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Welcome to Mothership: Parenting stories you actually want to read, whether you're thinking about or passing on kids, from egg-freezing to taking home baby and beyond. Because motherhood is a big if — not when — and it's time we talked about it that way.
Pregnancy is an insane process. One minute you’re regular-old you, a person whose major unsolved health mysteries may bear such thrilling self-titles as “That Weird-Looking Freckle,” “Probably A Root Canal But I’m In Denial,” and “Am I Gluten-Intolerant Or Just Hungover?”
Then, all of a sudden, you’re housing a sensitive mass of cells that is going to become a human — and its life literally depends on you and the things you do with/in/for your body over the next 30ish to 40ish weeks.
Like I said, it’s insane. And maybe the most confusing experience, ever.
One of the first things my doctor told me when I found out I was pregnant was, “The internet is not your friend.” But because pregnancy is basically one bizarre body-invasion issue after another, it was nonetheless so tempting to type every little woe and wonder I came across over the course of my 41 endless pregnant weeks into that trusty Google search box. But please, don’t follow my lead. Whether you are pregnant or trying to conceive or just living your life, the internet often only makes whatever concern or anxiety you’re dealing with worse.
Since I know you’re tempted anyway, I thought I’d share the weirdest, most burning pregnancy concerns I googled, with the answers fact-checked by one Katherine Hicks, MD, a board-certified OB/GYN in Massachusetts. What you’ll find ahead is a smattering of things that might come up during your time growing a human. And you’ll get to see how much internet “wisdom” is true and how much is horribly, horribly wrong. From puke to pee to mucus plugs, ahead are some of the odd but common queries I asked the internet during my pregnancy.
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