Pregnancy symptoms, you either love 'em or you hate 'em. Just kidding, everyone hates them. What kind of person would love throwing up all the time, getting stretch marks and having heartburn? Nobody loves those things. They are things to be endured on the journey to motherhood. I hated being pregnant the first time but found the second time much easier. Perhaps because I am older and wiser (so wise, guys). Perhaps because I knew it would be worth it. Perhaps because I wasn't anxious about the birth (totes should have been). Perhaps because I was so busy napping I didn't have time to hate being pregnant. For whatever reason, I loved it. And now I miss it, sometimes, just some of the things. Not the waddling or the breathlessness or the general feeling of whale-ness, but somethings. Here are just a few of the symptoms I have said goodbye to:
Goodbye, Hair
I think my favourite thing about pregnancy is the hair. Not the stuff that grows where it shouldn't, but the abundance of shiny hair atop my head. I don't really remember the extra hair when I was pregnant with Ebony, I think I was too busy Being Exhausted And Miserable to notice any of the good pregnancy symptoms. But, with Ember, I noticed. All of a sudden, my hair was thicker than ever before. I am most definitely a thick-haired woman trapped in the miserable body of a woman with thin hair. I loved it. A lot. It took ages to dry after a shower but it was worth it.
After my first pregnancy, I didn't notice my hair falling out for quite a while. And when it did, it fell out slowly. Not this time. This time basically my entire head of hair came out in one bath. The most terrifying bath ever. Ember was in the bath with me and she ended up completely tangled in loose hairs. I had to pick them out from between her fingers and toes. It was almost enough to make me consider immediately having another baby (for the hair, obvs).
I must have lost half the hair on my head during that bath. Now I am back to just having my usual three hairs and it's depressing. I'm probably saving a fortune in conditioner and I'm definitely saving a lot of time.
Goodbye, Restricted Diet
I turn into the world's fussiest eater when I'm pregnant. Not deliberately, of course. I get this awful taste in my mouth which lasts approximately nine months and can only eat a small selection of foods to get rid of it. If I eat the wrong thing, the taste multiplies and makes me want to die. And so I eat curries. All the curries. So many curries. And jelly. I don't know why jelly, but that's basically all I ate during the pregnancy. Curry and jellies, but never curried jellies. Though I totally would have if that was a thing.
Goodbye, Stretching
One of the worst things about pregnancy is that constant feeling of stretching you get from about 16 weeks onwards. The skin on my bump felt tight constantly as though I could feel it stretching apart. It was horrible. But, admittedly, it looked better than the deflated sagged balloon I'm left with now. It is hard to choice which is the lesser of those two evils, the constant stretching or the wrinkly ball bag hanging where my midriff once was.
Goodbye, Me-Time
This one wasn't so much a pregnancy symptom, as one of the perks of pregnancy. Not only can you nap whenever you like, you will also be given plenty of time to yourself. You can use this time for napping, if you like. I napped, read books, wrote, bathed and relaxed. It was lovely. It's basically society's way of preparing you for the fact that you won't have a second to yourself for the next twelve months.
I now have no me-time. None whatsoever. For the first few weeks after the birth, I did manage to have a bath every day. Who would begrudge a woman with a painful undercarriage such a basic right? But now, not so much. Ember likes to be held all the damn time. The other day I put her down so I could pee and she immediately fell over and banged her head on the floor then looked at me as if to say 'See what happens when you neglect me' whilst screaming. I was mid-pee. The bump has since turned into a bruise which she thrusts in my direction each time I so much as think about having a wee.
Goodbye, Clumsiness
Pregnancy basically turns me into goofy. A giant lovable idiot with an inability to avoid precarious situations. We decorated our bedroom in May and Ember was born at the end of August. During that time, I had a massive brown bruise just below both knees from walking into the corner of the new bed. I bashed into it every single time I walked past it. I walked into doorframes, supermarket shelves and pedestrians. I dropped things. I cut myself. I banged my head a lot. I have a friend who has a habit of warning me when there are steps, even when I'm going down the stairs, as you might for a frail elderly woman. I always thought this was slightly ridiculous until I got pregnant and fell down the stairs, then I wondered why she hadn't warned me to be careful on the stairs that day.
What pregnancy symptoms do you miss and which were you happy to see the back of?
