable individual into a raging psychopath that cries, shouts, screams, stomps, and slams doors at the slightest hint of provocation. My tolerance for other humans has reached an all time low and I can swing from gloriously happy to teetering on the precipice of doom within 3.4 seconds. This is a typical day and I would like to apologise to my partner for the daily torment that he has to endure at the expense of my hormones. When leaving me unsupervised for any amount of time, my partner has to remind me to “be nice to people” because if I left my hormones to their own devices, I would probably go on a one-woman-riot, declare war on some unsuspecting sovereign nation, and then curl up in a ball somewhere crying for no particular reason.
Baby brain is a thing
Apart from forgetting things like shopping, days of the week, and my itinerary, I have also forgotten how old I am, where I am, and what I was going to say. This happens several times a day and I can be halfway through a sentence when I forget what word I was about to utter, who I am talking to, or even, why I am there in the first place. In addition to this, as a writer, forgetting what word I am going to use or the point of writing a sentence in the first place is a bit of a hassle,and means it is currently taking me twice as long to do something as it did before. The other day I went to the shop to purchase fabric softener, went home, realised I had forgotten in, cried, went back to the shop to get it, brought it home and put it in the fridge (by accident), spent ages looking for it whilst crying in a rage, found it in the fridge, cried, and then finally did my washing and then cried again for good luck.
You fatten up like a Christmas turkey
Obviously, being pregnant makes you fat, but no one warns you about the dreaded BLOAT. Whilst you are unlikely to have much in the way of a baby-pooch in the first trimester, trust me you are going to spend most of those first few months feeling and probably looking like you are six months gone. I swelled up like an over inflated beach ball, my gut expanding beyond the constraints of pretty much everything I owned, before deflating slightly to reveal my baby bump by week 12. The problem is that at this stage, no one knows you are pregnant so everyone just thinks you are getting fat and whispers about you behind your back or comments on how “healthy” you look. This is a difficult time as coming to terms with getting noticeably rotund whilst not being able to shout “I’M PREGNANT” as an excuse does not do wonders for your self esteem.
Food is equally great, and the devil incarnate
When they said that I would start getting hungrier as I am now eating for two, I didn’t imagine it would be to the extent where I could decimate an entire villages’ crops at the rate of a plague of starved Biblical-locusts. I am at the stage now where I can wolf down a double burger and fries and feel as if I have
just snacked on a mere morsel or a breath of fresh air. I can finish an entire pizza in one sitting with the same gusto and ease that a size zero model devours an orange juice soaked tissue. I am hungry and nothing can satiate it and as a result, not only am I getting baby-carrying shaped, but I am also expanding in other directions as well. The problem is that if I don’t eat, I end up in a really unpleasant situation, which brings me onto point 5.
Nothing can prepare you for morning sickness
Morning sickness is probably one of the most unpleasant things I have ever experienced- that awful feeling of nausea but no desire, or ability to throw up whatsoever. It can strike me at the most annoying moments- when I am in the middle of a talk, or in the street, with friends, or trying to sleep at night- there is no escape from its waves and the excess saliva that fills my mouth several times a day. Nothing cures it either and whilst it makes me feel like not eating, the thought of food exacerbates it 100% resulting in a situation where I am fucked if I do, and fucked if I don’t.
Sleeping becomes an Olympic sport
I have always loved a good sleep and can sleep for 12 hours with little issue, but now I am pregnant, no amount of sleep is enough to satiate me. I require multiple naps a day and have even fallen asleep whilst typing a sentence in the middle of a busy café- that is how tired I am. I am so sleepy that I need a nap to prepare for a nap, and a nap to get over the exertion of the nap before it- this is now my life. Couple this with the fact that I am suffering from insomnia in the evenings and you have a situation where if I haven’t slept for a good 18 hours then I am not fit for anything or any purpose other than being a hungry, hormonal, wreck.
It can be a lonely time
I was diagnosed with a haematoma at 8 weeks meaning that I was ordered to bed rest for 14 days, no ifs, no buts and no maybes. Couple this with the fact that you are not supposed to tell anyone you are pregnant at this stage and you have to constantly turn down social invitations because you are sleeping and eating (sometimes at the same time) and it can become a very lonely time. Everything you feel at this time, good and bad feels 100 times stronger than it would normally and that includes the sense of being alone that you will inevitably go through at this stage. The good news is, it doesn’t last.
Whilst the last 3 months has not been the easiest, I have been assured that it gets a lot easier from here on out. Fingers crossed!
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