After having only wanted to be a mom-to-one my entire life, now that I have my little guy, I'm pretty certain that we'll be having another. This is rather shocking considering how traumatizing certain parts of pregnancy and childbirth were.
For weeks, I've been saying that I must be a glutton for punishment. Even though my pregnancy wasn't high-risk and I had a fairly smooth delivery, being pregnant was not easy on me mentally or physically–and yet, I still cried when I boxed up my son's tiny newborn and 0-3 months clothes and found myself hoping that one day we'd be able to pull them back out again. Until the time is right, the not-so-distant memories of these pregnancy and childbirth WTFs will keep me patient. Here are my top 5:
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1. Spotting–my WHOLE pregnancy. About two weeks after I peed on a stick and confirmed I was expecting, I started spotting. Several after-hours calls to the OB and three early ultrasounds later, it was deemed unexplained and I was told to move forward as if I were having a normal, uncomplicated pregnancy, because basically, I was. However, the spotting continued for an entire month and it was probably one of the most scary and stressful things I've ever dealt with. I had always thought that any bleeding–even mild bleeding–was a big problem for pregnant women. Now I know that spotting in early pregnancy is very common and that a lot of the time it doesn't indicate any serious issues.
2. I was constipated. All the time. Yeah, this was one of my very first pregnancy symptons and apparently it is for lots of women. Thing is, pregnancy constipation tends to be unlike any other constipation you've ever had. For me, it was persistent and no amount of colace or fiber-rich fruits and veggies made a significant difference. It was hard enough dealing with it at home, let alone having to cope with the embarassment of sitting in the work bathroom for 20 minutes at a time.
3. I was left with stretch marks. This is super-vain, and I'm sure there are lots of moms who are happy to sacrifice smooth skin for a bundle of joy. Honestly, I always thought I'd be one of those moms, but alas, I wasn't. Late in the third trimester, when I discovered the first stretch mark on my formerly taut belly I cried like a baby, and continued to cry about it intermittently until the birth of my son. Now that he's here, I no longer shed tears about it–he's totally worth it!–but I still try to avoid looking in that general direction.
4. An edidural that just didn't do its thing! I labored for about 16 of the 24.5 hours of my labor before getting an epidural. I didn't really have any plans for a natural birth, so I was okay with it when I finally had to ask. It was pretty great for a couple of hours, while the contractions were still fairly mild, but once they picked up, it became apparent that my epi wasn't quite cutting it. Two more visits from the anesthesiologist did little to abate the pain and I ended up going into transition and full labor feeling just about everything. Not gonna lie … it was agony, and I'm fairly certain my screams must have been terrifying for the ladies still in early labor.
5. No way around it: Tearing. Like a lot of first-time moms, I suffered some tearing down under while pushing out my son. By that point, things were so intense that I really wasn't aware of it as it was happening. But, while the nurses worked on cleaning Abel up, the doc informed me that he had to stitch me up. Of course, by then my high was coming down and I totally felt the numbing shot and even a few of the stitches. Not pleasant. Oh yeah, and trying to make time to soak your nether regions in hot water three times a day when you have a newborn that nurses every one-and-a-half to two hours all day and night is no picnic either.
But even as traumatizing and crazy as these things were, I would do it all over again: My Abel is so worth it!
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