Holy Spirit, Gift of God

My review of being pregnant

First thing I'm going to say, is that this is my experience. The biggest thing I have learnt during the pregnancy journey, is that everyone's experience and opinion is completely different. Your parents will have different advice to your partner's parents. Your pregnant friends will have different advice to your other pregnant friends. Even the midwives will all have different opinions and advice. So this blog is not to give pregnant people advice. This blog is to give those might be pregnant one day or are currently pregnant a view into my world. How its been for me for the last 9 months.

I decided to write this blog, as I heard all the normal things from the media, older friends or relatives, but there was still so much I didn't know! I'm not going to share all the gory details (although there may be some embarrassing ones - so brace yourself!), but I just want to give more of an idea of what pregnancy can be like!

First Trimester - Weeks 1 - 12
This trimester is a strange one, as you don't look pregnant, but you feel like crap and you don't really tell anyone your pregnant!
We'd be trying to get pregnant for a few months, and took that ultimate pregnancy test around the 3 weeks mark that told us we were! We immediately made a doctors appointment - as who else do you tell first?! I assumed they were the people to go to. So we had the doctors appointment, but to my surprise - there was no pregnancy test involved! The Doctor just gave me a phone number for the unit at the hospital to self-refer myself! So I phoned the number and left a message. This left me feeling very underwhelmed, but I got on with my day as I'm sure they're busy people!
I received a phone call back from a lady, who took all my information down, and said they would send me a date in the post for our first scan. They calculated the due date from the start of the last period, but due to my periods being irregular originally, when they did the workings  (see - embarrassing) they dated the baby as being due around 11th March 2018 and that I would be about 7 weeks pregnant. I knew that they were wrong with my due date - but I let them carry on, as we actually got an early scan!! Our first scan - which was VERY exciting - showed we were actually only 9 weeks pregnant, not the normal 12. So they re-booked us in for a 12 week scan. Bonus! Until you've had your 12 week scan and then start your midwife appointments, all there is to do is sit around feeling nauseous!  Due to feeling so nauseous and working in the food industry, we decided to tell me work at 9 weeks. I did have some actual sickness, so it was a good move. We desperately wanted to tell our family before my work about the pregnancy, so made this a priority. Everyone's reaction was brilliant, but my favourite was my work colleagues. I decided to slide it into a morning meeting I was holding with them all. So I gave the normal notices about which staff members were off for the week, what orders were being dispatched that day, and then nonchalantly added I was pregnant. I wished I'd filmed it as there was cheering, a massive group hug - and even some tears!!! It felt amazing to be so supported and have so much excitement!
A few other things I found in my first trimester were:
1. Feeling gross. I couldn't wear any tight clothes as I just felt bloated. So made sure I got myself some comfy harem trousers and instantly bought maternity leggings. Yes I didn't have any kind of bump, but it was so good to be in those comfy trousers, I don't regret it one bit!
2. Food was a nightmare. My husband was so lovely and patient with me, but I was a nightmare with food. I had no idea what I'd want to eat for dinner the next day, so we'd end up walking around the local supermarket each evening trying to figure out what wouldn't make me nauseous! This often took up a lot of our evenings and then a lot of our food budget! Woops!
3. We had the 12 week scan - everything was good and they updated our due date to 8th April 2018...3 weeks later than originally dated.

