I have to say it, "I'm lucky." I've never felt the pain of not being able to conceive, getting pregnant has always been easy. It's been easy to be pregnant too. Yes, I get tired, but there's been nothing out of the ordinary during my pregnancies and I've exercised throughout. And labor has been easy, just eight hours with the first, two and half hours with the second, and I'm expecting the next one to just fly right out (hopefully).
Women that deal with infertility, have complications, and difficult births are admirable. There is a strength that they have that I will never know.
While I may never be able to have true empathy for women that have these struggles that doesn't mean I've got it all together. I've said to people out loud that, "I'm the pregnant woman you hate." But at the end of the day I'm a woman with my own struggles, just like anyone else.
I suffered with postpartum depression with my first child. I didn't really recognize the signs, so not even my closest friends knew what I was going through. Heck, I barely knew what I was going through. I do know that it was a lonely existence. I thought about throwing my child against the wall, and wondered daily, "What have I done? Why did I have this child?"
These days, I feel like a broken record when I mention how tired I am (daily... if not more). I may act like I have it together, but my husband would tell you otherwise. It feels like white noise, like no one hears me. It can feel isolating.
To compound that, being sleep-deprived makes me hateful towards my husband. I resent all the things he doesn't do, and fail to recognize what he does. It's not fair to him, but it's reality. I fight those thoughts constantly when I'm tired or overwhelmed.
I've screamed... then cried... then gotten mad at myself for screaming and crying and for how I dealt with my toddler for not staying in bed (or whatever other minor annoyance that occurred that day). I've also been asked to leave the house after such incidents to just "go for a drive for awhile." On those drives, I'm angry that I've gotten to that point, then grateful that someone is trying to protect me from myself.
In times where I've felt alone, overwhelmed, angry, and frustrated, I've gone to the anonymous mommy forums in an attempt to verify that I'm not crazy for my feelings or methods. Sometimes, I'm just looking for proof that my child is not the most difficult human on the planet. Sometimes I find what I'm looking for (YAY! Validation!), other times not (dang my child really is the worst).
There are times that I wonder how we're going to figure everything out financially. Having young kids is expensive y'all! Some months I'm a champ and other times life gets in the way. I make plans to save, then something inevitably comes up. The best laid plans right? I'm proud to say that we didn't add any debt last year (it was touch and go there for awhile) but we didn't really decrease it either... Success?
There are some things that come easy. There are some things I try to make look easy. There are other things that I completely fail at. Just like every other person out there, I keep trying to put one foot in front of the other, and hope that I'm doing enough.
I may be the pregnant woman you hate, but I'm really just another woman with a story of life's ups and downs trying to make the best of everything that comes. I mean... aren't we all?