I remember when I was pregnant with my first child. I was in a “pregnancy bubble,” feeling like I was the first person ever to be pregnant. My mother-in-law who is Korean told me about an old wives tale back in the old country that a calm pregnancy will result in a calm child.

I was fairly content at work where I was launching a new website for an online temp agency for accountants. It was another kind of bubble holed up in a conference room 8 hours a day with developers, project managers, and web designers. The pregnancy went smoothly but the marathon of sitting resulted in hemorrhoids.

My website and baby arrived at almost the same time. Thankfully the website was done a week before the baby. She was a calm and contented baby. Our only issue of her babyhood was her undiagnosed acid reflux, which caused her to want to be upright inconveniently from midnight until four in the morning. It was just a few months but it was torturous.

I was less calm for my next pregnancy. I was stressed trying to balance a full-time job as the family breadwinner with a new baby. The internet bubble of 2002 had just burst so my business was faltering. My husband, who agreed to stay home with our first child, did not want to continue this gig. We opted for a switch out, but it was unclear at the time exactly what he would do for work. When our second baby arrived, we were unprepared with a name, assuming it was a boy. The old wives tales from Korea had indicated it thus. The baby was an active kicker it the womb, and my mother-in-law had a dream that foretold a boy. Nope, the baby was a girl.

From the moment she arrived, we noticed that she had only two volume controls: maniacal screaming or silence. While my first was a calm and patient baby, quietly kicking her wee legs when she wanted to nurse, our new baby screamed the second a drop of pee  hit her diaper and gave only a split second warning when she was hungry. We learned that she seemed to have a heightened sense of smell. When we went out to a restaurant, she would ALWAYS wake up as soon as the food arrived. As she got older, she was famous for doing a Damien 360-degree head-spinning move – with foaming mouth — when she was tired and hungry. 

After our “high need” second child, it was a challenge to convince my husband to have a third! My childhood friend had told me about research that corroborated my mother-in-law’s theory of calm pregnancy = calm baby. It was something about the Fight or Flight response affecting the fetus.

At this point, we had moved from the city to the suburbs and we were settling into our new house. My third pregnancy was fairly calm save for a few false medical alarms. A probable exposure to 5th disease from driving carpool lead to a lot of extra tests.

Still, I tried to let calmness prevail convinced that calm pregnancy = calm baby and our third delivery was induced but uneventful. Our third baby was thankfully calm and a marathon sleeper, at least as an infant. It’s since worn off.

I don’t know if the old wives tale is true and based, in fact, on hormones caused by fight or flight stress. Is my “high need” child the result of a stressful pregnancy or is she just a “mini-me?”  I don’t know the answer but if I were pregnant again, I’d take the time for pre-natal yoga, pregnancy and feet massages and the like. This may not produce a calm, contented baby, but it will help the mama-to-be. And she deserves to be in a “pregnancy bubble” feeling like the first woman ever to carry a baby. It is truly a miracle, after all!

Becoming pregnant changed my life, and I’d love to hear more about your best or most difficult pregnancy moments. By replying, you will be entered to win an exclusive Million Moms Challenge Gift Pack, which includes an all expenses paid trip to a conference on mothers hosted by the UN Foundation in DC (Jan/Feb 2012), an iPad2, a custom-made Million Moms Challenge pendant and $50 donation in your name to Global Giving.

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This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Million Moms Challenge. The opinions and text are all mine. Contest runs September 19 to October 16, 2011. A random winner will be announced by October 18, 2011.

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