The Psycho Stages of Pregnancy

1-2 weeks pregnant - This is technically before you are actually pregnant, but unless your pregnancy happens accidentally (well lucky you!), you are definitely thinking about it. Oh yes. Ovulation. Fertile window. Some of us are checking basal temperatures, checking out our bodily fluids, peeing on ovulation sticks. All that good stuff that probably makes our husbands think we are cray-zay.

During this time, you are simultaneously forecasting due dates based on several assumed conception dates. If you really got it bad, you are seeing where important pregnancy milestones fall if this is your lucky month! (Ok, first trimester would be done right around Halloween, so we could totally do one of those cute pumpkin pregnancy announcements, yessssssss!)

2-3 weeks pregnant - Google and Baby Center become your sick addiction. You are googling things such as "EARLY EARLY signs of pregnancy," or "is peeing while running an early sign of pregnancy?" You are also insanely in tune with every single cramp or muscle twitch in your whole middle section. (Wait... is that.... implantation cramping? Back pain? Am I getting premenstrual cramps??? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?) You may decide to totally stop working out or drinking alcohol/caffeine during this time because what if this month is the month??

3-4 weeks pregnant - Googling things and getting on Baby Center conversation boards about implantation bleeding. What does implantation bleeding look like? You are also researching like crazy what brands of pregnancy tests are best at getting an early positive pregnancy test. You may or may not have peed on several pregnancy tests already. You are calculating what you think the days post ovulation are. You are becoming psychotically aware of all of these annoying acronyms on sites such as Baby Center. You are also a regular visitor on Baby CentRE, the UK site.

4 weeks pregnant - HELL YES. BIG FAT F-ING POSITIVE pregnancy test. The last two weeks have felt like years. You are super proud of these 4 weeks of pregnancy. Let the motherf-ing planning begin. You may, at this point in time, have the motivation and energy to creatively tell your significant other that you are, in fact, knocked up. You have definitely taken selfies with your positive pregnancy test. You have sent pictures of the result window to your sister. You have peed on several tests, just to make sure.

6 weeks pregnant - You have eagerly scheduled your first doctor's appointment. You are expecting the royal treatment and are crushed into a million pieces when you are not treated like a delicate flower, but instead, fill out a bunch of paperwork and if you are lucky you get an internal u/s to see a flicker of a heartbeat. Now worrying about everything under the sun sets in.

6-13 weeks pregnant - You are horrified of miscarriage. You won't even turn on your seat warmers in the car, what if it burns up your little bean in there? You can just go ahead and forget about eating any deli meat. Is that juice pasteurized? If it's not, then it can go straight to hell. You are reliving every sip of alcohol that you had before you knew you were pregnant, but you were. You are horrified of any speck of anything when you wipe down there, WHAT THE HELL IS THAT? You may take pictures of said specks.

You may also be DYING of morning sickness. You feel as though you will never be the same again. You may have simultaneously peed your pants and gotten a bloody nose whilst puking your guts out so hard. You are googling hyperemesis gravidarum. You are 100% positive that this is what you are suffering from. You are fairly certain you are pregnant with multiples, otherwise why in the hell are you so sick? Considering calling your doctor for a necessary IV of liquid. You are definitely dehydrated and dying. You are wondering why you never knew about how much morning sickness SUCKED ASS. It's because a majority of women and their poor spouses have to suffer this horrible thing alone, as they aren't announcing that they are with child until the end of the first trimester.

All the hours in the day are not enough for your need to sleep. If you are asleep, you can't puke. You pull yourself together enough to take some creative pumpkin pictures for your pregnancy announcement. The days between showers that are acceptable to you are disturbing and disgusting, especially given the amount of times you have been hanging around the porcelain god.

13 weeks pregnant - The last 2.5 months have seemed impossibly long. You are feeling fairly confident enough to announce the pregnancy to the world (i.e. post it on Facebook). You revel in every "like" and comment. You may or may not start to feel like a normal human being at this point, unless you are one of those lucky bitches who don't get sick at all during pregnancy and have a special glow to you that isn't perspiration from dry heaving for the last 30 minutes because of the Man vs. Food you just watched on the Food Network. Now that the world knows your little secret, you are able to obsess about pregnancy without worrying about outing yourself. You can un-"secret" your Pinterest boards on baby items and maternity photo shoot ideas. You now have all eyes on the next big milestone: is this little bambino a boy or a girl?

