The One Truth I Was Told: The Last Month of Pregnancy Sucks

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been getting the same question over and over again:

“Are you so done being pregnant?”

It’s a very strange question to answer, and I’m not really great at giving the obligatory, “ugh, yes” response. It’s strange because the question implies, unintentionally, that life will return to normal when my pregnancy is over. As if this is just a thing I’m going through at the moment, or a diet I’ve committed to, and when it’s all said and done, I’ll be the same Fiona that I was before, and will no longer have to deal with the side effects of this “phase.”

But, the reality – and I do understand that everyone who asks is aware of this – is that these last nine months have simply been the intro to a brand new chapter in life. When this pregnancy ends, life as I knew it before will completely change.

So the simple answer may seem like it’s, “ugh, yes,” but every time that question is presented to me, it really just leaves me pondering a much bigger question: “Are you ready to be a mother?”

And the answer to that, honestly, is that I have no clue.

I will say that in the last week or so it’s been much, much easier to answer, “ugh, yes.” I was told by multiple women that the last month is the hardest, and they were not wrong.

First of all, the discomfort has become a constant: sitting, standing, walking, lying down… there’s no such thing as a comfortable position. Sure, some are worse than others, but I never don’t feel some kind of discomfort somewhere in my body.

Nights, then, are not fun. I’ve had pregnancy insomnia for a while now, but it’s worse now – and in the few hours I do get sleep, I also get a build-up of soreness waiting to greet me when I wake up.

In fact, if I’m sleeping in a certain position, lying on my left side (which is, ironically, the position most medical experts recommend), it actually triggers intense and painful Braxton Hicks contractions.

I told my doctor this on Monday, hoping to get advice on how to get a better night’s sleep and she says, “I guess maybe just don’t sleep on your left side… or… do and let her come!”

I took that as a green light to eat spicy foods, take more walks, and drink castor oil. Just kidding about the castor oil… no part of that sounds pleasant – but the point is that I’ve definitely been trying to will it to happen this week.

It hasn’t. Still pregnant. And now we’re too close to Christmas, so I’m not as keen to get her out any time soon. I’ll sacrifice my comfort over the next two weeks or so to avoid a holiday baby.

The most difficult part, however, hasn’t been the physical discomfort. It’s been the mental discomfort. I’ve had a good amount of anxiety for a long time now about the concept that anything could have happened at any time, but we’re at the point now when that concept is no longer a concept; it’s officially a reality.

As someone with anxiety that is largely driven by the unknown and by not being in control, the fact that I could go into labor at any moment of any day and I have literally no idea or control over when that might be has been nothing short of torture.

Plus – though, everyone always assures me “oh, you’ll know” when I express this to them – I have so much fear that I won’t be able to tell when it’s happening or when I should go in to Labor & Delivery. The “oh, you’ll know” response isn’t as comforting as intended.

See, because I Google more than I should, so I know that while there are obvious signs for most women, every pregnancy is different. And it turns out that for a number of women, the signs really aren’t that obvious. When you’re an anxious person like I am, you find it way too easy to focus on the worst case scenario, and way too hard to find comfort in the “more likely” scenario simply because it’s more likely.

I don’t know what it’s going to be like for my pregnancy, and you, my very well-intentioned loved one who I know just wants to comfort me, don’t know either, so I don’t take much comfort in the reassurance that most women have no problem identifying when labor is starting.

I also don’t know how you can help me get past it – if I knew how to quell all of my anxieties, we wouldn’t be here. I think the only way that my fear would be eased is if you could somehow tell me exactly when it’s going to happen. Since that’s not possible without sorcery, I’ll leave you with this:

It’s better to validate an anxious person’s anxieties, and simply listen and support us through them, than it is to try to convince us that they’re irrational. We know they’re irrational, and yet… they’re still real to us.