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Having had a baby recently, Shannon Ashley Garcia Mitchell went through a lot to finally be able to welcome her daughter into this world. Along the way, there were many ups and downs, painful moments, stressful ones, and blissful at times. The actress, who stars on the hit show Pretty Little Liars, has been quite open about her experiences leading up to her eventual motherhood, so we would like to take some of those moments, as described by Mitchell herself, and show you what you can expect with your pregnancy journey.

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It gets tough

It seems like, for Mitchell, the hardest part about the 9 months leading up to when you eventually bring life into the world is the physical and mental toll it takes on you. On multiple occasions, she has opened up about how difficult it is to make compromises and suffer while carrying another human being inside you.

“Something is taking over your body. Your hormones are going up and down, you’re upset you can’t fit into a pair of jeans. But that’s not the only reason. I was out of breath. I was tired. That’s not something I was used to. So mentally it took a toll on me” she said on her YouTube series, Almost Ready, where a lot of these moments were captured on the camera.

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Depression can hit you hard

A very big thing that mothers can suffer from is pregnancy-induced depression, which comes in different forms. Usually, most people are familiar with the term ‘postpartum depression but not many are aware that prenatal depression is also a very real thing. Prenatal depression denotes the condition of being depressed while pregnant and postpartum means after pregnancy.

In an interview on Katie Lowes’ podcast about parenting, Katie’s Crib, she said, “That was something I didn’t know back then. I only knew about postpartum, so I was preparing myself for that. But then when I was upset and not feeling my best during pregnancy, I was like, ‘Wait, what’s this? Nobody talked about this. I should be so happy right now.'” 

Reportedly, Mitchell’s condition during her pregnancy was so bad that the thought of having a second child scares her despite the many joys she has been experiencing since her first birth – that’s how bad it can get. “I’m going to be honest and say it: I want Atlas to have a sibling so bad, but I don’t want to go through pregnancy again. I wasn’t that beaming goddess that absolutely loved it. I don’t want to do it again because it took a toll on me mentally.” 

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Something very unfortunate happened to her

Moreover, she has more reasons to be reluctant about having another child. Not many know, but the actor everybody loves as Emily Fields has been unfortunate enough to experience a miscarriage in the past. In part, this was the reason why she only announced her successful pregnancy late during her second trimester, as last time she was too eager to tell the world and was then disappointed by the unlucky ending to that story.

On Instagram, she revealed a pregnant ultrasound of her lost child paired with the caption, “We all have to deal with various struggles and challenges in life. And sometimes it’s easier to only showcase the good times on social media, which is what leads many people to criticize it for its lack of authenticity…”

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The message she shared was great, and it raised awareness towards how the images people share on social media don’t tell the full story of somebody’s life, so next time you see someone seemingly living a carefree life, don’t be so quick to judge them.

Labour can last for a while

If you ask us though, we would say that the excruciating 33-hour long labor that she experienced doesn’t fall back much in regards to how much she had suffered before. Being a well-documented process, Mitchell’s experience has been seen by many thanks to her series, Almost Ready, where on episode 6 she goes into labor and delivers the baby by the end of the video. Going to a center for birth and wellness is very important to ensure the safety of you and your child, and that’s what she did.

Some of the most iconic moments in the video are the actress’ husband, Matte Babel, who she has been with since 2017,  wearing a hilarious “no ovaries, no opinion” and Mitchell wearing diapers to prevent accidents from happening sometimes. Don’t misunderstand, we are not poking fun AT Mitchell for going through something very natural, just merely laughing along with her. In addition, her husband gorging on all of the snacks is just as funny.

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“I don’t know how people do this for 36, 40 hours… Some people do 72 hours like, how?” she says at one moment.

Although she has been through a lot of hardships to get to where she is right now, rejoice in the fact that Mitchell’s daughter, Atlas, has become 1 year old and the mother and daughter duo are enjoying every moment together, and that’s what it’s all about in the end.

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