pregnancy learnings (ii)
...but didn't feel like I was that prepared once it happened
I just published part (i) of my pregnancy learnings1, which was mostly on when I started trying to get pregnant to when I found out. I’m due in about a month, at the end of May 2024.
I split it into 2 parts so it wouldn’t be too long to read in one sitting and for part (ii) below, I’ll be sharing about my experiences during the 3 trimesters.2 The first trimester was really rough on my mental health, the second trimester was the breeziest, and I’m now in the third trimester which comes with more physical discomfort.
(If you would like to read the Chinese version, I will be posting it on my Facebook soon).
As a reminder, everyone and their body is different, and my perspective is just one of many that might give you a view on what it’s like being pregnant for the first time. Most of this is not advice! Many people will try to give you their recommendations but in the end, you know yourself best, so make your own observations and do your own research too 😉
First Trimester (Sep’ 2023 - Nov’ 2023)
🫀 The next day after we found out I was pregnant, we went to a nearby OBGYN and continued to go there for a few weeks until we confirmed a heartbeat.3 Once the baby’s heartbeat was detected, we decided on Dianthus Clinic4 for where I would go for the rest of the pregnancy check-ups and where I would be giving birth.
It’s normal when doctors can’t detect a heartbeat at the very beginning because the fetus is tiny (~0.025 millimeters / 0.001 inches at 2 weeks after fertilization). The original OBGYN doctor I went to kept reminding us that there’s a chance the fetus may not keep growing and told us not to visit too regularly to check on what was happening in my body. I guess he didn’t want us to get our hopes up and stress ourselves out, but this waiting period made me quite anxious.5
Thankfully, the heartbeat showed up after a few visits and we started going to Dianthus’ Xinsheng branch. I liked the first doctor we met so we stayed with her throughout the pregnancy visits, and the clinic gave us some good advice about how to eat + what generally to look out for. They advised me to take folic acid6 straight away, and I only found out later that apparently I could have started taking it much earlier before I got pregnant.
🌧️ People usually hear about morning sickness and cravings during pregnancy, and luckily I didn’t experience any vomiting, but my mental health did decline dramatically.
Although I didn’t have morning sickness and vomiting tendencies, I stopped having an appetite. I didn’t have specific cravings but there were a lot of foods I couldn’t stand eating anymore, like Asian food (i.e. dumplings, noodles, etc.) or anything with too much flavor / sauce. This contributed to my low moods because I usually love eating and can enjoy any dish, so not being able to eat took away a simple but meaningful pleasure in my life.
A common experience for many women during the first trimester is fatigue and sleepiness. I slept in often and took naps throughout the day, but sometimes it still felt like I didn’t get enough rest. Oftentimes when I woke up, the blood would be drained from my face and lips. The fetus probably takes a lot of the nutrients from the mother while she’s sleeping in order to grow stronger (a friend joked about how parasitic that sounded 🪱).
A pregnant woman’s hormones change quite a bit and the physical reaction can be different for each woman. For me, my skin became even more sensitive than it normally is. My long hair touching parts of my body (like my shoulders or my back) got uncomfortable and itchy so I cut my hair short. I started breaking out with pimples all over my face and also in strange new places like my hands and my chest area.
There were no real coping mechanisms for me to combat the low moods. Usually if I have a bad week, I can socialize with friends, go out drinking and dancing, or find some type of release, but I couldn’t do most of those things anymore. Because of my fatigue, socializing was exhausting, and combined with my skin breaking out, I didn’t want to leave the house. I had also stopped taking my schizophrenia meds the moment I found out, and although I didn’t have intense episodes after stopping the meds, it was difficult not to have my meds to rely on for regulating my brain’s chemistry, so that probably also contributed to my decreased mental health. My mind would often drift off thinking about dark, existential topics. I scoured the internet regularly in desperation for coping mechanisms but very little research has been done to help women combat mental health issues during pregnancy.7
- was very supportive during this time, adjusting his schedule so he could work from home as much as possible to keep me company. He still had to work full-time though, so I spent a lot of time at home playing video games, but there’s only so much that video games can do to help with low moods, and my eyes were also suffering from gaming too much. Since all I was doing was playing video games, I also ran out of things to talk about with my therapist. I tried talking about the existential thoughts I had, but there would be no conclusion or way for me to mentally move past them, so eventually I stopped going to therapy as well.
🛑 To protect my deteriorating mental health, I decided to quit social media, stop following mainstream news, and take a break from working on projects.
For a more calm and present state of mind, I deleted all social media apps from my phone. I still wanted to communicate with friends and family easily so I kept my chat apps, but I turned off all push notifications and limited checking messages and emails to a few times a day. Sometimes I didn’t really know what to do when I had short periods of free time but overall, it was definitely helpful for my mental health — I didn’t realize how often I would automatically reach for my phone and how relaxing it was not to constantly react to new messages and content.
