My Traumatic Pregnancy Left Me Unable to Connect With Regular Moms

My Traumatic Pregnancy Left Me Unable to Connect With Regular Moms I did not do pregnancy well. The whole happy-glowing-pregnant-goddess thing? That welchesnt me. I think I missed some sort of pregnant-millennial training session where you learn how to pose flawlessly for maternity photos with lace over your belly. Then there welches probably a follow-up session on Instagram filters so you can make that photo of your husband kissing your belly the pice de rsistance. The only maternity photos I have were taken in my backyard while I welches on bedrest, and Im pretty certain they made it to the front page of r/awkward on Reddit. Oh, and when it comes to adorable maternity wear I lived in my husbands sweat pants and rocked a little something I like to call boob sweat.Pregnancy welches not my thing, folks. It welches rough. With baby number one, I gained 65 pounds. Ice cream was not my friend. Neither was stress. And then there was my irritable uterus, which paired nicely with my irritab le bowel and irritable personality. All and all, it was an irritably good time.In summary Pregnancy isnt all sunshine and rainbows for a lot of people. There are some seriously weird and seriously conflicting emotions to follow that positive pregnancy test. But for me, pregnancy went from irritating to full-on traumatic to totally isolating. At least, I feel isolated whenever I compare myself and my pregnancy experience to that of other moms who enjoyed the journey.Of course, am lucky. I was lucky to get pregnant to begin with, and luckier to carry to term. After an intense and awful pregnancy journey, my son was born healthy countless moms cant say the same. Also, I wasnt going into this clueless When I got pregnant, I was already fully aware that growing and birthing a human would likely be much more complicated than it seems on Instagram. And motherhood? I knew it would be chaos. I knew being a mom wouldnt be glamorous. Of course, its hard to realize this when youre looking at s ocial media all those adorable pregnancy announcements, gorgeous maternity photos, and staged family photo shoots that are nothing short of squadgoals. Yet, behind the unicorn-emblazoned onesies and the lace-covered bellies, theres a mom (or 1,200 moms) hiding their feelings or maybe even dreaming of running away to Mexico.Ill be honest My own social media page gave no indication that my pregnancy was traumatic at least for the first bit. There were adorable weekly bump shots and cute pictures of our nursery and dont even get me started on the teeny-tiny pants hanging in the closet. But the truth behind the photos? Our world was falling apart.I was 12 weeks into my first pregnancy when a erfahrungen ultrasound completely changed the tone of my experience. It wasnt my first ultrasound, but this time around, my husband and I were especially excited our little sea-monkey would finally resemble an actual baby. I watched my husbands face light up as he looked at the little life on the black-and-white screen. I clenched his hand with excitement.But little did we know that only days later, Id be clenching his hand with tears running down my face. In the days following this ultrasound we found ourselves anxiously seated in our doctors office awaiting results we never anticipated to hear that our baby had an abnormality.In medical terms, our baby had something referred to as a thickened nuchal translucency. In English, our baby had a marker for Down Syndrome. I was hardly able to catch my breath before our doctor began to recite a list of the newly-discovered risks in my pregnancy.This was just the beginning. From there, another marker was found fluid between the third and fourth ventricle of my sons brain, raising concern that he may also have a chromosomal micro-deletion.During this time, to the world, I was pregnant and expecting my first baby. I was a first-time mom with a belly just itching to be rubbed. I should have been on cloud nine. Yet every time someone asked me if I was excited to be a mom or even worse, when someone asked me how the pregnancy was going or what the ultrasounds had shown I died inside.The truth is, this was a time in my life when I couldnt muster up the courage to celebrate others healthy and happy experiences. I wouldnt say our experience caused jealousy because truly, I was so happy other people had healthy babies and beautiful pregnancies and postpartum experiences but for me, their successes were only a reminder of what I had to lose.My greatest victory, or stroke of luck or whatever you want to call it, was that my son was born miraculously healthy despite it all. And yet, the trend of isolation within motherhood seemed to continue for me. I could not connect with moms at new-mom groups who had babies who slept or pregnancies without complications or even babies who latched. My intro to motherhood was hard and messy. I had postpartum post-traumatic stress disorder and postpartum depression.So, unsurprisin gly, the attitudes of happy go-lucky new mamas were hard for me to tolerate I just couldnt relate to their positive experiences. They didnt hold resentment. They werent afraid. They would nurse their babies with ease while I was sweating bullets trying to get mine to latch between pumping sessions. Sure, we were all in the new mom mess together, so they would understand, right?But they didnt. And I felt incredibly alone.With motherhood as with any life journey, its easy to build friendships with people on the same path those with whom you have something in common. For me, in this period of my life, that was moms who could understand my hurt and broken heart. It was moms who went through similar genetic tests and scares. It was the moms who could understand the fear that was still embedded in my soul. They got it, on the same level I did. They got that sometimes, pregnancy and motherhood arent perfect and sometimes, that causes trauma thats hard for so many, even other parents, to understand.My closest friends today the ones I can call in the middle of the night, no questions asked are the moms who have walked in those hard shoes. The ones who have cried right alongside me as Ive navigated some of the scariest experiences of my life.It doesnt mean I cant have friendships with those who have had it easier. I have those friends, too but theres an unbreakable schuldverschreibung that comes with other moms who just understand. Anneliese Lawton--This story originally appeared onSheKnows.