This is just a fun little section about things that I’ve discovered from the pregnancy and birth of my three daughters. I’d love as much input on this from other moms and/or moms to be because I’m sure, just like me, you’ve found out or are finding out that knowing would have been nice.
Pregnancy #1
-Hematoma in the eye: I was beyond scared and quite honestly freaked out. It looked as if someone beat me up and I had to walk around like that for weeks before it disappeared. Based on what the doctor told me, it was because was vomiting so much the strain likely caused the vessel in my eye to pop. It didn’t hurt, but a warning would have been nice
Pregnancy #2
-Pulled stomach muscle: This was my best pregnancy because I had lost over 60 pounds prior to finding out I was expecting and was in decent shape. Also, during this pregnancy I had flawless skin and my hair was full. Somewhere within the second trimester, I started having both sharp and dull pains in my side. It hurt so much (depending on the movement) that it would push me on the verge of tears, but I didn’t really know what was going on. After speaking with my doctor at one of my prenatal appointments, it turned out that it was just a pulled stomach muscle. I was told that it was very common and just happens from the growing belly. While it makes sense, I had no clue that kind of thing could happen.
Pregnancy #3
Some of the things under this one could have been put under the other two, but whatever I experienced before didn’t compare to what happened after this pregnancy.
-Sensitive smell: It started after the first baby and gradually increased after each baby. The “pregnancy nose” that you get never really went away for me. I HATE THIS!!!! Bad smells that used to just make me gag now tend to make me nauseous. The worst smell of all is cooked eggs and I will leave the room and open a window to avoid feeling sick. The only positive side to that is that since I’m no longer pregnant (and have no intentions of doing it again) I don’t have to worry about that thick saliva forming in my mouth.
-Your body may never really be the same: I recognize that for the most part women understand that can be apart of the beauty of bringing a life into the world. However, I felt completely blindsided by the changes I experienced. Swelling is now something that is almost normal because I never really stopped having it after my first child. I know someone is going to ask why I haven’t been to get it check on and I promise for about 6 months I went between my ob-gyn as well as my pcp (primary care physician) having all different sorts or labs, copious amounts of blood being drawn, scans, etc. and everyone was baffled. I am grateful that as I’ve worked on losing weight it has decreased the amount of swelling I experience, but I now have to purchase shoes in wide because of this. I also acquired a Vitamin D deficiency. While I won’t go into all of the horrible side effects that came along with it (I’ll make sure to make that a blog post), if I don’t take it everyday my body physically struggles to function. Memory Recall is almost nonexistent for me. I don’t want to call it memory loss because I do believe as I continue pursuing my best self physically and mentally it has the potential to improve. I try my best to stay intellectually stimulated as well as play mind games to force those synapses to fire up, but for the most part I’m just a frustrated mess when memory is something that I have to use while speaking. I also now have Bad Feet. I was an athlete in high school and walked across a large campus in my undergrad years and never experienced pain in my feet unless it was footwear. After baby #1, my body completely rejected birth control and this was one of the side effects. I know I’ve already mentioned swelling, but this is having achy feet. For more than 8 years I’ve just lived with the pain. I continue to workout and live my life as normally as possible, but I will take Tylenol if it gets to be too painful. I’ve considered actually going to see a podiatrist because I don’t want it to be something serious and I’ve neglected it, but for now I get my feet done regularly and make sure to soak them weekly in Epsom salt. Losing weight has helped with the overall pain, but I still feel the ache daily. While I miss wearing high heels (and so does my husband), I’m officially on team tennis shoe and loving it.
-Hemorrhoids: The gift that keeps on giving. I’ll just say invest in those bathroom wipes and keep some ointment nearby if you experience it.