A month after finding out about my pregnancy, Hamas launched an attack on Israeli forces and civilians, taking 200+ people as hostages and over 1,000 people were killed in the chaos. This then led to the Israeli government retaliating with a full-scale attack on Gaza, which is still ongoing. Over 30,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023, with many more missing or unaccounted for, and the grimmest part of it all is that the majority of them are children and women. Reading and watching the situation unfold during my first trimester made me even more depressed so I had to stop looking at daily news and traditional media, which can be really biased and political. Obviously I don’t condone the violent attack by Hamas, but it’s truly terrible how many people and organizations justify or ignore the killing of thousands of children and other innocents who are helplessly caught in the middle. I ended up subscribing to
, an independent news organization which summarizes relevant news on multiple platforms, and I believe their perspective sides with human lives & human rights. It’s been a relief to be able to stay in the loop and not be bombarded by angry, hateful, and distorted opinions all the time.Overall, due to the hormonal changes that impacted me physically and mentally, I didn’t have much motivation to work on projects so I stopped the consulting work as well as most of the other community-building projects I was supporting that I mentioned in part (i). I still continued to work on Taipei Blockchain Week (TBW), which is completely run by unpaid contributors who volunteer in their free time so I wanted to see my responsibilities through till the end of the year. The overall TBW team was really supportive and the work was fun so it wasn’t stressful to keep working on it. I feel privileged to be in a position where I have the choice to stop working, and although there’s no conclusive research into the mental or emotional factors of miscarriages, almost all the women I know who had a miscarriage were going through a lot of stress at work. Miscarriages are actually not that uncommon, with around 1 in 5 known pregnancies ending in miscarriages (with many more happening to women who didn’t know they were pregnant in the first place), and so it was a big reason why I decided to leave my full-time job at the end of 2022.8
❄️ Jack and I were finishing up our move to a new apartment, and winter in Taiwan means people coming back from abroad to visit, so the added busyness was really unhelpful for my stress and mental state.
Jack and I had rented an apartment in 中山區 for 2 years starting from January 2022. Our lease was coming up at the beginning of 2024, so we were lucky to have the opportunity to move into our current apartment in 松山區 last year, except we had been planning on doing it together in the second half of 2023. Once we found out I was pregnant, Jack basically had to do most of it by himself. We were also told that in Taiwan, it’s considered bad luck to move while pregnant.9 Superstitions aside though, moving is a stressful activity and requires a lot of physical and mental work, so it can be dangerous for pregnant women to be too involved in the moving process.10
I went to Taipei American School during high school and many of my Taiwanese friends and family live abroad. Due to Western holidays of getting Christmas to New Year’s time off work, most friends and family come back to Taiwan from December to January, which meant a lot of dinners, weddings, gatherings, catch ups, Taipei Blockchain Week, and more happening during this short period. As mentioned, my mental state made me prefer to be more of a hermit, so this period was probably the most stressful time during my pregnancy. I’d like to give a special shout-out to a few people who actively made this period a lot less stressful for me:
Second Trimester (Dec’ 2023 - Feb’ 2024)
🐶 To counter my low moods, we decided to adopt a dog, and after our pup moved in, my mental health significantly improved!
We started looking into adopting a dog around October when my mental health was steadily declining and I was feeling a lot of despair. A good friend told me that a mutual friend of ours also had a tough time with mental health during pregnancy, so she let our pregnant friend borrow her cat for a few weeks and she got a lot better. Jack and I are allergic to cats so we opted to adopt a dog instead. We also thought it would be meaningful to have our kid(s) grow up with a dog as a companion. We discovered a non-profit foundation called Eve’s Dogs that focuses on rescuing Taiwan Formosan Mountain Dogs (FMD), and by December, one week after we officially moved in to our new apartment, we got our 7-month old pup Ohio (aka Ohayo). I’ll be sharing more about her adoption process on her Instagram soon if you’re interested in learning more (and I highly recommend this foundation whether you live in Taiwan or abroad if you’re looking to adopt an FMD).
Specifically for the pregnancy, Ohio has really helped a lot. I’m forced to leave the house 1-2 times a day to walk her for 30-60 mins each time, she’s cuddly and not too demanding when it comes to attention, and it’s really hard to think about dark, existential things with such a sweet pup around breathing more life into our home. It also gave us some practice as parents trying to figure out her needs when she can’t speak, and we’ve definitely learned a few lessons in the meantime. Generally speaking, it is without a doubt one of the best decisions I have made in my life and I’m so grateful for her 🥺🥹
😌 As many friends have said, the second trimester is the best time during pregnancy. I felt more at peace and got back to doing the things I wanted to.
Once most people had left Taiwan by mid-January, I started swimming a few times a week and doing squats. I’m actually pretty nervous about the birthing process itself since I’ll try naturally first, and I’m worried about the pain and how long labor might take. I had heard squats and exercise could help, so let’s see how it goes ~
Jack was also on break from work in February so we got to spend a lot of quality time together, with Ohio and with family, and it was really the best month out of the entire pregnancy. Since I had stopped most of my external commitments, I found that I had little to no desire to play video games anymore (!) and spent a lot of time on things that I never had time for back when I kept myself busy and was still working.
The only advice I’ll give about pregnancy is to take advantage of your second trimester!!
Third Trimester (Mar’ 2024 - May 2024)
🪑 I’m in my third trimester now and it’s mostly dealing with the physical discomfort which can vary depending on the woman and body type.
