Late Pregnancy Symptoms - Some Weird, Some Less So

I think I just like using the word weird.

At any rate, I'm now 36 weeks pregnant - crikey, that went by fast! What's changed since the last post on dealing with the funny pregnancy symptoms? Very little.

Both the "typically first trimester" symptoms of morning sickness and metallic taste in my mouth have receeded but not completely gone away.

One new one is that my hair or my scalp I suppose, is really oily all of a sudden. I normally wash my hair twice a week and the stretch from Wednesday to Sunday is really getting questionable. I'm not sure if I were 36 weeks pregnant in the winter, that this would be such a problem, but it's hot here and I don't think all the sweating is helping. I do think the rate at which my hair falls out may have slowed - or it may only appear to have slowed, since I got it cut in Barbados and it looks like less in the tub hair trap... Yum!

My heartburn has only gotten worse. I've also talked to enough moms who took way more than 4 Tums/Rolaids per day and ended up with healthy babies that I've stopped worrying about it on the few days that I have taken 4 before lunch... I've also finally been told that I can take one proton pump inhibitor, Xantac. Argh. I should really complain more. I think I just haven't wanted to be the whiner so I haven't bitched and moaned about the heartburn enough to be told this earlier.

Still no stretch marks. A few funny little purple veins on the belly, that might be baby varicose veins, but they don't bulge or hurt so I'm not going to worry about them. The skin on my belly sometimes looks a bit red so I keep moisturizing and it seems fine.

Potential TMI alert on paragraph below!

Speaking of varicose veins, after my bout of intestinal distress back in March, I grew myself some really nice varicose veins of the bum, aka hemorrhoids. Yuck! Unfortunately they've never gone away. Apparently as well as coming along with the constipation and whatnot, their presence is also often attributed to the weight of the baby and her accoutrement on the intestines. After the first couple weeks, they no longer itched and burned, which is alright. However, now with the size of my belly combined with these buggers, it's sometimes hard to reach to clean effectively after a BM. Hoping that makes sense without being excessively graphic?

TMI alert off.

Ooh, one new pregnancy symptom: I'm really irritable. So irritable. I get now why women take time off work before the baby comes. It's not to get the house ready or rest. It's because if you don't, something might fly out of your cranky potty mouth that could get you fired. I'm trying to keep a lid on it. Fortunately I love my job and work with great, competent people, so there's not too much of a reason to lose my grip at work. Poor DH though. He gets all my crazy, rather unfiltered.

Finally, I go back and forth on this mini-series of pregnancy symptoms / side effects / manifestions. I don't like calling them symptoms as I don't think I'm sick, nor side effects because it's not a drug... though I could make an argument for bottling and selling some of the hormones. Manifestations I only just came up with and it sounds a little woo woo out there.

Weird Pregnancy Symptoms/Side Effects

I expected things to happen when I got pregnant: weight gain, stretch marks, etc. But so far my body has done a bunch of things that I wasn't expecting, and hasn't (so far) done several things that I was expecting.

Was expecting:

• Hair loss: I'd read somewhere that while pregnant, your hair mostly stops falling out and then after the baby comes, it all kind of falls out at once. I'd read this freaks out some new moms. Well, much to the dismay of my inhouse plumber (DH), this has not come to pass. I wash my hair twice a week and continue to lose pretty much the same amount of hair into the hair trap now as I did last year.
  
• Stretch marks: So far, nada. Maybe I'll be one of the lucky ones?
• Morning sickness: I was expecting to be losing my breakfast pretty much every day. It's been more like a couple times a month. Thank you PTB!

Wasn't expecting:

• Morning sickness: I was expecting to be losing my breakfast pretty much every day for the first trimester. I'm almost at the end of the second trimester and I still forget not to brush my tongue in the morning, and quickly lose my breakfast. DH is getting used to this - he was alarmed at first.
• Darker hair in weird places: Well, they're not weird places, if you're a guy! I usually don't shave my legs in the winter but I started very early again this spring just because the leg hair was getting crazy dark and nasty looking. Then there's the weirdly long facial peach fuzz I'm growing. I haven't done anything about it yet, since it's thankfully very light, but I'm hoping it stays that way...
• Darker moles: I've always been covered in moles, and they've always been all shades of beige through dark brown. Now they're all very dark. Hoping not very optimistically that they'll go back to normal after the baby comes.
• Intestinal distress: About which I've already written more than probably most wanted to read. Things have improved, thanks to the new prenatal vitamins and some daily prune juice (blech!).
• Sinus congestion: I've been stuffed up since January. It's April. Feh. I'm not sure the neti pot has really helped or not. I keep using it as I've heard it has lots of health benefits, but I'm not convinced.
  
• Belly touching: This is a so far, but so far, people touching my belly hasn't bothered me. I was expecting to be very sensitive and cranky about it, but so far, it's been kinda fun.
• Metallic taste in mouth: another thing that, well, first, I wasn't expecting, but additionally, in the books, they say this is most common in the first trimester. My metallic taste appeared at the end of the first trimester... and continues. I've started chewing gum.
• Heartburn from hell: sometimes it's a challenge to only eat the recommended daily four calcium antacid tablets. There are days where I think I could eat the whole bottle. It's often related to over-eating, which is easy to do when I can only eat tiny little servings of food. But sometimes I get heartburn when I'm hungry, which just doesn't seem fair.
  

From what I've read, all the stuff I'm experiencing so far are within normal parameters, just not what I was expecting.

The wasn't expecting list probably says more about my ignorance about pregnancy than anything weird about my pregnancy experience.

In other news, this past week I visited my dentist, midwife and chiropractor. All reported that things look good - my dentist especially commented on how well I've been taking care of my teeth. I've been flossing a lot more than normal for me, aiming for once a day. They say the inflamation that can come from poor dental hygiene is related to miscarriage and pre-term births. I'm not sure who says that, but I know I read it, and I think my dentist told me that last time I saw him, when I mentioned we were trying to conceive.

Anyone have any good pregnancy side effects to share?

Photo credit: Roberto Muñoz. I picked this photo because it's lovely but also because we are suddenly talking about going back to Barbados for a vacation next month. Wouldn't that be excellent?