Showing posts with label symptoms of pregnancy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label symptoms of pregnancy. Show all posts

Saturday, February 13, 2016

5 Things No One Told Me About Pregnancy

I spent years reading about pregnancy. I can recite the stages of labor by heart, name the hormones and their quantities that matter during pregnancy, and tell you the exact contents of breast milk.

Yet 10 weeks into this whole pregnancy thing, I've realized I knew nothing. Nothing. Popular culture tells us that pregnant women are hormonal bags full of insanity who spend most of their time vomiting. I have yet to cry, though I do occasionally interrupt phone calls to vomit. Everyone's experience of pregnancy is unique, so I can't speak to what anyone but me will experience. There is no universal pregnancy experience, but some symptoms are more common than others.

A full trimester in, I've encountered some truly bizarre symptoms. Upon Googling them, I realized they're common. Like, way more common than morning sickness and crying at commercials. I sort of feel like I've been kept out of a secret society, and until I realized these symptoms were common, I felt like something was wrong with me. 

If you're pregnant, odds are good you're going to experience at least a few of these symptoms during your first trimester (and while we're at it, here's something no one will tell you: pregnancy symptoms are caused by HCG, which diminishes toward the end of the first trimester. You will feel your very worst when the fewest people know you are pregnant. It gets better, I promise).