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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think the whole pregnancy thing could be altered?

232 replies

DerekSprechenZeDick · 10/09/2016 14:25

This whole pregnancy thing is shit ain't it? Let's be honest

They are made in a fun way (if you are lucky) but then 9 month of just shit.

I think pregnancy should be fun and have perks. Instead I'm stuck in bed due to pelvic pain, a baby who appears to be an athletic octopus and heartburn that makes me want to rip my chest out.

I would like to grow my baby attached to me but be able to unattach should I fancy a piece of shark or a rum.

So I could unstrap the bump, strap it to the dad and I could have a break. The bump would be more like a side car maybe Grin

What would you change about pregnancy?

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PinkyOfPie · 10/09/2016 15:06

I know you're probably looking for a lighthearted response, but I'm afraid my thing to change would be the attitude of others towards pregnancy. There's a serious under appreciation of what women go through and this enforced 'martyr' attitude drives me bonkers.

Pregnancy is fucking hard, exhausting and deeply uncomfortable yet we can't complain (someone always trots out the 'some women would love to be pregnant', which I'm aware of, I have been one of them, but its an exceptionally unhelpful thing to say to someone in pain) we have to emit rainbows and fucking sunshine all the time.

In the place I worked in my 1st pregnancy, a colleague was pregnant at the same time as me. I was never sick first time but she had horrendous sickness, and vomited 8 times a day for 32 weeks. The sneery attitude of others in the team because she took a few sick days was disgusting. One twat man even hailed it as sexist that she could take pregnancy related sickness Hmm if you had any other condition where you were sick that much and often I expect other people would be sympathetic. But pregnancy is different.

I'm currently 5 months pregnant. I've had horrendous sickness (although it's getting better), Inhave a huge bump which makes me very uncomfortable, work 3 days a week, have a toddler, have had awful constipation and this week I've been off work because I've had haemorrhoids the size of plums and could barely walk let alone sit down. My SIL came round the other night and I was stood up in the kitchen and asked DH if he'd get me a water. The tap wasn't far away but he was closer and moving was agony due to plum piles Confused. SIL commented about can you not do it yourself (TBF in a lighthearted way) and when I said no I'm carrying his baby he can at least get me a water (again lighthearted) she said "oh fuck off, honestly as if pregnancy is an excuse to be that bloody lazy". Hmm she has been pregnant herself and had a difficult pregnancy with sickness. Bitch.

I replied "fuck off yourself" (NOT lighthearted) and waddled out to go and lie down on my front

I strongly suspect this attitude is because women are the ones who get pregnant. I reckon if men got pregnant, morning sickness would be a sacrament, maternity
leave would be paid in full for a year and start at 12 weeks pregnant, and there'd be special tax funded helpers to rally round them until birth Grin

I find the same attitude once you've given birth, the "as long as baby is ok that's what matters" line - no actually I'm bloody important too, I'm not just a vessel that conveniently carries the baby and when my job is done, to hell with me - I'm a human, it's been hard work and I deserve care and support too. After I had my DD my husband's family visited hospital when she was 12 hours, picked her up and pissed about, I swear the only thing I got told was "God you look awful Pinky!" (Well yes I've lost 4 pints of blood as you know of course I fucking do) Not even a "how are you".

Sorry, rant over, it just pisses me off (can you tell? Grin)

DerekSprechenZeDick · 10/09/2016 15:07

I didn't mean to upset anyone. I just wanted a moan. I'm so bored and fed up. I have no RL humans to moan at so using you lot instead

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MindSweeper · 10/09/2016 15:09

Why can't we just lay a little egg that gets bigger and bigger and then hatches. Our time would be spend on the sofa cuddling said egg. It would obviously be a reinforced extra hard egg so we wouldn't have to worry about it cracking

DerekSprechenZeDick · 10/09/2016 15:11

I wish I was a seahorse or a penguin. It's left to the men then.

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eggyface · 10/09/2016 15:11

Poor you Pinky. Sorry you've had such crap support.

Lightheartedly - can we extend the pregnancy pause button so it works for early childhood? Just get the baby and toddler to freeze and stop relentlessly being babies and toddlers, say one night a week so you can sleep and one weekend every couple of months so you can do something nice with your DH and have sex ever

Sallystyle · 10/09/2016 15:11

I hated being pregnant. I did it five times, but I hated it.

Hyperemesis with two of them (one for 9 months), severe sickness for weeks with the others. Heartburn with all of them them all the way through, thrush with all of them all the way through.

The kick in the ribs, not being able to sleep because they don't stop kicking... goodness, I can't believe I did it five times!

