Pregnant MCs

[buyjupiter]

I have a MC who, since I decided to make her life more difficult, discovers she's pregnant very early on in the story. Since I don't have a lot of experience with this one (personally), I thought I might ask so I don't make any big mistakes.

My MC is in reasonable health and in decent physical shape. I don't want her to end up bedridden, because she's pregnant, but she needs to be able to move around (travel) a lot for a few months. I also don't want her to be Super-Mom who doesn't have to struggle with anything surrounding a pregnancy, i.e. mention it once and then at the end of the book a baby pops out--because that's just as unrealistic.

I'm thinking of starting her off being a couple of months pregnant, and then ending her travels/story at about 7(ish) months...because I think too far past that she won't be terribly willing to endure much of anything beyond not being pregnant anymore. Which should give me about five months or so to play around with (normal human pregnancy times here).

Are there any things that I should especially avoid/consider when writing her? I don't want it to turn into OMG I'm soooo pregnant every other paragraph or so, but I do want to address some of the things she would face (i.e. morning sickness/or not, fatigue, food cravings, etc).

Are some things more typical than others, like morning sickness and food cravings but not being horribly tired all the time? Are some things worse than you'd imagined them to be (from stories you'd heard before being pregnant)? Like, for example, you knew that morning sickness would be something you'd have to deal with but you didn't know that it'd be at 3AM like clockwork...or at 3PM. Were there things that you'd heard about "every pregnant woman deals with this" but wasn't such a big deal for you in particular?

I know not everyone experiences the same kind of thing, but I don't want to just assume that because certain trends are more commonly discussed that that is the end all and be all of pregnancy issues.

Thanks in advance for the help.

 

[Saigonnus]

Being that my own experience is limited, I can only help a little. I have known a few women in my life that got pregnant.

A common thing for many pregnant women is elevated body temperature, so if it is the depths of summer, she might just let out a few curses at the weather God! Also, they are eating for two, so tend to eat more than they normally would. Breast size often goes up a full cup size or more, usually happening the middlish (not 100% sure on this one) of the pregnancy and in preparation for feeding the baby. Tenderness and even pain in the nipples often happens as well, maybe toughening them up for the same reason as the change in size.

The cravings are fairly common at least in the woman i've been near during pregnancy, since basically they are the body's way of saying they need some vitamin or other. Morning sickness is common as well, and during the first trimester it is usually the worst from what i've seen. By the way, it happens all day long in some cases, not just in the morning. Heartburn is also a fairly common occurrence if I remember correctly.

As for mobility. A woman who is pregnant with a single, normal baby can usually be active until the day they give birth with only a bit of swelling of the ankles.

Hope this help. Hopefully others will have additional input for you.

 

[Garren Jacobsen]

I have no first-hand experience in this area. But I do have second-hand experience so take this for what it's worth.

One really common problem is forgetfulness. I'm not sure if it's a myth or not, but for whatever reason the pregnant people I have been around become more forgetful than they used to be. Spelling comes harder and they frequently forget they have their keys in hand.

Another common problem as they get bigger is peeing. It happens frequently and little leakages occur when coughing or sneezing.

They also get a bit more emotional. I knew someone who just about ripped a store clerks head off because they were out of a certain kind of cereal. Note, she is literally never like that. Calmest person I know became a sudden rage-aholic for a minute then just became sad she couldn't buy the cereal.

Another problem they experience is discomfort in the hip and pelvic area. I don't think that needs further explanation.

Some women get more sexual, some less.

Another issue I noticed with some people is the inability to sleep at night due to discomfort.

Last that I can think of off the top of my head is teeth. Several people I knew had teeth problems (abscesses I think in each case) but this was closer to D-day than I think your character will be.

 

[cupiscent]

So, I'm currently 12 weeks pregnant. *jazzhands* Which means I have been hearing EVERYONE'S pregnancy stories, and how wildly different they all are. My advice is: go to your local library and find their copy of What to Expect When You're Expecting. (Or you could buy your own, but it's expensive.) It gives you a fantastic idea of the range of experiences women can have at every stage of pregnancy. They are wide. They are varied. You can almost pick like it's a buffet.

