Things Not to Say to a Pregnant Woman

When you are pregnant you experience a number of side effects, one of which is the sudden need everyone around you has to offer their input. Well meaning comments and questions can come across as quite personal and sometimes even rude! Please for the love of God, do not say any of the following to any pregnant women...ever...

Don't ask her if the pregnancy was planned
This is just such a rude thing to ask someone! It doesn't really matter how the pregnancy came about and it's really not anyone's business outside of the people that made the baby. Keep to 'congratulations' when someone shares their good news. 

Don't say it's 'about time'
Again, it's only the business of those involved in making the baby. You don't know what someone has gone through to get pregnant or their reasons for waiting until later. It's a very personal thing and it's not a matter of 'keeping people waiting'.

Don't share your birth horror stories
She knows the end game, she knows how the baby needs to come out. She does not need you scaring her with tales of your horrific birth experience, or how your friend did something really embarrassing during labour. Unless she specifically requests the gory details, please don't share.

Don't tell her she looks huge
Under any other circumstances you wouldn't tell someone that they look huge, so why think it's any different just because they are pregnant? Towards the end of my pregnancy I felt like Violet Beauregarde from Willy Wonka. I did not need this pointing out to me in any way. Even if you think she looks huge, do her a favour and don't say it out loud. Just tell her she looks great and make her feel a bit better, even if she knows you're saying it to be nice. And definitely don't ask her if she is sure it's not twins.

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Don't tell her she looks small
Whilst we are talking about judging her on her size, don't imply that she is not having a healthy pregnancy because she's small. Every pregnancy is different, every woman is different and not everyone looks the same when pregnant. If there are any concerns about her or the baby, that is between her and her Midwife, it's not your place to judge.

Don't pass judgement on her choice of baby name
If she shares her baby name choice (or choices) with you, do not air your views on that name. She really does not want to hear that you knew someone with the same name once who was a complete dick. She doesn't want to hear what you think the other kids will call them in the playground. Her and her partner have chosen that name for their own reasons and even if it's not to your taste, it is to hers.

Don't ask her how she is going to feed her baby
Unless she has offered the information herself, don't ask her whether she is going to breast feed or formula feed. There is enough pressure on women regarding this and again it is not really your place to ask. Why do you need to know how she is going to feed her baby?

Don't question her if she has a coffee, or give your opinion on what she is eating/drinking in general
Most pregnant women have scrutinised all of the advice regarding what they can and can't eat or drink and she will be making informed decisions. I had the odd coffee later on in my pregnancy and it was well within NHS guidelines for caffeine consumption, other people choose to not have any caffeine. I read a terrible story on social media recently where a barista queried a pregnant woman's order and said 'do you mean decaf?' and when the woman said no, gave her decaf anyway! It's not up to you to police what a pregnant woman eats or drinks.

Don't tell her to 'sleep while she can'
The last time I checked, you can't bank sleep. If you could I would be still in credit from my teenage years. And also it's not really headline news for anyone that newborns don't sleep through the night, the parents to be already know it.

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Don't ask her if there is 'any news' as her due date approaches
I went two weeks over my due date and by the time I reached that stage I wanted to kill most people, especially the ones that asked me if there was 'any news'. And definitely don't express that you feel impatient or suggest she is 'keeping you waiting'. At the end of a pregnancy you are tired, nervous and excited and you are desperate to get the baby out and at the same time you want the baby to stay in forever. The last thing you need is being asked if the baby has arrived, people will know when they know.

What comments drove you mad when you were pregnant?

Stop Comparing Yourself

You're tired and you've had a long day, you can't remember when you last had a shower and your top is covered in a variety of suspicious stains. You have finally got your baby to sleep and you sit down with your first hot cuppa of the day. You idly pick up your phone and open up Facebook/Intagram and there they are...the perfect mums. Their clothes are stain free and super stylish, their homes are dust free and everything is white, their hair is perfectly blow dried, their nails are perfectly manicured and their children are angels. And there it is, the feeling of failure.

How the hell do they do it? Why am I not like that? Am I failing as a parent?

It's easy for the creeping doubt to overshadow reality when you are feeling tired and vulnerable. You lose perspective of what social media is and what it represents. We all share our 'best bits', the happy moments, the highlight reel. I share lovely pictures of my daughter laughing, playing, being cute. I do not share the giant poos that result in me having to cut her out of her vest, I do not share the teething screams that can't be soothed, I do not share the tired days when I genuinely think 'I can't do this'.

