So you're thinking about getting pregnant...
Writing this because hormones are evil, biology doesn’t care about you, and I want an objective record of the pros and cons of this in case I ever think about trying it again!
If you’re a human with hormones, at some point in your life you may find yourself wanting babies, which may also lead to you wanting to get pregnant. One thing you have to remember here is that your body and biology don’t give a shit about you! They are just trying to repopulate! So if you’re thinking about getting pregnant, and you care about you, read this first so you know what you’re getting yourself into (speaking to my future self here)! Also good reading/warning for partners of people who want to get pregnant.
Writing this on pregnancy day 115 at 6am because that’s when my body wakes up now (I used to wake up at 9am; consider yourselves warned). Still have a whopping 164 days to go but I wanted to start making this list of the pros and cons of pregnancy now so my traitorous hormones don’t brainwash me into forgetting all the bad stuff because I’m starting to forget already and I don’t want to! I need to be able to make an informed decision if I ever want to do this again.
I’m going to preface this by saying that these are just my experiences, every pregnancy is different of course (seems to be random roulette whether you have a good or bad experience though I feel like the good ones are possibly over represented on social media). I would consider my pregnancy to be an average pregnancy; there are people who have it a lot worse than me, and some annoying unicorn people who have it better 🦄 So just take the stuff below as like a minimum baseline and be warned!
I knew going in that pregnancy would be difficult, but it’s been more difficult and difficult in different ways than how I expected from what I’ve read in the media/online, and what people have told me. Why? Because society and biology just want you to have babies! That said, I don’t regret getting pregnant, I’m very grateful to have been able to get pregnant, I still want a baby (traitorous hormones!) and, until they make some more progress with artificial wombs (I’ve been googling), this is my best option for that. Still, it would’ve been nice to have a more objective voice to inform me about it going in. So that is the motivation for this post (also to decide if it’s worth going through it again).
So, here you have the pros and cons of pregnancy as of day 115:
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| You get amazing boobs | They’re painful, heavy, and annoying (especially at night) |
| Your partner treats you like a queen. If they don’t, they’re doing it wrong! | You achieve absolutely nothing except to survive for all of first trimester (~95 days!). Your partner will achieve nothing except to keep you alive for all of first trimester (~95 days!). Second trimester is only marginally better than first. That burst of energy they promise you is a lie! It still sucks, you’re only slightly less incapacitated than before and growing increasing more incapacitated as you approach third trimester. This goes on for ~280 DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
| You save money on alcohol🤷♀️ | You can’t drink alcohol (or take painkillers!), and for the alcohol doctors will tell you that you have to stop as soon as you start trying to get pregnant and trying to get pregnant can take a long time (there’s only actually 5 days a month it’s even possible, and even then the odds are like 30% at best–another thing they don’t tell you in school!) So you will be giving up fun cocktails for much longer than you might have anticipated. Mocktails are a fairly good substitute (still not the same though) and few places have the same selection of mocktails as cocktails. |
| You get to be excited about having a baby | Your brain will be consumed with thoughts about (a) if there is a baby (when you’re trying), and then (b) if the baby is still alive/okay (while you’re pregnant)–especially in first trimester and when you can’t feel anything! Also, all symptoms of pregnancy are also symptoms of not being pregnant/your period coming. Thanks biology. |
| You get an excuse to buy new clothes for yourself and adorable baby clothes for the baby! | All of your money will be sucked away by pregnancy/baby stuff |
| You get to do ~ self care ~ | You have to do self care! You are responsible for another human life! That means you have to actually (1) Remember to take your vitamins (and there are so many of them), (2) Remember to drink water (so much more than normal), and (3) Remember to eat (so often, like every 3 hours or you throw up!) and you have to try to eat well, even though it makes you sick, and the only things that don’t make you sick have no nutritional value! (What’s going on there biology????) |
| You will become a ~ morning person ~ | You don’t want to become a morning person! Mornings suck! You’re tired! You haven’t had a satisfying minimum 12 hour long sleep (that’s how long it takes to be well rested now) and you never will because your traitorous body is constantly needing to pee and eat at ungodly hours of the morning! This only gets worse as the pregnancy progresses! Including during second trimester! Also, you can’t go out at night anymore because you fall asleep! |
| You get to experience ~ the miracle of life ~ | You will be objectified. In the eyes of many (doctors) you are not a person anymore but a walking womb. Everything everyone tells you to do is for the baby. It’s super annoying! And your body is the worst of all of them! It’s not working for you anymore, everything it does too is for the baby so it will steal all your calcium for the baby, it steals your oxygen for the baby, all your energy is gone, stolen for the baby. Pregnancy must be great if you’re the baby! If not it’s just highway robbery! Bring on the artificial wombs! |
| Parental leave / temporary break from your job | Constant thinking about when you will ever get the time to do all the work that you’re not able to do right now. Also missing out on travel and (for academia) conferences because you can’t go anywhere because you’re pregnant and have a million doctors appointments plus you just want to sleep |
| No periods for nine months! | Mega period post partum. Google post-partum pads 😬 |
| You get a baby! | You have to look after a baby. |