Mama Mads

What happens when an anti-social introvert gets pregnant?

I’ve had my share of being a bubbly extrovert, but ultimately found my comfort zone in my 30s being in my introverted shell. I preferred sifting out people who didn’t make that much of an effort to be in touch, or managed to make the friendship all about them. I also immensely disliked social media oriented friendships, where every conversation started and ended with a reel and a laughing emoji. It was much healthier for me this way.

What I was not prepared for was the loneliness that stemmed during my pregnancy.

Pregnancy is normally associated with joy, excitement, fear of the unknown, but many women experience profound feelings of isolation during this time. Pregnancy loneliness can stem from various factors- physical pains, changes in relationship dynamics, societal expectations.

Physically, we all know pregnancy can be demanding and discomforting. It started feeling like no one really understood what I was going through, including myself. Some made a mockery of my symptoms like mood swings and bodily changes. Some couples who were child-free, didn’t really understand what was happening, and I can’t really blame them for that when I myself was new to it. Some decided to treat me like I caught the plague, and distanced from me claiming that this is a ”changing” period in my life. While some decided I am having an ”easy” pregnancy, so there is absolutely no problem and I should hustle it out. I also ended up feeling disconnected from my own self, missing my pre-pregnancy self who just ”had it all”.

While I am fortunate to receive ample support from my partner as well as family from both sides, the shift in dynamics started becoming very evident. Simple parenting decisions led to arguments. Allegations were thrown verbally from both sides when the going got tough. The feeling of dismissals among social circles also attributed to this feeling.

Although, I thrive being in my introverted space, and not feeling the pressure or need to cling on to others, or have any kind of FOMO seeing people having fun, this is a different feeling. Not receiving a simple ”How are you feeling?” from close friends, who really know me and understand me, really didn’t make sense to me. I decided to make the effort and reach out to the same circle, to stay connected and be in tune with what’s happening in their lives. Because, that made me feel good, and I could ignore the slight hurt I felt at the back of my mind.

There were also certain parents who did have an easy unicorn pregnancy, and handled parenting like pros. My huge respect to them, but what irked me was not the fact that they portrayed an image of perfect bliss during pregnancy, but the fact was they ended up ridiculing or shaming women for having bad days or not ”fighting it out”. Women end up feeling isolated and alone, if their experiences were made to seem like it deviated from the idealized narratives.

Addressing pregnancy loneliness would take acknowledging and being aware of its prevalence first. The next step is providing a support system for them. It’s easy to say it, but not when you are someone like me, an introvert, with not much of a social circle to start with. I decided to tackle this by having an open communication with other pregnant women, beyond my personal circle. I went on private forums like Facebook and public sub-reddits like r/pregnant and found my clan. It felt like a safe space for me to share my experience, as well as listen to others’ experiences and be a source of comfort. This blog itself was created as a result of my personal experience, and hopefully, this leads to creating a bigger community during this beautiful, transformative journey.