The Pregnancy Roller Coaster

The diaper commercial was a lighthearted montage of wild animals with their newborns. There was a penguin protecting her chick, a zebra circling her foal and so on. Some really touching melody played in the background.

Ten seconds in – right around the time the elephant mom was wrapping her trunk around her little one – most of you would probably be weeping. Welcome to the pregnancy roller coasters, you beautiful ladies! The fact is, pregnancy can have a powerful effect on emotions, which can change by the minute.

If you are wondering how all this drama is happening, you can blame your rising hormonal levels. Experts have found a relationship between hormone levels and the brain’s neurotransmitters – especially serotonin, a chemical that regulates mood.

There are certain women who are more sensitive to shifting hormones more than others are. Sometimes even the lucky souls, pregnant or not, whose moods are not affected by rising hormone levels still face challenges that can influence emotions.

Pregnant women usually refer to their emotions as ‘up and down’ or ‘all over the place’. Although it is not certain, this is most likely related to the hormones in pregnancy along with the other changes in the body.

With your brain basically taking up a whole bunch of new information, new routines and challenges; it is no surprise that you might be experiencing some sort of complicated emotions during pregnancy.

Some ways on overcoming these complicated emotions, or more like learning how to deal with them would be by taking good physical care of yourself, especially getting sufficient amount of rest.

Other ways of dealing with your emotions would be by talking about it to other pregnant women or couples as this would make you feel like you are not alone and would provide you with comfort and instant support.

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Emotions and Decision Making

Most people, especially women live their lives solely on emotions and are comfortable with basing their choices and decisions in life based on feelings and instincts. If you happen to be someone exactly like this, you might find it very difficult when your healthcare provides asks you to seek professional help.

But, keep in mind that they do this out of care, it is very important to try and find a balanced emotional life; especially during your pregnancy. However, if you do find it hard to accept, take your time to consider what you think would be best as rushing into anything would be of no help at all.

Having said that, there are other women who prefer to base their decision making on facts and figures but have to face all these different emotions during pregnancy that they might not be used to. Take a look on how experts categorize emotions and try to understand it just for your pregnancy at least.

Different Types of Emotions

Everyone has gone through all these different emotions at least once in their life, but pregnant women may feel it all at the same time. Below are some of the emotions that could cause a chaos in your mind during pregnancy;

Surprise

Your pregnancy alone might be a surprise to you, along with some other news that might come with it. Some of you might find it surprising if your midwife suddenly tells you that you are expecting twins or any of that sort.

Surprise affects people in very different ways; some accept it with open arms and are ready to take on the new challenge, while others don’t accept it very well as they would rather have had everything planned out in advance.

The best way to go about it would be to read up on reliable information just to be sure that you are aware of all the possible outcomes and this will help reduce the chances of surprise. Even if you are one who loves surprises, it is best to be prepared as surprises don’t always come in good forms and might require you to make tough decisions.

Joy

The confirmation of a planned and wanted pregnancy often brings a feeling of joy and happiness to both you and your partner. In a healthy pregnancy, you are probably going to feel a sense of joy all throughout your pregnancy with rare cases of sadness. Some people who go through imbalanced emotional changes like to keep a diary of things that make them happy in attempt to keep their feeling of joy consistent.

Anger

Angry feelings are known to arise as part of the hormonal changes during pregnancy and happen to be one of the most common emotions. This emotion can lead you to feeling vulnerable and insecure.

They may mostly be directed to your partner, a family member, colleagues, friends, and your healthcare provider or even at yourself. While in labour, it is common that some women respond to their contraction pains with aggression and anger towards their birth partner or midwife.

Even after the baby is born, it is common that some women feel a sense of negativity as the feeling of a loss of freedom and independence rushes over them. Don’t be afraid to talk to a friend or seek professional advice if you feel that the emotions after birth are getting too hard to cope with.

Fear

Fear is probably one of the most common emotions anyone feels as the time is nearing their childbirth. Most women are afraid of any possible disabilities of their new baby. If you are felling this a lot, be sure to talk it out with your midwife just to find out the chances of this happening and if there is anything you can do in attempt to prevent this from happening.

Some women and their partners also fear death in childbirth. However, this should not be bothering you if you are going for your monthly check ups and ultrasounds with your gynecologist.

Fear of birth itself is called ‘tokophobia’ and is recognized as a physical disorder. If you feel like you are suffering from this; firstly, don’t be ashamed to admit it. Secondly, you might want to seek help from a professional as this is very well known to help you through it.

Love

Love, including affection, intimacy and physical desire is strongly connected with the hormone oxytocin; which is better known as the ‘hormone of love’. Oxytocin levels promote the contractions of the uterus during labour, but are also present in both the mother and baby right after birth.

A straightforward and drug free birth contributes to the bonding process after birth. However, complications during birth can slow down this process and some mothers fear they don’t feel overwhelming love for their babies right away, but don’t worry as this feeling is sure to kick in soon enough.

Sadness

Sadness can result from disappointment about your plans for birth and care for your baby if it is obstructed by illness or other complications. It is usually good to keep an open mind and not have too many expectations, and have a ‘plan b’ ready just so that if anything goes wrong, you don’t feel like you have to let yourself or baby down.

During pregnancy and even after pregnancy, you might also find yourself very sensitive to other people’s lives. So, don’t be surprised if you find yourself weeping to a sad movie you have just watched or hearing a sad story about someone else.

Some of the worst episodes in life could be the death of a loved one, in this case it could be a baby or child; miscarriage, loss after delivery or stillbirth could all be extremely devastating. This emotion may never entirely disappear, but with good support from your surrounding it will sure be lessened as time goes on. Of course, no one hopes for this to happen but it is best to be prepared for the worst.

These emotions may make you feel like they are taking over you and you sometimes might just want to give up, but just suck it up and hold on because you are one tough cookie. With tremendous amount of support from everyone around you, especially your partner, family and close friends; you are sure to get over it in no time. It is important to think of pregnancy as a beautiful and magical thing.