No matter who you are or what stage of life you are in, there will be someone, maybe more than one person, who will be a dark cloud during your sunshine-y happy wonderful joyous time of being pregnant. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it is true. Someone in your life will always remind you of the negatives of pregnancy when you are pregnant and it will be one of, if not THE, most ANNOYING thing.
When I found out I was expecting my son, I was shocked. It wasn’t planned. We were freshly married, as in married a whopping 12 weeks when I found out. My husband was thrilled. I was shocked, scared, but happy. We told our parents, well, I made my husband tell our parents. We were met with a bit of shock, excitement too, but mostly shock. We were met with the familiar statements from family and friends: “You two should’ve waited a little longer” and “some people will wonder if you were pregnant on your wedding day.” (lol).
I was rightfully nervous at first. I had never been pregnant at first so I clearly had a lot of questions about what to expect. I was met with “Oh you will get really sick. I threw up for 12 weeks)” and “You will gain 50-60 lbs, I did.” Well, I never got morning sickness. Not one time. In fact, I never had any nausea. I also only gained 32 lbs. But yet for months all I heard was, “oh just wait, it’ll happen” instead of “maybe it won’t happen to you” or “just focus on being healthy.”
Now that I am pregnant with baby number 2, much more “planned” although a one-hit wonder, I got negative comments, “that was fast” or “aren’t you worried your kids are so close in age?“ “you know you will gain more weight with the second” “you’ll gain more weight if it’s a girl” “you will get sickness this time” or “you will have bad acne.” Yes, I am showing a bit more a few weeks earlier than I did with my son. Weight gain is similar to my son so far. No adverse pregnancy symptoms other than being tired (same with my son). So, now that I am pretty far along, nearly 25 weeks, people have moved onto negative birth comments and negative after-birth comments.
“Oh, recovering from a second c-section is so much more difficult” or “well now that you have one of each, you can be done.” “You don’t want more do you, two is really hard.”
I want to throat punch people who say: “one of each” comments or “Two is really hard.” I hate when people say that “I am crazy and that it’s not a good plan to have more kids than I have hands” because I express a desire to have more than two children (Eye roll). I hate it when people state the obvious… “two kids will be really hard.” Well, Sherlock, one kid is really hard, so I am sure two isn’t going to be a walk in the park on a sunny 75 degree no humidity kind of day. I get it, thanks.
When I have children and how many children I have is my business. It‘s my husband’s business. It is our decision. Who knows, I may want to have five kids or I may decide that two is plenty. Some readers may only want one…perhaps there are a few who want more than five or have more than five. I say, ROCK ON, Mama.
But just as a friendly reminder, there will be a negative nancy (or two, or three, or more) in every single pregnancy… just bless and release.
Life of A Mama: Unfiltered 