Happiness Challenge and Things They Don’t Tell You About Being Pregnant.

I completely forgot yesterday that I was supposed to report on my first Happiness Challenge.

For the month of September, I chose to do a daily walk. Where I’d put on my I.Pod and listen to whatever tunes I wanted to, while I walked a good fast pace.

I was moderately successful. On weekdays it was easy for me to do; I usually go to the gym and walk anyway. (Though I should come clean too – the last week of September, when I was in early morning training, I didn’t walk on a daily basis.)

And weekends – well, unless you count the weekend where I walked 22 miles (our backpacking trip) – I wasn’t so successful. Personally, that’s when sleeping in makes me happy, so I wasn’t too upset about it.

But I was right about some physical exertion being a part of my overall happiness, because the few times I did walk, it made me feel REALLY good. Like I was doing something for my physical health and mental outlook.

The next Happiness Challenge is meditation. This one is going to be harder for me; there just are very few times when I’m in a space alone enough to free my mind, even for 10 minutes. As important as I think it is to find balance on a daily basis, I am still on the fence as to whether I can commit to this one.
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In my ongoing commitment to you all where I am completely honest about the pregnancy experience, I wanted to share some things they don’t tell you about pregnancy which kind of suck.

So without further ado, here is my list of The Things They Don’t Tell You About Being Pregnant.

1. One of the first things you want when you get that BFP (well, other than a viable pregnancy with a healthy cute baby at the end, of course) is that cute pregnant belly. I never really gave much thought to how it would FEEL to make one of those, though.

So it completely took me by surprise to find that growing a belly HURTS LIKE A BITCH. Whenever I eat and especially at night, the top of my belly aches, as if I’ve done a thousand situps. It makes me want to arch my back like a cat to stretch out, but doing that hurts more – I guess because everything’s already stretching. And now that I am starting to get an everyday belly, I’m uncomfortable a LOT more than I anticipated. I’m hoping that as I get bigger my muscles will get used to it. Of course, then I have to look forward to stretch marks (my mom has ‘em BAD) and itchy skin. Woo hoo!

2. Sneezing is a VERY.BAD.THING. In the past week, when I’ve sneezed (again, at night) I’ve actually wet my pants. No joke – my friend D coined a term for it. “Snissing.” Gorgeous, no?

I’m fairly certain that I’ll be wearing Dep.ends by week 20 of this pregnancy – and by the end, perhaps full on adult diapers. Because from what I can glean from my fellow pregnant IFers, this is normal, and Ke.gels will not do much to prevent this phenomenon. Fan-FREAKING-tastic.

And while I’m at it, you also need to know this: If I’m not peeing, I feel like I HAVE TO PEE. All the time. Even if I don’t have to go. Chalking this one up to the fact that right now my uterus is still low in my pelvic cavity but it’s a couple ounces heavier than usual. My poor bladder’s got no chance here.

3. I have absolutely lost my sex drive. Ok, yeah, so IF did a number on it to begin with. But I swear – J and I worked hard to make it so that we had a pretty good sex life DESPITE our infertility. Technically though I’m still in the first trimester, I’ve had a pretty damn easy pregnancy thus far. And I STILL can’t manage to even remotely consider having sex with my poor husband. If he leaves me for a stripper or something, I’ve got no one to blame but myself.

4. Sleep. Oh god, I can’t get enough of it. When I’m not sleeping, I’m thinking about when I can next go to sleep. I spurn making plans that begin any later than 7pm just so I can make sure I’m in bed before 10. Every morning I dream about quitting my job so I can spend my days sleeping.

5. Cravings. Ok, I’ll be honest here. I have cravings when I’m NOT pregnant. Many times I’ve told J that instead of the steak dinner he had planned we needed to order pizza. But these wussy pre-pregnancy cravings were NOTHING compared to the monster ones I deal with now.

Pumpernickel bagels with plain cream cheese? I need one RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE OR I’M GOING TO DIE.

Hot dogs with all the fixings? I DON’T CARE THAT WE’RE SUPPOSED TO HAVE CHICKEN TONIGHT, IF I DON’T HAVE A HOT DOG RIGHT NOW THE EARTH WILL SPIN OFF ITS AXIS.

I am at the complete mercy of them, which seem to peak around 4pm in the afternoon. Thankfully, I am at work usually and can just overdose on water until sanity returns (though of course this isn’t great for me either, refer to #2 for more information).

Thank god I don’t work near a grocery store.

6. Constipation. Enough said.

I mean, there’s a lot of cool stuff about being pregnant too. You know, like the fact that we might actually bring home a baby from this. The excitement of shopping for maternity clothes – and actually getting to WEAR ELASTIC WAIST PANTS! (Which by far is the best thing about being pregnant. Elastic waist pants. Pure rapture.) And from what I’ve heard from the pregnant and parenting women on my infertility boards, it’s totally all worth it in the end.

The jury’s still out on that one for me.

And you know, it hit me the other day. Those obnoxiously cute pregnant women in the grocery store rubbing their bellies? You know, the ones where you think “can you freaking leave that thing alone for ONE MINUTE for cripes sake?” The ones where you want to walk up to them and slap them silly for continuing to draw attention to the fact that they’re pregnant (and you’re not)? The ones that I absolutely LOVED to hate when I was trying to get pregnant?

Now I have to wonder if rubbing their belly was nothing more than trying to get the ache to go away. Because they were uncomfortable.

And I’ll bet you anything they pee in their pants when they sneeze too.