In addition to your little miracle, pregnancy gives you an extra superpower: maternal intuition. If you listen carefully to yourself and your body, you will know exactly what and who you need.
If you haven't done it before, THIS is when you need to learn to set boundaries. For you and your unborn baby. You have your baby to protect and hardly anyone knows it. You can't say it (yet), but suddenly you're acting strange:
What does that look like in everyday life?
- You spontaneously cancel meetings with your girlfriend because you're just too tired at 6 p.m. and you can't and don't want to go outside the front door at 8 p.m. So you can also avoid partying/drinking cocktails
- You tell certain friends that you don't want any contact for a few weeks - but don't tell them why
- At family celebrations, you lie in your hotel bed until 3 p.m., while the whole extended family meets once a year. You show yourself briefly and hide your belly, politely decline to toast the family reunion, and go to bed first thing again.
- You cancel taking your kids to the zoo because you can't imagine how the hell you're going to a) get there and b) walk around for three hours.
- You make mistakes at work trying not to constantly throw up on the keyboard and pretend you can focus on your project or the meeting with the important guy there.
- Your husband wants to hug you, your HcG levels skyrocket and you feel nauseous. Sorry honey, if you touch me I'll break. It was funny at first...
- You want to host the traditional garden party with your sister, but then you feel drained and tired and lie down while she does the work and yells at you that SHE always has to do everything alone!!! You hardly see any of the guests because you fall asleep when the party starts. You're also too tired to clean up the next day, and when you see and smell the empty beer bottles you have to... boo!
- You're just not as cooperative as you used to be. You don't help every honk who asks you to. You are moody and bitchy. You have less patience with others and curse like a coachman - especially in traffic
In short: you are a miserable spoilsport. You will piss many people off.
And few know why. You may bring anger and misunderstanding upon yourself - and you and the people you disappoint, you have to endure it.
This can be a breaking point for your friendship. But it can also reveal who really stands by you, even in bad times, when you're not a lovable darling.
A friend who sulks and thinks you're stupid because you don't react the way she would like and she's used to from you – that's not a good friend, at least not a very mature one.
The girlfriend who doesn't know about your pregnancy and replies, "Okay, I don't know what's going on with you right now, but I accept it, trust you, and wish you the best. If you need me, I'll be there and wait.” THAT is a good friend.
And that friendship is worth investing in.
