Things Nobody Tells You About Pregnancy: Second Trimester

[amileegirl]

How Are You Feeling?

This isn't like a friendly, "how are you?"  It is a phrase that is loaded with the implications that either you MUST be feeling absolutely horrid and they want to hear all the gorey details so they can one-up you or tell you how it is only going to get worse. so enjoy your mild misery while it lasts;   Or, if you are feeling healthy, happy, and wonderful the implication is that something must be wrong with you for behaving so abnormally.      Don't get me wrong.  I've got complaints, but nothing that isn't easily managed with a little attention.  For example, I over ate one day not realizing just how much my organs had shifted.   I felt like I had swallowed a boulder and my husband stared wide eyed at the gas balloon that was my belly.   Hey, lesson learned.

People Want You to Be Miserable

They want to know how uncomfortable you are.     I'm going to be pregnant in the summer.   The summer is hot, I tend to like the heat.    I realize that I will probably be less heat tolerant because of the increase in my blood volume, but good grief!    Why do people insist on saying, "You are going to be so miserable when it gets hot!"     Why thankyouverymuch Miss Molly Sunshine for giving me such a useful peice of information!    You could have suggested cold cloths on my neck for an easy economical way to keep my head cool on an overly hot day.   You might have been excited to tell me about homemade popcicles for devouring on a blue skied summer day.   You could have even suggested putting my feet in a basic of cool water while I lounged in my yard.   Nope, it was more productive to rub your hands with glee and twirl your moustache.

Prunes Aren't Just For Old People

Digestion goes in reverse apparantly.  I'm not talking about the incessent farting and burping of the first trimester that can clear any room for at least an hour.    I am talking about the shifting of the digestive process so that the food processes so slowly that you wonder if you are going to be pooping for an entire morning just to clear the plumbing.     The problem is that it is much like constipation, and you really feel constipated but part of it is just things move so sloooowwwllly.       I've come to make friends with prunes and prune juice (even though I really don't care for the taste)  for those times when things seem like they are going to reach a critical level -- because let's face it, who wants to risk getting a hemmoroid?      I'm beginning to adapt to the new routine, though I really do miss the familiar regularity.

The World Is Your Drug Pusher

Honestly, what is it with people and medication?    If you get a headache someone wants to break out the pill bottle instead of just letting you sleep.    If you have some minor digestive problems they line up with the stool softeners, enemas, and suppositories.        People seem to look horrified when you tell them that prenatal vitamins make you naseus and you instead take only essential vitamins separately if you can't seem to get enough from the copious amounts of fruits and veggies you consume.      Your nose runs and you have a little sneezing fit from pollen and they want to run for the nasal spray.    ARRRGH!   

Baby Moves In Mysterious Ways

The description of quickening was woefully inadequate and really failed to capture the sensation.   The first time I felt something "odd" was when I was 17 weeks along and lying quite relaxed on my back and it felt like someone was running the rubber eraser of a pencil slowly across my lower belly from the inside.   It was a feeling somewhere between a tickle, a muscle spasm, and an itch.    The next sort of feeling was much more like "butterflies" in the stomach only lower.  Quite surprising!    After that there was soon a sensation  that was a lot more like a mild finger flick...delicate and fleeting.   At 20 weeks the flicks became pokes that were very near ticklish -- rather like big round bubbles--and at 21 weeks they were stronger and could be felt from the outside.      The most disconcerting type of kick at 22 weeks is the type that is extremely low and feels like it is hitting the urethra.  Not so much painful as unpleasantly weird as if the urethra were swollen and pulsing.   You can really mistake it for the pricklings of a UTI,

Peeing is Oh So Unsatisfying

I don't really mind the frequent peeing so much except for the middle of the night because our bedroom is on the second floor and the bathroom is on the first.    This isn't anything new though, since I often got up for a midnight potty prior to pregnancy anyway.    What really annoys me is how unsatisfying a peeing session is.    No more the wonderful long pees leaving you feelign emptied and raring to go.   Now it is a subpar pee that often doesn't have the power to keep from dribbling all over your lady bits and across the buttocks and thighs necessitating a need to wipe twice as long to be sure all the rivulets have been found.    And after all that, you don't feel that wonderful sensation of emptiness.

Swamp Crotch Lives

Need I say more?

 

[SxdUpAngel]

May. 13, 2009 at 1:20 PM

1- Hilarious, of course.

2- My favorite part was reading you describing the baby move.  ALG, I got teary-eyed because I was imagining you (my mental you, I guess, lol) experiencing it and how wonderful that must be for you.  :* ) 

3- Yes, Swamp Crotch lives while my libido has ran for the hills.  People TOLD me that each pregnancy was different, that my libido would change through out pregnancy.  I just shrugged it off because with Kiddo it was AWESOME.  Now?  Sex?  Pft.  Chocolate?  ::orgasmic moan:: 

[MSugarKane]

May. 13, 2009 at 1:31 PM

I loved being pregnant. I miss being pregnant.  I can't have children anymore, tooooo old for that, but I don't remember complaining ever in my second trimester, those were always the 'fun' months I would say.  

[RanaAurora]

May. 13, 2009 at 2:09 PM

Heehee.

Your movement was definitely interesting!  This time around for me, it was not so neat.  It consisted of, "Was that gas?" and eventually, "Okay, nope, that wasn't gas.  That was the baby."

[lachryma]

May. 25, 2009 at 10:27 AM

gawd I used to hate that ... "how are you feeling"?  it's like when you're pregnant, that's all you are. the pregnant girl. no "how are your studies going" or "how's work", just "how are you feeling". to this day i avoid asking pregnant people this question and just try to ask about everyday details.