I Somehow Missed All Of These ‘Advantages’ In My Unplanned Pregnancy

I’m not clear what planet Jezebel writer Tracy Moore is living on, but we’re definitely not existing on the same one. I just hope that women on the fence about becoming pregnant don’t take her “pregnancy fixes everything” manifesto to heart. I have never seen so many misconceptions about pregnancy lumped into one small space on the Internet before.

The article is titled, Ten Advantages To An Unplanned Pregnancy. It should be titled, “Help! An Evil Wizard Has Cursed Me And I Can Only Tell Massive, Misleading Lies.” Okay, maybe I’m overreacting a bit – it’s just that I had a completely opposite experience than the one she’s describing.

There are a few things on her list that are pretty obvious and benign. Yes, you do tend to “get healthier” when you are pregnant. Most pregnant women aren’t chain-smoking cigarettes or downing shots of tequila. And yes, you do have an “ironclad excuse to get out of things.” There’s nothing like a little “pregnancy exhaustion” to clear your schedule. That makes two points out of 10 that I can wrap my brain around. Most of the others massively confuse me, though.

 You’ll Get Emotionally Sorted Out

… Luckily, pregnancy puts a natural, and surprisingly manageable, deadline on getting your shit together upstairs, at least enough to focus completely on another human being.

Yes, pregnancy does “put a deadline on things.” Does this make it easier to “get your shit together upstairs?” I guess if you work really well under pressure. Pregnancy is physically and emotionally overwhelming. Your body is changing more drastically in a shorter period of time than it probably ever will again. Depression is real for a lot of women and hormones can make the smallest things seem like epic problems.

You’ll Figure Out Your Career

If you’re lucky enough to have a good salary, this could mean taking steps to hire or share a nanny to help when you’re at work. Or maybe you’re not that happy with your job anyway, and it’s time to think about going back to school in the short term to get the training you need to start a new career.

Um, sorry, come again? Go back to school and start a new career? In the midst of dealing with an “unplanned pregnancy.” I’m not so sure about this. Going back to school is a definite time and financial commitment. How many people dealing with an unplanned pregnancy have that?

You’ll Figure Out Your Finances

You would not believe how much money you can save””even when you work as a reporter at a tiny little alt-weekly in the South that you know for sure is underpaying you based on the national average, common sense, your eyes, gossip, and your paycheck. When you stop drinking, smoking, buying large coffees, and eating lunch and dinner out every day, you can live on practically nothing in some towns.

Yes, except the money spent on “drinking, smoking, buying large coffees and eating lunch and dinner out every day” will now be spent on diapers, milk, formula, baby gear, baby sitters, car seats for every stage of development, toys, clothes that your baby will grow out of every two months… the list goes on and on. Having a whole other human to support is more expensive than being single – even if you’re going out to lunch and dinner every day.

Perhaps she wrote this when the baby was actually in her womb eating her brain. Babies have been known to do that.

(photo: Alexander Gospodinov/ Shutterstock)