Thoughts on Pregnancy

I’m branching out a bit today, starting a new series or something akin to one that is a bit outside my usual of food and Italy. Of course, I spent all of my pregnancy in Italy so it will eventually tie in. Being currently under lockdown with a newborn as the second wave of Covid-19 rocks Italy, these thoughts and musings are starting to want to come out. While writing used to be the school task I abhorred, ironically I now find it enjoyable and even therapeutic when I write of my own initiative. Mostly these thoughts of late have to do with pregnancy, birth, and babies.

Those are pretty significant things in a person’s life, and there’s a reason why women love sharing their birth stories and reading them, especially when pregnant the first time (not just me reading them like they’re going out of style, right?). It’s a miracle of life, it’s natural, and well, life changing. So while some upcoming posts might focus on these subjects, I think it’s also important to note that this might not be an easy subject for everyone, and if you don’t want to read any further, well, you’re not missing out on much. I don’t take lightly my smooth pregnancy and healthy baby. A woman is whole and worthy, children or not. I want you to know that, as some of these posts may unabashedly proclaim how CRAZY COOL pregnancy and birth and babies are. And while it can be an instant connection between women, I also realize that not everyone can relate, and that’s not always by choice. I see you. I hear you. If you’re a mom reading this, you’re beloved. If you’re not a mom reading this, you’re beloved. That’s all.

Yes, pregnancy, birth, and babies are big life things. Huge, actually. I’ve only been pregnant once, given birth once, and only have one baby. Which makes me an expert and I’ll be sure to share with you all the tips and tricks. Just kidding. As you can see, my resume does not make me an expert in the field, I’m still green. A very green field. But I did experience these things in Italy, which is not my home country, culture, or language. During a world pandemic. With no family around except my husband, and moving apartments/cities. So as usual, the stories and observances just may help someone, or at the very least, provide some entertaining reading.

What follows is purely my experience and musings. That might be obvious, but if you’ve seen the interwebs and how people act on them of late, you’ll understand that it’s necessary, even on the silliest of posts, to have some kind of disclaimer.

Being pregnant wasn’t as hard as I was expecting

Maybe this was partly the cultural narrative I saw so much, and partly our age of “bringing awareness” and “normalizing” certain things, which is OK and good most of the time. But when I’m looking at our cultural depiction of pregnancy and seeing all these women being “real” on social media about their pregnancies, birth, postpartum, and parenting, I began to get the idea that pregnancy was going to be this constant battle of symptoms and misery. Then the opposite turned out to be true. Don’t get me wrong, you’re growing another child, it’s not a walk in the park. It’s fascinating just how different each woman and each pregnancy can be.

Lightning crotch? Baby bouncing on the bladder? Stretch marks? Mood swings? Lower back pain? What are those? I think I really did have a relatively easy pregnancy, with much grace from the Lord helping me get through not only the physical aspects of carrying a child, but the mental stress of 2020. I did have my share of symptoms, just maybe not the worst, or all of them together. Of course nausea, headaches, (but Tylenol often worked which is a miracle), fatigue, third trimester insomnia, and significant edema (fluid retention; third trimester during a hot Florentine summer with no AC will do that).

Then there were the fun parts of pregnancy! I enjoyed how amazing food tasted all the time, the kindness strangers bestowed, everyone always guessing boy or girl once they discovered we chose not to find out, the baby movements! The superhuman smell could go both ways. I loved walking down the street narrating what people were making for lunch inside their apartments. “Oh someone is frying onions and garlic in butter…ope, they just added some red bell peppers…” … “oh that smells like a wonderful tomato sauce, I want their recipe!” … “do you think that house would pity a hungry pregnant woman and invite her in for a roast chicken lunch??” Anything anyone else was eating, that’s what I then craved. On the other hand, all the unsavory smells were also amplified, and everything in between. One evening I asked my husband if he smelled smoke, as if something was burning. He didn’t. We were inside the apartment with all windows closed. The next day we were walking and about a quarter mile from our apartment there was a small spot where something had burned near the trash bins. I turned to my husband, “HA see?!” Something did burn, haha!