Second Trimester - Weeks 13 - 26
This was such a nice trimester! We'd started telling all people now we'd reached the 12 week mark and had the scan. Talking of the scan - Eek. The Sonogram lady told us there was a baby in there - and we saw it move on the screen, but the print outs she'd given us - I really couldn't see where the baby was! My husband had to point it out a couple of times until I'd finally registered it! Woops.
The nausea was definitely gone at this point and my body was concentrating on growing that little Bubba! I still felt podgey, but was going to start enjoying the excuse of eating what I wanted now that I could!
This trimester is also fun as I started buying maternity clothes. I'm not great at high street shopping, I just can't stand the prices - so it was amazing to find all the different maternity clothes swap groups on Facebook and find maternity bundles for sales on Gumtree. There was one particular time I managed to get a whole cardboard box of maternity clothes absolutely free. The lady just told me to take out what I wanted and then put it back on Gumtree for someone else to come and grab. What an amazing idea! I can't stand the thought of spending £20 on a tshirt, so this ticked so many boxes for me!
At the very start of this trimester, I wanted to find out as much information as I could about the impending labour. A friend lent me her copy of The Positive Birthing Book. I cannot recommend this book enough, so here is the link to it on Amazon. Seriously. Go and buy it. I learnt so much. I could just do a whole blog post on the contents on this book - but I won't. (Oh, and I don't particularly plan on restarting blogging again, I just wanted to share my pregnancy journey.) This book lays out all your options as a pregnant lady, from pain relief to babies first injections. And it's doesn't scare you! It's all about having a positive birth. It doesn't have to be like it is on Casualty! You can be in control, in the zone and not need all the drugs. This book was just great. I learnt so much and am so grateful to my friend for lending it to me.
The midwife recommended some NHS free courses we book on to, so we did. Everyone loves free stuff! The first course gave us a great overview of labour, pain relief and how the birthing partner can help. The second one gave me a great understanding for breastfeeding and the benefits of that. We also paid to do the NCT course, which went into more depth of both those topics. We also have an AMAZING network around us of support from young families in our church. There are about 13 other ladies around my age who have had babies from 2 years ago up until 2 months ago, so it's been such a blessing having their advice and help when we've needed it. A number of these ladies also strongly recommended we attended a Hypnobirthing course - sadly it cost the same price as the NCT course and we didn't feel we could afford it, but the ladies lent me their Hypnobirthing books and I've been watching lots of YouTube videos about it. It's so interesting and I don't feel it gets enough attention. These techniques can make labour a more enjoyable, memorable experience - why wouldn't you want to try something that can make it that!
During this trimester, they give you blood tests to check your rhesus status. Most people are rhesus positive, but if you're rhesus negative - like me! - there is a risk of my blood attacking the babies' blood if it gets into my blood stream. Now this sounds scary, but they can actually look after it by some (not so nice) injections. I've had a couple of these nasties, but as long as the baby is okay then it's all good!
*Embarrassing part alert*  A rather crappy symptom of this trimester is you start to leak more down there...if you know what I mean. I've just learnt to only wear good pairs of pants, and always have spare panty liners with me! (A little tip for you there!)
At 15 weeks, we heard the heartbeat for the first time. It sounded like a weird whoosing sound, but the midwife very kindly pointed out exactly which bit was the heartbeat. Our baby had a heartbeat - yes! Everything was going well!
Also in this trimester is the 20 week scan. WHAT A SCAN!!!!!!! (Its also the last scan they give you, so long as everything is going smoothly. We didn't find this out until after we had the scan. It was just crazy to us that the last scan would be halfway through the pregnancy - but it makes sense as the baby is just too big!) Anyway, back to the scan. The baby had grown 8 weeks worth by this time and it showed! The sonogram lady could show us every limb and organ! It was amazing. We saw the different chambers of the heart, the little toes, lungs. Oh so precious. We'd decided before the scan to not find out the sex of the baby - so at one point she told us to turn away so she could check everything was okay with that side of things. We left the room on a high to have been able to experience so much of our baby already, but with a somewhat not great scan picture (again!) as the baby was too comfy and laid back in my pelvis. A strange thing was to think that one stranger knew whether we were having a boy or girl, but no-one else does! It's the best kept secret EVER...and I LOVE secrets!!!
It was around 25 weeks we felt the baby first move. It's such a strange feeling. There is something inside my tummy. It's not something I'd ever felt before...and I just couldn't describe it, apart from that it just feels like someone kicking you from the inside! Sorry I can't make it more exciting than that for your imagination, but it was ruddy exciting for us! I began to tell my husband every time it would kick so he could try and feel it and start bonding with it.
My Granny gave me great advice to walk lots during the pregnancy. She used to walk miles each day when she was pregnant and it kept her in great shape and helped with the labour. This always stuck in my mind, so I purposely tried to walk everywhere I could from the word go.