For me, I don’t have trouble standing, walking around, or lying down on my back. However, finding a good sitting position has been really hard for me so I try not to schedule hours-long meals with others or attend activities where I have to sit in one place for over too long. Also, I have to use the bathroom every hour (due to the baby getting bigger and putting pressure on my organs) so I’m very conscious of only going to places that have easily accessible bathrooms.
A weird thing I’ve been experiencing is parts of my body becoming numb. Some of my fingers have been constantly numb for weeks. I can’t really sleep on my side because my arms and thighs will get numb and become very uncomfortable. Apparently it’s due to carpal tunnel syndrome which many women experience during the third trimester.
My sleep quality has also been up and down recently, which a vast majority of women experience during their third trimester, according to many different researchers around the world. Some theories say it’s because the baby is more likely than not to be born by this point, so pregnant women historically have needed to be light sleepers and more alert, just in case something happens while they are sleeping and they need to react fast to protect themselves and the baby.
There were moments where I felt lightning crotch pain but I noticed it happened more often when I would be too full after eating, so eating less helped a lot. I basically don’t experience any nowadays.
Due in May 2024
That’s it for now! I believe things will only get harder overall from here on out, but I actually feel ok about it. In fact, I now feel like I could go through the pregnancy experience again and have another kid, and maybe actually be more prepared for the next time (but ask me again in 6 months after sleep deprivation and taking care of a newborn baby for the first time 🫣). It’s strange to think that just a few months ago, I was feeling pretty regretful about getting pregnant (when my mental health was at a low point). I had started writing my learnings then to try to do something productive and positive, and I’m glad I did because thinking back now, I don’t remember many of the details anymore. These days, I mostly feel ok and I’m looking forward to parenthood.
It really helps having a committed and supportive partner like Jack. Being with him changed my mind about having kids in the first place and he really helped me overcome many of the challenges I experienced during pregnancy, from adjusting his work schedule to work mostly from home, to cooking nutritious meals for me, to generally being my rock. I also think that if you have a good relationship with your mom, being geographically close to her is really helpful too because she’ll have the most empathy for what you’re going through. Finally, I want to share how grateful I am to have such an overall strong support system during this journey. Especially to Jack, Ohio, family, and my college girlfriends (Amanda, Peace, Ify, Chino) who gave me so much emotional strength throughout. It really does take a village to raise a child ❤️
The average pregnancy is 9 months long, split into 3 trimesters of 3 months each.
Having national health insurance in Taiwan means doctor visits are quite affordable at ~US$ 6 per visit.
Dianthus Clinic has several branches in Taipei and it has a good reputation. Many mothers we know have given birth there and recommend it. Do note that Taiwan’s national health insurance (NHI) / 健保 only covers 3 visits in total for the duration of the pregnancy at Dianthus and you’ll have to pay out-of-pocket for the rest. Having kids is expensive!
I’m not sure if it’s normal but the original OBGYN doctor I went to was only focusing on how the fetus would not grow and he didn’t want to share info about would happen to me or the fetus if things progressed healthily. These last few years in Taiwan, I always ask for a female OBGYN doctor when I go for checkups because I’ve only had bad experiences with male OBGYN doctors in Taiwan, especially if they are much older. However, the female doctors weren’t available during the times we could visit this specific OBGYN clinic so I don’t know how normal it is to only focus on the potential negative outcomes or if it’s just another typical, bad experience with male OBGYN doctors.
It’s a B vitamin that prevents major birth defects in the baby’s brain / spine and taking it earlier would have helped prep my body in advance.
It’s really hard to be able to do real A/B testing and other kinds of experiments on pregnant women for obvious reasons, so a lot of what’s out there is only self-reported and there’s no conclusive research on taking specific meds or using other coping mechanisms.
I was really surprised about the number of women I personally knew who had experienced a miscarriage since it’s rarely talked about publicly (which makes complete sense as it is can be traumatizing and difficult to go through). I knew about the statistics but to hear it from friends and family made me a lot more motivated to quit my job. I got my validation about quitting when, for the first time in my life since before puberty, I was able to go over one month without growing a single pimple on my face! No wonder people who don’t do stressful work have such good skin…
They say there’s a “fetus god” who is protecting your unborn child and hanging out in your current home, so if you move your furniture, you’ll disturb their resting spots and they’ll leave, taking their protection with them.
Back in the day, it wasn’t common knowledge not to move or carry heavy things while pregnant, at least not in rural Taiwan. When my grandmother was 7 months pregnant with her fourth child, she was moving furniture and her water broke. My uncle was born 2 months premature and everyone, including the doctors, had given up on him because he was lacking full organs and wasn’t moving. Against all odds, my grandmother relentlessly spent every moment of her time nursing him to life. He’s a healthy and happy man now with 2 kids of his own. Nothing beats a mother’s love ❤️
So nice to hear about your journey :)
I really appreciate your candid openness
(and it answered so many questions I didn't want to bombard you with)
Echo that on social media, apps, and distractions. I'm so close to buying a dumb phone (and tucking my smartphone away in my bag)