Hi, I'm new here...

Would any of you Aspies describe what it was like for you being pregnant? I'm currently 34 weeks and although I didn't think it'd be a breeze I'm having a rougher time than I'd expected, for a wide variety of reasons (long story and it's bedtime, I'll get back to it tomorrow). So anyway, please describe your personal experiences, good and bad. Thanks in advance...

Marieke
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22yo possible/probable Aspie

Welcome to the board.
I'm twice your age, but had my first baby at age 40.  Being pregnant was terrifying, but being a mom is a heckuva lot harder!  I quit my job when I was three months pregnant, so I had it very easy in that sense.  I didn't know about autism then, so it's hard to say how I would have handled it with knowledge of AS.  I highly recommend the thread on Moms with AS over at the Wrong Planet website.  For some strange reason I've not investigated whether or not there is such a thread here.
The books that I read were all (of course) by NTs, for NTs.  I could not relate, but did not know why.  Then after my daughter was born, everyone said I should join a mothers' group, which was the absolute LAST thing I wanted to do.  I like to be alone, and suddenly NEVER being alone, and being totally responsible for that other person who cannot communicate in words was extremely overwhelming.

I don't want to alarm you.  You may have a fine time.  I didn't.  But here I am, four years later, with a wonderful, wonderful, WONDERFUL Aspie daughter, who alerted me to my own Aspieness.  It's a journey.   Welcome!!

Thanks.

Yeah, I'm not sure how motherhood will be, but I'm not too worried about that yet (perhaps I should be). Luckily I've got a wonderful husband who seems to want to be really involved with the baby... at first he was even talking about wanting to do the male lactation thing (yes, that's biologically possible, although they tend not to produce enough for it to be the baby's sole food supply), but he's finally decided against that.

The first trimester I was nauseous all the time, especially in the evenings, which sucked because I'd signed up for evening classes to avoid problems with morning sickness... I ended up dropping all my classes for the semester. I also slept 13+ hours per day. My husband says I had a fair number of mood swings as well, but I don't remember being worse than usual. My skin allergies got a lot worse as well.

The second trimester was pretty easy I guess. Worried about fixing up the house enough to be able to move into it, but other than that everything was more or less fine, although I got somewhat depressed. This third trimester however is a ***. We just moved into our new house and I've been breaking down all the time, which is fairly explicable but sucks nonetheless. We bought the house before we knew I was pregnant and it needed a lot of work and we'd expected that I'd be able to help a lot, which just didn't happen in the end (I helped some, but not as much as intended). Then, the weather has been really unusual this spring, raining tons so that the foundation work was delayed for over a month, delaying the work on the house. We didn't get the things done we'd expected to do, and we moved into the house without electricity (neighbor was nice and lets us use one extension cord from his house) and with cold water only. And it's hot and humid all day long. For some reason I've also been nauseous a lot again. Never mind the financial troubles...  Finally decided to go see a psychiatrist 2 weeks ago and have been on Prozac since, but that stuff takes time to start working. I'd love to help out with the house to speed things up but *every* little thing sends me into an overload now so I'm most helpful by just keeping my emotions under control so that my husband can work instead of comforting me. Btw, he's been diagnosed with bipolar in the past but claims it's due to being an aspie (for which he's self-diagnosed).

So... ugh.

I can't exactly say either... I've only recently become willing to seriously consider the possibility. In the past I've pretty much only done a pretty decent job of coming up with a million reasons why my differences are NOT due to anything on the autistic spectrum. I guess Occam's razor is finally catching up with me.

My (now 20yo) brother was diagnosed with PDD-NOS about 7 years ago and was causing a lot of trouble (mainly at school). I didn't want to be like him, my parents didn't want me to be like him either, and the two of us are different enough to make denial possible. I read part of a book about Asperger's and just focussed on the things that weren't me and came up with excuses for the things that were me. When I was 19 an Aspie on a mailing list I was on diagnosed me as having Asperger's shadow which I vehemently denied (okay, I ended up saying that I perhaps had a tiny tiny bit of that but that she was mostly wrong). Mind ya, she didn't know about a bunch of Aspie traits that I have... She also placed my husband (whom I hadn't met irl yet at that point in time) on the spectrum and he was more open to that but didn't do much with it. But then after staying with my parents and brother for a month this last winter he decided he was quite similar to my brother and to do some more reading to figure this all out and he ended up deciding that he has Asperger's, to which I (with my nice pregnant mood swings) responded that he needed to shut up about the topic and that he should unbecome an Aspie or I'd divorce him. I apologised about 15 minutes later but you get the idea. Anyway, he's been telling me that he thinks I have it too (although he's nice... he told his Aspie friends that I'm an Aspie with empathy... lol... he scores like 6-9 (iirc) on the EQ test whereas I score like 20-22), and someone else on another mailing list I was on has also told me that I'm probably an Aspie, and I guess I'm finally beginning to accept my verdict. <grin> I don't like paradigm shifts though, so this has been yet another stress recently...

Okay, enough rambling.

I had SUCH a hard time with the thought of being in charge of another human. I was also terrified of the thought of being out of control during childbirth.

