After my sister-in-law had her last baby, now 2, her and her husband decided that was it for them. When I asked them why they didn’t want one more, I was surprised by the answer. It wasn’t that they didn’t want one, or that they couldn’t afford one (the normal answers), it was that her husband couldn’t stand another round of his wife pregnant. They both agreed, it was a bad idea to have another one just based on that fact alone. At first I thought he was just being mean until I heard the stories from my sister-in-law…
It turns out she basically hated her husband for the nine months she was pregnant. She was just angry at him all the time. Funny, I couldn’t imagine it before, but now I understand.
The hormones in a woman’s body when she becomes pregnant are very powerful things. HCG, progesterone and estrogen all work together to enable a woman to conceive and carry a baby for nine months. One huge side effect in the rise of these hormones is the havoc that is wreaked onto the mother in the form of fluctuating emotions. A woman pretty much has no control over these, striking in a moments notice, erupting in terrible projected spew. A normal happy woman becomes something much different.
I’ve heard my husband say, as recently as this morning, that he can’t wait until I’m done being pregnant. My moods are truly astronomical. I’ve often wondered how many pregnant women end relationships during their pregnancy and how much of that can be contributed to the rise in hormones. If they would have just waited until the hormones leveled, would the ending result have been different?
About 10% of woman experience depression during pregnancy associated with hormone levels. That’s fairly significant when you think about it. So is there a way to ease the hormone effects? Sorry, but not really until after the baby is born, and it takes up to three months after that for hormones to get back to their original level. If your breastfeeding, it takes way longer.
So suck it up and make the best of it. I hate that answer, it sure doesn’t help my husband or kids who have no idea how to handle my outbursts. But the good news is that it does go away!
