Post your Story

Tired

This is my second pregnancy. My son was born premature so I really wasn't sure what to expect during my third trimester. I. Am. Tired. I have always been very big on keeping my house clean and trying to keep up with my kids (I have a 5 year y/o son, a 7 y/o stepdaughter, and an eleven y/o stepson). These days I can hardly keep my eyes open. Yesterday I feel asleep at breakfast mid conversation. I miss my energy. I miss the days when I could clean without a terrible backache and feeling extremely exhausted. Gosh I feel.so lucky that my husband and kids are so understanding.

Jasmine

Misled

Pregnancy has not been easy for me. This is my first pregnancy so I am still unsure what to expect or how to feel. My sister always told me how much she loved being pregnant! I was misled.
I knew I was pregnant at 5 weeks. My husband and I had been trying to get pregnant so this was no big surprise. I was a zombie for the first 12 weeks or so. I would grab an office in my building and sleep on the floor every break I had (I still sleep about 10-12 hours a day but I am able to make it home without napping ay work). I wanted to eat everything in sight, but eating anything made me sick. I had heartburn for about 2 weeks straight, migraines, blurry vision, round ligament pain, leg cramps and swollen ankles (that started around week 22 and seen to get worse every day) and now I am going through the lovely glucose test. The first test results came back high and tomorrow I go in for the three hour test.
On top of the physical discomforts, my husband and I have been trying to sell our house for about a year now, with no energy to clean or garden, I feel guilty for putting that added pressure on my husband. My job was eliminated and I had to go through the process of reapplying for new positions, only to get a position that I hate... now I am in the process of changing jobs again. My dog had been sick and at one point was told she was in liver failure (which she wasn't), my dad went through major surgery after having 3 strokes and a persistent gut infection, and my 95 year old grandfather who is in congestive heart failure is convinced he only has 2 months to live and is devastated he won't be able to meet our son. So far, everyone is alive and well but I feel like I am just waiting for bad news.
In addition to all of this, I am fighting against a lifelong food addiction and eating disorder. I had been in a very good place prior to becoming pregnant (or else I never would have wanted to start trying to become pregnant) and at first I was handling the weight gain alright. I have a team of doctors working with me to keep me and baby healthy but every day is a struggle especially as I gain more and more weight (40 pounds and growing). Even though my husband is amazing through all of this and is incredibly supportive, and I have a great support group of friends and family, there are times where I feel so alone! and then my little boy moves and I remember that no matter how alone I may feel, for the next 12 weeks, I am literally never alone. Being able to feel him move is definitely the highlight of the pregnancy but still, I look forward to being able to hold him and not being in constant pain and/or discomfort.
Congratulations to all you soon to be moms out there!

Stephanie

Brandon mi angelito

Yo tenia 33 semanas cuando me fui hacer un ultrasonido y todo bien, pero a la semana siguiente comenci con trabajo de parto y cuando llegue me hicieron un ultrasonido y el bebe no tenia vida y posiblemente tenia 4 dias de muerto, pero yo senti que se movi­a , pero dicen los doctores que eran los movimientos de el utero, a los dos meses sali­ de nuevo embarazada y confiando en Dios aqui esta mi angelito ya tiene 8 anos y el vino a dar alegria por esa perdida. Dios les bendiga

Maria

Being Huge

I Hate Being Pregnant
Why The Third Trimester Is The Best Trimester I know all the baby books wax on about how the second trimester is the most amazing, because you're high on estrogen and so horny that you're likely to sexually assault strangers in the street. That your husband can expect a lot of sex at this time and that you're simply a joy to be around. Yes that's what the baby books say.

And perhaps that is the case for many women, but right now I would like to give credence to a group of women for whom the second trimester is not a three month long rave party. Rather, for these women the third trimester is where they finally come into their own, find inner peace and start to truly relax and enjoy their pregnancies.

If you are among this group then you will know just what I mean. Your ankles may be the size of fish tanks and you can't stand upright for more than a few minutes at a time, but you are rewarded with advantages that far outweigh the physical discomfort. Advantages such as these:

1) First and most important of all, you can finally relax and not worry about baby's health, as baby may be born at any time now and have a full chance of survival. No amount of second trimester hornyness can trump that.

