A taste of pregnancy

This was just my personal experience. Every pregnancy is different.

Throughout my pregnancy, I couldn’t tolerate milk, juice, lentils, most vegetables, or anything remotely flavorful. Spicy food was completely off the table. Most days, I lived on unsalted crackers. In the beginning, I went through a cheese obsession; it was the only thing I could stomach. But that faded quickly, and now even the thought of cheese makes me nauseous. I’ve never liked seafood, especially sushi, but during pregnancy, I craved shrimp and avocado rolls. Then came the salad with chipotle ranch.

During my pregnancy, I dealt with brain fog that led to writer’s block. Most days, I would just stare at the empty screen and manage to jot down only a few sentences. At times, I couldn’t even sit upright, so I would prop my laptop on my stomach and write while lying down.

Doing any kind of physical work was hard. I would get tired just from climbing the stairs. All I wanted to do was lie down and sleep.

The first trimester was awful for me. I couldn’t eat or drink anything, and I was in a constant state of nausea. Even getting up made me feel dizzy. I had to take medication just to keep food down.

The second trimester was better than the first. I could eat without medication, but my options were still limited to crackers and cereal. I couldn’t stand pizza or anything with tomato sauce, and the heartburn that came after was horrible.

During the second trimester, my voice started to change. I sounded congested, but I didn’t think much of it. I hoped it would go away after the baby was born, but it didn’t. Four months after giving birth, I went to get it checked and found out that my vocal cords had been damaged by all the reflux I’d been having.

The beginning of the third trimester was okay, but the end was very tiring. I felt good for only a few days, and during that time, I helped my dad build a wooden deck in his backyard.

The 40th week was awful. I couldn’t stand the back pain, ankle pain, and stomach pain. All I wanted to do was sleep. Even getting myself water at night felt like a mission.

The labor pain started at night. It felt like period cramps multiplied by a hundred; like someone was slowly stabbing a knife into my stomach, cutting through my insides, and then pulling it back out. I got the epidural, and after that my legs and stomach went numb. They put in a catheter, and I didn’t feel anything below the waist. I mostly dozed on and off, but I couldn’t stay asleep. It felt like my brain was wired to stay awake. Maybe I was scared. Maybe I was nervous. Maybe I was just too tired to sleep.

Labor lasted around sixteen hours. The nurses came and went, and during that time I couldn’t eat anything. I was throwing up bile, which was not a good experience at all. Around 2 p.m., I started pushing, and by 4 p.m. I gave birth. The pushing was hectic too. I couldn’t breathe properly, so they had to give me oxygen.

But as soon as I held my baby, every struggle, every doubt, and every kind of pain disappeared. Holding him made me feel alive, like I finally had a reason to love and keep going. It was the best feeling ever, even though he tore through me and I had to get stitches.

All the pain I went through felt like a blessing when I saw my son for the first time.