Being a parent is wonderful but it is hard bloody work. It's 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and there isn't really such thing a day off. Even when you are not with them, you are still with them. Once you are a parent there is no off switch. The real day to day can be really tough at times, and it's important to know that it is ok that it's sometimes hard.

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Please don't forget that when you look at social media, even in your vulnerable moments that what you are seeing is someone's best and comparing it with your worst. Nobody's life is perfect, so don't hold yourself up to those impossible standards. We all have off days, we all have days when we are so tired that we think we can't possibly take much more, we all have days when we want to hide in cupboard and cry. That doesn't make you a bad parent, it makes you human.

Another negative side effect from the social media comparing is that it can make us judge others unfairly. We can be resentful of the people we hold up as 'perfect' and that insecurity can lead to us tearing them down, which isn't fair. It's better to be happy for someone and lift them up and it's easier to do that if we become more secure in ourselves.

Do not be apologetic either. I am so guilty of jumping to criticise myself through fear that someone else will do it before me. I post pictures with captions apologising for my messy hair, or a spot or how tired I look. We need to not apologise and be OK with not being 'perfect', not just for our own self esteem but for others. The more we are happy in who we are, the more we can help others to feel the same.

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At the end of the day we are all trying to do the best that we can for our children and our family units. And it's true what they say, comparison is the thief of joy.

Finding out I was Pregnant

Original post from Leopard Print Specs

I always imagined that the day I found out that I was pregnant I would have an explosion of emotions and it would play out like a scene from a TV show or film. I'm a ridiculously emotional person and always have been (my Mum still hasn't lifted the ban she put on me watching Watership Down despite me now being 32). So you can imagine the amount of ugly happy crying I expected to do on the day I had such huge news.

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Me and my Pregnant Body

Original post from Leopard Print Specs

Since being pregnant I have experienced a whole range of symptoms and side effects. There was the relentless morning sickness of my first trimester that started at around week six, and felt like it was never going to end (whoever called it morning sickness is a total dick by the way, I had it morning, noon and night). There has been the aching and forever growing boob situation (both painful and costly). Oh and let's not forget the raging hormones that left me sobbing watching an episode of 'The Golden Girls' (the one where they give a lottery winto a homeless shelter).

These are all expected and run of the mill for pregnancy and appear on most lists that guide you through the craziness of growing a baby. However, I have experienced something else of late that has been a rarity during my adult life. I've started to realise that my body is fucking amazing, and I don't really give one about how other people see it. I totally love my massive belly. Me, the girl who hid her teenage body in massive baggy band hoodies, and sobbed in her 20s in changing rooms because she felt grotesque.

Honesty is the Best Policy?

I was pretty shocked by the recent story in the press about the woman who’s ‘friends’ wrote her a letter calling her out on her Facebook habits. The content of the letter itself wasn't shocking but the fact that they decided to do things in this way made me uncomfortable.

What major crime had this woman committed? Sharing her enthusiasm about her child a little bit too much for their liking.

It’s common for people to over share on Facebook these days. I imagine most of us have annoyed friends, family or colleagues without even knowing about it and I bet most of us have been annoyed by things we've seen on Facebook (my personal irritant is people sharing Britain First posts). But I don’t think it’s right to call someone out on it under the umbrella of ‘honesty’.

Learning to Love Myself

Imagine having someone follow you around all day long telling you how crap you are. Every time you eat something they tell you you’re a pig, every time you make a small mistake they tell you you’re a giant fuck up, no matter what you do it’s wrong. That is basically how I lived my life for a long time except there weren’t two people in the scenario, it was just me.

I had this idea of perfection in my mind that I was constantly grasping at and anything that fell short of that felt like devastating failure. I hated the way I looked, I felt like I wasn’t a good enough person, I was a bad friend and a disappointing daughter, I never felt good enough at my job, my blog was rubbish, my house was mess…the list goes on.

Not surprisingly, beating myself up mentally every single day took its toll. I lacked confidence in every aspect of my life and it was making me miserable. I knew I had so many good things in my life but I couldn’t fully enjoy them because there was part of me that felt I didn’t deserve it. And eventually I cracked and suffered a really bad period of depression.

Image - Lindsay gypsydancer12 Flicker