7 Things they don’t tell you about pregnancy

Today I am 28 weeks pregnant and apparently one of those people where were built for growing babies.

When I first started my IVF journey, people would always tell me about the aches and pains and the incessant nausea and vomiting. I felt prepared for that, even though I have an intense dislike, even a fear, of vomiting, I was ready. I had come this far, spent all of this money and put my body through hormonal hell, I was ready!

But, none of the nausea, aches and pains have occurred. What I am left with is something completely different to what I had read and heard about and I am quite honestly a little flabbergasted. And a little intrigued.

This post if for those women who don’t get the stereotypical pregnancy symptoms and will hopefully make what you do feel a little more real and ‘normal’.

Extreme Exhaustion

This one has been hard for me to accept, as a naturally energetic person. A friend of mine had said she was so tired during her first trimester, all she could do was work and sleep, much to her partner’s frustrations (neither of them knew at this point she was pregnant), so I expected to be tired during the first trimester. I was not ready for the reality of this lethargy. I wasn’t ready for the depths of tiredness I am experiencing. Even my bone marrow is exhausted. I sleep about 10 hours a day (this being my first baby, this is a luxury) and am still be bone tired.

But then around 20 week mark, nothings looked up. I was sleeping less and feeling good, looking forward to the rest of my pregnancy as a vibrant, energetic woman!

But then, at week about 22, the lethargy set back in and hasn’t gone away. I get tired from driving. I get tired watching tv. I get tired reading. I get tired bathing and even getting into bed.

I have now accepted tired as my natural default and am not pushing myself any more. I rest when I need to rest and move when I need to. It has certainly slowed me down and oddly, has me feeling way more present in the moment and in the experience of pregnancy. This is probably what has lead to the awareness of the next few experiences on my list.

Flatulence Anticipation

Ok, this one is definitely weird and has received quite a few odd looks and nervous giggles, but I promise it’s a thing.

I know we have all felt those fart bubbles travel down our large intestine before being expelled, so I am sure you know what I’m talking about. It’s normal and completely natural.

What isn’t ‘natural’ is the bubble-like feeling I started getting in my belly at around 20 weeks. It took me a while to realise this was the first initial movements of the baby, and I may have even misinterpreted some of the early movements as fart bubbles, for they felt very similar, except the movements were somehow more solid. Anyway, my body hadn’t recognised this difference. So when the baby moved, my sphincter would enter a state of anticipation for the impending fart to come, only to be left confused when nothing happened. What it meant was, my butt was in a constant state of anticipation for about 4-6 weeks until the movements became more defined.

It certainly was a weird few weeks.

Skin pigmentation

This one is apparently also genetic, as my Mum experienced it. At about week 6, I noticed that the skin on my face was getting darker in places, but also lighter in others. I had this strip across my forehead that looked like freshly peeled sun burn! There was also this other part down across the centre of my left cheek that was darker than the rest, like hundreds of little freckles had materialised over night. I remember wiping at it for about a week thinking it was dirt, before I realised it was my new skin colour. I’ve always been freckly and moley, but this was something else.

I can’t say I’ve been super concerned about it, because I know it’s pregnancy related, but I have to say it has put a dint in my image of myself. I’m just trying to accept it and ride through it, happy in the knowledge that it isn’t permanent!

Kicks in areas other than the ribs

‘You wait until they kick you up under the ribs’ is pretty much what I’ve heard since my first reported movement. That and ‘wait until they kick your bladder,’ meh……

Well, I can tell you ladies, that the ribs might be painful (at 28 weeks, I’m yet to feel that pain) and the bladder a bit shocking, but the rest is just plain weird.

No one told me that the baby sometimes kicks right at the top of your anal canal and you can feel the reverberations all the way out of your butt hole.

No one told me the baby also kicks at the top of your vaginal canal, with similar reverberations down through the channel.

No one told me that the baby would move that much sometimes, and kick that randomly, that you would be in an almost constant state of seasickness.

Thanks for the heads up! Lol

Breathlessness

This one really hit me in my anxiety. The books mention breathlessness as a matter of course, but I assumed it was only when doing something. Again, I was mistaken.

Walking up stairs, cleaning the house, sometimes getting ready for work would all (and more) cause a little bit of breathlessness. What I wasn’t ready for was the breathlessness when sitting up in bed reading. I mean, I do get emotionally invested in my books, but this was ridiculous!

As the months have worn on, I even feel this breathlessness when lying down on my side, with my arm draped across my chest.

What it feels like to me is that I can get enough air in and out, it’s just that last bit of the exhale is a bit more constrained and I really have to concentrate to take the next breath in. It’s as if there is something holding my diaphragm at this point and I have to force it off by breathing in.

Needless to say there was a doctors visit in my future. I also feel like my existing anxiety made it worse because I would ‘worry’ about whether it was normal to feel it like this or not.

The doctor checked me over and I was perfectly healthy, I now relax into the breathlessness and move if I can to open my lungs up a bit more – posture certainly is important here. It was just the feeling of my lungs constricting and closing up and the need to force the next lot of breath in I wasn’t expecting.

Nipples the size of saucers

Over share time!

I have always has pretty small and pale nipples and areola compared to others I have seen. Now though, they have doubled in size and are so dark, they no longer look like mine. It is as if I went to sleep one night and a doctor broke into my house and gave me a non-consensual nipple transplant!

I totally understand the evolutionary need for this change, and again, was warned in the books, but the extent of the changes came as a shock.

Shrunken Stomach

Again, it’s like someone broke into my house and removed half of my stomach while I was sleeping! This morning I had my normal 2 pancakes with maple syrup and banana and I felt sick for hours after. The other day, I ate a handful of grapes and 2/3 of an apple and was done! Luckily this time I listened and didn’t force myself to finish it like the pancakes, but still! 2/3 of an Apple!! And it was only an average size Apple!

So, this coupled with my indigestion requires smaller, more frequent meals, or snacks.

Looks like it’ll be a while before I hit the all-you-can-eat restaurant again!

So, now I have half an indigestion afflicted stomach, someone else’s nipples and a confused sphincter…

At a time to be alive!!