Writing about Pregnancy
Hey! kate_nepveu has a great post up at tor.com about writing pregnancy, labor and delivery in SFF. If you write SFF, you should read this post. When I'm reading a book and a character is going to be pregnant, the inevitable "Oh no! She's barfing in the morning! She must be pregnant" as pregnancy-signal irritates the shit out of me. That's not generally what always happens, folks, and it doesn't typically happen right away. My personal early pregnancy sign? Not barfing. My boobs get out of control, I mean, like an extra cup a week, and I'm more susceptible to motion sickness. Also, I stop liking fatty pork. Don't ask me. But my first weeks of pregnancy are pretty much indistinguishable from heavy duty PMS. I was eventually hyperemetic with Puppy, which means I barfed ALL OF THE TIME throughout my entire first trimester, but that was due to a medication interaction. Last time I pretty much didn't barf at all, but at about week 9 I started having some terrible fatigue and pretty regular nausea. With Puppy my second and third trimesters were a breeze, except for the part of the third trimester in July in which there WAS NO BREEZE, and we couldn't afford air conditioning, and some occasional OBNOXIOUS lower back pain. Also? I gained like 58 pounds overall. Seriously. I started at like 120, lost 12 pounds due to vomiting, then gained 70 pounds. Idk. But it wasn't a cute little baby bump. I had a baby body change.
Which is not to say that any of MY symptoms were typical or should be what people writing pregnancy should write. But what Kate says is exactly right; pregnancies are all over the map! So please write them that way. Kate gives some really good ideas in her article about how to start to do that.
Which is not to say that any of MY symptoms were typical or should be what people writing pregnancy should write. But what Kate says is exactly right; pregnancies are all over the map! So please write them that way. Kate gives some really good ideas in her article about how to start to do that.