TW: mentions of: the Lindsay Clancy case, pregnancy loss, PPD/PPA/etc.

Currently, there’s a lot of talk about how the government can help young American families. If we’re taking suggestions, I’d like to throw my own little idea into the conversation.

This national discussion is largely centered around the Lindsay Clancy case: now Massachusetts wants the government to send nurses into families’ homes to check up on postpartum mothers, to make sure they’re not becoming homicidal. Now, I don’t care what anyone says, Lindsay Clancy is guilty as the devil himself, and absolutely deserves the death penalty — if she’s innocent “by reason of insanity,” then so is every murderer ever, and why do we punish anyone at all? — but, even so, I do think having the option of a free postpartum in-home check-up could be helpful for a lot of us.

Meanwhile, a separate branch of this “how to help families” discussion is about this bill that’s apparently being discussed, about the federal government paying families with a stay-at-home parent $9,000 per child per year. To pay stay-at-home parents for the work they do, I guess, and to incentivize traditional family structure, and maybe to hopefully do something about the falling birth rates so humanity doesn’t die out. Hey, I’m all for this! As I told my husband: I’m no card-carrying Republican by any means, but if President Trump actually makes this happen, and manages to send my family an extra thirty-six thousand dollars cash per year, I will officially become Trump’s Number One Bitch — I’m talking red MAGA hat, MAGA flag flying proudly on the lawn, Trump’s portrait framed on my living room wall, you name it. Do I think this is going to happen, realistically? Do I think we families will ever see this money? Absolutely not. (But if we do, I’ll be sure and post photos here of the new red regalia, so you know that I’m a woman of my word.)

But! Aside from mandating nurses in our homes or throwing cash at us, I have another idea I’d like to propose.

Everyone always talks about postpartum, and how hard postpartum is. As they should. It is a wild time. Some moms suffer horribly. However: no one ever talks about what is, for many of us, a zillion times harder in every way, and that is: the first trimester.

For me, and many others like me, the first trimester is immeasurably worse than the third trimester, birth, or postpartum. We all know birth and its aftermath are hard — but why does no one talk about how hard early pregnancy is?! And everyone who’s never had a kid always thinks “oh, the third trimester must be the hardest, because you’re so huge!”, but, for many of us, including me, trimester three is an absolute cake walk, a sunny day at the beach, compared to the first.

“I don’t buy it, Mith! Why is the first trimester, when you’re not even showing yet, so much harder than being a ginormous blimp, or having a screaming newborn that never sleeps?” I’m glad you asked! Because I truly do not understand why the intense suffering that women undergo during weeks 4 through 14 is not common knowledge!

For one, the physical suffering. It’s not about the size of the baby. It’s about those pesky hormones. The pregnancy hormome hcg causes 80+% of us to suffer from intense nausea and fatigue. Imagine the worst stomach bug of your life. Imagine the most exhausted you’ve ever been — that heavy sensation where you could drop down and fall asleep on the kitchen floor. Imagine you’re hungry but the mere thought of any food at all is as repulsive to you as actual excrement. Now imagine this for ten weeks.

Now imagine that you are expected to function as usual and get all your typical work done during those ten weeks!

It’s criminal, is what it is. It’s ludicrous. (Actually, it’s the fault of feminism: we women demanded so hard to be treated exactly like men in every way, that, lo and behold, we got what we asked for, and are now expected to function in society exactly as do men, who never have to endure pregnancy or periods. It’s BS!)

Not just physically, but psychologically, the first trimester is the worst kind of hell. The vast majority of all pregnancy losses occur in the first trimester, so anxiety levels are skyrocketing. Most health care providers won’t see you for your first visit until 8-12 weeks, so you’re living in a state of uncertainty. You know nothing about the health of your baby yet. You can’t feel their kicks. It’s entirely possible they’ve already died and you have no way of knowing (a “missed miscarriage”). And don’t even get me started on how society views miscarriage and treats women who experience it!

And, worst of all, because you’re not showing yet and there’s a large probability that your baby won’t make it, you almost certainly aren’t telling anyone about your pregnancy yet (indeed, it’s even kind of a taboo to announce the news before 12 weeks) — which means, you have no excuse, in the eyes of everyone around you, to be feeling so sick and functioning so poorly and suffering from such crippling anxiety and demotivation. So you just have to “man up” and fake it, or, if you have a job, suffer the consequences. Again: criminal. Ludicrous.

And people don’t talk about this. It’s only in very recent years that scientists have begun researching what actually causes pregnancy nausea and how we might treat it. Until now, no one has really cared. Doctors have all just kind of shrugged and gone “guess it’s got something to do with all that hcg!”

People don’t talk about it, people don’t research it, people don’t care. The first trimester is a silent plague. Any woman around you could be suffering from it and you wouldn’t know. And everyone just glazes over all of this going “wow, moms are so tough! Moms sure are strong! Be sure and buy yours a nice bouquet on Mother’s Day!” — no! It’s not that we’re strong and tough. Some of us are wimps! We just survive it because we have no other choice!

Once the placenta “takes over” hormone production near the end of the first trimester, and levels stabilize, most of us start to feel normal. Trimester two is a breeze, for most of us; the third, in my experience, has some little annoyances, like heartburn and constantly needing to pee, but my energy levels, mood, and feelings about food are as normal as ever, in late pregnancy. Labor and delivery — no joke, I’d rather do it daily, unmedicated, every day for ten weeks than survive trimester one.

Postpartum: I’m not going to mitigate the struggle. For some of us, this is the hardest time. Which is why I do think the option of an in-home nurse is not a bad idea. However, not all of us would need one. For some of us, postpartum is chaotic and tiring and messy, but mainly joyful. For some of us, we’d really appreciate more help during — that’s right, you guessed it! — the first trimester.

Which is why I’m making this little proposal. Give us moms some in-home assistance when we actually need it the most. Imo, if they really want to incentivize family life and take care of mothers, they need to start when our suffering is the greatest.

I think it’d be great if any pregnant mom — and I won’t even limit it to the first trimester, because some moms suffer from HG and have debilitating nausea the whole forty weeks, God help them — were eligible for in-home aides to come and help them out while they’re sick.

A nanny, basically, or a maid (I don’t know what the technical term would be, I’ve never been rich enough to afford hired help of any kind!): someone to come in and cook, clean, run errands, mind the children if necessary, and just be a second set of hands. Obviously, this helper would be optional, and would be someone safe and certified and vetted in all areas and all that. Think of the jobs this would create!

If such an option existed, I for one would snatch it up in a heartbeat.

Because the toll that the first trimester can take on domestic life should not be underestimated. Not anymore.

In this age of “awareness,” when we’re “aware” of every condition under the sun, when we’re so extremely “aware” of postpartum mental illness that we’re even willing to forgive an evil murderer — why are we not more “aware” of the first trimester? It’s stupid that moms are expected to just power through. Thanks for listening to my little rant.