January 2011 Moms
Do we know too much?
I'm an advocate of educating oneself and being prepared but I think we know too much. I think the vast amount of overbearing knowledge can actually cause more stress. I think sometimes we are so worried about numbers being just right and symptoms being textbook that we forget to marvel about our pregnancy and the joys and challenges to come. I for one am unsubscribing to a lot of my pregnancy emails because it's overwhelming to see 5 emails about hints and pointers. It's frankly exhausting...
Maybe I'm the oddball here but I think sometimes the overload is more stressful than real life.
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Re: Do we know too much?
YES. I've been feeling this way for a while now. I have really eased up on my reading and googling. Now I just want to see updates on what's growing and forming every week. I refuse to overanalyze my symptoms or lack thereof because a stressed mommy = an unhappy baby!
There is SO MUCH information out there, especially online, where you can find research and anecdotes to support just about anything that your paranoia wants you to believe - I just think it's too much to process. For me, anyway.
The other thing I'm struggling with is actually these messageboards. There are SO MANY heartbreaking stories and i just have to keep reminding myself that, while the stories are true, they aren't the whole story. A messageboard about pregnancy is always going to attract more people who are struggling and looking for support than people who sail through without so much as a hiccup.
It's so hard to keep your head on straight with the internet at your fingertips...
~EDD Nov 18, 2017 with my IUI success story~
[spoiler]
I think unplugging from too much info is a very very good thing to do. Pregnancy and work gossip wise.
I guess I'm a lot more chilled out this time around than last time. "Analyzing" symptoms, micromanaging numbers completely out of context, comparing against others, being in association with other women that m/c or have a stillbirth won't change the course of anything that will happen, good or bad.
The world would not be 4 billion + (and the billions that have passed on before us) if pregnancy was such a delicate affair.
I agree. I love research and being informed, but sometimes it leads me to over-analyze and become paranoid and obsessive. Being on TTGP was wonderful and I learned a lot but I also convinced myself that we were going to have fertility problems and take a long time to conceive because so many women on there were struggling. I had no medical problems or reason to believe we would struggle (DH is one of 5 kids, I'm one of 3) so while I was shocked when we conceived right away, I shouldn't have been and shouldn't have worried so much. I'm not saying I regret being on TTGP, but looking back it totally skewed my perspective and made me worry unnecessarily and feel guilty and almost unworthy for getting pregnant right away when so many women on there were waiting longer and seemed more deserving of it to me.
I also agree that there are more likely to be people on here that have problems and miscarriages. If you go by the boards it seems like a good half of the pregnancies on here end in miscarriage, when in the real world we know it's 10-20%. I try to remind myself that means I have an 80-90% chance of NOT having a miscarriage. I like those odds! Being here or knowing a lot isn't detrimental unless you let it make you anxious, but like QuietGrrrl said, knowing a lot, opening sad posts and offering support won't change what happens to us. The good thing about being here is that it makes us that much more aware of others, compassionate to their struggles, and reminds us how lucky we are, and not to ever take a healthy pregnancy or baby for granted.
I don't think you're an oddball, but I do think it varies by person.
I'm the kind of person who feels comforted by having as much info as is available to me. The more I know, the better I feel. Give me research studies, statistics, cold hard data... and I'm happy. That's why I've spent most of my adult life in grad school.
DH, on the other hand, feels better when he's only given the info he really needs to know. He finds it interesting when it's relevant, but too much stresses him out.
Just one of those "to each their own" kinda things.
ETA - I should add that I DO adopt the ignorance is bliss approach when it comes to the news, or scary movies/tv shows. I can't handle constant, overwhelming violence and tragedy, so I just don't watch or read about it. In that case, I feel better withOUT knowing.
This is all very subjective. If you are someone that can spit off every random fact about the first tri without having to look up a single item, then yes you probably have info overload and need to step away from the library collection of baby books you've collected. However, asking about ham/cheese/ a fingernail full of feta tells me that more knowledge could only be helpful.
Learning how to decipher which information is helpful and which is useless is the key.
I think the info should be there. Whether or not we seek it out depends on the individual. I like seeing how my baby is developing every week and knowing what should be going on. But I, too, would find 5 emails way too much. And I will go on record saying that I hate WTEWYE for many reasons, but my main two is that it's alarmist and condescending.
I think we all need to be aware of how much info is the right amout of info for each of us, and take a lot of it with a grain of salt.
Um, so stop Googling and subscribing to eleventy billion email newsletters if it causes you so much stress. Problem solved.
After 3 miscarriages, I know as much about conception and pregnancy as a freaking ob/gyn does. And you know what? It helps me to not obsess, because I know that avoiding sushi and deli meat does not a viable pregnancy make; nor does sleeping on your left side; nor does avoiding nail polish with phthalates. By round #4 at the pregnancy game, figuring out how to not let anyone notice I'm not drinking is the least of my worries. Nor do I give a flying monkey's ass about when/how I should tell. I'm not so ignorant as to look down my nose at those who get those dastardly, "unnecessary" scans and blood tests and "stress themselves out over the results" because those results CAN BE IMPORTANT.
I will never marvel at my own pregnancy. Not this one, not any future ones. It's not a joy. Pregnancy itself - not all the useless and frankly overreactive info and advice out there - is what causes me stress. Checking for blood every.single.time I go to the bathroom is what stresses me out.
I apologize for being one of those sad stories none of you wishes to read about. But personally, I don't think I can know too much about this. It's too important to me.
I totally agree with this. I know that others who are not in the same situation would not understand, but I feel like doing some of my own research and being my own advocate for the decisions I made/will make while TTC/pregnant make me feel just a little bit better about things. For me, the more knowledge I have, the better I feel about things and it actually causes me a lot less stress.
But then again I passed the "ignorance is bliss" stage a long time ago.