The Pregnancy Post

DISCLAIMER: THIS POST IS NOT ABOUT FOOD. IT IS ABOUT MY NINE MONTHS BEING PREGNANT AND THE SYMPTOMS I EXPERIENCED. IF YOU'RE LOOKING FOR RECIPES THIS ISN'T THE POST FOR YOU. IF YOU'RE LOOKING TO FIND OUT SOME MAYBE TMI STUFF ABOUT ME AND MY PREGNANT BODY, AND PERHAPS WANT TO FEEL AWKWARD ABOUT MAKING EYE CONTACT WITH ME NEXT TIME YOU SEE ME AFTER READING THIS, THEN READ AWAY. CONSIDER THIS YOUR WARNING.

So, let me start this post by saying compared to what I have heard from moms and read, I had a very easy and enjoyable pregnancy. These symptoms and experiences are my own, and can vary. I know I was pretty lucky compared to what some women go through in their pregnancies.

Where does this story begin? Well it begins with conception, but I'm not going to blog about that. If you don't know how babies are made perhaps you should be googling that instead of reading this blog post. I will begin this with Superbowl weekend. It started on Saturday, with a lunch outing with my girlfriends and bridesmaids dress shopping for my best friend's wedding. We had martinis and oysters and raw tuna and all the good stuff I truly enjoy in life. We made jokes about when Dan and I would get pregnant, and how soon the bride-to-be would get pregnant after her wedding. My response was it'll happen when it happens. Mind you, I had been married just under 4 months. Then, it was Superbowl Sunday. Dan tended bar during the day and met me at our friends' house for the game. We drank many Bud Lights (more than usual because I already knew I had a snow day from school the next day) and celebrated one of the greatest Patriots games I've ever witnessed. At the end of the night, Dan and I got into conversation with our friends about babies, because they have two daughters, and my friend and Dan making bets that I was already pregnant.

Why would they be making bets? I had mentioned that since coming off of birth control I had terrible acne and my boobs were sore. That my hormones were regulating themselves from being off the pill. My friend said the boobs were a dead giveaway that I was pregnant. Yeah....right. I headed home and Dan showed up shortly after to tell me they all agreed I was pregnant (meaning my friends spent another 20 minutes talking about my boob pains....) and that I should take a pregnancy test in the morning. I told him not to get his hopes up. I had taken one a month before and wasn't pregnant that time either, it was just crazy hormones and he would be let down. But, to amuse him, I would. Cut to the next morning and we lucked out when Dan also didn't have to work due to the blizzard. We had a snow day together! At 8:30 in the morning I trotted off to the bathroom to pee on the stick.

Now, if you've never taken a pregnancy test or don't know how one works, the digital one I had lights up these bars when you use it. The second you pee on it, a bar starts blinking, then it takes up to 3 minutes to get 4 blinking bars and then it will say "pregnant" or "not pregnant". My first test I took took 3 minutes to tell me I wasn't pregnant the month before. My plan was to pee, set it on the sink and check back in a few minutes. Well, the first bar lit up right away to let me know it was working. Within 15 seconds all the bars blinked and it said "pregnant". Uhhh, what?!?! I was so dead set, gut feeling, adamant that there was no way I'd be pregnant and everyone else was crazy. I was wrong.

I ran into the bedroom yelling Dan's name and hysterically crying. He thought someone was breaking into the house or someone had died. When he finally comprehended my hysteria we hugged and kissed and stared at the test. Then, we went back to sleep because sleeping in is a rarity and we were going to celebrate with all the good things, like sleeping in together. So, let's talk about pregnancy symptoms that I had for the following nine months.

Acne: I have blessed with pretty good skin my whole life. Maybe 4 times a year I get a nasty pimple on the end of my nose or smack in the middle of my chin letting everyone know it's there. Otherwise, I've always had decent clear skin. Well, my first sign was breaking out all over my chin with tons of little pimples that would just not go away. This happened a month before I found out about the baby, so you can get acne right from the get-go, and I did. I also was breaking out all over my chest, shoulders and back, which was something that never happened to me.

