Pre- and post-natal vent

I couldn't write about pregnancy when I was pregnant (why? I don't know - superstition?) and now I almost forgot everything!

The main feeling though stays: how little science there's about this whole process. Medicine is good/available but so, so little science. If you complain to your doctor about anything that doesn't qualify for life threatening treatment, you probably will get some version of “what did you expect? you're pregnant” / “it'll pass with the pregnancy”. The more traditional medical route you go, the less attention you get, too. What's the point of learning these all details about you if it'll pass with the pregnancy? If your blood pressure is over 140/90 though, then you should call. Otherwise it's lightning crotch and it'll pass, too.

Can you imagine if we used something so frivolously called for some men-related disease? “I'm so sorry, sir, your butthole blisters flaring up again.”

This whole thing has so so little science, measurement, predictability. The pregnancy is nine months or forty weeks but jokes on you if you try math it out. Due date is based on your last known period or on the early fetus measurement - which could be off by a few millimeters, leading to a due date that's a week earlier/later.

But then you're held accountable to your due date ferociously: induce at 36 weeks and 6 days - and go to the NICU because you have a preterm baby. Induce at 37 weeks though and you can go home tomorrow with your full term baby.

When baby's born, it's measured! Weight in grams - or pounds and ounces (ounces with decimals fractions: 7lb 3.8oz), length in inches, head circumference in centimeters. Don't ask, get used to it. Somewhere in the central bureau of statistics it all makes sense.

When you're pregnant you become a lesser person. As a woman you already get that treatment but even so you still notice it going down yet another notch when getting pregnant. I just started using a continuous glucose monitor when I discovered I was pregnant. So I asked the complimentary dietitian, “is it normal for the blood sugar levels to spike during pregnancy?” - he asked me “are you expecting? 🐣🐣🐣?” - I have to quote the hatching chicks emojis because it totally threw me off: instead of saying none of your damn business I said yes like I would to an Instagram friend - and they immediately cut off my access to the app. Why? Because the CGMs are not tested on pregnant people. You'd think when all of the population comes out of a uterus, they'd spend more time understanding how an organism with the uterus works but no, nah-uh. Terra incognita. Here be dragons.