What were your biggest pregnancy surprises and pet peeves?
in Pregnancy ·
This is precisely what irritates me most. While everyone else is enjoying their sweet dreams, I am wide awake in the middle of the night. I am currently in my 14th week, dealing with constant nausea and a strict diet necessitated by high blood pressure. After surviving that initial wave of exhaustion during the first few weeks when I could sleep day and night, now that I am finally home on bed rest, I cannot sleep at all. Instead, I spend my days wandering around like a zombie. 🙂 It is as if something strikes me at 2:00 AM—even though I go to bed around 10:00 PM—and I am forced to get up to use the bathroom. While that is perfectly normal during the day every twenty minutes, having to do it at night makes it impossible to fall back asleep, no matter how hard I try. Sleep deprivation is killing me. When I was working, I could practically nap while standing up, but now that I am home, nothing works. The nausea is relentless, and every scent irritates me. Everything with a strong aroma is offensive: laundry detergent, cleaning supplies in any form, perfumes, deodorants (I can smell my coworker, my husband, and even my poor dog from miles away, whether they are freshly bathed or not), raw meat, onions, you name it. This is my second pregnancy; the first one exhausted me with morning sickness, but this one involves high blood pressure and constant nausea. I can't eat anything, or rather, I'm not allowed to. As my colleague puts it, "🙂 you can't just overindulge during a pregnancy like this!" Hahaha. So, I am venting to you all to hopefully make my sleepless nights a little more bearable. Generally, I am not a complicated person. We have been waiting years for this baby, and I don't regret a single thing, even the lack of sleep, as long as the baby is born healthy and strong. And yes, I must say, it irritates me when everyone asks about names or assumes it must be a girl since we already have a boy (I fail to see why that should be the case—if it is a boy, what are we supposed to change?). When we were discussing names for a boy, people felt the need to comment, saying things like, "Oh, you wouldn't actually give him such an ugly name, would you?" I firmly believe that choosing a child's name is our private business. Whether the name consists of a single letter or if it is Frances, Mary, Stephanie, Mickey, or Buddy, that choice belongs solely to us. I have never commented on anyone else's choice of names; I simply cannot comprehend it. How can you not know what you want to call your own child? I am only three months pregnant, yet people act as if the priority should be picking a name or debating gender, while my health and the baby's health are treated as completely irrelevant. We still have our favorite names from our first pregnancy, but I am anxiously awaiting my next checkup with the OBGYN to ensure the baby is okay and that I won't end up in the hospital due to my blood pressure. Ultimately, I do not care what others think, but certain things are simply irritating, and I cannot help my reaction.