Best pregnancy symptoms

A lot of us spend the whole pregnancy complaining about how miserable it's made us. Some of us enjoy every minute and get all glowy and stuff. I think I'm in between - I've enjoyed a lot of it, and tried not to complain too much about the rest.

I thought it might be fun to list some of the enjoyed/enjoyable symptom/side effects of pregnancy, to give our not yet pregnant friends something to which to look forward, and to celebrate how great some of it is. I'll start with:

• Baby movements. I want to write a whole post to try to explain/document how it feels to have this little person inside me. It's amazing in a miraculous sort of way, but also happy because it's a sign that the baby is in good health.
• Great skin. Before starting to try to get pregnant, I used retinol to manage adult acne. I was dreading going off it and the pill at the same time. It was a sketchy couple of months - until I got pregnant. I bet I haven't had such nice clear skin since I was ten years old.
• Great mood hormones. Yes, I have been sometimes a bit more irritable and sometimes quick to say something biting that I'd normally keep to myself, but for the most part, I've been in a pretty bright and sunny place while pregnant. Love that!
• Courtesy of others. Both here in the US and in Barbados, people have been so nice to me since I've started to really show. Servers in restaurants seem to think it's cute when I order juice. I can ask people to carry stuff for me, and they do. They give me free pastries/cookies at Starbucks all the time. I'm totally spoiled.

What is/was your favourite pregnancy side effect/manifestation?

Needles

Photo Credit: Dirty Bunny

I used to detest having blood drawn. By detest, I mean I had gotten to the point where I would insist on having not just a chair but an exam table or bed to lie down on before they'd get to jab my arm. I needed to look away and think about something else to get through it. Vaccines I didn't enjoy but they weren't a big deal like taking blood out was.

Let me tell you that the blood test I had for dengue fever a few years ago was horrible: they needed three or four vials of blood and I was pale and sweating and miserable. Though I suspect the nurse taking the blood felt pretty bad about it too. Or she was a good actor. At any rate, having blood drawn makes me very queasy.

My DH, on the other hand, enjoys watching blood being taken from his own or another person's arm. He also likes violent movies and foods I wouldn't normally eat (fried lung anyone?). When he was in the recovery room after some minor surgery last year, they invited me in to see him, and I think he sneezed a bit of blood. I helpfully almost fainted. They asked me to wait outside where I felt totally useless.

I noticed a change with the first blood test after getting pregnant: I was only... six or eight weeks along at that point, and pretty darn sure I was pregnant, so I was chatting away (reclining on the exam table, expecting to feel faint) with the nurse about how I was to be cat sitting over the holidays and would like to be tested for immunity to toxoplasmosis while they were doing the pregnancy test. I felt a bit off, but generally fine. I couldn't believe it when she said she was done and I insisted on waiting there for a few minutes so I wouldn't be on my feet when I started to feel like passing out.

It never happened.

Since then, I've had a multitude of blood tests, to test all kinds of things (hemoglobin, HIV antibodies, drugs - that might have been a urine test actually, blood sugar, etc). On the last one, I still looked away while he poked my arm, but then watched as he drew the blood out. No faint feeling at all.

I can't explain why the change has occured. I haven't had so many blood tests as to desensitize me, I don't think. I feel older or more mature or something, but I don't think that's it either.

Other than ending up with a baby - a baby! - I think this might be the coolest side effect of pregnancy ever. I'm not sure I'm going to start watching the violent movies with DH however.

Anyone else get over their fear of needles? Any good pregnancy side effects to share?

Pregnancy Brain

True story: I went into the bedroom this evening to get some lip balm before sitting down to listen to my Hypnobabies recording, and thought I should take my calcium tablet now. Both lip balm and calcium tablets are on the same bureau in the bedroom.

I applied the lip balm, put it down, and tried to remember what the other thing was that I was going to do. Couldn't. Walked back into the living room to find my iPod, then remembered the calcium.

