Motherhood is challenging. From pregnancy to giving birth to raising a child – it’s certainly not a walk in the park and requires a lot of energy throughout. Today’s Reddit post is a question that was posted on AskReddit where BonkBoi_TacoFace asked the women of Reddit:
Pregnant women of reddit, what is something you wish you knew BEFORE you got pregnant?
A lot of women on Reddit came to share their pregnancy experiences. Some of these are more difficult than others, but they’re all definitely tough. Here are seventeen of the best answers:
1. creativeandwonderful said:
“Nosebleeds. Not currently pregnant, but when I was, I got nosebleeds every few days during the first and second trimesters.”
2. AbsolXGuardian spoke about her mother’s harrowing experience:
“From my mom: I paralyzed her from the waist down for a few hours because I decided to take a nap on her spinal cord in the third trimester. The doctor’s response was ‘yeah you’ll be able to move again once they wake up.’ Pregnancy is pure body horror.”
3. GingerMau said:
“This is mostly a 3rd trimester thing, but that when you are active and moving, it kinda rocks the baby to sleep.”
“But as soon as you lay down to go to sleep, baby wakes up and starts kicking and spinning.”
“Might not be super common (?), but I knew a lot of other mothers who complained about this, too.”
4. xTIGERxCUBx wrote from an introvert’s perspective:
“The attention. I’m an introvert and I mostly try to keep to myself at work but that’s impossible now. I was pretty small before I got pregnant and I’m now 30 lbs heavier so I’m really showing. People from other departments come and ask me how I’m doing, how far along I am, when the baby is due, what the gender is, if I’ve picked out a name, etc. It’s exhausting.”
5. kleigh1313 said:
“How hungry you can be. All. The. Time. Especially twins.”
“Then how hungry you still are after baby comes.”
“Then his hungry you are while breast feeding.”
“And sometimes the weight doesnt go away. At least the kids dont care”
6. _11_ shared his wife’s experience:
From my wife:
“How little you want to wear pants.”
“and”
“Throwing up becomes not physical, but emotional.”
“and”
“Apples SUCK when throwing up. Honey Nut Cheerios, least bad.”
“and”
“Get a good body pillow.”
7. notgrass87 wrote:
“During labor the ‘water breaking’ is not one rush of liquid. it’s continuous and can occur for several hours. it’s horrendous and messy and incredibly awful to deal with. it feels like peeing but you have zero control over anything and if you tense up then everything is much more painful and weird feeling.”
“nobody ever told me that and i was VERY surprised to find out for myself.”
8. sm1020 speaks about hair loss:
“Hair loss! After I had my kid I lost a ton of hair. I would pull fists full of hair during my showers. I thought there was something wrong with me because no one told me about this. Went to Google, totally normal and it happens to everyone. It grows back eventually and you’ll go through an awkward baby hair phase.”
9. Shakenbake1811 said:
“The stuff that stays with your body afterwards. I developed allergies after I had my second. My feet definitely got bigger. Hormones are no joke.”
10. BreannaMcAwesome wrote:
“Not currently pregnant, but I wish someone had warned me about muscle cramps. I had to learn a new way to pop my ankles because every night I would pop them and get massive charlie horses in my legs that my fiance had to massage out.”
11. daviana_roze4257 commented:
“That morning sickness isn’t in the morning. And that I would be puking the whole time not just in the beginning”
12. metonymimic said:
“I wish I’d heard the term ‘mother’s apron’ before I had one. Like, there’s warnings all over,’Your body’s going to change!’ and some specifics on how, but everything I read and heard was reassuring me about how it would all mostly go back eventually. I’m still pretty bitter.”
13. tibbymoon wrote:
The sickest joke of all: you stop being able to sleep way before the baby gets here. Everyone loves to tell me to ‘sleep now while I can’ but pregnancy leads to unexplained insomnia and I’m a total wreck already.
14. Tallerc shared about her three pregnancies:
“Each pregnancy is different, even with the same person. I have 3 kids -the 1st pregnancy was very typical and followed the normal timeline. 2nd pregnancy was awful. I was miserable and sick the entire time. 3rd pregnancy was easy peasy and I finally understood why some women liked being pregnant.”
15. chrisP__bacon wrote:
“Bread causes heartburn. During the later stages I lived off boiled potatoes and fruit only”
16. black_lilies shared something a lot of women face:
“That everyone has an opinion on what you do whilst pregnant and how you want to raise your child.”
17. mrsctb said:
“Everyone talks about pregnancy cravings…. no one tells you that the opposite can happen. During this pregnancy, my 2nd, I had aversions to most food until about 22/23 weeks. I’m 27.5 weeks now and finally starting to feel better about eating, but certainly don’t have cravings.”
This post has over 14k comments, read them on Reddit here.
Ladies, do you have a pregnancy experience to share? Comment your experiences below.
Source: Reddit
My “babies” will be 40 and 37 this year
My first pregnancy was a breeze. Morning sickness for about a week in the afternoon after I got off work. Came home took a nap and it was good. He was 3 1/2 weeks overdue (according to Dr calulations)
Second pregnancy, o my good news. Nauseous 24/7. Tired,) but I chalked that up to having a 2 year old to run around after.) She was 2 weeks early, had to induce labor. We were both in trouble.
But I had natural childbirth with both, no drugs. 24 + hours in labor with both.
I agree with the morning sickness. Mine was morning, noon & night sickness. I could not stand the smell of onions or pickles especially in my third trimester.
Lamaze DOES NOT work. I ended up screaming into the pillow because I was hyperventilating. My water broke and I had no hard contractions for over an hour. Then I went into full labor. Doctor was going to be there at 9am to deliver, the nurse called and said I wasn’t going to go that long. I did go a bit longer, but I was in the delivery room before 9am. Daughter was born at 9:45am.
When my daughter had my granddaughter it was totally different.
Always exhausted and morning sickness lasted 24/7 till labor. No one told me that the “i want to poop feeling” was the right time to push. I had severe muscle and nerve pull that caused my whole body to shake uncontrollably while i was in the final stage of pushing my baby out and that rendered me weak. The baby too became weak and almost died. We had a VAD to save her. Now I’m traumatised to even think of having another child.
Complications are always to be continued story…be it a gastric problem..be it an anxiety..
I found out (too late) that my cervix does not dialate. I was over due and at the hospital, was given around 2 dozen shots to dialate. Nope, cervix was just as hard if I wasn’t pregnant. That’s something you need to work but when it doesn’t…..