Pregnancy was really hard on me.

I feel silly typing that, because untold people are out there being pregnant every day, and many of them even enjoy it or at least get through it with a lot more grace than I did.

I may have gotten a lot of grace, but I sure didn’t exhibit it. It wasn’t as much the physical aspects, although I complained about them plenty. I could deal with the fatigue, the 30+ weeks of nausea, the loose joints, the nerve pain that had me literally crying towards the end whenever I tried to get out of bed, the blood sugar spikes that came with gestational diabetes, the heartburn, the low-lying placenta that had me on modified bedrest for a good chunk and took exercise off the table for my entire pregnancy, all the other aches and pains that had my doctor saying, “Yes, I’m sorry, that comes with the territory and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

But I didn’t deal well with the mental aspects. I’m not going to say a lot about it (some things are private, even on the internet), but it had a lot to do with prior traumas which reared their heads in ugly and unexpected ways. Pregnancy thrust me into limbo and an extensive identity crisis–and not because I didn’t want a child. All I’ve ever wanted is a family of my own, and now I was getting one. Yet it upended my life in ways I had not foreseen and couldn’t deal with.

It didn’t help that I was so far from family and friends and many of my coping strategies were now off limits. Whatever the case, it made most of my pregnancy an exercise of endurance rather than hopeful anticipation. It’s not a coincidence that I had been thinking of going back to therapy for a while and finally did so in the third trimester.

And then G. was born. I ended up with a fourth-degree tear that will require an upcoming surgery to properly repair, and a postpartum period that was so lovely in some ways and so, so painful in others. There were some shaky moments in there when I was hit by postpartum hormones and uncertainty about the future and felt incredibly out of sorts, but by and large, any signs of postpartum depression has passed me by. I’m lucky there, I think. I’m still taking pain killers every day and paying dearly for every walk I take, but I’m doing a million times better than I was at 20 or 30 or 39 weeks, and I’m grateful.

Through all of this, I mostly complained about the physical aspects because I felt that was expected and maybe accepted. I didn’t really know how to talk about the other stuff, how it made me feel like there would be nothing left of me by the time it was over. (I see now how women turn into mothers and lose themselves. I see that so clearly.) I still don’t really know how, though I’ve tried with some people I trust.

By now, I’ve heard a lot of stories from other people recalling their own pregnancies and deliveries. Some good, but many not so good. I wish my pregnancy had been easier, or I had been hardier; I’m not quite sure where the blame lies there. But I mostly wish these stories were part of the public discourse, pregnancy not reduced to something natural and mystical and therefore easy or a dismissive joke about irritability and weird cravings. I wish it wasn’t relegated to something women talk about among themselves. Because yes, finally getting to meet G. made it all worth it, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. But I won’t pretend it wasn’t hard, and I don’t think I should have to.