Pregnancy In The Media Is Often Sugar-Coated And These Women Are Not Having It (30 Stories)

Hyperemesis Gravidarum

I figured pregnancy would be pretty easy but I almost died. I violently threw up throughout my entire pregnancy. Lost about 20kgs. Could not eat or drink because my senses were so heightened that EVERYTHING made me violently ill. Everything smelt and tasted putrid...so rancid. I just wanted to die. I was so depressed with how miserable pregnancy made my life. Needing IVs to survive. NEVER AGAIN. One and done.

My dad is a doctor, he has always said that pregnancy is exactly the same as having a serious disease, your body is put into so much stress for a long period of time and things can go south so fast it's scary that women will have more than 1 baby

I think it’s funny in movies/tv how a pregnant person has one contraction and immediately knows she’s in labor, not really how it works lol. My water broke with my second child and i still took my like two hours to be convinced it was actually my water. I also think it’s weird how labor is always depicted with screaming and pain when a large portion of people get epidurals.

They never show how isolating pregnancy can be. Suddenly, you can’t do regular things with your friends, like drinks after work or even going out to eat, because you feel nauseated or too tired

I went up a shoe size and had to start wearing glasses when I had my kid.

Childbearing hips are a lie! You can have wide hips, but still have a narrow pelvic opening on the inside.

When I had my daughter, I had a hard time pushing her out, as her shoulder got stuck. The doctor told me that if I had anymore children, we would want to induce early to prevent this, as my daughter was the biggest baby my body could handle. She only weighed 7lbs 4 oz!, which is actually a little smaller than an average baby!

Movies focus on the head - mothers would tell you that shoulders are actually wider (and thus hurt more)...

There are so many things. When you're pregnant, you're risking your health and life. In many countries, epidural isn't the norm, medical abortions are hard to get. There's the realization that now you're not in control over your own body, there's a lack of bonding with a kid after giving birth. I've known some women who were so glad to be done with the delivery and there was no love towards the kid if anything - just annoyance at how loud the newborn can be.

Permanent changes to your body. Skin, stretch marks - okay. Vision, bladder, shoe size, issues with kidneys, psychological and hormonal changes - people don't tend to talk about those much.

They never show how you can experience receding gums and rotting teeth from pregnancy

I have a lot of pregnant friends right now and am learning a TON about pregnancy. Honestly, it sounds awful. My one friend was having to catheterize herself everyday because the baby was sitting on her urethra and blocking it. Apparently that is something that is rare but not unheard of.

A lot of them also have horrible back pain. My sister had one hip stuck about 3 inches higher than the other and herniated a disc during pregnancy.

Postpartum depression. Not all women experience it after the birth of their children BUT there’s enough cases out there to prove it’s real and something that should be discussed.

Movies/books will document EVERYTHING there is to know about motherhood but literally skip over that part for a happy ending. It gives this false sense of reality that motherhood can only take a toll on your body and not your mind. That’s why so many people overlook obvious signs of the mother experiencing this.