Pregnancy: Why do I feel crappy all the time?

Go look at a construction site. It’s a mess!

Even while things may appear normal on the outside, the same kind of heavy lifting and huge maneuvering is going on inside of the body.

The body is re-creating itself! 

Take, for example, the widening of the hips. Who is telling a mother’s body to prepare in this way, like a ball player slathering a glove with oil before a game? What’s going on at the mechanical level?

There’s a biochemical tool box that the body has to build structures, harden and soften them, and tear things down.

Those are the mother’s genes getting switched on, possibly for the first time. They’re working in response to signals that are being pumped out by the brain, the placenta, and even the baby’s brain. They give the body instructions for creating the tools it needs: The proteins that carry out all kinds of tasks in the uterus and throughout the mom’s body, including the hormones notorious for making us sleepy, nauseous, or grouchy.

If you were the size of a cell, you would look around at the enormous construction site of your body and be awed by the wrecking balls, delivery trucks, and bulldozers at work.

The body needs to rest and the brain needs to be patient and not hyper-vigilant wondering, “Is that gas, or cancer?” The attitude and approach of a mother is so important while the body is doing this work. It’s no cure, but it helps to know that it’s completely reasonable to feel exhausted or worse.