Me personally? I have been basically useless for everything for the past eight weeks with morning sickness (hah! more like all-day-sickness). I've read books where the pregnant character throws up once early in the day and then doesn't seem to suffer any ill effects - and I've heard from women who had a similar experience to that! But for me, the entire day is a constant negotiation with my stomach, my sense of taste, my sense of smell (this one has been particularly problematic) and whatever food I have around. I've been eating about five snack-meals a day, and napping a lot because I have no energy.

But that's just me. Some women have mild morning sickness. Some have it for six months, or all nine. And as for the becoming bedridden thing: I worked with a woman who was at work, running major projects, until about eight-and-a-half months. Now, you can't bend over at that point, but as long as that isn't a problem...

 

[ascanius]

So, I'm currently 12 weeks pregnant. *jazzhands* Which means I have been hearing EVERYONE'S pregnancy stories, and how wildly different they all are. My advice is: go to your local library and find their copy of What to Expect When You're Expecting. (Or you could buy your own, but it's expensive.) It gives you a fantastic idea of the range of experiences women can have at every stage of pregnancy. They are wide. They are varied. You can almost pick like it's a buffet.

Me personally? I have been basically useless for everything for the past eight weeks with morning sickness (hah! more like all-day-sickness). I've read books where the pregnant character throws up once early in the day and then doesn't seem to suffer any ill effects - and I've heard from women who had a similar experience to that! But for me, the entire day is a constant negotiation with my stomach, my sense of taste, my sense of smell (this one has been particularly problematic) and whatever food I have around. I've been eating about five snack-meals a day, and napping a lot because I have no energy.

But that's just me. Some women have mild morning sickness. Some have it for six months, or all nine. And as for the becoming bedridden thing: I worked with a woman who was at work, running major projects, until about eight-and-a-half months. Now, you can't bend over at that point, but as long as that isn't a problem...

Congrats! I liked the movie What to Expect When You're Expecting it was fun though the store clerk kinda creeped me out.

Usually a patient is put on bed rest when there are complications to the pregnancy, like hypertension (pre-eclampsia, eclampsia), placentia abruptia placentia privia, or gestational diabetes to name a few.

The OP mentioned travel and one thing is later in the pregnancy motility can be an issue, horseback riding is probably not going to happen nor trailblazing through the unknown jungle.

 

[CupofJoe]

So, I'm currently 12 weeks pregnant. *jazzhands*

Congratulations!
I work with someone that is 5-6 months pregnant and she has been kind enough to share her journey with me.
The one thing that stuck out for me is that she feels clumsy. She says she is tripping and stumbling over thing. I guess its her ever changing centre of gravity...
She also works as a Sport Masseur and already finds that she can't bend and flex, kneel and stand long enough for a full massage.
She hasn't had any sickness or cravings and feels kind of cheated by that. I think she wanted the FULL experience as for lots of reasons this is likely to be her only pregnancy.

 

[KC Trae Becker]

I've had three pregnancies and one miscarriage. I've known countless pregnant woman. I second the advice about book research. There are so many ways to experience pregnancy.

I was fortunate and had no morning sickness or cravings, and little heartburn. Spicy or acidic foods tended to trigger this in only one of the three pregnancies. (Personally, I think many people like to play up these experiences for fun. Though it's debilitating for some.)

Breast sensitivity can start before you even know you are pregnant. It's often one of the signs to get a pregnancy test.

Balance is usually affected. I love walking along logs. At five months I was incapable of keeping my balance for the length of a log because of the redistribution of weight.

Contact sports are crossed off the list of activities by the doctors right away, though I continued to carefully play soccer and volley ball until about 5 months when running became difficult. (Though chasing little kids for games of tag and general maintenance still kept me trying to run until 8 months. After 8 months I gave up chasing them and just begged them to come to me. For the record, I had big babies so a healthy person with a smaller baby might be able to keep jogging, at least, until birth.)

After 7 months I found long car rides excruciating. The circulation was cut off in my legs by the weight of a bowling ball over my sciatic nerves after about 20 minutes.

Horseback riding while pregnant, I guess, would be like running, due to jostling, and car riding, due to circulation challenges, but a healthy person with a small baby might able to keep riding until 6 moths. (But I never had the opportunity to horseback ride while pregnant so this is just a guess.)

