Inform the Masses!

Yesterday I complained to you all about feeling mis/uninformed. I've been thinking about it, and the problem is really much worse than we think. There are so many things I've learned by experience that I had no idea about before. (Disclaimer: Very informative. Men might want to skip this post entirely.) For instance:

Did you know that after a woman delivers, she has what is basically a month-long period afterwards? I learned that from WebMD about two weeks before my mom thought to tell me about it.

I'm hungry all the time. People keep on saying that I'm eating for two, implying that I should take double portions, but the fact is that right now I'm lucky if I have room for half of what I could eat in one sitting before I was pregnant. This is because there is a tiny little person where part of my stomach was. As a result, I have to take smaller portions, but get hungry faster. By the way, if I don't eat when I'm hungry, I usually get sick.

Almost everyone knows that during the first two trimesters of pregnancy, the upper real estate looks amazing. What nobody tells you is that the girls hurt like crazy! I think the best adjective I could use is "engorged," and I'm not even breast-feeding yet. It would make sense that when the body is figuring out how much milk it needs to make, things would be a bit tender. But I had no idea it would be a problem before the little squirt arrived.

Muscle pain is (sorry, Mom) a bitch. Again, it makes sense that because the uterus is expanding, bones get moved around, but did you know that when a woman is pregnant, her spine is actually moved out of alignment? Okay, maybe you knew that, but it doesn't just cause back pain. I have a very difficult time putting on pants in the morning, because I have to lift my feet. I've resorted to sitting on something and then standing to pull them all the way up, or lifting my legs one at a time with my hands. Also, any movement that has to do with lying down, or getting up from lying down, requires strategic planning. I primarily use my arms to roll over.

These are just four examples of things that I feel women should be made more aware of. Not just in pre-natal classes or doctors appointments, but starting as early as sex education classes.

I hear a lot of criticism of schools who emphasize abstinence so much, they neglect to educate children on effective birth control. The argument is that teens will have sex no matter what you tell them, so you should emphasize more the necessity of safe sex. The argument has some merit, and I believe we can all agree there are many shortcomings in the education system. (I don't know if I've ever discussed on this blog the circumstances of this child's conception, but the point I would like to make is that no birth control method is 100% effective.) I think if girls knew exactly what kind of hell pregnancy can be, they'd be much more apt to take the safe road and skip the sex. Even with that one incident in the Bible, abstinence still has the highest pregnancy prevention rate.