I have very nosy family members that all thought it was their right to be part of the birthing process... anyway... I had to make it obnoxiously clear that no one could be there but hubby and required medical professionals. Even then I still had to kick some people out... One of them even tried to walk-in about the same time I was waiting for an epidural... it wasn't so good for her.

My second child by far was easier! I knew what was going to happen and how I was going to react so it went lots smoother. As an added bonus she was born in the middle of the night so no family was around until morning. Also, make sure you set guidlines for any family about your post-partum time as far as visiting. The last thing I needed with any of my babies was people popping in to meet the baby. Try to set up visits yourself so its on your terms.

I'm a strong proponent of an epidural... but I know everyone has their thoughts on it. It just made the whole situation go from out of control, spiraling towards total chaos... to nice and calm and controled.

I was usually more tired than sick and hibernated mostly my first trimesters. I was in college with my first also... that was fun! ha ha ha.

As a now old-time mom who's not having anymore babies I can say I always find it amusing that new moms are more afraid of the birth than the baby... Its not until your drive home that you suddenly realize what the last nine months have been all about.

I know that Jewelie said she didn't like the books... I liked the what to expect books because they helped me know what was coming next. I also read a few others that helped me understand how to handle other mommies. As my oldest daughter got older I had to finally meet other mommies so that she could have the social life she apparently needed.

BTW- Jewelie, where is the mommy aspie part of wrong planet? I always manage to avoid that website, I can't figure it out. (I know that may not make sense, I just can't...)  Can you send a link please?

Good luck with moving, school, babies and everything else! keep us posted please!

Can't do the epidural thing as that'd require me to do a hospital birth which I really don't want to...  when I imagine a hospital birth I imagine overload, doctors not listening to me and then finally drugging me so that I'll be a complacent patient. Not doing that if I can avoid it. Home birth sounds about infinitely better to me, and is cheaper as well.

I'm in the fortunate (ahem) situation that I don't have to worry much about people visiting me and the baby. My husband and I don't have any friends around here, nor any family, so there's no one to come bother us. My mom is coming over after the baby is born, and so are my inlaws, but that's it. My mil is a *** though, but luckily my husband thinks the same thing (dislikes her more than I do), so he's quite willing to kick her out when she's too much of a pain in the ***.

I'm more worried about the toddler years than about the actual birth or the newborn.

Whats the sex of this thing(baby)?

tee hee hee... yea... we just finished up the toddler years! My youngest turned three yesterday (her golden birthday). Being a mom is fun. Toddlers really aren't so bad for the most part... really its 90% smiles and laughter. The 10% isn't so much fun, but you really do learn how to handle it. And you learn to LOVE naptime... and bedtime!

PM me anytime if you want to talk about pregnancy/baby/kid.

Thing? Ugh calling a baby a "thing" Makes my skin crawl.

As for the prenacy thing, have you thought about Pre-Natal yoga? That might help with overloads durning preancey and built good hip strength during birth

LOL... And to think I got flamed (by an Aspie) a few months ago because I referred to my baby as 'it' because we didn't know yet at the time.

Anyway, 'it' is a boy. I asked the ultrasound tech how certain she was and she was really certain and explained in detail why she was so certain, so we shouldn't have a "oops, I mistook the cord for the penis" situation that you sometimes hear about. We've named him Gene.

I know toddlers aren't so bad for the most part, it's the other part I worry about though. Also, some kids are easier than others. Anyway, I'm not particularly worried about it yet, just that the thought scares me more than a baby... babies are comparatively easy I think. I supposedly was an easy baby and an easy toddler, so let's hope the baby takes after me.

Prenatal Yoga... Yeah, I've thought a bit about stuff like that, but I don't have much of an opportunity for a class, and trying to understand instructions like that from a book is not something I'm good at (basically, it's something I'm bad at, get all stressed out by). DVD would be the best option, but my laptop overheated and caught on fire and hence needs a cable replaced before it might perhaps work again. I've been pretty good about going on walks and such though and doing the occasional meditation. I should try to do the meditation thing more often, thanks for reminding me.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/modules.php?n...ic&t=16284


Hope that works.
If it doesn't:
Log in (obvious) and click on Discussion (says Chat, confusingly)
Then scroll down to Women's Discussion
The scroll pretty far down to "moms with AS"

It was really a relief for me to read this thread, because all of the MANY parenting books that I read were totally foreign to me.  Sarahjoke's comments about not allowing visitors at the hospital was like a breath of fresh air.  We AS mothers must reinforce each others' strangenesses!!

Encourage them to change a diaper if you want someone to go.

I didn't really think it was so strange until later...   Some family (mostly hubby's side since mine "get" me a bit better) was really hurt by me not wanting to "share" in all of the excitement... Most have gotten used to me and my oddness.

GuessWho, you make me laugh sometimes. I'm assuming (always gets me in trouble!) that you mean that if the family wants to go you can bring them in to change a diaper. Not sure though! If that is what you meant... I took full advantage of the nursing staff at the hospital. The first time because I just really didn't think at all about diapers (that sounds odd but I was on percaset (SP?) and it was doing some odd things to my brain.) The second time around, well, I was just tired of diapers! Diapers days are all gone now though!

Yes, that was a joke, SarahJoke.
To get someone to leave, ask them to change a diaper.  Especially if they are men.