To the perfect pregnant ladies

Dear pregnant lady with the model limbs and basketball belly,

I am so pleased you are enjoying your first pregnancy, still wearing your favourite jeans cinched under your perfect belly with a Bella Band while eating salad and taking Pilates class. Good for you! How wonderful you can still work 50 hour weeks and have all that energy for jogging. How great you are gaining 20 perfect pounds. I am sincerely glad you enjoy being pregnant.

But sister, can we talk? You see, there's one little problem, one I don't even know if you can help solve, but in light of The Sisterhood of Pregnant Ladies, I hope you'll try.

You see, your glowing happiness is great -- but for some reason, people seem to take it not as the wonderful ideal, but as the pregnancy standard. They see you running five miles and they expect all of us to do it. They see you working overtime without being the least bit fatigued, and suppose that is normal. Heck, they see you keeping your old, pre-pregnancy routines even, and consider those of us who can't as somehow failing.

Some pregnant ladies experiencing these wonderful pregnancies also seem to fall into this trap. They are often the ones I overhear talking about how pregnancy isn't a medical condition, but a stage in life, and rolling thier eyes when discussing friends who needed medicine for morning sickness.

I know you're not like that, of course. That's why I'm calling for your assistance.

Many of us pregnant ladies are not like you. Some of us are unfortunate and are really sick -- that was me in my last pregnancy. But the rest of us, myself now included, are not seriously ill. What we are is exhausted, sore, overwhelmed and cranky. We used to handle stress wonderfully, but can't cope as well now that we're cooking a baby. We worry about what everyone is saying about our reduced superwoman abilities.
But most of all, we live in terror of being compared to you. Because there is no way we can survive that comparison without damage.

So, my fortunate friend, please continue to glow and jog and work and ride your bike and have an amazing pregnancy. You should sincerely enjoy and cherish this wonderful blessing.

But the next time someone points out the exhausted, bedraggled pregnant woman in the office or the restaurant and says, "You're pregnant, and you're not like that," please stand up for her. Point out every woman and every pregnancy is different, and while you wish every pregnant woman was as fortunate as you, that's not always the case.

Thanks. I can promise you, as the woman with the wonderful postpartum experiences, I will viciously stand up for you when your baby has colic, you have PPD, and someone points out you haven't washed your hair in a week. In fact, I'll even come over and lend you a hand.

Sincerely,

The Tired Out Pregnant Lady