Climbing a flight of stairs became difficult after 6 months because the bowling ball of baby plus all the extra fluid surrounded it begins to push upward on the diaphragm, decreasing lung capacity. But once the kids learned to wait patiently for a few seconds I caught my breath again quickly and could do another flight. But the extra weight by 7 months made me exhausted at the top of two flights.

My two boys pushed more on my lungs, while my girl weighed more on my sciatic nerve. I've heard that is a common occurrence, that boys carry high and girls carry low, but some people experience no difference and some the opposite effect, if that factors into your story at all.

Socially, complete strangers come up and touch your swelling belly and/or give you advice, sympathy, help or scorn. Stories and old wives tales abound, and a bazillion questions about you and the baby's future.

Hope this helps and wasn't too long winded.

 

[Mythopoet]

I feel like I should comment here, because I've been pregnant 5 times and I come from a family of very fertile women (seriously, our family gatherings are just crawling with kids), but I honestly don't want to think about it. Pregnancy is the worst.

One thing you might want to consider more than the physical side effects, which are generally well known, are the psychological issues. For that you'll need to consider what kind of person your character is, what her personality is like, any underlying issues she already has that might be affected. For instance, I started taking medication for general anxiety on a normal basis a few years ago. But anxiety meds aren't the sort of thing you want to take while pregnant. I went off them for my 4th pregnancy and I was just a complete wreck the whole time. For my 5th pregnancy I told my OB that I didn't want to go off them completely again so he gave me a much lower dosage. It was still very tough, though. Pregnancy in general just heightens my anxiety. I can't get the thought out of my head that there's this other living organism moving around inside me. It really freaks me out on a totally involuntary level.

 

[BronzeOracle]

So, I'm currently 12 weeks pregnant. *jazzhands*

Congratulations and best wishes for your family cupiscent!

My wife was sick for the whole 9 months - puking even on the day of labour - and then after the baby came she was almost instantly free of the nausea. It was incredible. But until then she found it quite debilitating and was totally over it by the end. I'd reiterate Mythopoet's comments on the psychological impact that pregnancy can have. Imagine being sick and increasingly burdened/pained over 9 months - and it happens on top of anything else you are struggling with in your life.

Also remember that it doesn't stop with pregnancy. We found the first few months after the birth to be extremely tiring - for the mum particularly so - you've just come off the pregnancy and then there is the feeding (physically draining) plus the waking during the night (disrupting your sleep) and the wind that babies can get (crying is very distressing for an adult - it can go on for a long time). At this time support from others is very important - if your MC is away from her family/community and doesn't have this then she is in for a rough time. Its no wonder that post-partum depression is so common.

 

[buyjupiter]

So, I'm currently 12 weeks pregnant. *jazzhands* Which means I have been hearing EVERYONE'S pregnancy stories, and how wildly different they all are.

Congrats!

Also, I didn't think about this one, but I think it would be interesting to show how everyone has their favorite recipe from their great-aunt that helps calm one of the symptoms down, but they're all conflicting recipes...like the conflicting info that is out there for pregnant women to wade through.

I hadn't thought of taking a looksee at "What to Expect" because I figured that would mostly be relevant to y'know actual real world expectant mothers, not necessarily my made-up mom to be in a world that isn't our own. But I should check it out, just to make sure that I'm not falling into anything that would be on the realms of unrealistic, so thank you for the suggestion.

 

[buyjupiter]

Breast sensitivity can start before you even know you are pregnant. It's often one of the signs to get a pregnancy test.

Balance is usually affected. I love walking along logs. At five months I was incapable of keeping my balance for the length of a log because of the redistribution of weight.

I think I might have her just starting to wonder what's going on with her body [breast sensitivity/balance issues], before she actually gets confirmation that she's pregnant. (When she gets confirmation of the pregnancy, she is kinda surprised because she's been so focused on saving people's lives that her lack of a monthly cycle escaped her notice for a few months.)

She's a thief-type, so balance is crucial, and I had her having difficulties with balance in one scene before I knew that she was gonna have to be pregnant (although she isn't five months along in the scene, at least I don't think she is--still have to nail down my timeline)...so I'm glad that I can make that work without having to rework the whole beginning of the book. [She doesn't stick the landing, but doesn't have a concussion or similarly difficult repercussions of not landing well.]

