Second pregnancy woes
Earlier this week I stumbled upon my also pregnant next-door neighbor on the sidewalk. She was on her way to pick up her son at daycare; I was running back home from therapy hoping to have a quiet lunch before Yann-Yves came back with S. (Side note: Yann-Yves and I have hit the next-door neighbor jackpot: they’re one of the loveliest couples we’ve ever met, we share a number of interests and they actually give us flour when we run out of it).
We hit off a short exchange with the general polite conversation starter: “How are you doing?”. A question which you can’t help but answer honestly at any stage of a pregnancy. Her at 4 months of her second pregnancy and me at 8, we could definitely agree on one thing - being pregnant for the second time isn’t a walk in the park. Caring for a toddler (their son is around 4 months older than S) takes the glow out of you, and exhaustion tends to be the most common denominator throughout the whole 9 months. The time and energy I had to consciously relish my pregnancy through meditation and prenatal yoga when I was expecting S, a luxury even then, is now basically inexistent. I struggle wondering how this might affect my daughter (if, of course, at all).
We talked about how time passes so much faster the second time around. With S I felt so ready for his birth, but now that I know just how hard caring for a newborn is and the toll that it took on me physically and emotionally during the first month postpartum, I am urging time to slow down a bit. She had a hard third trimester the last time around, and is also apprehensive about what’s to come.
One of the many things “everyone tells you” is that each pregnancy is entirely unique, and they are right. This one started off completely different from my first, with intense morning sickness and general fatigue (which I took as clues that I am expecting a girl). I’ve also had to go to the emergency a couple of times due to unusual pains and a stomach bug. By now, at 32 weeks, I have started getting Braxton Hicks contractions, something I didn’t have at all while pregnant with S. The other night, as Yann-Yves and I were getting him ready for bed, I sneezed and peed a little. For the third time this week. I didn’t even need to pee! It wasn’t even a big sneeze! I’ve been doing my kegels! I cussed at myself. My body is able to nurture life from scratch, but apparently can’t hold back a little pee anymore. Plus, everything hurts at the moment. I took a deep breath. And at last remembered to be kinder with this body of mine.
It takes effort to keep in mind and act upon things I’ve been learning about myself through therapy. For instance, to accept and overrule my overwhelming feeling of guilt, and come to terms with the fact that, indeed, I too need rest. I need help. And that’s ok. During my short exchange with my neighbor, I couldn’t help but to be blunt about how hard it is to accept that although women have been bearing and birthing children for thousands of years in much rougher contexts, I am still allowed to feel tired, and vulnerable, and even sad at times. She couldn’t agree more. She mentioned that this was one of the key takeaways from her first pregnancy - trusting your body and admitting to yourself what and when you need something. It’s much easier said than done.
The silly guilt I felt each time I napped this past week stems from the knowledge that women everywhere have it much harder than I do. I stopped working at 30 weeks with both pregnancies. I have a supportive husband who is also a parent (i.e. he doesn’t “help” me with S - he’s his father, S is our responsibility, not mine). I have a roof over my head and food in the fridge. I am healthy. And yet I’m exhausted and wonder at times, for a fraction of a second, what the hell did I get myself into.
Does admitting this to myself, and now others, make me less resilient? I’m not sure. Do I even have the energy to care at this point?
S has an imperfect mother, and soon his sister will too. My limitations are for me to carry, and for us learn how to deal with them as a family. But one thing I know for sure: I will love them with every fiber of my being in my perfectly imperfect way until the day I cease to exist, and I can only hope that’s enough.
My neighbor and I both needed to run off, and as we parted ways I could only hope she’d taken as much solace in our brief exchange as I had. We are both incredibly grateful for the lives in our wombs and most definitely do not take them for granted, but like any woman, we are also entitled to a range of other feelings and emotions, some less pleasant than others. We are only human after all.
