Congratulations and welcome to the world of pregnancy! Everyone experiences pregnancy differently and everyone’s journey to get there is different. Therefore, I will start off by saying, be nice and be respectful. Yes, there are so many people out there – family, friends, strangers – who love to offer unsolicited advice. Don’t ever forget to just be true to yourself, do your best, and do not allow others to persuade you on how you should look this far along, what you should and shouldn’t be doing, and how to raise your child.
There are so many changes that happen to your body from the very beginning of your pregnancy to the postpartum stage. For example, hormonal shifts, nausea, weight gain, back pain, round ligament pain, ahhh! Swelling of, well, everything. Gas, lots of gas, night sweats, and other things that I’ll just keep to myself but you know what I’m talking about and yes, it’s gross…but normal! When we find out we are pregnant, we instantly become mothers and already want what is best for our baby. We change our diets, stop drinking alcohol and cut back on coffee (which if you have other children, you know is soooo hard!). We can’t go in a hot tub, we have to stop certain medications and we have to fight through the fatigue that haunts us all day. However, we do it. We do it because from the start, we love our babies unconditionally and we take care of them.
I have been pregnant, well…6 times in 4 years…but I now have 3 healthy, beautiful children. Miscarriage is something not openly discussed as it is a sensitive subject. I am here to say that it is not something to be embarrassed or ashamed about, in fact, I bet many women around you have gone through it as well as it is soooo common. That doesn’t make it any easier to go through a loss but take comfort in knowing that you are not alone. Before I had my oldest son, I had 3 miscarriages over a 6 month span and 2 D&Cs because I was too far along. It hurt, it still hurts sometimes, especially because I did not have any children and wondered to myself if I would ever be able to bring a child into this world. I would look at my sisters, my friends and their beautiful children and wonder, why me? I’m healthy, I’m fit, my husband and I love each other and we are good people. Fortunately, I have amazing doctors who immediately took action to figure out why this was happening.
Six months later, I found out I was pregnant and 9 months later, my son was born. Now here I am with 3 beautiful, healthy children. I don’t want to make this about miscarriages or the difficulties of fertility, but I do want to share my story in hopes that it will help others going through this knowing they are not alone. I want to shine light on the fact that even before we get pregnant, we become mothers. We care for ourselves and fight to get what we want, which carries throughout pregnancy and motherhood. So again, congratulations Mama! Regardless of the journey to get pregnant and the lovely pregnancy symptoms, you will soon be holding that sweet, little bundle of joy…that’s what it is all about so enjoy it, every minute, every second because boy does it go fast!
