When I was pregnant with my son, I remember coming across an instagram post, written by a woman who had been discriminated against by her employer because she was pregnant. In the picture, she was holding a letter board that read, “pregnancy is not a disability.” She went on to talk about how, 8.5 months into her pregnancy, she could still do absolutely everything she did before she got pregnant, with the same degree of vigor and effectiveness. She talked about how employers shouldn’t see her as less capable when, in fact, she was even more capable of being successful at work than her non-pregnant peers.
Firstly, I want to say that this woman is absolutely correct on one point: discrimination against pregnant women is a travesty, and something that will ultimately only ever hurt employers, and our society as a whole. But I also remember reading this and thinking to myself, “yikes! If that’s true, then what the heck is wrong with me?” Because if I’m being real, pregnant me can’t do work, or even life, just as well as non-pregnant me. In fact, pregnant me does most things much, much worse.
I have always been a pretty competitive, high-strung, and perfectionist-leaning person by nature. I think that these traits have served me well in some ways (in school, for instance), and not in others (those aren’t always the first things we look for in a friend). When I (finally) got pregnant with my first, I quickly convinced myself that I would be successful at both pregnancy and motherhood, even if it was through sheer force of will.
I found out I was pregnant with my daughter in late May of 2016. I was in the final semester of my Master’s program, and was planning on spending the summer working essentially one-on-one with my boss as part of my field work requirement. At the end of the summer, when I finally felt comfortable sharing my pregnancy with the world, I “surprised” my boss, and my summer co-workers, with the news. They all responded with some version of, “we knew.”
While I truly believe that all of these people care about me, and have my best-interests at heart, this response stung a little. I was the kind of person who could push through anything. Even if I couldn’t hide the fact that I was eating plain toast for lunch every day, I could hide the bouts of extreme nausea, wear enough makeup to conceal the dark circles under my eyes, and sneak away to the bathroom whenever I felt a like I was going to faint. But, according to everyone around me, it was obvious that I wasn’t my “normal,” self. I was slower, and more forgetful, and much less efficient with my work. Yet despite this “setback,” I powered through the remainder of that year, and left for maternity leave with a glowingly positive performance review.
When I was pregnant with my second, I realized that the pregnancy I had had with my daughter was a walk in the park. The second time around, I spent less of my first trimester on summer vacation, and more of it running out of class at odd intervals in order to puke in the trash can outside my door. The cherry on top was that the pregnancy was also high-risk, and the emotional toll it took on me was almost as stressful as the physical one. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I was disabled, but I definitely was not the employee, mom, spouse, or friend that I wanted to be. The second time around, the reviews weren’t quite as positive, and I’m pretty sure my co-workers were ready for me to be done having babies.
I’m not saying any of this to garner pity from anyone. In fact, you shouldn’t pity me at all. I desperately wanted to have children and, despite the challenges I faced, I had a much easier time than a lot of women (including a lot of women I know) do. What I’m trying to say is that I found it impossible for pregnant me to live up to non-pregnant me’s standards. And while part of that involved coming to terms with the fact that I would not be able to give the same level of energy and attention to my job as I did when I was not pregnant, this also applied to other areas of my life.
This pregnancy (my third) has been different for me in a lot of ways, but the number one difference is that I’m not working. I am a full-time mom, who has the luxury of sleeping in until 6:30am (that’s a full hour and a half later than my work-day wakeup time), and playing with my adorable kiddos all day.
When I found out I was pregnant this past summer, I knew that it would probably be sick and tired again, but that it would be so much easier because I was home.
SPOILER ALERT: It wasn’t.
While I spent two pregnancies coming to terms with my perceived inadequacy as a pregnant woman at work, I now faced another 9 months of coming to terms with my inadequacy as a pregnant stay-at-home mom. For the first 13.5 weeks of this pregnancy (and yes, I count every day), I was pretty miserable. This time around, I wasn’t quite as sick as I was with my second, but I was nauseous all day and all night. I could stomach nothing but carbs, and I was totally exhausted. I experienced a few of the near-fainting spells that also plagued me during my previous pregnancy, and my moods were far from “stable.”
But this time around, as I lay on my son’s bedroom floor, cradling a sleeve of saltine crackers and wincing as my kids played “doctor” to me (this always involves a disproportionate amount of time spent investigating the health of my eardrums…) I realized that while I no longer felt like I was disappointing my students, or their families, or my colleagues, I did feel like I was disappointing my own kids, and myself. And honestly, this felt a little worse.
For some reason, my head kept going back to that original instagram post, and I kept berating myself for all the things not-pregnant me would have been doing, that pregnant me was too “lazy” (read: sick and tired) to even dream of accomplishing. I wasn’t meal prepping, or planning art projects and homeschool activities for my daughter. I wasn’t taking the kids on hikes, or to the beach as much as I should have. And I didn’t want to see my friends, or my kids’ friends, because I didn’t have the energy to hold down a conversation.
There was also the vain component of it all, wherein I felt like I was letting myself and my body down, since I have gained well beyond the suggested “5 pounds” of first trimester weight, largely thanks to my steady diet of crackers, mac and cheese, and ice cream.
One evening, as I was watching my daughter shriek the lyrics to the Frozen II soundtrack while wallowing in nausea and self-pity, I decided that I was sick and tired of allowing myself to feel feelings that I would never in a million years wish upon my own kids. I imagined my daughter, years from now, starting a family of her own, and complaining to me about how she felt less-than, and overwhelmed by the idea of “doing it all.” I imagined what I would tell her, and a quote that my therapist once told me came quickly to mind: “Your value is not determined by what you do. You are inherently valuable outside of your work.”
While there are some women who thrive in pregnancy, there are even more who don’t, and that doesn’t make one group of us better than the other. Just because I have floundered during the first trimesters of all three of my pregnancies, that does not make current me any less-than the past, much more productive versions of myself.
There’s a book that I love to read to my daughter, called I Like Myself by Karen Beaumont, and it’s all about a little girl repeatedly affirming her unconditional love for herself, weird bits and all. At one point in the book, the little girl says, “Even when I look a mess, I still don’t like me any less, ’cause nothing in this world you know, can change what’s deep inside, and so…”
I truly believe that sometimes these kid’s books are put in my life for a reason, and are meant more as a reminder for me, than a lesson for my daughter, because this little girl’s insistence on unconditional self-love is exactly what I need in my life right now.
Even though my clothes don’t fit, and my house is a mess, and we’re having frozen pizza for dinner again, I am still valuable, and worthy, and a good mom. And as I emerge from the fog of this (hopefully) last, first trimester, I hope to continue to remind myself every day that the best I do that day, is good enough, and that even if I feel like I’ve failed at basically everything, the only thing that really matters is that I let it go, and continue to speak to myself with the love and understanding I always deserve.