When Sh*t Gets Real
By: Kiki Eichhörnchen
Tags: Motherhood, Life, Mental Health, Women, Pregnancy

Due to my weird cycle, I found out I was pregnant at four and a half weeks. At this point, everything felt relatively normal (except the absence of my usual PMS-related-sad-donkey-induced bouts of crying, and of the most obvious sign; the absence of a period).

Anyways, life continued as normal… it was so normal that not only did I fail to fully cogitate that my body (at least internally) was going through massive changes, but I embraced a bit of a happy-go-lucky casualness that would make Phoebe from Friends seem like she has her sh*t together. In fact, one could even go as far as saying that this carefreeness pendulumed (ok, so this isn’t actually a word, but you get my drift) to a bit of a God-complex. For those of you who don’t know me in real life, well, it’s easily done when you’re named after an almighty Hindu supreme being… this combined with having survived being hit by a bus and most recently having had a quad bike land on me after wiping out on the top of a +12m sand dune.

So there I was… feeling invincible. Pregnancy, it’s not so bad is it? I honestly don’t know what all the fuss is all about… tired-schmired… aren’t I just fabulous gliding through pregnancy like a boss?

Oh how the mighty fall. My blissful ignorance and arrogance lasted all of one and a half weeks before I descended back down to Earth from my celestial and deluded orbit. Like clockwork, entering week six of pregnancy began my downward spiral into what can only be compared to a never-ending hangover.

The tiredness was like nothing I’d ever experienced. No, scratch that. It was like the soul crushing blanket of fatigue that smothered me completely when I got swine flu. You’re so tired, that even the thought of moving exhausts you.

Then there’s the nausea AKA ‘morning sickness’. Morning sickness is one of the biggest lies ever. Where can I report this false advertising, because I can tell you now that calling it morning sickness is a complete misnomer (it strikes at any time)? And hand-in-hand with the nausea is the vomiting, by which I mean of the projectile variety, which would leave me shaking and sweating on the bathroom floor, and like I’d dislocated my jaw, such was the force. Now, there are women who experience this, being triggered by aversions to smells or taste, and there is some reason to suggest that this is down to an evolutionary defence mechanism to prevent the mother from eating toxins that pose risk to the foetus, but I can confirm that this could be visually triggered too. I lost my sense of smell in 2013 and have been living a cardboard existence because of it ever since. There were times where the mere sight of certain foods caused me to vomit violently (shepherd’s pie and most lamb dishes were the main culprits). This had the knock on affect of me completely losing my appetite, and losing weight as a result, which exacerbated the fatigue, and on it went.

Ironically, it seems like a distant grey blur where day faded into night, which faded into day, but I remember the feeling in all its techni-coloured high definition glory. The feeling of being a mere vessel with complete disconnect to the mind. With the intense attack on my body, there was no room left for me as a person and my numerous personality quirks. All thoughts were consumed with just trying to get through each day, and hoping it would go away so I could regain a sense of self. It was at this point I entered into really dark territory mentally. I had gone from feeling invincible, to weak and like a pathetic failure. How do all those other women cope? Why can’t I? Why can’t I be like one of those glowing Instamums, beaming radiantly and floating around in an Oscar de la Renta-inspired gown, frolicking around in a field of lavender during golden hour?… or one of those pregnancy fitness queens running trails in a forrest (ok, so this is unrealistic because I can not stand running, but still, I wished I was that woman)? I was ashamed to admit that I was really hating pregnancy, and feeling like less of woman for it. I should be grateful because there are so many women out there who have real and heartbreaking struggles to conceive, and there I was, knocked up and defeated by the thought of convalescing and watching Netflix. I should be grateful, because this life growing inside me, this cluster of cells no bigger than a pea, are a gift to be cherished and celebrated was causing me to lose bodily autonomy. The shame I felt became the cage I locked myself in and the stick I beat myself with… besides, it was still so early that only Alex, my cousin and my best-friend (both women who I hold in extremely high regard because of their collective mental, spiritual and physical perseverance, so again I restrained my moaning) knew about the pregnancy. I was in retreat.

I have never been so grateful for being on furlough during the early acts of the Covid Play, because I couldn’t imagine having to navigate the Tube, when I was barely capable of getting out of bed. I felt hopeless. Like I was just a battery powering something greater than myself, or a brainless zombie stumbling her way to the bathroom for one end or the other. I think the hardest part was the impact it had on my creativity, because this is so intrinsic to my personality. My artwork and design is everything to me, and seeing my desk slowly gathering a grey veil of dust was akin to torture. Ever the optimist and seeing opportunity in adversity, I tried directing the last reserves of my imagination into a blog to catalogue chronicling my pregnancy journey, only to fail spectacularly. I couldn’t muster the words and was having the mother of all mental blocks. It was devastating.

So here I am, now, a week away from the birth, playing major catch up, but right now, my feelings couldn’t be more different. I am active, my mind is agile (sort of… when I don’t have placenta-brainfarts), and I feel more together than I have in a long time, because in a week’s time, sh*t really will be getting real.