Pregnancy is Hard. Why Is This So Hard to Acknowledge?

I always thought I'd be one of those women who loved being pregnant. The idea of a life growing inside of me felt positively magical. After three years spent trying for a baby, my positive pregnancy test seemed like a miracle.

I love my baby. I can't wait to be a mother. But I loathe pregnancy. Private conversations with mothers from all walks of life have revealed to me that I am not alone.

Every mother I have ever known has warned me about the challenges of pregnancy. I thought I was special and different. I thought other women struggled because of their bad attitudes, unhealthy bodies, unsupportive spouses, or shitty doctors. I thought hating pregnancy was a choice. I thought I was too enlightened, too healthy, too good for all of that.

In short, I engaged in the sort of victim-blaming for which I have derided others my entire life. I chose not to believe women, to see them as crazy or inept or dishonest for one simple reason: it made things easier for me.

I've learned my lesson.

I am continually surprised by how much we expect of pregnant women, all while deriding them as hormonal maniacs who are incapable of reason.

How to Deal With First Trimester Pregnancy Symptoms (No Really, These Actually Work)

The horrible thing about the first trimester is that it's the time when you're most likely to feel like shit, but least likely to be publicly discussing your pregnancy. So, because pregnancy must be secret because miscarriage must always be a source of shame, pregnant women are stuck suffering in silence. This means we don't talk to each other like we do about, say, yeast infections, so no one knows what the hell to expect or how to cope.

Women's websites capitalize on this ignorance, selling us remedies that don't work, offering us solutions that are nothing but recycled old wives' tales, or insisting that because it's all "hormonal," it's inevitable.

Some of it probably is. But a full trimester in, I've found a handful of things that work. If you have your own brilliant strategies, please feel free to chime in. After all, every pregnant woman is different, and what works for one will not necessarily work for another.