I Hated Being Pregnant

Gather round, strangers on the internet, for I am about to tell you something that I got absolutely crucified for saying (without fail) every single time I dared utter it aloud.

I f*cking hated being pregnant.

“WHAT?!” You gasp, falling over various stools and pets as you back away, trying to put as much distance between yourself and me as you can.

“But... But it’s a miracle!” You exclaim from the hallway, as if by being in the same room as me you’ll be infected by my crappy attitude to the miracle of creation.

And it is, it really is. But one that I have absolutely 0 desire to put my body or mental health through ever again. Don’t get me wrong, I love my daughter more than I have ever loved anyone else, and I would give anything in this world to make sure she’s happy, loved, and safe.

But DEAR GOD I hated a solid 80% of the time she was inside me.

In case you haven’t guessed, I did not have a good pregnancy. From the second I peed on a stick to the day my baby was born, I was sick. And not just once or twice a day for the first trimester, oh no. I did it properly, on bad days I would be sick 20+ times a day for the whole 39 weeks I was pregnant. It even got to the point where my year old nephew would hear me running to the bathroom and make retching noises because he knew what was coming. I was hospitalised four times for rehydration, and told to “take small sips of water and nibble ginger” so much that I wanted to take a handful of ginger and stick it somewhere the next person to have the audacity to suggest that to me would really not appreciate. I was actually sick so much my stomach acid burnt the lining of my esophagus and I would end up bringing up blood, as well as everything else.

Something that is often left out when people tell you their pregnancy stories is that you pee yourself. A lot. And I peed, without fail, every single time I was sick. For the first couple of weeks, I could cope with spending half my wages on Tena Lady every week, and sprinting from the shop floor into the warehouse at work because my body had decided it couldn’t cope with the smell of hamsters (especially handy as I worked in a pet shop.). Then my hair started falling out of my head and erupting in weird places like over my belly (Something else everyone fails to mention!) and I started whispering to myself “She’s so worth it, she’s so worth it, she’s so worth it.” But as the weeks went on, I realised this wasn’t going away. I passed the magic 12 week mark and was still so ill, I was exhausted from being sick all night and camping out in the bathroom. So I started whispering my mantra louder and louder.

It took me so long to realise that I was doing that because I felt guilty. Guilty that I resented feeling like this when it was meant to be such an amazing time. Guilty that I felt like a sh*tty parent before I had even brought my baby into the world. Guilty that she would one day hear me say that and feel like she wasn’t loved or wanted.

But guess what.

You can love your baby and hate being pregnant. It’s ok. You can loathe every second you spend retching your guts up or feeling like your body doesn’t belong to you anymore and still be grateful for every kick and flicker of life in your stomach. The two things aren’t mutually exclusive and it doesn’t make you a bad parent or a bad person to admit it.

“YOU’RE SO SELFISH, THERE ARE PEOPLE OUT THERE WHO WOULD LOVE TO BE PREGNANT AND CAN’T HAVE KIDS!” You scream, into a megaphone, from the bottom of my driveway.

Yes, there is, judgemental stranger on the internet, and I was one of those people too. When I was in my early twenties, I was told I had around a 1 in 10 chance of ever seeing a pregnancy through to term. So I know. I know how it feels to see all your friends and family get pregnant and have kids, and that stab of jealousy and then instant guilt every time someone else announces a new arrival. I know “the look” that people in the know give you while telling you their happy news, like they’re apologising for being happy when you’re not. I get it; I understand. But that knowledge just made me feel even guiltier, that this was something I had wanted for so long and yet hated so much.

Some people glide through pregnancy, all happiness and light and “Ooh, aren’t you glowing!” but not everyone. And what I really needed was for someone else to be brave and whisper, “Do you know what? Sometimes this pregnancy malarkey isn’t all sunshine and rainbows and little kicks and scan photos. Some days, it’s just sh*t. And that’s fine.”

So what I’m trying to say is that if you are pregnant and reading this, whether you’re having an amazing pregnancy and you’re just feeling fat and lethargic and fed up, or you’re having a truly horrific time of it and you just want it all to be over — it’s OK to hate it. I promise you don’t love your child any less, no matter what people tell you. I can 100% guarantee that you are going to spend the rest of your life as a mother feeling guilty about something, so don’t spend a time where you potentially already feel so awful making yourself feel worse than you already do. And if all you can keep down is fizzy lucozade and cream crackers then sod gestational diabetes, that’s OK too. It all ends at some point and then you have this tiny living thing to sustain, nurture, and protect and you will never have known love (and fatigue) quite like it.