Lessons from the Belly
I was thinking this morning that I needed to write down some of my thoughts and lessons from being pregnant. Things that I didn't think were being addressed by pregnancy books. So here it goes:
- Morning sickness is not a joke or even remotely funny. It is horrible. If you find something that relieves the morning sickness, you do it! I don't care if it is pickles in ice cream, DO IT!
- Your boobs get huge! Buy a comfortable maternity bra as soon as your breasts do not fit in your pre-pregnancy bras. They are not going down in size for a while and the relief of a correctly fitting bra is amazing. There is a high likelihood I am going to be buying another set of maternity bras today because I think they got even bigger.
- Sleep is essential. When you begin to notice that you can't sleep, do something about it. For me, this was the purchase of the maternity body pillow. I adore this pillow and it goes everywhere with me. If it had been a million dollars, it would have been worth every penny.
- Gaining pregnancy weight is necessary but psychologically it is painful. Years of being told to stay a certain weight do not fly out the window when you get pregnant. All the assurances of other non-pregnant, non-weight gaining folks do not help. The weight gain is just something you have to come to terms with over time.
- Buy bigger underwear. Like a ill fitting bra, ill fitting underwear makes you feel ugly and uncomfortable in whatever you are wearing. I spent 2 hours this morning in some pre-pregnancy undies. They would not stay up which made me feel like my pants were falling down. The pants are fine. The underwear was not.