Pregnant People Are Sharing Unfiltered Photos Of What It's Actually Like To Be Pregnant, And Holy Crap
We asked the BuzzFeed Community to share unfiltered pictures and stories from their pregnancy to show what it's really like. Everyone's experiences are different (and it's important to note that they don't all go through difficult pregnancy-related experiences, like some people discuss below), but here's what our readers had to share.
1."My face broke out with really bad hormonal cystic acne, and I had cravings for all the worst food. But I got an awesome table that I got to carry around with me!"
2."Pregnancy brain is a real thing. I caught myself just before I brushed my teeth with deodorant instead of toothpaste."
3."I got an itchy rash during pregnancy called PUPPP (pruritic urticarial papules and plaques of pregnancy). It's a benign skin condition that itched so badly, and it was incredibly hard not to scratch. My showers had to be cold because hot showers dried the skin out, and that aggravated the itch. It was a nightmare. I also had bladder issues throughout my entire pregnancy, along with intense nausea in the very beginning."
4."By the time I reached eight months, I had to use those motorized carts at the grocery store. Don't look at my ankles."
5."For pain relief at the end of my third trimester, I'd have to sit on a stability ball while simultaneously sitting on an ice pack for my lady parts. No one warned me about pelvic ligament tears!"
6."I felt like I spent my entire pregnancy peeing. Peeing all the time. Every. 20. Minutes."
7."While pregnant with my second daughter, I could rest my pregnant belly on my countertop. People thought this photo was fake. It’s real, and my back still isn’t right."
8."This was the indentation when I was pregnant and wore mid-calf socks!"
9."I ended up with gestational diabetes thanks to my PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome), so I had to go to the OB-GYN twice a week to make sure that everything was going well with the pregnancy. I felt like I was there so much that I might as well set up camp there!"
10."During my pregnancy, I was so nauseous that I couldn't brush my hair. Rat's nest ensued. Mom had to help brush out the mess!"
11."My pregnancy immunity was so compromised that I ended up with pneumonia when I was 30 weeks pregnant. I was hospitalized for a week."
12."Sometimes you just really need to put your feet up and have some Boston cream pie."
13."I had to cut my ring off because my fingers got so swollen during pregnancy."
14."My friend is naturally an emotional person, but her pregnancy really heightened everything. One night our group of friends was hanging out, and one of us was trying to rock another one's baby to sleep. All of a sudden the newly-pregnant Julie burst into tears because she was so happy we were all friends. LOL."
15."Here I am when I was seven months pregnant, sleeping in the space between the couch and the coffee table because I'm a stomach sleeper."
16."A lot of my pregnancy meant everything hurt, but I couldn't take any medicine to help. Below is a pic of an ice pack on my hip and a hot rice sock on my knee."
17."With my first pregnancy, I endured six months of morning/all-day sickness, which hospitalized me three times. Everything made me sick, including water, sitting up, and music of any kind. It was an interesting first pregnancy. This photo was taken 12 hours before our 9-pound, 22.5-inch baby boy was born. It was worth it in the end."
18."No one tells you about the roadmap you turn into when pregnant. This was me at 24 weeks, and it just got worse and worse as time went on."
19."I had a super easy, relaxing pregnancy...until I ended up on bedrest for my last month because I was going into preterm labor. I ended up with cholestasis, which is when the bile in your liver slows down or completely stops. It caused me horrible, horrible itchiness and can even lead to stillbirth if it's not watched closely. But it was all worth it in the end for my son."
20."This was me while pregnant with triplets. I was six months in and could barely walk. If the clothes weren't stretchy, I wouldn't wear them. The babies made it to 34.5 weeks. It felt and looked like I'd been pregnant for three years by that point!"
21."I spent my entire last trimester in Old Navy flip-flops 'cause my feet didn't fit in anything else. I also got pregnancy-induced carpal tunnel, to the point where I couldn’t move my right thumb and had to wear a brace. And my feet went up an entire size too."
22."Here's my gaping shirt because of my pregnancy boobs. There was no good place to put the napkin because something was always left uncovered."
23."For me, the end of pregnancy was spent wearing tennis shoes and leggings every day to my typically business-casual job and putting my feet up every chance I got!"
24."I wanted to trim my bangs really quickly over the sink, but my stomach had other ideas."
25."I got extreme carpal tunnel syndrome that was brought on by pregnancy. I had surgery to fix it after having to leave work because I couldn't feel anything in my hand. Not even a month later, my daughter was delivered early due to pre-eclampsia."
26."This picture was taken a month before my due date. I'd gotten diagnosed with gestational diabetes in my third trimester, so I woke up early every morning to check my blood sugar levels and stick to a strict diet and meal schedule. This was in the dead of summer when I couldn't be bothered to wear anything except a stretchy sports bra and my husband's soccer shorts."
27."This picture was taken 21 weeks into my second pregnancy. 'Pregnancy brain' caused the bruised thumb. I was climbing into a car, and while I was holding onto the car, I accidentally slammed the door shut and got my thumb stuck between the car and the door. Ouch."
28."This was five days before giving birth, which was about three weeks before my actual due date. I never got the big boobs, I didn't swell up, and I grew purely in the belly. A lot of people didn't know I was pregnant until I was almost six months along, and then all of a sudden it looked like there was this round basketball under my shirt. Pregnancy wasn't a bad experience at all for me. We were one and done, but I really liked being pregnant and would absolutely do it all over again."
29."I had stretch marks on top of stretch marks. They started at my ribs and went ALL the way down. They were incredibly itchy and painful."
30."Before my daughter was born she was always over to the right side of my body. I felt like I was tipping over for my entire third trimester."
31."This was when I was six months in, and my big takeaway was that I spent so much time on the toilet."
32."This picture was taken at the end of a very stressful pregnancy, five days before I was induced. I don't know whose beer that was in front of me. I'd been dealing with gestational diabetes for the 10 weeks preceding this, and I was constantly worried about my blood sugar. That is my husband's undershirt because my boobs were the size of my head. I'm pretty sure I was also having Braxton-Hicks contractions. I was so miserable."
33.And finally: "Everyone knows about postpartum depression, but nobody talks about perinatal depression. It’s very real and very intense, and I suffered through it for most of my pregnancy. It was the darkest time of my life. Severe depression coupled with exhaustion, pain, tons of swelling, and high blood pressure kept me from doing a lot. I also moved to a new city while six months pregnant and had no friends or support system nearby. It’s the hardest and loneliest thing I’ve ever gone through. It blows my mind that so many people give birth every day, and a lot of them have it worse than I did!"
Everyone's experiences with pregnancy are different, so feel free to share your own photos or stories in the comments below.
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and clarity.
