Brood’s friend Lauren Berkovitch (she/her) is a producer of podcasts, print, films, tv, blogs, and two humans. She is Canadian-born, California-bred, and currently calling Vancouver, BC home. Lauren wrote some insightful blog posts about her pregnancy journey and of being a parent, and so we wanted to share them here! Read more of her past posts on Grown Up Party. With her blessings and consent, we will be sharing some of her past posts on our blog! Enjoy.
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My Thoughts on the First Trimester of Pregnancy
Now that the cat is officially out of the bag, I can finally share these thoughts I had from the first few weeks of being pregnant! I found out I was preggo at around 5 weeks, and I can say before that I felt fine, but once I knew I’m not sure if I psyched myself out or these things naturally occurred, but here are some things I experienced:
1. Chest Enlargement: This actually happened before I officially knew I was pregnant, that in a matter of days, my chest grew exponentially. I thought I was either pregnant or finally hitting puberty at age 30. If I was pregnant I had imagined this would happen over time, but it seemed to happen overnight, and was painful! So painful that I couldn’t even sleep on my stomach for a few weeks. The pain is no longer there – but they are still growing – and don’t show signs of slowing down!
2. Morning sickness should be renamed “the battle to stay full”: For the record, I have not thrown up, but also nauseousness has not been confined to the mornings. I realized that in my old life, I used to feel fine if I I happened to miss breakfast, or go 6 hours between lunch and dinner, regular things like that. Around my 6th week of pregnancy, I started to notice I was feeling nauseous all the time, and it was simply because once I got hungry, I felt sick. I had no idea pregnant people need to always be fully stocked with snacks and eat every two hours! This was news to me, and so started the battle to always stay full!
3. Healthy schmealthy, just give me food: I always imagined that the second I found out I was pregnant I would only put the healthiest food into my body. This did not happen. During “the battle to stay full” (see above), I just needed to eat anything. And if I was “losing the battle” (ie. already hungry and therefore nauseous), I sought out comfort good. Quinoa would not cut it.
Now that I am in the second trimester these things have all eased up a bit, but new and wonderful weird things are happening! I’ll keep you posted! And as we all know, every woman is different, so please share any thoughts/feelings/hunger you had during your first trimester of pregnancy! I love hearing every story.
My thoughts on the Second Trimester
I cannot believe I am writing this (and I equally can’t believe I’m posting bump photos taken with my iPhone – I promised myself I would never do that!). This week marks the beginning of my third trimester of preggo-ness. I can’t accurately convey how quickly it is all going. But people tell me time doesn’t get any slower once the nugget is out of the womb, so best to get used to this whole “time-flying” thing now.
But the Second Trimester proved to have some really beautiful parts to it. Here are a few highlights I have been looking forward to sharing:
1. Weird body things: The weird things happening to my body list is endless, and possibly gross, so I’ll spare you all the details. I have muscle pains in weird spots “down below”, hip flexer spasms as my stomach stretches can wake me up in the middle of the night, and my gums bleed every time I brush my teeth. This is guaranteed to be different for every person, but my advice would be that for whatever weird body thing happens, don’t even google it. Just know that some person out there in the world has had that happen to them while pregnant, and it’s just your body changing.
2. Feeling the babe: I feel my baby all the time, and this has brought a beautiful calmness to my life. I have to admit, in my first trimester I was super nervous. I was so nervous I actually felt it impeding the enjoyment of being pregnant. Because I couldn’t really feel or see the baby, I was constantly scared that something was going to go wrong, and I would count the seconds down till I got to hear the heartbeat at the doctor’s office. Second trimester though that all shifted once I started to feel my babe, and I’ve stopped worrying.
3. Taking moments: I really cherish taking moments to be mindful of being pregnant. For instance I love taking extra long showers just to look down at my pregnant belly (I even tend to laugh as I soap it up). Or when I flop down on the couch after work and take a moment to be silent and just acknowledge being pregnant. It’s when the baby tends to move around and go crazy, and it goes from being just a normal day where I woke up, went to work, and came home, to a day where I remember that this really big life thing is happening and I get insanely excited for what is to come.
4. Appreciative of community: I’ve never had such a deep appreciation of my chosen family. I like to think I’ve always appreciated the community we’ve built in Vancouver, but being pregnant has magnified this by a million. I remember buying our house and how the thought of staying in Vancouver made me kind of nervous (like would this be the only city we ever live in?!), and now I literally can’t even fathom moving away from the support system we have here and someone would have to drag me away kicking and screaming for it to ever happen.
I’m sure the third trimester will bring more weird and wonderful things, but for now, I can say I am in total awe of this whole pregnancy thing and loving it more than I even expected I could. And please share your own observations/take-aways/crazy-existential-thoughts-about-life you may have had while pregnant!
My Thoughts on the Third Trimester
Preggo update: I am officially one day past my due date! I’m not worrying too much about it just yet (as I truly believe that it is an approximate date and we had also been told that April 30 was our due date at one point!), but since this baby could literally come at any moment, I wanted to share my thoughts on my third trimester of pregnancy before I’m really off in babyland:
1. Weird body things (they continue!): Sharp pains in my urethra that make you go “shit do I have a UTI!? No, it’s just my baby’s head somehow pinching my urethra”, swollen feet, “carpel tunnel” in my hands, and a big belly. For so much of my pregnancy I thought when am I going to get a really significant belly? Well it comes! If you are preggers and wondering the same thing – don’t you worry – it will come.
2. Joining the universal club of parenthood: Part of me feels a bit guilty that I get to join the club months before my husband (as it’s not easy for people to see that he is about to have a kid), but once I became very visibly pregnant, it was like joining the world’s biggest club/community/cult. Granted this club isn’t very exclusive, it is a unifying factor none-the-less, and suddenly I had an “opening line” or “in” for any stranger I meet. I can literally talk to anyone, and everyone wants to talk to me. The city becomes a much friendlier place when you are pregnant!
3. EVERYONE wants to talk to you: This is just a re-iteration from #2. Especially when your belly is really big, seriously everyone wants to talk to you. Any line you wait in (grocery store, coffee shop, juice bar, etc) will lead to long conversations with strangers.
4. Worrying: Let me be clear, this is not worrying about labour. This is a significant shift from second trimester when I was all zenned out and just in awe of my pregnancy, to suddenly feeling like this baby is close to coming out and all I want is a healthy baby. When I told my sister all I can think about now is just hoping/praying for a healthy baby, she said “welcome to the world of parenting – where all you do is worry about your kids”.
You may remember that 6 weeks ago I couldn’t stop thinking about labour, so let’s just say that is the case right now times a billion. But while we play this waiting game, we are going to try to soak up and enjoy these final moments of being a two-some, or even a one-some! I’m going to watch A League of Their Own in the middle of the day as a treat to myself, and with Chris this weekend we are going to attempt to go on some hot dates (ones that involve ice cream ideally).