Boobs: Crazy stuff can happen to your boobs when you're pregnant. First, they get sore. Mine ached, would hurt when you even bumped into them, and felt heavy. I'm talking when I would take my bra off it felt like I had watermelons in each breast that were going to fall to the floor type of heavy. That's the only way I can describe it. "I carried a watermelon....?" I carried two, Baby...

Tailbone/Hip pains: These pains can occur at any time, at any intensity throughout the pregnancy. I thought I had moved my hip/tailbone weird when I was coaching cheerleading and it was randomly sore for two weeks. Turns out it was my body already preparing itself when I was about 3 weeks pregnant. Then, it occurred on and off throughout the pregnancy. In the last month, it obviously got worse as I got bigger and it was harder to move around comfortably.

Morning sickness: I never got this! In my first trimester, I needed to eat every 3 hours or so or I would get a little nauseous, which was especially tough when I had NO APPETITE. I either wanted cold fresh fruits and vegetables or nothing. It was tough goings until a few weeks into my second trimester when I could handle regular food again. The only things that made me sick my entire pregnancy was the smell of the trash one time, and a few times when food got stuck in the dishwasher or the dishes sat overnight. Which leads into...

Weight gain: Before I had weight gain, I had weight loss. Almost 10 pounds in my first trimester. With having no appetite and the baby taking all my calories and nutrients, I slimmed down quite a bit at first. Then I very, very slowly gained weight. I didn't gain most of my weight until just into my third trimester. So, I lost about 10 and maybe gained 22 (which includes gaining back the 10 I lost).

Appetite/Cravings: So the last bit sort of talked about my appetite. As for cravings, I never ever ate ice cream before I got pregnant. Seriously. Five bites of ice cream was enough to tide me over for weeks. I was eating full sundaes on an almost daily basis for many weeks. I also craved pickles and cheesecake (not together) and boxed mac and cheese. I did have an aversion to most poultry and meats for a long time. Not because of the taste, because of the texture. The feeling of chewing through meat made me nauseous.

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome: One night around 14 weeks, I went to bed around midnight. Twenty minutes into laying down my wrists and arms felt a little achy. I thought maybe I was laying on them funny and eventually fell asleep. Around 3 am, the pain woke me from my sleep. It was like a throbbing, annoying achiness that wasn't excruciating, but enough to provoke tears, which it did. I took some Tylenol (the only meds allowed that never worked for anything) and woke Dan up. Neither of us knew what to do so I just tried to go back to bed. By 8 am it was even worse, so my mom accompanied me to the ER to get checked out, because we didn't know that you can get carpal tunnel from being pregnant. In the ER they told me I had early onset carpal tunnel and gave me some wrist guards to wear. I called my OB and they said it was early for it to appear, but it will most likely get worse and more frequent later on when I start retaining more water and swelling. Well, guess what? I had one more day where I worse my wrist guard o the left hand and never experienced it again. Take that carpal tunnel!

Pubic bone pain: This one's an interesting one. At about 31 weeks, two hours after waking up I started to feel a general soreness in my pubic bone area. It quickly intensified to me having to slowly shuffle around because every time I took a step it sort of felt like someone was hitting the tip of my pubic bone with a hammer (fun!). I called the OB on this one and she said it was likely my pubic bones separating quicker than normal and that this was common, normal, and ranges from mild to excruciating. I could take some Tylenol (yet again, useless) and use an ice pack on it. The next day, same timing, two hours after waking up it occurred again, but very suddenly and crippling. I could step more than an inch at a time, or move my legs more than an inch apart without feeling like someone was sawing through my pubic bone with a chain saw. I made Dan bring me home ice packs and he had to help me get off the couch every time I had to pee, which was thankfully only every 45 minutes, or he could watch me move down the hallway at a snails pace in tears. This pain never came back until the last week of my pregnancy where it was mild.

