What is the hardest thing about being pregnant?

CLI Moderator

For those single mothers who have children, please share your story about pregnancy. What was the hardest thing about being pregnant as a single mother by choice?

This will be very helpful to future single mothers on this board and may help them prepare for their pregnancy better.

esg

While I was pregnant, I worked 52+ hours a week and hated having to cook once I got home at night.
I considered freezing meals like for postpartum so I didn't have to come home and do that too.
Luckily I had family who would do for me most of the time but when they didn't, I found it tiring to have to do that too especially when cooking sometimes did not agree with my stomach. Having someone offer to do it for me was a blessing and I'm sure would have been much worse otherwise.

Going to prenatals and ultrasounds would have been much worse also if I didn't have my mother.
She remembered questions that I would forget, she would calm me down, talk things through with me if I was too worried.
On top of that, when things got much worse towards the end including a hospital stay, she took care of everything for me.
I ended up having to be driven to work and she did it and even took care of some of my work. Without her, I wouldn't have been
able to finish work. The whole health episode was completely unexpected. Handling it on my own would have been impossible.

Having support on hand for the little things like meals, errands and the big things like hospital stays and work issues makes all the difference.
I definitely would have had a much harder pregnancy had I not had my family.

lll

Morning, evening, all day sickness. Not knowing what to expect, "is that an ache I should be concerned about", the fatigue and hormomes. Goodness the hormones-I'd laugh and cry sometimes at the same time. Co-workers would ask if I was ok and all I could tell them is "I don't know." as I continued to cry and laugh. Finally, when it is all said and done you have exposed yourself to so many nurses and doctors that when someone comes in when you are breast feeding you hardly notice you are once again exposed.
One of the best things I did was I took the appraoch that if I was going to do this as a single mom then I was going to need help so I called my family and closest friends together (both male & female) and asked them point blank if I persued this if they would be there to help and support. They all agreed. They all helped pick out the donors...we had a little swimmers party with hand made invites and a booklet of all the donors just based on my families ethnic background. They all made comments next to each donor and then we compiled the results and as a group chose the 3 donors. At my 1st insemination there were 12 people in the proceedure room and after it was all said and done we handed out the little boxes of candy cigarettes with a tag that said "I hope it was as good for you as it was for me. Thank you for your support." That cycle failed but the 2nd cycle with 10 people in attendance was successful. They came to ultrasounds (and there were a lot due to my advanced maternal age 32 & fact that I was having twins), doctor appoinments, helped set up the rooms and when I was confined to a hospital bed after their delivery, they all took turns going up to the NICU to make sure my babies were not alone, ever.
When I look back, sure I can think of the "hardest thing about pregnancy" but when I think about my pregnancy it is the little moments, the little kick, listening to their heart beats, seeing ultrasound pictures and the flutter that I remember not the kankles.