If you’ve ever experienced a difficult childbirth, or if you have certain medical conditions, you know that your pregnancy is not the same (mostly) carefree experience that it can be for other moms-to-be. While your friends may become pregnant with ease and breeze through their morning sickness, glowing for the 10 months they grow their babies, you’ll be stuck with a permanent label: high risk. While every pregnancy is different (especially potentially complicated pregnancies) there are things you'll inevitably do when your pregnancy is high risk; things that help protect you from anything other than the best possible scenarios; things that you might not even want to do, but end up doing because, well, peace of mind is hard to come by when you're going through a high risk pregnancy.
After I lost my daughter and found out I was pregnant again, I was bombarded with so many conflicting thoughts; completely terrified of any problems my baby might have while also trying my best to remain as optimistic as I could for my rainbow baby. When you're essentially at war with yourself and your emotions, it's difficult to truly "enjoy" pregnancy the way so many women are able to. You've been on the other end of those scary statistics; you're acutely aware of just how bad things can get; you've been through something heartbreaking (or have been told you could experience something heartbreaking) and, for lack of a better word, you're scared.
So many women with healthy, "normal" pregnancies do what they need to do in order to get through morning sickness, constipation, bloating, insomnia and a slew of other pregnancy-related side effects. Those of you with a high risk pregnancy do the same, the only difference is the things you'll inevitably do to make it through your 40 or more weeks of pregnancy are less about your body, and more about your mind.