Pregnancy- why does it make us sick?

In general, as a pregnant woman, I'm that woman who doesn't talk about her experiences being pregnant because it generally causes other women to hate me. I can't help it. I have stellar pregnancies. Part of this may be genetic, but I also think the fact that I heard positive things about pregnancy from my mom and aunts has something to do with it. My mom didn't talk so much about enjoying her pregnancy, but I never heard her talk about the endless list of suffering that people associate with pregnancy (varicose veins, swelling, back pain, being so sick and so tired that you can't decide if you should throw up or go to bed, and all the rest). One of my aunts absolutely loved being pregnant despite having a few issues; another aunt still tells me how much she misses the feeling of a baby inside her.

So it never occurred to me that when I got pregnant that I might actually be hopping on the roller coaster of hell. And when I told my aunts I was pregnant, they were thrilled, not just for the arrival of a baby, but for me and that I got to have this experience that they so loved and cherished. One of my aunts instantly pulled out a post-it and made me a list of her favorite pregnancy foods (she's the one who gave me the tip about popsicles - except her favorite flavor was banana. Mine ended up being those lemonade ones from Trader Joe's). 

And then we told the world at large I was pregnant. 

And I had my first encounter with how the rest of the world views pregnancy; mainly that it is actually a roller coaster of hell. 

My husband and I went to a friend's wedding, and when I went to the bathroom in between the wedding and the reception along with every other woman who was attending, I found myself surrounded by what felt like a gaggle of chickens. I felt like the unfortunate soul who finds herself in the girls' bathroom in high school and surrounded by the mean girls who proceed to beat the crap out of her. It was there that I was stormed like the Bastille by pregnancy horror stories of the women present. 

First, they asked how terrible I was feeling, because I must be so sick I could hardly see straight and so tired I could hardly stand. 

I said I felt fantastic. I mean it took me seven months to get pregnant. By achieving pregnancy, I felt like I had won the Tour de France. 

But no, I was informed that actually, pregnancy meant the end of my life. My feeling great would be short lived. Because essentially, I would be miserable and uncomfortable the last four months, I wouldn't be able to sleep or find enough pillows (I still don't know what pillows have to do with anything), I would swell up like a balloon, my shoes would never fit again, my legs would be covered in varicose veins that would end up looking like the Mississippi River after all the swelling, I would hate my husband, and my entire body would ache, then my beautiful baby would arrive after a hellish labor, I would never sleep again and I would certainly never lose the weight I had gained, and my beautiful baby would grow into a child that would proceed to wreak havoc on my entire life. 

According to these women, a seasonal bout with cancer would be preferable to pregnancy and the children it results in. 

Maybe I have good genes. Maybe because I ate well. Maybe because I took hour long walks with my dogs through Griffith Park and did yoga four to five times a week. Maybe I’m in denial about being Pollyanna. Maybe I won the pregnancy lottery, but none of the predicted horrors happened to me. I felt great, until the day my son dropped and wedged his head into my pelvis. Three days later, I went into labor. 

My labor was like my mother’s, which was predicted accurately by doctors and midwives alike, in that it was six hours long. 

I have been told that my pregnancies (and labor) are abnormal, atypical, and not real. Yet my abnormal, atypical and not real pregnancy produced a baby who’s turning into a pretty cool kid (as we say in our house). My abnormal, atypical, and not real pregnancy didn’t actually result in medical intervention or treatment. It didn’t have some tragic or horrific ending. 

It turns out my pregnancies are normal, typical and real for me.

What I find baffling about this (because I do have a point – I’m not just bragging about finding pregnancy lovely) is that the women who get so angry at those in medical community for viewing pregnancy as an illness often end up being the very same women who tell me that my experience is abnormal, atypical, and not real. 

If pregnancy is not an illness, why am I supposed to feel so flippin’ awful? Why is there the social assumption, that when you become pregnant, you become the victim of your monstrous body and the only thing you can do about it is suffer? 

For the most part, in my second pregnancy, I have avoided the horror-and-death predictions. Occasionally, when I’m by myself out in public, a woman will lean over to me and say, “You know, first borns are always late.” To which I then say, “My son was actually three weeks early.” 

Except recently, as I’ve been in my third trimester, those closest to me, i.e. my husband and sister, have recounted to me that when people ask them about me and my pregnancy, they don’t ask, “Is she getting excited?” they instead ask, “She’s not too uncomfortable and miserable, is she?” or “Is she so ready to be done being pregnant?” Or people say to me, “How do you wear heeled sandals in your condition?” (I know – if we’re talking social assumptions, I’m not actually supposed to wear shoes) or “How are you doing in this heat in your condition?” (pregnant or not, I don’t do well in the heat). I often want to point out that I’m pregnant; I haven’t had a leg recently amputated. 

And I admit, I am really excited to meet my new baby, so in a way I am looking forward to the end of my pregnancy. 

And I also admit, that this baby started off lower and dropped into my pelvis sooner, resulting in some uncomfortable pelvic pressure and lower back ache. But I also realized that what worked so well in my last pregnancy – walking and doing yoga fairly often – I wasn’t doing. As soon as I went back to a regular yoga and walking habit, the aches no longer ached. 

And yes, I have had some rather extensive and painful contractions that fall outside the norm of run-of-the-mill Braxton-Hicks, but my midwife said to take these as a sign my body is telling me to maybe relax, have a sip of wine, take a bath, and maybe instead of walking to yoga, I could take the subway. 

And I still like being pregnant.  

There’s a funny phenomenon, that’s rather effective in the treatment of many ailments. It’s called the placebo effect, in which a person perceives whatever they are suffering from to improve when they haven’t actually been given anything to improve their condition. It has one think about how the mind can determine or alter one’s experience. I don’t want to suggest that a simple placebo can lessen the pain of a baby pushing its way through a woman’s pelvis, but I do have to wonder if the few of us who have positive experiences in pregnancies (aka abnormal, atypical, not real pregnancies), how much of it is related to our expectations of the experience that we will have or our attitudes about pregnancy? I know quite a few women who did in fact have complicated pregnancies with loads of things to deal with, but still had positive experiences and never let on that they felt miserable if they did. It’s a wonder, isn’t it?

Thanks to the social assumption that pregnancy is a miserable and uncomfortable experience, we can’t really be surprised that many in the medical community still do view pregnancy as an illness. I just find it funny that we blame them for it, when women are also the ones who perpetuate it.