14-17 weeks pregnant - Each week that passes you may or may not worry a little less about something going wrong. You are drowning in product reviews and baby registries and are completely freaking out about budgeting and breast feeding. You have enrolled in childbirth class, breast feeding class, and infant CPR. You have decided your top 10 favorite names for each gender and secretly decided which gender you want even though you tell everyone that you don't care. You are already planning your gender reveal party and booked the cake lady. You cannot imagine how the next month could possibly happen any more slowly. You become psycho about what the gender of your baby is. You secretly dream of being surprised by TWINS or TRIPLETS during the ultrasound. You research family history of multiples on both sides. You act like the thought of either would be horrifying, but actually you are kind of intrigued at the idea of it. You consider and may even go to a sneak peek ultrasound place to find out the gender before the doctor will do it. You are a rebel; you live on the edge.

17-20 weeks pregnant - You may or may not find out the gender of your little bean. You are able to complete your baby registry with those gender-related items such as pee-pee tents or pink everything. You can now go full speed ahead with gender appropriate clothing shopping. You have narrowed down your favorite names to your favorite 80 names. Your husband only likes 2 of these aforementioned names which are ones that you don't really like that much after all. You like to talk about baby names in the middle of the night, via text in the middle of his work day, and will strike up a conversation about middle names right as the two of you are about to fall asleep. You get irrationally emotional about these conversations.

20-26 weeks pregnant - This might be when you have some baby showers and are ultra motivated to plan nursery themes. Baby Center has been replaced by Pinterest as your favorite go-to web site to waste a million hours of time that you will never ever get back. You have boards for several nursery themes and have already pinned over 1k pins regarding child development. You have an embarrassing amount of baby items taking over several rooms of your house. You take pictures of your dog or cat in the crib, neither of you knowing at that moment that when the baby arrives you will never pay attention to your pet again (until the baby is asleep and then maybe you will have the energy for some belly rubs). You start a blog about your growing family. You want to document everything.

27 weeks pregnant - HOORAY YOU ARE IN THE LAST TRIMESTER! You are definitely pregnant on the outside at this point and are proudly wearing maternity clothing. You may or may not have the nursery completed. You have your bag packed for the hospital and have toured your delivering hospital twice. You have made decisions regarding birth plans or lack there of. You lay in bed and try to imagine what it will be like to be in charge of a little person. Your pregnancy pillow is your best friend. You have become BFFs with the UPS man, who delivers presents from loved ones and packages from Amazon placed in the middle of the night when you can't sleep on a daily basis. You really do consider giving him a gift card when all is said and done. Definitely something when Christmas rolls around. Your baby's name has been decided, and you have written it in various ways about a trillion times.

27-34 weeks pregnant - You start worrying about going back to work after maternity leave. You decide you hate your job. You want to redo the nursery because you no longer love it. Are you sure that is what you want to name your bean? What about the spelling? You are looking into babysitters and nannies and wondering how in the hell you are going to be able to trust anyone with your little human. You may or may not be nesting at this point. You may or may not have these delusional dreams of doing post-natal yoga with your baby held to your body firmly by your $100 ring sling. You have just spent $400 on the best jogging stroller on the market. You cannot stand how huge you are becoming. You ask friends and strangers and anyone who will listen for recommendations for stretch mark prevention. You want to slap people across the face that shame you for not embracing your tiger stripes.

34- 40 weeks pregnant - You are pretty much ready to have this baby. You wonder how early is too early to go into labor. You ask the doctor about induction policies. You start to worry - What if it's not the gender you were told it was? You google horror stories of surprise wrong genders at birth. You think of all the items you own that would all the sudden become obsolete. You imagine your husband going to Walmart in the middle of the night for boy clothes. You also start asking friends about labor and delivery. You want to punch everyone in the face that tells you anything other than stories of sunshine and roses. You don't care about walking normally at this point and proudly waddle to and fro. You may or may not start reading about things to eat/drink or do to induce labor. You research possibly birth stones for your unborn child. You design a beautiful ring highlighting the birthstone of your little bean that you will never be able to afford because of your ring sling and your jogging stroller. You consider doing a little pumping with your double breast pump to get the juices flowing. Sleeping is next to impossible at this point due to your large size and your completely psychotic nesting urges. You have sterilized and redecorated every room of your house and bought a Shark floor cleaner. You may or may not have your own delivery hospital gown with your monogrammed initials on it. You have set up and paid the deposits on your newborn photography session. You. Are. Ready.

And then... it all happens. It may happen the way you pictured it, but more times than not, it is not what you expected. Although it doesn't make it any less perfect or amazing. <3

These psycho stages of pregnancy might not have all happened for you, but maybe you can relate to some of these! This may or may not be the psycho stages of pregnancy that I personally went through... or maybe they are a compilation of experiences that I have heard from friends. I will never tell. ;) Just don't check my google history or I'm in trouble.

What was your most psycho pregnancy thing that you did?