AIBU to say out loud that pregnancy mostly SUCKS?!

[swanseacat]

There, I've said it. It feels like such a taboo to say it, and for so many understandable reasons. Let me elaborate...

This is my second pregnancy, our first took us 2 years, and we'd just started investigations when I fell pregnant. Actually I carted my poor hungover DH round the Fertility Show and forced him to give a sample, all the while unaware I was several weeks pregnant. So we thought our second one might take a while, and after about 6 months of trying (already aged 36) we started down the investigative road again. Thanks to the joy of the NHS it took about 18 months to rule our chances of conceiving naturally very low, and then to send us privately as we don't qualify for any free cycles having a DD already. The first cycle cost £6k and failed. We embarked on our second and last, extremely pessimistic, and gearing up to get a pet instead. Much to our surprise, it worked.

I say all this so no one thinks I have taken the fact of getting and staying pregnant lightly. It's taken 2 years and £12k to get to this point. I know all too well what it is like to sit on the outside of the pregnancy club looking wistfully in, and therefore it seems so deeply insensitive to moan about how dreadful I have felt, every day since week 5. And yet that is the reality. Hideous constant nausea, never actually culminating in being sick but forcing me to seek out food every 15 minutes, hating most of what I am eating and its impact on my body, but unable to ignore the vile feelings in my stomach and mouth. Crushing tiredness, so that after a 2 hour nap of the dead in the afternoons I wake up still exhausted. And now, at 19 weeks, I've added agonising back pain. And the response of just about every single medical profession / care giver? SUCK IT UP, B, YOU'RE PREGNANT!!!!!!

Yes, I know it's a great thing, but should that make my daily experience of mostly misery any less real? Does it help when people say 'Oh, morning sickness, that's good, it must be a strong pregnancy'? Does it b***s. Every so often I encounter other mums who tell me gleefully "I threw up 4 times a day throughout my entire pregnancy" like it's some kind of badge of honour, which of course only serves to make me feel like a wuss for even thinking of complaining. So, mostly, I don't, and it's just my poor DH who gets it in the neck ever so often when I can't bottle it up anymore.

AIBU to wish it was appropriate to be more honest?

I am so glad I am not alone!

Don't get me wrong, I am so excited I am going to have a baby but I don't think that I have ever felt so unwell!

Sciatica, nausea, only being able to eat junk food (which I'm sick of!) and early braxton hicks means that daily I feel like I could scream into a pillow!

If one more person touches my belly without asking I am going to grab something of theirs and see how they like it- be it boob, nose or testicle!

I am so tired and uncomfortable but my boss's view is always that it is just pregnancy so suck it up ( not his exact words but that's the feeling I get)

What's worse is that a few girls I know are pregnant and they are eating healthy things and spin Pilates when I can barely climb out the car for fear of peeing myself
Well only 16 weeks to go....

I detest being pregnant for all the reasons you list. I'm on number 2 and. Also nearly 19 weeks. I'm currently enjoying random episodes of morning sickness returning, heartburn and my 15th week of constipation. I have a cold I can't take much for and I'm tired at all times. Very jealous of those who love it although I can't see what they like!

YANBU
20+ years later I'm still waiting to 'bloom'!!

I had a hard time in pregnancy with dc1 I'm now currently pregnant with twins...my god why did nobody warn me how hard it would be!!! So far I have shat myself in the middle of a busy town centre I have also thrown up more times then i thought was humanly possible and every time I cough pee comes out
Why does your body lose all control of its functions when pregnant?!

I totally agree OP. I am 22 weeks pregnant with number 2 after ttc for 18 months but HATING being pregnant. I swore I wouldn't put on too much weight this time but 8 weeks of debilitating nausea were only slightly relieved by eating junk in enormous quantities 24 hours a day. And now that I am feeling better I can't seem to stop eating anyway!

I have had a cold solidly from the moment I found out I was pregnant and a chesty cough so bad that it makes me retch and pee myself. Had it since Xmas and two rounds of antibiotics haven't touched it.

I can't sleep, have back pain pain and heart burn and generally am fed up!

God, yes MrsDeVere ! Being poked and prodded and checked up on and generally treated like you're thick/a child! I've mostly dealt with the touching by telling each new hcp that I don't deal well with being touched so please keep it to a minimum and ask first (ASD) which helps. But my temper is getting shorter with each box-ticking appointment to be "allowed" a home birth! Dragging my massive arse to the hospital each time, toddler in tow, for a 2m appointment where I demonstrate I am a responsible, intelligent adult before I go home again.

I'm grateful I don't have it worse, I really am. No HG, piles, vulval varicose veins (just the ones on my legs), and the prolapse hasn't come yet (arrived at4m pp last time!) but it's still unpleasant!

I used to want 6 kids. My lottery win plan was to crack on with breeding as fast as possible - not any more! Two will do, thank you.

