I’m Pregnant With My 2nd — Shouldn’t It Be Easier This Time?

In my second pregnancy, I’ve had exactly one moment in which I felt like my previous experience made me better prepared. I was about five weeks in, and the fatigue and nausea were just starting to obstruct my view of life, like that asshole who picks the seat in front of you in an empty theater. As I mentally charted all the plans that pregnancy would now affect, I was slayed by the realization that, for my upcoming visit with my best friend Jess, I’d be consigned to a condition of sobriety and nausea and probably zero fun. This thought — I’m not going to be any fun — brought me to tears.

And then, lightning-like, I realized, Wait a minute! I haven’t crashed my entire future into a funless ditch. I’m just hungry. And I veered my triumph of experience into the McDonald’s drive-through, and everything was, momentarily, fine again.

Other than that, I’ve been disappointed to find that pregnancy is not a skill I can improve with practice. This was especially crushing to realize in my second first trimester. My first first trimester consisted of 12 exhausted weeks of vomiting multiple times a day, though by week eight my doctor had prescribed something that helped. My second first trimester was 16 fucking weeks of relentless, exhausted nausea — relatively little puking, just constant, debilitating seasickness — stanched by no drug my clinic could throw my way, including the one that had helped last time. I couldn’t work. I couldn’t go out. I could barely move. As the lifelong possessor of a Midwestern work ethic and an addiction to overachievement, this killed me. Despite a nagging suspicion that this expectation might be irrational, I kept thinking, Shouldn’t it be easier this time?!

The fallacy in comparing one pregnancy to another, and in comparing diverse pregnant bodies, is the wrongful assumption that such comparison rests upon: the myth that there is a Right Way to be pregnant. That pregnancy is something one can succeed or fail at. Depending on your social and cultural milieu, rotten myths of pregnant “success” can include: avoiding a C-section or epidural; never touching alcohol, coffee, or sushi; and, of course, not gaining too much weight. Failures can include succumbing to any of the above, plus not glowing brightly enough, gaining weight anywhere but your belly, complaining too much, giving salty retorts to handsy strangers, and losing control of your farts.