Pregnancy & Skin

Nobody warned me the worst part of pregnancy would be lying awake at 3am, trying not to claw my own stomach off.

Not the morning sickness. Not the back pain. This.

Let me tell you about the part of pregnancy nobody puts on the cute little week by week apps.

The itch.

Not a normal itch. Not a bug bite itch you scratch and forget. This was a deep, crawling, all over my belly itch that got worse the bigger I got, and it was at its absolute meanest at night. I'd be exhausted, finally horizontal, finally still, and my skin would just start screaming. Tight and hot and itchy all at once, like it was being stretched past what it could take. Which, I guess, it was.

I scratched in my sleep. I'd wake up at 3am with little red lines on my belly from my own nails, half awake, promising myself I'd stop. I'd lie there with my hands trapped under my pillow so I couldn't do it again. I cried about it more than once, which felt insane, crying at 3am over an itch, while this enormous wonderful thing was happening to my body. But if you've been there, you know. It's not really about the itch. It's about being so tired and so uncomfortable in your own skin that you can't find a way to rest.

I want to be honest about something. I wasn't even thinking about stretch marks at this point. I know that's what these things are usually about. But I genuinely did not care what my belly looked like. I just wanted to sleep through one single night without my own body waking me up.

What everyone told me to do

Everyone had the same answer. "Oh, you have to moisturize! Cocoa butter. Slather it on."

So I did. I bought the big tub, the thick stuff, and I lathered up every night like they said.

And here's what happened. For about an hour, it helped. The grease sat on top and dulled the itch enough to fall asleep. Then I'd wake up at 2 or 3am and it was back, full force, because the moisture had worn off the surface and the actual problem, whatever was happening underneath, was still happening.

So now I was greasy and itchy and awake. My sheets felt like a salad. And I still wasn't sleeping.

I started to accept that this was just my life now. That itching until I bled a little was the tax on a healthy pregnancy, and I should shut up and pay it.

Then I found out why nothing was staying

I wasn't even looking for a miracle. I was looking for a heavier moisturizer, honestly, something that might last past 2am. That's how low the bar was.

But the more I read, the more I realized I'd been treating the wrong spot the whole time.

The itch and that tight, stretched feeling don't come from your skin being dry on top. They come from deeper down, from the skin being pulled and stretched in the middle layer, the part way under the surface. So a thick butter that sits on top was never going to reach the part that was actually screaming. It could only ever buy me an hour. That's why it kept wearing off. It was never getting where the feeling was coming from.

That was kind of a relief to even understand. I wasn't using it wrong. It just couldn't get deep enough to matter.

What finally let me sleep

So now I knew what I was actually looking for. Not a thicker cream. Something thin enough to sink in, down to where the feeling was actually coming from, instead of sitting on top and wearing off by 2am.

That's a very different thing to search for, and it took me somewhere different than the cocoa butter aisle. I started reading about what actually absorbs deep instead of what just sits there. And one ingredient kept coming up, over and over, in a corner of skincare I'd never once paid attention to.

It's a plant called Centella Asiatica. Tiger grass. It's a big deal in Korean skincare and has been for a long time, and one of the main things it's known for is calming and soothing skin that's stressed and stretched. Which, at 30 weeks, was the only thing I wanted in the entire world.

The one I found put it in a light serum. Thin, not a thick butter. Made to sink in instead of sit there.

I put it on the first night not expecting much. I'd been let down a lot of nights by then.

But it sank in. Actually in, not sitting on top, no grease, no salad sheets. And the relief didn't wear off at 2am. For the first time in weeks, I slept until my alarm. I almost cried again, except this time for the opposite reason.

Within a few days the constant tight, crawling feeling had backed off to something I barely noticed. I stopped waking up with scratch marks. I stopped dreading bedtime.

The part I didn't expect

Here's the bonus I wasn't even looking for.

Because that serum was actually getting down to the deeper layer, the place stretch marks also happen to start, the marks I'd resigned myself to mostly didn't come. A couple faint lines showed up early and then settled and faded back. I came out the other side of my pregnancy with skin I honestly didn't think I'd have.

But I'll be straight with you, because that's not why I bought it and I won't pretend it was. I bought it to stop itching. I bought it to sleep. The smoother skin was a gift I didn't ask for. If you're only here because you're miserable and you just want to feel okay in your body again, that alone is worth it. I promise you that alone is worth it.

If you're lying there at 3am right now

I see you. The hands under the pillow. The little red marks. The crying that feels ridiculous and is somehow completely real anyway.

It is not just dry skin, and you are not doing it wrong. The feeling comes from deeper than a butter can reach, which is the whole reason the butter keeps quitting on you at 2am. Something thin enough to actually sink in is a different experience entirely.

It's clean and gentle, no retinoids, nothing harsh, which mattered to me with a baby coming. Every ingredient is on the page. And if it doesn't bring you any relief, you've got 90 days and your money back, and you keep the bottle. The only thing I had to lose was another bad night, and I'd already had plenty of those.

You deserve to sleep. You deserve to feel okay in your own skin while you do one of the hardest things a body can do.

Lanarie Bare Belly Serum

Real support for your changing belly.

• ✓Goes deeper than ordinary belly creams. It absorbs toward the dermis, the layer where stretch marks actually begin.
• ✓Built around tiger grass. Centella Asiatica, trusted in Korean skincare for generations, to support skin as it stretches.
• ✓Soothes itch and tightness. It calms the daily sting of stretching skin.
• ✓Gentle, clean, no retinoids. Light and not greasy, made for use before, during, and after pregnancy.

Tiger GrassCentella Asiatica, the heart of the formula.

Clean FormulaNo retinoids. No harsh actives.

90 Day GuaranteeYour money back. No questions asked.

Lauren Pace spent the third trimester of her pregnancy losing sleep to an itch nobody had warned her about. She wrote this for the women lying awake at 3am.

This is an advertorial. The author shares a personal experience; individual results vary. Lanarie Bare Belly Serum supports skin as it stretches and is not intended to remove existing stretch marks.