The Aftermath

So, I was talking to some friends who are all planning on TTC in the next months/year. And I hate to be the bitch in the situation, but it appears to me that a lot of women have some unrealistic expectations about pregnancy. Alas, I must be a bitch and tell the world what they don't want to hear.

1. Stretch marks are either going to happen, or not happen to you. Regardless of lotions you rub, oils you rub, pills you take, what you weighed before pregnancy, blah blah blah. They happen. Or you get lucky, and they don't. But if you've gotten stretch marks before on another body part, you're probably going to get them again.

My belly looks literally like its gone through a VERY bad knife fight. Bright purple stretch marks everywhere. They'll fade. I'm not going to be sappy and call them badges of pride. Because they're not. They're nasty little assholes that happened because genetically, thats what my skin does. And pregnancy stretches shit out. Which brings me to my next point.

2. Belly flab. Lucky are the women who deliver and have a flat belly soon after. I've been walking 3.5 miles everyday since 1 week PP. (Well, I skip Sundays). I've also been doing the 30 DS. I still have a mommy pouch. Will it go away? Possibly. But its not going to be immediate. My poor belly skin got tortured by growing at a ridiculous rate with an almost 9 lb baby. So I am going to wear empire shirts and jeans one size bigger because it doesn't go away right away.

3. Hips. Mine spread. I really sincerely doubt that I will ever go back to my pre-pregnancy size because the same thing happened to my mom. But damn, I guess my pelvis had to get bigger to get that little sucker out of there.

4. PP bleeding. Is nasty and long and gross. And things will come out of your body for weeks after you have a baby. And it will be gross.

5. Bladder control. I have yet to get back to 100%. Can I hold it? Yes. Should I do jumping jacks without peeing first? No.

6. Weight gain during pregnancy sometimes can't be helped. I watched what I ate (most of the time, yes I ate cake and cookies at times, but I did that before....and after too) and worked out almost every day. And I still gained a huge amount of weight. And it wasn't just water weight. I still have about 9-10 lbs to go before I'm back to where I was.

7. Tears. Episiotomies. THEY HAPPEN. You're pushing a giant kid (in my case) out of your vag. Its going to tear. But its hopefully going to get better. A lot of how severe you're going to tear isn't controllable and depends on how fast you labor, how large your kid is, etc etc. So please please don't tell me "Oh I am doing Kegels to prevent tearing during labor." Bitch please. That's like saying you're walking 2 miles a day to train for a marathon. It ain't the same.

8. You might think you can go without an epidural. And a lot of women VERY WELL MIGHT BE ABLE TO. But don't sit there and tell me that you're definitely never going to have an epidural. Wait until you're so exhausted from being in labor for 24 hours straight. Or you're vomiting from pitocin induced contractions. Wait until you're there before you SWEAR it's not going to happen. (This in no way is meant to be a slam at women who want to go natural - its totally and completely do-able - just a pet peeve of mine when people that haven't been through it swear they're NEVER EVER EVER going to take the pain meds).

9. Its painful, its going to be painful unless you are incredibly lucky. Even with an epidural, at some point you are likely to experience pain.

10. You lose a lot of control during the birth process. Its really up to your body and the baby at that point. Its scary but worth it.

So thats my main complaints. I hate to be that way, but I feel like a lot of people have an idealized concept about birth and I do what I can to kill dreams. I know that I appreciated the warning and was glad that most of the above listed things weren't as bad as I thought they were going to be.

Except the stretch marks. And the belly pouch. Those suck.

Also, don't ask unless you want the truth. Because I'm not going to sugar coat it just so you're not scared.