Peeing: It goes without saying that pregnant women pee a lot. I had on and off days where some days I didn't pee all that often, and others I was peeing every 20 minutes.

Swelling: I only had swelling in my hands in my last week of pregnancy. Three days before I went into labor I had to finally remove my wedding ring because I was too afraid it would get stuck.

Braxton Hicks: So these "fake" contractions, or false or preparatory or whatever word people use for them can happen starting around 20 weeks. Not everyone gets them. I started getting them around 32 weeks or so and they were painless. It just felt like my stomach (uterus) would tighten up. Almost like the baby moving, but throughout my entire stomach.

Sleep: In the first trimester, when they tell you you will feel an exhaustion like you've never experienced before, they aren't joking. As someone who has had sleep issues since college and been prescribed meds to sleep due to insomnia and regular exhaustion, I can tell you, nothing compares to this. It's a metabolic exhaustion, like you've been running a marathon for 4 days and haven't slept in a year mixed together. Naps are the greatest. Weekends where you can sleep in is the greatest. Actually, those are great all the time, pregnant or not. I gained more energy in the second trimester and most of my third. Halfway through the third I got a little tired again, and then by 36-37 weeks I was back to needing a nap every couple of days. Sleeping at night comfortable ended around 15 weeks. Once I had enough of a bump and I couldn't sleep on my stomach it was all over. Sleeping on my stomach was one of things I missed the most about not being pregnant. I did have a maternity pillow that was a lifesaver, especially as I got bigger and more uncomfortable week by week. Also, getting up to pee every 30 minutes or every time you roll over or shift positions makes sleeping through the night impossible. I learned to sleep in 45 minutes shifts. It also took me HOURS to fall asleep most nights. Thank god for Netflix. Binge watching House and Criminal Minds was great, albeit pretty unhealthy...

Moodiness: I saved this for last. I don't think I was a hormonal monster, though maybe check with Dan on that one. I certainly had days where I was moody and irritable, but I recognized it ad kept it in check. What kind of things would bother me when I was pregnant? Well, being a pretty social couple Dan and I still attended every birthday, BBQ, fundraiser, wedding, we had going on. When I got tired and sore by the end of the night, I would get more irritated with people who were able to enjoy themselves with a beer. Or I would be irritated with people were very drunk and then wonder if I was like that when I wasn't pregnant. Luckily, Dan was super supportive with this and when I said I was ready to leave, he was on board. We maybe had two times where he was bummed we had to leave somewhere, but never complained to me even though I knew he wanted to stay. After a while, you do get tired with answering "How are you feeling?" or "Do you know what you're having?" followed by "Do you have names picked out?". Sometimes I wanted to wear a sign that said:

I feel pregnant.
We don't know what we're having.
Yes, we have names picked out. No, we won't share them with you.

But no question was more annoying than someone with a drink in their hand asking, "So, do you miss drinking?" or, "How much does it suck to not be able to drink?". Sometimes I missed drinking. I never cared that I couldn't drink, because I had the greatest reason in the world not to and I knew overall I was healthier, pregnant or not, for not drinking. But summer BBQs make you want a nice cold beer, so sometimes I missed drinking. Sometimes, I missed that I couldn't get a buzz on like my friends after a long week and just be silly. But it never truly bothered me to not drink. But, reminding a pregnant woman that she can't drink (while her body is going through all sorts of craziness) is just kind of obnoxious sometimes.

I waited to write this post until my pregnancy was over so I could go over all of my symptoms from start to finish. I made it to 39 weeks and 4 days pregnant before our little girl, Peyton Helena was born on October 3rd. The last week of symptoms will be chronicled in the next post, which will focus more on her being born and post partum goodness. Stay tuned for that one!

**I apologize for any typos that may be in this post. I am too tired/too busy staring at my baby to take the time to go back and scour this post for typos. Also, my 'n' key doesn't work half the time, so I'm sure there's some typos in there somewhere. It's amazing how many words, when spelled without the 'n', still make real words that spell check doesn't pick up....