Really don't think it matters whether you have read the original post or not chottie as that is a very unkind thing to post. There is no need for the OP to feel guilty in any way for hating having a difficult pregnancy. Women can get so unwell to the point where they spend months in and out of hospital due to HG. To have no support from the people who are supposed to be there to help you is a truly hideous and isolating experience.

I can't believe because she finds it difficult she should therefore not say anything just because other women want to have a baby? That's absurd. The two situations are completely different.

Sobbing after another terrible nights sleep :( and discovering our electrician left the immersion heater on after doing some tests last week, so it's been on for 6 days! Freaking out about the cost and feeling sorry for myself with the SPD, cramps, worrying about the baby's position, constant snotty nose (complete with streaks of blood), no clothes that fit properly.

And then I remind myself this could go on for another 10 weeks. Forget hands off management, if this baby is late I will be 1st in the queue for an induction!!!

Oh Mrs

Lol at vacuum cleaner - DS was a ventouse delivery, and it wasn't that bad to be honest, maybe if I get desperate I'll give it a go!

Someone warned me at 10 weeks that I would forget how awful it was and I'd soon get broody after having dd.

I documented every bastarding second of it so I wouldn't.

YANBU

Didn't hate my first pregnancy too much but my god am I hating this one! 27 weeks with twins that took a lot longer to happen than first time round. developed sciatica at 16 weeks, now so severe I can just about furniture surf the house and ds (2) is being babysat daily by the Disney channel. had to have steroids last week for an issue with one of the babas so felt guilty for half a day for wishing them out of me, counting down the days until il be induced, 11 weeks of torture to go :(

I'm beginning to imagine a thread on baby names Mrscog - "aibu to want to call dc1 Dyson"

Another that hated being pregnant.

With my first I felt sick at the smell of just about everything but the worst triggers were surf and daz washing powders and carex hand wash . I still can't use any of those to this day! Brushing my teeth made me want to vomit, DH made me feel really sick too . Also being hot and sweaty constantly, used to piss myself when I got out of the bath and SPD with my third pregnancy which got so bad I was reduced to tears when I turned over in bed and I had to crawl up the stairs. Also feeling like I was PMSing every single day, I was absolutely horrible to poor DH and I'm so surprised he didn't divorce me, I wanted to divorce me .

I think what was worse than all of those symptoms though was that I felt like I lost my indentity and independence. I just became a pregnant woman, the only times anyone wanted to talk to me it was about the pregnancy. I also got sick of people offering to help, I wasn't incapacitated and was perfectly able to carry on as normal! The endless piss and blood tests, scans and poking and prodding as well. Felt like my body was no longer my own iykwim.

Never again!

YY ohfourfox maybe that's why Henry has had a resurgence in popularity? We're on to all of them now...

Now that makes a lot of sense!

Yes mouse I'm really fed up of people commenting on me 'oh you look tired' - no shit, what with working FT, looking after a nearly 3 year old, growing an extra person, trying to remain sane you think I wouldn't look a tiny bit tired? Actually the tired comments are not as bad as the 'oh you look really well today' ones, where I've bothered with make up but still feel like death warmed up. I've taken to not bothering as I don't want to get people's expectations up. And don't get me started on 'When's it due? Gosh..still a while yet then'. ARGHHHH I swear I didn't find it all quite so annoying the first time around.

Ha ha ha ha I just got the "henry" name.

My brain is mush.

To whoever was saying about blogging the realities of pregnancy. Well done you!

I'm still convinced that a man (Dr with no social skills who was practically a hermit) wrote the book on pregnancy, all that "some people may experience" xyz.

It's like some weird exclusive club that has to be promoted from within and only once you get to a certain number of weeks to other mothers start telling you the truth about their experiences!!

I'm just glad I'm over half way now.

But I still want this glow I hear about......

Livingzuid, thank you. One of the reasons I wrote the post was to gauge people's reaction, so whilst the vast majority have responded sympathetically, it's actually good that some have still honestly told me they disagree. At least here is a place we can all be truthful without fear of offending nearest and dearest.

It's like most things - some good, some bad. YANBU to have a moan, ask for honesty and sympathy but YABU to assume that everybody who does not tell you that they hated pregnancy is lying.

My two were ok. Good bits and bad bits. Very sick, very tired for most of the time. Trapped nerve in my back leading to my being hardly able to walk for six weeks when carrying DS1 BUT a great bit in the middle of both when I felt fine and as if my body was finally doing a really good job!!

I hated being pregnant. Absolutely hated it. I do not understand women who say they enjoy it. I just cannot understand. Never have I felt so not in control of my own body for such a long time. I don't know if I'd be able to do it again!

fosho- really?

I loved being pregnant - adored it, every single day, but I am not so naiive as to be aware that not every woman has a similar experience.

Yes bigbluestars, really. I do not expect everyone to have had the same experience as me.

What I am saying is I cannot comprehend of it, not that it cannot happen.