Please don't try and tell me what my body is doing.

alysdragon — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 07:51:58 -0500

Sorry, this is going to be a vent. I seem to be the kind of person who attracts that kind of advice which makes assumptions about my capabilities, feelings and responses to situations, the kind that verges from the misinformed-but-trying-to-be-helpful to the downright patronising, and most of the time I can ignore it, but this one is really, really getting under my skin. Basically, I'm pregnant for the second time and last time, I didn't show at all until the end of the second trimester. Everyone (bar my mother) told me that I'd be gigantic this time round, wheras I (and she) responded that, no, women in my family just don't tend to show very much. So, now, I'm at the end of the second trimester again and a couple of my friends are making this huge deal that I'm showing, "Not like last time", which is smug and it's annoying and actually, it's also factually incorrect. The reasons I know this are that: a) I am in the exact same clothes that I was in at this stage last time round - ie, I normally hover between two sizes and am still comfortable, but getting a little tight, in the larger size of them. I remember this because at this stage last time I moved house and I remember not unpacking my smaller size of jean because I hadn't worn them for a couple of months. b) People who don't know I'm pregnant but who know what my build, etc, is like normally, still aren't noticing that I'm pregnant. and, c) at 24 weeks last time, (I am now 26 weeks) my mum and I were walking along the street, talking about the fact that the baby was viable and she said, "It's hard to believe the thing inside that little bump is viable" - ie, I did have a small bump, just like I do now. The thing is, saying things like that, as in pointing out that people have got their facts wrong sounds like I'm being aggressive and getting really upset about something really minor, but the thing is, I am getting really upset about this, partly because such blythe ignorance always annoys me, but partly because it seems to me there's more than an element of schadenfreude going on here, a sort of "se we were right and now you're going to be huge and have stretch marks, etc, etc... just like we did" , which is not something I feel that friends should be doing, you know? There is also the fact that not having a massive bump and the resulting stretchmarks is about the only perk I get during pregnancy, and, due to that have a pretty bad self image most of the time anyway. All of my friends bloomed, I don't bloom, I get low blood pressure and pass out, spending my days unable even to sit up and looking like a cholera victim. I spend most of the 1st and 2nd trimester feeling sick, dizzy wheras I'm normally an active, healthy, vigorous type of person. I can't eat. From day one, I can't eat. I'm the only person I know who actually lost weight during her first pregnancy because my appetite didn't get any better, so add weak and irritable to that as well. Because I carry on the inside, up against all my internal organs, instead of getting a big bump, my heartburn started four weeks earlier than everyone elses', and I get all the fun of indigestion, weak bladder and feet getting hooked under my ribs before everyone else as well. My hair, which is mental anyway becomes totally wild, frizzy and unmanagable. Okay, I don't get SPD, but I do get a postural problem with my upper back which makes sitting in an office chair for any length of time agonising, and, considering last time round I was a student and this time I write for between 2 and 5 hours every day, I spend a lot of time sitting in an office chair. Even when I do begin to show, I don't get that gorgeous 'earth mother' figure that everyone inisists is sexy, no, I just look vaguely square from my very broad shoulders to my stupidly narrow hips - narrow hips which, I should add, make labour go on for bloody ages and make bad tearing or an episotomy kind of inevitable - so I look horrible and I know I look horrible and it sucks, but at least I get my figure back quickly. On top of all this I get twitchy health proffessionals telling me I'm small for dates and have to go in for loads of scans, etc, when I have a phobia of hospitals, and when I've spent three quid on parking and had my little panic attack, more experienced health proffessionals take one look at me and say "You're not small for dates, you're just small ", so actually, small bump is not that much of a perk, it's just a fact and, anyway, surely I'm the one who can bloody well tell what's going on with my body. So, sorry for the rant, but this is really getting me down because it's making me doubt my own judgement and what I know to be true, which undermines me at a point where I'm feeling pretty low anyway, and it just feels really mean spirited for my 'friends' to be doing that, you know?

