Throughout time, women from around the world talk about how joyous pregnancy is. I have to agree, as a mother of two, it is indescribably amazing. There is nothing like bringing life into this world! Like most things in life, there are a few cons people refuse to mention about pregnancy. I can't grasp the concept as to why they don't inform you of such traumatizing events.
After 22 years of life, in May of 2010, I discovered that I was pregnant. Now this came as a surprise! I must have taken six pregnancy tests. My whole life I had been told that I would never be able to bare children, due to medical issues. Here I was, getting ready to exit the military, from the worst duty station ever, West Point, N.Y. Although in shock, I couldn't help but feel overwhelmed with this "joy"they speak of. His father was ecstatic! He must've called everyone he knew that evening. We definitely had that beautiful kodak moment everybody thinks of. What they don't speak of was short to come.
The one thing they do mention is little to no sleep once the baby arrives. I would've preferred to hear them say you get less and less sleep starting half way through second trimester. Have you ever had acid reflex? That would have been nice to know about, considering it was a daily event in my second and third trimester. I bet you haven't heard any women talk about the mucus plug. How disgusting would that sound? Well, curiosity made me touch this rubbery mucus exiting my body. I like to tell women this is the weirdest part of pregnancy.
I know every pregnancy differs but if there is a possibility that I might experience something weird, I would want to know about it. For instance, the most traumatizing was my water breaking with my first child. We get to the hospital and the nurse puts me in a room and ask if my water has broken yet. I inform her it has not but I know this is true labor. She puts her gloves on and proceeds to check if I am dilated any. As soon as the nurse inserts her fingers, my water breaks, it went every where! It was like a toddlers pool had just popped and flooded over the gurney. I thought it would never stop. The most disgusting experience of all in my book about pregnancy. By the way, it stops after you deliver the afterbirth. After experiencing this twice, I still don't understand why women aren't sharing these disgusting truths about pregnancy.
A very interesting entry, Vanessa. I think I am with you. Having never been pregnant, I am definitely the type of person that would want a heads up on some of the more frightening and less "joyous" experiences of being pregnant and giving birth just so I was prepared when it happened. You do a nice job talking about this overall. A couple suggestion I would make in the event that you were ever to revise this would be: Can you articulate a bit more how this experience has changed you? You allude to this in some ways, but I wonder if you couldn't bring this out a bit more. Another thing to just watch out for and be a bit mindful of is transitions between ideas. There are places where I feel like you transition a bit abruptly between ideas, which sometimes makes it unclear what it is you are focusing on or what you want to focus on. See if you can pick the main point and really try to develop that before moving onto the next. Otherwise, the piece as a whole is very interesting and engaging. Thank you for sharing.
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