2) The regular kicking serves as a constant reminder that your baby is alive. Now you are truly aware of being pregnant, rather than just looking pregnant and feeling fat.

3) You have long given up trying to figure out what portion of your new weight gain is you and what is baby and are most likely just enjoying those deserts and shelving your guilt until after the birth.

4) It does't matter if you've had a heavy meal and feel bloated because you don't look any different than you did before the meal. So there really isn't any point in allowing bloatedness to ruin the rest of your evening, as it might have done previously.

5) Everyone smiles at you and offers congratulations. Random strangers start up conversations and some even confide their life stories. So what if you can't see your feet, you wouldn't want to anyway. The world is smiling at you, smile back!

6) Finally and best of all, there are no expectations of you, you don't even have to lift a finger. Now come on ladies, don't tell me you don't quickly get used to taking cabs everywhere, to being invited to the front of every line and of course to having first dibs on the last empty chair. We all yearn to feel special, and the third trimester finally gives you a taste of how sweet life is when you actually can be special.

The only downside to the third trimester is that it is only three months long. Frankly I wish it would last forever!

In comparison, trimesters one and two are pure hell and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Trimester one is all about the fear of miscarriage, accompanied by what I can only describe as progesterone psychosis. Progesterone being the hormone responsible for PMS that makes you want to chase your husband around the room with a knife. In a nutshell, trimester one is three months of pure, intense and unrelenting PMS. I am certain that women's prisons are filled with perfectly reasonable females whose dead husbands made the fatal mistake of switching on ESPN during that critical and badly misunderstood time. Not only that, but at this time, generally no one but you knows that you're pregnant so you end up going through all this mental torture on your own.

Trimester two doesn't get any better, except of course, for all those women who annoy the rest of us by claiming to have transformed into sex goddesses overnight. You might be feeling less bloodthirsty, but now you find yourself anxiously waiting for the first moment when baby will kick and you won't have to call the doctor day and night to inform them that clearly it's died. It certainly doesn't help to be bombarded by pregnancy propaganda that dictates that you are supposed to feel ecstatic, energetic and sex crazed on account of progesterone being replaced by oodles of estrogen. With a thickening waistline and an imaginary dead baby inside, happy and sexy can be very hard to conjure at this time.

And then finally, after six long months of mental and physical anguish, you graduate to the third trimester. And you are literally blooming. The world smiles at you and a calm descends upon you. You also realize that the world is full of morons because your baby is never safer and you are never happier. No more progesterone psychosis, no more fear for baby's life, but because everyone can see that you're pregnant they decide that now is the time to dish out the special treatment. So my advice to you ladies is to MILK IT. Milk it to make up for trimesters one and two when you really needed the sensitivity of others but it was not forthcoming. Milk it as a reward to yourself and your baby for surviving that cruel first trimester where everything can go wrong yet no one was prepared to give up a seat or let you get away with a soul crushing insult or two. Milk it because it is only three months long and when baby comes you will no longer be entitled to special treatment, downgrading from most important person in the room to social nuisance with noise making brat. Milk it because the third trimester really is the best time of your life!

Car

Pregnant with number 10

I am 37 weeks pregnant with my 10th child. My kids are aged 16, 14, 14, 11, 9, 7, 5, 5 and 3. I first got pregnant when I was 16. When I found out I was pregnant, I was extremely happy because being a mother is all I had ever wanted to be. I immediately left education and I haven't been back since. I married the father of my children when I turned 18, he was my first ever boyfriend and is responsible for getting me pregnant so many times.

I didn't plan on having a large family. I thought that I would only have 3 kids. But I already had 3 kids before I was 20 and at the time, I didn't want anymore. However, my husband knocked me up again. After I gave birth for the third time, I decided to leave the decision of how many children I have up to god. I think that was the right choice because my family is wonderful. I love being pregnant and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Pregnancy is an amazing thing and I am so lucky to be blessed with so many children. While I do love being pregnant, pregnancy does have some negative effects. My massive bump is incredibly annoying, especially when I have several young children to take care off. I have been waddling since week 29, I end up waddling every pregnancy. Walking up and down the stairs while being heavily pregnant is still not something that I'm used to.

I am certainly looking forward to welcoming the new arrival to the family and I don't think this will be the last.

Faith