Re: Please don't try and tell me what my body is doing.

beanza3 — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 21:21:16 -0500

*Hugs* That sucks. I think you're in the right, and your friends need to... think before they talk. :D Maybe spend less time with them? If they're stressing you out, it's best to just leave them be for a bit.

Re: Please don't try and tell me what my body is doing.

Lady_Indis_Dress — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 23:38:14 -0500

You can rant to us anytime, alysdragon. Congratulations on the baby. You're friends should be more supportive. Do they know about all the drawbacks of carrying the way you do? I completely sympathize with the sickness. I was sick for seven of the nine months with my first. My sisters have had bad sickness as well, though in our family it gets a little easier with each pregnancy. My oldest sister actually ended up in the hospital from the constant vomiting and weight loss she had during the first trimester of her first preganacy. So you aren't alone in that at least. I'll keep you and the little one in my prayers.

Re: Please don't try and tell me what my body is doing.

Dragonchilde — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 13:29:59 -0500

It's not just you. It's pregnancy. Something about pregnancy seems to make people think you're public property, and can be touched, talked about, and advised as they desire. I was never lucky enough to have a stranger try to touch me (I think it was the looks I gave people who looked like they might try) but many pregnant women experience grabby hands. It's one of those things that sucks, but most pregnant women deal with. You're a freakin' magnet for unsolicited advice, "wisdom of the ages", and horror stories. WHy everyone has to tell a pregnant woman the worst experiences they can imagine, I don't know, but they do.

Re: Please don't try and tell me what my body is doing.

alysdragon — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 13:56:47 -0500

Thank you. You're all being lovely - that's one of the things I love about nano, it's full of such kind and supportive people. I was feeling very pregnant and hormonal when I wrote that, and reading your responses is making me feel a lot better. It's good to know, too, that I'm not alone, either in the 'god-awful advice' stakes, or the losing weight stuff. It's always reassuring to know that other women have done this and survived and not lost their rag with anyone. I think one of that hardest things is that, although it's a total pain, nothing I go through is actually serious or life-threatening - after all, it's high blood pressure they worry about - and pregnancy niggles are just what everyone goes through to a differing extent. I try not to complain too much about the things, because they are just part of pregnancy, and I just want to get on with my life as well as I can, but I know people can see how messed up my shoulder is, and how unlike my usual self I am when I'm feeling faint and nauseous. But, sometimes it just seems like they've assumed, because I don't look very pregnant, I must be avoiding half the other symptoms as well - including the sense of emotional vulnerability. It's not like this with my very good friends, but most of them either work full time or live at the other end of the country, so I do end up seeing a lot more of people with whom I'm less comfortable to be completely honest. But, thank you all again for being so understanding. And, Dragonchilde, fortunately I've avoided most of the bump fondling too, don't know quite how I would have responded to that.

Re: Please don't try and tell me what my body is doing.

crazygirl9310 — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 15:32:49 -0500

I'm sorry your friends are being meanies. This should give you a good laugh though: When my mom was pregnant with me, she worked at a photography place (mostly the developed photos, I've been there a couple of times, the people who still work there from back then are really nice). ANYWAY, it's a photography place, most of her co-workers were really artsy and on a slow day really late in my mom's pregnancy, they got really bored...like really bored. So they had the brilliant idea to measure how tall my mom was and then how round she was with me. She's 58 inches tall, and she was 60 inches around. So, of course, no one lets my mom live it down that she was actually wider than she was tall while pregnant with me. When she was pregnant with my sister, she worked in accounting for a flooring company so nobody got bored or tried to measure her. :(

Re: Please don't try and tell me what my body is doing.

Itzika — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 21:54:31 -0500

False. They didn't measure the circumference, so to speak, of her height, but they did of her belly. If they had matched the measurements, they would have found she was still taller than she was wide.

Re: Please don't try and tell me what my body is doing.

MalcolmCooms — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 23:07:33 -0500

It took me a moment to figure out what you just said, but yeah-you're right.