 

[K.S. Crooks]

My wife is a birth doula for over 350 births and we have three kids so this is my experience, not to say I know everything about the subject. The biggest thing to consider is change. How the woman feels in the first few days will be different than at three weeks or three months or seven months.

Early in the pregnancy there are far more hormonal changes than physical. This is what causes morning sickness...which doesn't have to happen in the morning and is generally a good sign because it means hormone levels are high and will help the infant, feeling hot or cold regardless of the environment. Who she wants to be around can also change. She may want to be around family more often at some points and the complete opposite at other times. Cravings you could consider both hormonal and physical, the need for a type of food indicates the body's need for certain nutrients.

Physically she may not show for several months then the growth will be large, which is probably when you want to stop her activity. As she starts to "show", she will gain weight and size in various places, her spine will curve more, her centre of gravity will shift. These will make doing normal activities different. Something as simply as getting in and out of a chair will change for her. As the baby become larger it will cause a shift in her internal organs. This will affect when she eats, how much, digestion and waste removal.

Whether you look at her pregnancy month by month or by trimester give yourself a plan for what you want to change about her, then work it into the story where it would naturally fit. One area I cannot describe, being male, is how it feels to have someone growing inside you. What it is like to feel movement, punching or kicking. How the shifting of internal organs feels. You may want to ask woman you know to write out a description then make you own version using part of theirs. Hope this helps.

 

[skip.knox]

Since I'm male I'm not going to comment on the details of pregnancy beyond noting one crucial point: experiences differ. There are stories of women who didn't even know they were pregnant.

Given the range of experience, I have to wonder why you have made the choice. If you are after some specific symptom, then just pick the symptom and go with it. Pregnancy may not even be needed (she might get sick, or lose balance, or have aches and pains, for some other reason), so why is it so crucially important?

I can think of one reason right off the bat--the other life. If the MC is a risk-taker, then at some point she's going to have to come to terms with taking those risks on behalf of another. There you get into extremely tricky ground because people in earlier times had rather ... odd ... notions about what could affect the unborn child. There would also be the normal expectations of the society around her as to what a pregnant woman was supposed to do, though this may be different for your MC since as a thief she by definition lives outside society.

Have fun with it!

 

[FarmerBrown]

I know you're only writing until about seven months, but I literally just had a baby boy ten days ago so an all-natural, medication-free labor and delivery is still very fresh in my mind if you want to go there.... I also worked until 38 weeks (40 weeks is the "due date" and my son was right on time!) with little difficulty besides frequent trips to the bathroom. If your MC is in shape before pregnancy, it's usually much easier to stay in shape and have an uncomplicated pregnancy. Though as everyone has said, experiences differ widely!

 

[buyjupiter]

Given the range of experience, I have to wonder why you have made the choice. If you are after some specific symptom, then just pick the symptom and go with it. Pregnancy may not even be needed (she might get sick, or lose balance, or have aches and pains, for some other reason), so why is it so crucially important?

In the main subplot I have going on my MC's lover disappears under very mysterious circumstances. She investigates his disappearance out of love at first. But then I thought, why doesn't she just give up on him and move on? He's a lot of trouble and this isn't really worth her efforts, when she has a more pressing need to save not only her own life but her friend's life as well. Being pregnant would be a good explanation of why she doesn't just move on after the initial bit of investigating his disappearance.

A list of symptoms doesn't really give me a good grasp on how that affects day to day life, which was why I asked for opinions here. If I have her sailing on a boat (which I don't at the moment), would I need her to be clinging to the rails at every moment tossing up the biscuit she barely managed to get down earlier or could I have her not affected by nausea at all in that circumstance but the smell of cooking food does the same thing?...I don't want to be stereotypical in my representation of a condition only women experience. (Likewise, if I'd decided that my male characters were going to suffer from prostate disease, I'd ask men questions about their unique experience with the disease.)

Granted, a lot of this comes down to "make the character's life difficult" because that adds more possibility for dramatic tension...but there's a healthy dollop of "oh why not?" in the mix as well.

But thank you for making me explicitly justify the choice to myself and examine the choice for internal consistency...because that's always a valuable exercise in writing.

