10 Things It’s OK To Cry About When You’re Pregnant

Pregnancy is a nine-month-long excuse for why you’re crying.

Serena Williams may be able to win the Australian Open while pregnant.

The rest of us are just trying to get through the day without drowning in a sea of our own tears.

10 Things It’s OK To Cry About When You’re Pregnant

Things that seem totally manageable before can suddenly feel overwhelming. And that’s without having to play tennis.

Just thinking about playing tennis while battling morning sickness, hemorrhoids and indigestion make me want to weep.

Here are 10 things it’s perfectly acceptable to cry about when you’re pregnant:

#1: Not Being Able To Tie Your Own Shoes

Oh, it’s so funny and cute the first time you realize you can’t fasten your own shoes because of the huge mountain of the belly where your six-pack used to be (just kidding, I’ve never had a six-pack. Unless beer counts?). But rest assured, it soon becomes annoying.

And what do you do if your partner has already left for work when you need to put your shoes on? You wear flip-flops. What if it’s winter? Then you cry. You sob and howl and feel sorry for yourself because you can’t even tie your own shoes. Totally reasonable.

#2: Having A Swollen Vagina

You haven’t seen it in months, so you can’t be sure, but it feels like your vagina might’ve grown to the size of a watermelon. It feels like you’re walking around with a bulbous pair of testicles dangling between your thighs.

Sitting down is unpleasant, walking hurts, and lying down does little to relieve the ache of growing a massive pair of balls. It’s ok, you can cry. Let those tears out. Nobody warned you about this. Nobody sat you down and told you pregnancy would make you feel like an unneutered dog with a tight pair of balls swinging in the air.

#3: Nipple Pain

If there’s anything worth crying about during pregnancy, it’s nipple pain. Just a few weeks into the pregnancy your nipples become the untouchables.

Flaming redraw lumps of soreness that send pain coursing through your body each time your t-shirt so much as brushes against them. You can’t lean them on the desk at work (a previous favorite position), you can’t lie on your tummy (this could be used as a torture method to extract sensitive information from newly pregnant women) and god forbid somebody tries to touch them.

#4: Not Knowing Which Colour To Paint The Nursery

Hoho, imagine crying over paint colors, you probably thought to yourself at some point in the past when you saw a heavily pregnant woman weeping in the aisles of the hardware store.

Then you got pregnant. Now you get it.

Snowdrop white and snowflake white are actually totally different shades and if you choose the wrong one the nursery will be ruined forever and your baby will grow up feeling unloved.

This is the first important decision you’ve had to make as a mother and, of course, you’re quickly realising that you’re not cut out for motherhood. If you can’t even choose between white or white, how are you going to make any of the important decisions down the line? Somebody grab this woman a box of tissues.

#5. Throwing Up. Again

Morning sickness, the gift that keeps on giving. You start feeling sick before you’ve even got out of bed in the morning. Then you’ll throw up your breakfast. Then you’ll throw up on the way to work. Then you’ll throw up that biscuit you had in your morning meeting. Then you’ll throw up the banana you ate to try and counter the biscuit you ate. Then you’ll throw up your lunch.

Then you’ll cry loudly and unapologetically so that everybody at work leaves you the hell alone for the rest of the day. Whether you let yourself cry or not, your makeup will be smudged across your face from the vomiting, so you may as well throw yourself into it and sob.

#6: Stupid Comments

‘Bloody hell, you must be due any day now! Oh, you’re only five weeks? Awkward. It must be twins! You’re huge. That’s going to be a big baby. Don’t you have a TV? Was it an accident? Are you a teen mum? You’re a bit old to have a baby, aren’t you? Do you know who the dad is? Are you worried about the birth? My friend’s auntie’s dog’s best mate’s mum tore from ear to ceiling. Is it ok if I touch your bump?’

Cry, cry away, pregnant woman. Nobody should have to listen to all that crap and you’ve heard it all (can you tick off all the ones on this list?).

#7: Dropping Things

Bending over while pregnant is funny to onlookers but serves little another purpose in life.

You can’t actually reach anything down there thanks to the massive bump on your front. So, if you drop things, they are gone forever. Or until your partner gets home to pick them up for you.

The floor will be littered with dropped food, hairpins, and anything else unfortunate enough to slip out of your swollen hands during the day.

When your partner does get back, he’ll spend the first half-hour of his evening just picking up the things you have dropped. This is good because it will prepare him for fatherhood when he will spend his life picking up dropped toys, raisins, and bibs that his baby has dropped.

#8: Feeling Left Out

No matter how hard you try to keep up during pregnancy, there will come a time when you feel left out. It could because you’re too tired to go for after-work drinks one night, or because you’re bored of being the sober one at the party or it could be because you can’t make it to a wedding because it’s your due date.

But at some point, you will cry because you feel left out. Let the tears out, embrace them, you’ll be back to your normal self soon enough and until then there’s nothing wrong with a big old ugly-cry.

#9: People Think You’re Crying Because You’re Pregnant

There is nothing more infuriating than people dismissing your emotions because you’re pregnant (remember this when you have a toddler who cries over the color of his dinner plate. Not that he’s pregnant, but just that it’s a big deal for him).

You are crying because of a million reasons and, yes, you happen to be pregnant, but that doesn’t mean your fears are unjustified.

#10: Wanting The Baby Out

Whether you love or loathe pregnancy, there will come a day when you just Want The Baby Out. You’re fed up with having swollen Shrek feet, you’re fed up with heartburn, you’re tired and you just want it all to be over. Oh, and you’re sick of the messages asking if there’s any news yet.

You want to ‘relax’ like the pregnancy sites say you should (guilty), but you can’t because you’re so damn miserable and stressed and just Want The Damn Baby Out. Once your estimated due date has passed, you should expect to cry eight trillion times a day. It’s the longest wait ever. Good luck with that.

You are crying because of a million reasons and, yes, you happen to be pregnant, but that doesn’t mean your fears are unjustified.