“Getting through the first trimester, without completely losing it, wasn’t easy, but once I heard the heartbeat of my baby for the first time, everything made sense.”

(Please note: I found this blog post in the recesses of my drafts folder, and, even though Lewis is here and three and a half months old, I still feel that it has value, so I’m going to post it anyway!)

I’m exhausted.

And I’m not convinced that it’s all the fault of our little growing bubble.

I feel like I’m constantly battling and firefighting, since we got pregnant.  Don’t get me wrong – it’s not all bad (and I’ll get to that in another post) but it’s bloody tough.

I thought that once you became pregnant, it was ‘easier’.  Infertility is a minefield.  What they don’t tell you, is that pregnancy can be just as difficult emotionally.

Who to tell, when to tell, how to tell, how to tell those who may be sensitive, how to tell before the curse of social media spoils the surprise, WHO to tell before the curse of social media spoils the surprise.

Advice: Tell who you want, when you want and how you want.  Don’t be pressured or convinced to tell early or to tell someone you’d rather not tell, before you tell someone else.  Ultimately everyone should be happy about your wonderful news, even those you are ‘afraid’ to tell or sensitive to the news, even those who are also pregnant, people can be happy for more than one person at a time, don’t feel guilty, this is your time as much as it’s everyone else’s time.  You deserve your moment as much as everyone else does, whether it’s your first baby, your fourth baby, or whether you announce at seven weeks or twenty seven.  Enjoy it and bask in the love and happiness of your circle.

Don’t say this, shouldn’t say that, say this.

Don’t eat that, shouldn’t eat that, eat this.

Even my doctors – my Fertility specialist and my OBGYN – and they haven’t always both agreed on ‘pregnancy procedure’.

Many have advice, questions and many have had it worse and enjoy telling me how easy I have it – which, is fine, it may seem easy to you or compared to you, but this is my first time and, in truth, only some days it feels easy.

Advice: Pregnancy is vague, grey area and every single one is different.  Your pregnancy may be nothing like any one else that you know – this is perfectly fine.  Don’t freak.  I freaked in the beginning because I wasn’t sick, or nauseous, or, really, in any way displaying symptoms of pregnancy.  People say ‘sickness means a healthy baby’, so when you’re not sick, you freak the hell out.  Don’t.  It’s ok.  It’s actually pretty normal.  We tend only hear the war stories of pregnancy, rarely the ones that go smoothly and one of my friends said that people only say that to make you feel better when you’re hugging the toilet and barfing your guts up.

Many have advice on what they did when they were pregnant, what they heard or read that you should do during pregnancy.  Advice on names, feeding, advice on sleeping, advice on what books to read, what books not to read, advice on co-sleeping, attached parenting, home birth, water birth, home schooling, putting your kid in daycare and people are already placing bets on gender.

Advice: Don’t poke the bear.  Regardless of how open and flexible your friends may seem about their parenting styles, don’t engage, question, contradict or criticize.  No one takes it well and they will vehemently defend their choices to you – mothers are like elephants – they never forget.

By that same token, don’t let anyone tell you that your choices, or the choices you will try to make, are wrong, less-than, and even though their advice may be given with the best of intentions, it’s your pregnancy, your baby, your body, eat what you want, drink what you want (alcohol excluded obviously!), sleep when you want and don’t let anyone make you feel guilty for these things.

People seem surprised to learn that I plan on trying to breastfeed – which, in itself starts to open a can of worms, but when I go on to further open the can by adding that I’ll also be, at least in part, trying ‘cloth diapering’, oftentimes, the judgmental looks aren’t enough and people simply *have* to have their say about *our* choices, (which, by the way, have already been made) and proceed to tell me that they never had me down as a crunchy person.

Like they can somehow convince me it’s a bad idea, or that I’m naive to think it’s possible, ‘that’ll change once the baby is here’.

Some people, on the other hand, just need to see a modern cloth-diaper to actually understand that how they perceive cloth-diapering to be, is a thing of the past and that ‘reusable nappies’ these days, aren’t much different to the ‘real thing’.

In short, I’m cheap, if I can feed my kid myself and save money with cloth diapers so I can spend more money spoiling my kid rotten or showing him/her the world, then why wouldn’t I try these things?  I’m not judging anyone for not doing them, one choice doesn’t make you a ‘better’ mother than the other, I’m just making choices that will hopefully work for us, though blog posts like this, keep me grounded and remind me that it’s not easy, it’s a huge challenge, and it doesn’t work for everyone.

Plus – let’s all agree – they’re cute as hell!

All of the advice is furthermore complicated by being pregnant at the same time as at least 6 other people I know.  One friend, is even due a few days ahead of me.  It takes a lot of my energy, praying that each and every one of us will have a safe and healthy pregnancy and give birth to a healthy, happy baby – who preferably sleeps through the night and is already toilet trained – but, we can’t always get what we want, eh?

Advice (as given to me yesterday by two very dear friends): quit worrying about other babies and other mommas, your priority right now is you, your hubby/other half and your little one.  Do what you gotta do to get your baby delivered in to the world healthy and to have a happy family.  This post, ‘My anti blog‘ about differences in pregnancy resonated with me, it’s funny how ultimately we are all doing the same thing, growing a little person, but our journey there can all be so hugely different.

Listen to all of the advice with respect (sometimes you’ll need to get your game face on) and thank them for their opinion.  Take from it what you need/want and leave the rest.  It doesn’t, as I was starting to feel, make you a bad mother if you do things differently to what people say, or to what other people do.  Find what works for you and be yourself.

Even your OB and nurses will often treat you like you’re on a conveyor belt, they deal with hundreds of people like you on a regular basis.  To them, it’s not really a huge deal that you’re pregnant.  You’ll even find that your friends will say your doctors are wrong in some cases!

People WILL want to touch your stomach (otherwise known as ‘stranger danger‘ over at The truth behind the glow).  It’s started already with friends, obviously, cause they know.  I’m dreading the time coming when strangers *know* and will approach without warning to rub my belly like i’m some kind of good-luck charm.  I don’t do strangers in my personal space.

As the saying goes, this is my first rodeo, I’m just doing what I can, when I can and how I can, during this hugely different time in our lives, to ensure we all get through to the other side!

I found this article, explains things a lot funnier that I ever could, it struck a few chords with me and made me giggle.

This blog post, ‘This wasn’t in the brocheure‘, is also a riot, I find it better to prepare myself with the forthcoming trauma of pregnancy, through humour – it helps me cope with the imminent doom 😉 LOL! Check it out.  I’ve found I enjoy reading blog posts over at ‘The truth behind the glow‘ not only is she funny, but educational, in a non-terrifying kinda way.

In short, there’s no right or wrong way to be pregnant, and, once your baby gets here, there’s no right or wrong way to be a parent – something they don’t tell you in books, or at the OB’s office.  Try to stay calm, take on board all of the advice you get, but only hold on to that which you want to – and, most importantly, go with your gut!