 

[buyjupiter]

I know you're only writing until about seven months, but I literally just had a baby boy ten days ago so an all-natural, medication-free labor and delivery is still very fresh in my mind if you want to go there.... I also worked until 38 weeks (40 weeks is the "due date" and my son was right on time!) with little difficulty besides frequent trips to the bathroom. If your MC is in shape before pregnancy, it's usually much easier to stay in shape and have an uncomplicated pregnancy. Though as everyone has said, experiences differ widely!

Congrats! I'm glad that went smoothly for you and you have a healthy boy.

 

[Caged Maiden]

I have four kids. Breast tenderness was how I knew I was pregnant, and sleepiness. It's like someone flips a switch and you go...uh oh, I'm pregnant, I can feel it. (when I say "you", I mean me).

My appetite got crazy and I think I gained ten pounds in all four first trimesters (you know, when your baby weighs like an ounce...). I never had real morning sickness, I threw up a couple times. Heartburn was killer though, after 6 months and the baby presses on your stomach. Sometimes I ate just to find relief, but of course, that didn't work. Zantac did, though.

I craved granny smith apples. All four times and throughout the craving months in the middle. I couldn't get enough. No other cravings though, just fruit, the sourer, the better.

The things I didn't expect were the gum infections, which sucked really badly for months on end, preventing me eating sometimes. The swelling during my first pregnancy (at 25), which caused arthritis-like pain in my hands and kept me from standing too long. I didn't have that any other time. But round ligament pain was the worst thing imaginable at about 6 months the first time and earlier with each subsequent pregnancy. I can't describe it, but it was awful.

Your abs split down the middle, so if you're lying in the bath and go to sit up, your abs squeeze on the sides of your belly and there's a soft and mushy stripe down the center (that I couldn't get my husband to touch, no matter how I marveled at its oddness).

I felt happy. Like anything stressful that ordinarily would have eaten at my feelings was just too much to dwell on. I was overall very content though I never enjoyed being pregnant. Shortness of breath kicks in after a while, too, depending on how much weight you gain and where the baby wants to stick its feet... some of those jabs can actually hurt.

If you're ending at seven months and she's a first-time mom, she may not even be really showing. When I was seven months with my first one, people didn't know I was pregnant, I just wore slightly baggy clothes and though I felt huge, no one even noticed. Weird. And I'm rather petite. Still, just a thing to think about, that if she's active and you don't want to encumber her overly much, you can totally get away with it. Really, the last eight weeks are the worst. Totally awful. That's when all the bad stuff kicks in like the heartburn, shortness of breath, low blood sugar if you skip meals, poor sleep quality, physical discomfort while sitting, walking, or laying for long periods.

I was pretty active after the first one, though. I had toddlers to keep up with for six years, so it wasn't really restful after the first. I was carrying one baby while pregnant with the next.

Hope we've been helpful. Everyone's different, but those were my experiences.

 

[MineOwnKing]

If it is her first child she might not have morning sickness. If it is a second child, could be a puke party.
Lower back pain is a bugger.
Coco-puffs, lots of coco-puffs.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

Your abs split down the middle, so if you're lying in the bath and go to sit up, your abs squeeze on the sides of your belly and there's a soft and mushy stripe down the center (that I couldn't get my husband to touch, no matter how I marveled at its oddness).

I thought the pink stripe was so cool. Until I saw my wife's belly, I didn't know about the stripe.

I think it was the other way around for my wife and I. I touched the stripe, but don't recall being invited to. I just had to touch the stripe, and I'm glad I did because the stripe days are over now.

 

[KC Trae Becker]

A few more symptoms that could impact a MC:

Water retention - can start right away and can cause a weight gain of 10 lbs in the first month, results in swollen ankles, leaking bladder, increased cup size (which can lead to increased male attention, more noticeable to MC if less well endowed than most to start,) clothes getting tight right away; salt worsens, activity improves.

Growth hormones can result in thicker, glossier hair and stronger fingernails, longer and wider feet, pregnancy mask.

Lifting over 25 lbs forbidden by doctors, even slightly ignoring rule can lead to a hernia.

Buddha-like contentment permeating everything (mothering hormones can be near mystical), interspersed with uncontrollable tears out of the blue and fears and doubts about future, own abilities, baby's health, etc.