14 Things That Get Harder When You’re Pregnant

It goes without saying, that some things become much easier during pregnancy.

Getting a seat on the bus for example, is a walk in the park.

Avoiding cleaning out the cat’s litter tray is easier too, just leave an information leaflet about toxoplasmosis lying around, and that litter tray will be clean in no time at all.

It’s also a great time to move house, because your bump pretty much excuses you from anything other than a project management role.

14 Things That Get Harder When You’re Pregnant

There are, however, a couple of instances where life becomes a little harder thanks to that beautiful little baby growing in your tummy, for example:

When You’re Pregnant #1: Staying Awake

Never before has staying awake been something you’ve had to work hard to achieve.

In your pre-pregnancy days, you fell asleep when you decided to go to bed, not in the middle of a meeting, in a traffic jam or whilst waiting for dessert.

When You’re Pregnant #2: Tying Shoelaces

Remember when you used to just bend over and tie your shoelaces without a care in the world? It’s not so easy now that you have to navigate over and around the mountainous bump where your midriff once lay.

It’s not just shoelaces either, you struggle to put your socks on too. In fact, you ask your partner to put them on for you most days – and on the other days, you just wear slippers.

When You’re Pregnant #3: Sleeping

Hard as it is to stay awake (see #1), it’s even harder to get a good night’s sleep. It’s hard to believe that just a few months ago you would moan about only getting eight hours of sleep. These nights, you can barely get a whole eight minutes without needing to get up for a wee.

On the rare occasions that your bladder doesn’t stop you sleeping, you can be sure the baby will start a two hour acrobatic training session as soon as your heavy head hits the pillow.

When You’re Pregnant #4: Getting Out of Bed

Every pregnant woman must think at least once during her pregnancy: “I’m going to invent a bedside crane and become a millionaire!” And yet, none of you ever do it.

But you should, because pregnant women would definitely buy it online during the early hours of the morning, as they once again battled with gravity to lever themselves out of bed.

When You’re Pregnant #5: Being a Foodie

It’s all very well describing yourself as a foodie when you aren’t battling with morning sickness, nausea and a strong aversion to the smell of pretty much all food. How are you supposed to enjoy any food after you’ve seen it splattered across a toilet bowl?

When You’re Pregnant #6: Shaving Your Legs

Not that every shave needs to be picture perfect, but during pregnancy it becomes even more likely that you’ll have missed a bit…okay, maybe even a big bit. Even in a fairground house of mirrors, it would be hard to see every nook and cranny beneath that bump.

Reaching as far down as your ankles is probably a strain-worthy move in the later months of pregnancy, so chances are you look like you’re wearing ankle socks with your swimming costume at aqua natal class.

When You’re Pregnant #7: Walking Past Department Stores

This isn’t anything to do with swollen ankles, bump size or frequent urination. It’s just pretty much impossible to resist buying another teeny tiny outfit for the baby.

When You’re Pregnant #8: Getting Out of the Bath

The bath. The good old, trustworthy bathtub. It’s a safe haven for pregnant women, offering both a place to ease aching joints, and a place to secretly sob when you feel overwhelmed by the pregnancy. After a long, draining day at the office, you love nothing more than announcing you might have a bubble bath. The bath is run for you, of course, you shouldn’t be doing such arduous tasks in your condition.

When you dip your foot into the bubbles, you can almost feel the day melt away, and for the next hour you can simply relax and focus on yourself and your developing baby. But it doesn’t end there, sadly. At some point, you will have to get out of the bath, and that means a lot of huffing, puffing and desperately trying to hold your hips together, while you summon the knowledge to invent a small crane to keep in the bathroom.

When You’re Pregnant #9: Long Journeys

Nothing fills a pregnant woman with dread than the prospect of a long journey without access to a bathroom. Car journeys spent exercising those pelvic floor muscles, desperately trying not to wet yourself, are pretty common in the second half of the pregnancy. In fact, it’s not just long car journeys, it’s long anything really.

If you sit down to watch a long film, you’re likely to miss pivotal plot moments as you escape on yet another bathroom break. Hell, even a long conversation can be pushing it when you have an 8 pound baby bouncing on your bladder.

When You’re Pregnant #10: Sex

You may spend the first few weeks trying not to vomit during sex, as the dreaded ‘all day’ sickness seems to attack you morning and night. But all is not lost – you may find that your libido increases during pregnancy, and at some points you may find yourself having the best sex you’ve ever had.

But don’t get too excited, because by the end of the pregnancy, it might end up feeling like a hip-aching, bump-maneuvering, indigestion-causing military operation.

When You’re Pregnant #11: Walking Down the Street

The physical act of walking down the street is ok, it’s just navigating the well-meaning (but definitely unwanted) advice givers that is the problem. They seem to appear out of nowhere, almost as if your bump is giving off some kind of alert siren so they know where to find you.

Before you’ve even met your baby, complete strangers have told you what to feed it, how to stop it crying, and where it should sleep. Oh, and they’re all really interested in the size of your bump, what you’re eating, and chatting about how horrific childbirth was for them (scaring you out of your brain even more).

When You’re Pregnant #12: Watching Television

Why, why must there be so many beautiful tiny babies on television? You spend hours each week, sat sobbing in front of nappy adverts, pregnancy documentaries and, well, anything with a baby in. Everytime you see so much as a flicker of a baby on TV, you feel overcome with emotion and intense need to cry.

Oh, and you can’t watch the news anymore because the world is too terrifying, and it leaves you on the verge of building a bunker in the back garden and stockpiling canned food.

When You’re Pregnant #13: Being Taken Seriously

Just because you’re pregnant, does not mean you are some kind of idiot. Every time you make a serious point in an argument, it is put down to your hormones. Nothing you say can be taken seriously when everyone simply sees you as an emotional wrecking ball on the loose.

When You’re Pregnant #14: Concentrating

Pregnancy brain, exhaustion, focus…whatever you want to call it, concentrating is definitely a lot harder during possible. In fact, it’s a wonder you managed to read this far in one sitting.