Pregnancy brain: it's real. I don't know what I'd do without my BlackBerry. Any good pregnancy brain stories out there?

PS: taking calcium at night as a recent blood test showed me to be a tad anemic, and I read somewhere that taking calcium and iron at the same time is bad, as they bond together and your body can't absorb them. And that magnesium, which is included in my calcium tablet, is good to take before bed to help you sleep. And I can use all the help I can get sleeping right now. Between needing to go to the loo every hour or two, and the sweaty-ness, and not being able to get into a comfortable position, I'm not sure if I'm sleeping or waking more.

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.

Dealing with Pregnancy Side Effects

I can't pretend to be an expert on dealing with the symptoms or side effects, as this is just my first time through it, but I'll share what's worked well for me.

• Metallic taste in mouth: Trident chewing gum works for me - I haven't had much luck with other types of sugarless the flavour away. Yes, I am still having the metal taste in my mouth. I'm in the third trimester for goodness sakes!

• Morning/whenever sickness and nausea: eat something! It's counter-intuitive, but it really helps to eat a small amount of carbs. I was good friends with the whole wheat saltine. Except when I'm nauseated because I forgot to not brush my tongue in the morning. I haven't figured that one out yet. Yes, I'm in the third trimester and still somewhat nauseated in the morning. There are worse things...
• Intestines moving too slowly: I've switched to Citra-Natal, a prescription prenatal vitamin with a stool softener and a more easily digested form of iron in it. I've also continued to eat loads of raw fruit and veggies, and drink loads of water. I alternate between prune and apricot juice - I can't find unsweetened apricot juice though, which makes me cranky(er). Finally, I've significantly reduced the amount of cheese and bananas I eat. All put together, I'm more regular. Thank you, PTB.
• Sinus congestion: I got nothing. The neti pot? Fun to use and I do believe there are health benefits, but the congestion just comes back within a few hours.
• Back pain: gentle, pregnancy modified yoga and seeing my chiropractor once a week. If you're pregnant, it's important to find a chiropractor who has done a course in obstetric chiropractic: not all of them have. I have read that my chiropractor can help reposition the baby if she's almost ready to come out but in a breech position.
• Heartburn: Tums is my friend and constant companion (with a bottle in my desk, another in the loo at home, and a packet in my purse). So is sitting upright after eating, and eating several small meals instead of one big one, but sometimes I both have heartburn and feel hungry. Go figure.
• Pregnancy brain: One word: BlackBerry. Don't know what I'd do without it, other than buy an iPhone.

Here's a new one: I've been having Braxton Hicks contractions for at least a couple weeks and just figured it out, oh, you know, yesterday. Thank you WTEWYE! I was reading ahead to the 28 - 32 weeks section, where they mention that sometimes your uterus feels like a rock for a little while and then it stops, and identifies these as BH contractions. I had no idea. They also mentioned that they can start as early as 20 weeks... but don't mention it in the book until 28? Sigh. Editors are great.

At any rate, I haven't got anything in particular for dealing with the BH contractions - they're not painful (yet), just weird feeling: I look like I have a melon stuffed up my shirt, but now my belly feels hard, like a melon... and then it goes away. I actually thought, before I got this label for it, that the baby was doing backflips or something, and just taking up a lot of space.

The hairiness? I shave the bits I normally shave and ignore the rest. The belly touching hasn't got out of control yet.

Actually speaking of WTEWYE, I love that every month/chapter starts what what to expect this month, and is mostly physical stuff but also some mental/emotional stuff too. The last couple months, boredom with the pregnancy has been listed, which just blows me away. I feel like I'm just really getting into it now and enjoying that I'm really showing. I think the whole thing has been fascinating and (largely) wonderful. The only boredom I'm worried about is that not everyone else around me is finding my pregnancy as endlessly fascinating as I am!

Let's hear some other good tips for managing the pregnancy side effects you've experienced!

Photo credit: Eric Gjerde

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?