What the 2nd trimester of pregnancy is like (one person’s experience)
Hard. For me, way harder than the first.
It’s hard partially because I thought it would be easier, and partially because it attacked my emotions. The 1st trimester changes were mostly physical, which were sometimes difficult but novel enough to be interesting. The 2nd trimester affected my emotional control, something I pride myself on.
Note: This is the 2nd piece on my personal experience with pregnancy, which I’m sharing in case it’s interesting or helpful for others. You can check out The First Trimester, The Third Trimester, and My First 3 Months of Motherhood for more.
What my 2nd trimester has felt like:
1) The physical:
Each week brings a new physical change that’s unpredictable and then suddenly normal. Minor physical sensations are magnified — stepping into a hot shower at the end of a long day feels absolutely delicious, and someone stepping on my foot is agonizing. Near the end of the trimester, the whirlpool of mild pressure in my sides that’s supposed to signify “kicking” rapidly graduates to full-scale alien-in-my-belly, like that scene from Spaceballs (“Hello my baby!”). And then suddenly that too is just normal.
2) The emotional:
But what really changes is my emotions. For weeks in the heart of the 2nd trimester, I cry every day. Most of the time I can tell that my tears are probably caused by pregnancy and not really connected to the rest of my life…but not always. It feels like being a teenager again, jerked around by nameless, sudden emotions. Out of nowhere, I’ll feel a surge of unreasonable anger that pregnancy is so one-sided (why doesn’t my husband have to deal with these feelings?), or despair that suddenly I’m not (and will never again be) as independent as I’ve always been. I remind myself to wait for these surges to pass, and, normally, they do.
Thankfully, most of this happens outside of work. One memorable day, my eyes fill with tears as I sit in a meeting with 10 colleagues, and I have to suddenly warn them, apropos of nothing: “There’s a 90% chance I’ll cry at you soon.” As the tears immediately spill over, I correct myself: “Okay, 100%.”
And then, 5 or 6 weeks later, all this recedes, and I’m fine again. Better than fine, even — I can work late, focus, be productive, and my emotions are mine again.
2') Things that made me cry in the 2nd trimester of pregnancy (a very abbreviated selection):
- Songs about Elvis
- News reports about gun violence
- Thinking how, right now, I could be traveling around China (or anywhere else) by myself
- Thinking about the person I used to be — who could just leave life behind on a last-minute escape without thinking twice about it — and how I can’t be that person again
- The idea that women everywhere, including my mother and her mother, felt the same fierce protectiveness as soon as the idea of an unborn kid became real to them
- How I can no longer see a straight path for my future
- Being so tired
- Talking about being pregnant
- Thinking about being pregnant
- Being pregnant
- Pictures of kittens
3) Recovering control:
The inflection point in my sadness, oddly, comes with taking a swim. My belly has become an obstruction and all I can focus on is how it’s holding me back from things I can normally do — arduous hikes, last-minute foreign travel, late nights with friends, planning a clear future. In the water I feel in control again, and my belly is just another part of me. The first time I climb out of the water, I almost fall over and have to reacclimate myself to my new weight, like someone coming back from the moon.
4) Connection:
Telling people at work is a relief. It’s starting to feel like an unwilling secret. Every time I look in a mirror, it’s so clear to me that I’m visibly pregnant, and I can’t believe everyone else doesn’t notice (except for the occasional suspicious side-eye from other mothers in the office).
When I do finally tell my colleagues, I’m surprised — though I shouldn’t be — by how universally supportive everyone is. Women tell me about their pregnancies and commiserate over the tough times, men tell me funny and sweet stories about their wives’ experience and how it made them feel.
The world loves a pregnant lady. Friends solicitously walk me home after early dinners and women with young kids smile at me or congratulate me in the street. Even dogs seem to like me more.
Most interesting, people at work relate to me as a person. I’ve gotten into the habit of keeping my work life and personal life separate and feeling the need to be unassailable (read: impersonal) as a professional woman. But when you’re carrying your belly a couple feet in front of you, there’s no way to hide that you’re going through something big. Being pregnant has meant a lot of things, but it also pushes me more than anything else I’ve done to be more comfortable and vulnerable at work. After talking about something as personal as my pregnancy and emotions at work, talking about work at work is suddenly easier than it’s ever been before — and I suddenly have even more trust in my colleagues after feeling their complete support through my emotions and fear.
Pregnancy is so specific to every person, and mine, like my life right now, is informed by the fact that I’m incredibly lucky. But there are still hard and unexpected parts that I wish I had better ways to deal with. Writing about these experiences has helped me understand or just accept them.
I’m sharing this series partly because it’s a fascinating experience and because I wish someone had told me these things earlier. It wouldn’t have changed much — the hard things would still be hard — but I might have felt more understood, and less powerless. But, of course, those feelings might just be part of the journey I’m signing up for.