At least I had 4 fantastic births that lasted an hour.

WorraLiberty · 10/09/2016 15:12

We can't eat sharks now when pregnant? Confused

What sort of fucked up world are we living in?

BalloonSlayer · 10/09/2016 15:12

I think they should be able to be incubated in jars like Brave New World and Pokemon go.

When the baby is ready to be born you get a buzz and Oh? and there's your scrummy new baby.

ILostItInTheEarlyNineties · 10/09/2016 15:13

I think penguins have the right idea. Don't they lay an egg and then the dad takes turns sitting on it too, while the mum goes swimming or fishing etc?

(that may not be factually correct, but I saw a documentary a while ago and have remembered some of it.)

coveredinhopeandvaseline · 10/09/2016 15:14

Bring back the Stork.

DerekSprechenZeDick · 10/09/2016 15:14

Worra I was told this by a panicked midwife after she expected me to me about 8 week and not 30 Grin

She just said 'oh you can't eat shark' as there was nothing in my notes due to lack of notice Grin

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ijustwannadance · 10/09/2016 15:16

I quite like the way kangaroos do it. Baby crawls out when only a couple of cm, finds its way up and into pouch, latches onto a teat then when it's ready it just jumps out. It would be like being pegnant on the outside with no painful labour/birth to worry about.

WorraLiberty · 10/09/2016 15:17

Well I think she should have broken the news a little more gently.

How was she to know you didn't have a 40 a day shark habit?

BikeRunSki · 10/09/2016 15:17

Derek pregnancy can't be that bad for you if you got to 28 weeks or so before realising!

MindSweeper · 10/09/2016 15:18

haa

DerekSprechenZeDick · 10/09/2016 15:19

Bike it was fab while it was unknown. It was after the scan where it went downhill

In 8 weeks of knowing I have SPD, carpel tunnel and braxton hicks. I've gone from not pregnant to heavily pregnant in a few week.

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GreatFuckability · 10/09/2016 15:20

The puking. I'd change the puking. the round the clock, every hour, painful, projectile puking. and the associated nausea that the smell of everything creates. even the smell of my husband was unbearable to me. The fact that the only thing that stopped the nausea was eating, but the eating would then set off the puking. and the fact that everyone said it would end at 12 weeks. It did not. and then they said it would end at 20 weeks. It did not. and they said it was 'morning sickness'. It was not.

fuck. that. shit.

I love my children more than life itself, but I am allowed to have hated every miserable second of carrying them.

HerRoyalNotness · 10/09/2016 15:21

We should all get assigned two helpers who do whatever it is we don't want. Pamper us, keep the house, do the meals and school find and make it as stress free as possible. Then we can put our effort into the growing of the human

Antsinpants · 10/09/2016 15:24

its easily three months too long.

Evergreen17 · 10/09/2016 15:25

Oh dear. I am 17 weeks and I have had no symptoms or problems so I know feel so lucky and feel bad for others. I have been in a bubble!

Zaphodsotherhead · 10/09/2016 15:25

I think the whole abdomen should become transparent, as soon as the egg implants. That way we'd a) know, b) be able to keep tabs on state of pregnancy (no more panicking when we haven't felt movement for a while, we'd be able to see everything was okay, and c) be bonded to the baby from the off, because we'd 'know' it as a person.

And how come we have to not eat shark when we're pregnant? It doesn't stop them eating us, does it?

TwllBach · 10/09/2016 15:26

I hated pregnancy with a deep, black hatred whilst loving it with all my heart because, well, baby!! I have, however, never been as consistently miserable as then. Sickness until 34 weeks, heartburn that gave me a 4 bottle a week Gaviscon habit and debilitating SPD that had me signed off work at 31 weeks and immobile.

I have a four month old DS upstairs and he is so perfect that I am willing to do it all over again though Grin not today though, imfucking exhausted today. Bastard teeth/four month sleep regression

AnArrowToTheKnee · 10/09/2016 15:26

If men had babies we'd have had artificial wombs decades ago, or rest and relaxation would be ordered instead of having to just carry on with everyday life. I'm the size and shape of the bloody Hindenburg right now and it bloody hurts to carry this lump of a baby. And DH just rolls his eyes and says "yes dear" when i complain Angry

Masketti · 10/09/2016 15:26

Pregnancy sucks big time. My change would be you can eat whatever food you can bear without throwing it up again for the whole frigging 40+ weeks and you don't put on 4.5 stone because the only food you can bear is pure sugar from fresh pastries

DerekSprechenZeDick · 10/09/2016 15:26

Zaph I wonder if pregnant sharks have to avoid humans?!

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