One of the most joyful times in a woman’s life is when she is blessed with pregnancy. It’s a time to bloom and be waited on. It’s a time to feel at peace with femininity and fertility. It’s a time of tranquility before the chaos. It’s also a time of discovery: beautiful, horrific discovery, about what the human body can do.
Most women get excited about pregnancy. The neat bump and the glow the magazines tell you about. They get excited about the little quirks, such as the bigger bra size for a few months before the baby is born. Most women didn’t know that pregnancy is one of the causes of varicose veins. They don’t know that there may be a mask of brown across their faces. They also don’t know that there may be a permanent brown line snaking its way up the bump – a line that doesn’t go away. Pregnancy is filled with surprises, and not all of them will involve the baby. So, let’s take a look at six things that you wish you knew about pregnancy before it happened!
- Did you know that pregnancy will make you a little furry? It’s not just a few extra hairs on your body, but a full on furry peach fuzz across your bump and – in some cases – your face. It’s one of those quirks no one likes to mention among the bigger breasts and the hormone shifts!
- If you ever wanted a time in your life to have thick, glossy, beautiful hair, pregnancy is the time to do it. Your hair stops falling out during pregnancy and it becomes thick and lustrous. The problem is that people won’t tell you that for three months after birth you’ll have all that excess dead hair fall out. And though it will feel shocking, you won’t resemble Gollum – it’ll just feel like it!
- Remember we talked about that mask of brown across the face? It’s called melasma and it’s patches of darkening skin on the face as a result of hormones. It’s one pregnancy mask that most neither want nor know about!
- Water retention is normal throughout pregnancy, you’ll hold more than you think. However, you won’t have accounted for the lower leg swelling and sausage toes. Even if you did know that this was going to happen, you don’t plan for the sheer size of them! Keep your feet up and elevated to drain it and stay hydrated.
- Your breasts will be large and in charge throughout pregnancy as the tissue swells to start milk and colostrum production. They’re a common sign of pregnancy and they don’t always go down after birth, either. Embrace your mammaries, mama.
- Your bump will either be big or small, but you’ll still worry about whether it’s the “right” size. You’ll also have an inordinate amount of people wanting to touch your bump, which is just not okay! Don’t bite their hands, but do ask politely for people to back off if they don’t want to lose it!