I didn’t turn into a whale

I don’t know why, but I completely expected to turn into a whale, and I was ok with that, if that meant baby was growing and healthy! Neither the bump nor weight gain reached my imagination’s expectation. I also think that I was expecting a bump that was worthy of a triplet pregnancy. Not complaining! Although my Italian midwife certainly made me feel like I was nearing elephant status, but the edema as previously mentioned did get me. By August my feet looked like clubs and I had lost all sight of any once prominent veins. And a puffy face. It happened gradually enough it didn’t particularly bother me, and even if it had, it’s well worth it!

It’s amazing how 9 months was the perfect amount of time to get used to the idea of having a baby

9 months is so long. It’s the better part of a year! And yet, 9 months is so short. Am I prepared to be a parent?? Longing and dreading the end of the 9 months. It’s amazing how those 40ish weeks are exactly the time I needed for it to sink in, that I was going to be mommy and there is no looking back from parenthood. Well, at least to get to that point where you’re as mentally prepared as you can be without it actually happening, ya know? God knew what He was doing when He made it 9 months!

A whole new wardrobe wasn’t needed

Naturally, as I had expected to turn into a glowing whale, I also expected to need a whole new wardrobe. While this might be some women’s dream (the wardrobe not the whale part), this thought only served to stress me out. I have to spend how much money on clothes that I’ll only wear a few months?? (I realize there could be future pregnancies, but what if the third trimester doesn’t fall in the summer again?) However, I was pleasantly surprised that some clothes in my closet fit the whole pregnancy! It helps that I wear a lot of flowy dresses and skirts and several of them have some choice pieces of elastic that apparently work great for expanding waistlines. I should keep those in mind for Thanksgiving…

Not finding out the gender of our baby was a lot harder than I expected

No, not because the suspense was killing me, I was actually completely at terms with not knowing, but because it’s so hard to find cute neutral colors for anything baby! I kept finding myself wishing I knew because gosh, there’s really cute boy clothes and really cute girl clothes, but I can’t get any of them until after baby is born, but we need to be prepared! While gray is nice to offset some of the pink and blue tones, it’s a bit of bummer when all you can find is gray and white. Green is such a nice color. Why don’t they make more green?? Even trying to find a baby comb. Pink or blue? Uh. Where’s your gray? Haha. I managed to find a mint green one hidden in the back. Italy, at least Florence, has a poor selection of baby stores and what it does have, are high prices. I really missed the ease of American shopping in these times. Even Amazon Italy didn’t have much. Add on top of that the seemingly interrupted supply chains, after adding something to my baby list it would become unavailable within a week, or the price would jump all around dramatically. No thanks, I don’t want to pay €15 for a small bottle of baby shampoo.

All of the non-scientific ways to guess baby’s gender are highly enjoyable

Oh yeah, I tried all the tricks and read all the old midwives’ tales, just for fun.

According to the Chinese Gender Predictor, I was having a girl
The ring test predicted girl
By the way I carried and the shape of my bump, boy, as many strangers enjoyed informing me!
Nausea only in the first trimester, boy, although some say no nausea means boy, so I guess that could go either way. But with people I know, the former was true, so I went with boy on this one!
I wanted more salty things and wasn’t as sweets crazy as I normally am, seeming to indicate boy
Heartbeat, my mom’s favorite “fun” indicator. Baby’s heartbeat hovered between 145-155 usually, stubbornly in the middle, although slightly hovering towards girl.
The pregnancy “glow.” My acne actually went away while pregnant, yay! Which would mean boy, as they give you the glow, and baby girls supposedly steal your beauty. On the other hand, my Tunisian sister-in-law said the opposite, I was “even prettier” (Aw gee) and therefore I was having a girl.

What did I think I was having? A boy. My husband thought so, too. As did 95% of Italians whom I had interactions with or were simply passing me on the street. I thought I was having a boy because, besides instinct, I was craving not just salty things but heavy “man” food I don’t normally even like, think hamburgers and French fries and just MEAT in general. I normally could easily survive as a vegetarian. Beyond that, the morning sickness seemed a successful indicator for several people I know, besides swelling I mostly had a basketball out front, and a ahem, fuzzy belly. It looked like I had the linea nigra from afar but really it was just a line of fine hair! I only discovered that I did in fact have a faint linea nigra after I gave birth.

Ah, pregnancy can be a funny thing!

And there you go, a bunch of information you didn’t need to know! In the works, what it’s like being pregnant and having a baby in Italy!

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