Third Trimester - weeks 27 - 40
I have also loved this trimester. I'd heard a lot about ladies feeling very big, heavy, achey, back pain, swollen feet etc. But I decided I'd just take one thing at a time and see what I experienced.
My worse symptoms for this trimester have been tiredness, gas (sorry hubby!!), struggling to sit in a car, slightly swollen feet and hands, needing the toilet every hour and most recently not being able to eat much at meal times.
Here's how I've handled each one:
Tiredness - naps! I finished working quite late - I finished at 37 weeks + 2 days. (I'd originally planned to work right up until 38 weeks, but during a course we learnt that babies are classed as 'full term' and can come any time from 37 weeks! So we decided it was best I brought my maternity leave forward - plus the commute was horrific for me!) Each day at work after lunch, I'd be desperate for a nap, but would somehow power through. I'd then get home, have dinner and pretty much go to bed straight away. Now that I'm on Maternity Leave, having a nap each day is just doing wonders! During the night I'm waking up every 2 hours for the loo - so as you can imagine, I'm feeling incredibly tired still when waking up. Anyway, another tip: Naps are great!
Gas - at times this was painful. Real painful. I'd been told Peppermint Tea was great for gas, so made sure I had some of that in. It was mostly after meals the gas was worse. Gaviscon was also great - just drinking that from the bottle helped so much! Night time was definitely where the gas was most prominent. But once I had my trusty Gaviscon friend to hand, I'd become a pro at sorting it out straight away. My husband was amazing at this point and when I accidentally lost control of myself and farted when getting up of the sofa (Yes...EMBARRASSING!) he just chuckled to himself whilst still loving me. It's great being married!
Car Journeys - In our NCT course they explained how our sofas and cars are designed really badly for our pelvis' nowadays, and can cause the baby to stay in a sideways position for a long time. This can cause the baby not to 'engage' (get in the head down position') ready for birth. I immediately bought an exercise ball for my desk at work and one for at home to use rather than the sofa. But the car was tricky. A lady recommended I use a pillow to support my back more - which helped at first, but now I'm so close to the end of the pregnancy, it's just painful being in the car let alone driving. So car journeys now are only made when a necessity and I don't do the driving! Again, my incredible husband is really looking after me by doing all the driving...what a keeper!
Swollen hands and feet - This was possibly the saddest symptom so far, as it meant I had to resign to the fact that I couldn't wear my wedding rings anymore! I wasn't going to risk keeping them on and then the doctors having to cut them off! My (did I mention he's lovely?!) lovely husband suggested we buy a chain so I could wear them around my neck for the last couple of months. I loved this idea, and whilst I appreciate the fact he was more than happy to pay £50 for a gold chain, I couldn't bring myself to spending this much for a couple of months! So we went to the local supermarket and bought a necklace for £6 and took the pendant off. I felt much better about this - although now it is starting to discolour, but hey...theres only a few weeks left of being pregnant!! As for my feet, the midwife just suggested elevating my feet up every so often, which seemed to help. Although this definitely brought some conflict whilst trying to keep the pelvis straight!
Toilet breaks - There's nothing I can do about this. I just have to go every hour!!! Luckily at night it's every 2 hours!
Small meals - Oh this was a hard one to learn, and I actually don't think I've still fully learnt it - I just love food too much!!! I'd noticed a few times my tummy feeling fuller quicker than normal, but the time it really hit home was when hubby and me went for our last date night out for dinner before the baby comes. We went to Zizzis and had a voucher. The voucher meant we could really splash out and have 3 full courses! We had a yummy starter (cheese fondue! mmmmm) and ordered a pizza each for main. Normally I only eat about half the pizza consciously, so that I have some leftovers for the next day - but this time, I just kept eating without realising! I was about 3/4 of the way through my pizza when I realised, but thought there was no point stopping there. So I ate the rest...and then proceeded to order a hot chocolate fudge cake with ice cream for pudding. I ate it all. It was all so yummy, and I didn't regret it one bit. Until an hour later lying in bed and it was like my stomach was shoving it all back up telling me I'd eaten too much!!! Luckily I wasn't actually sick, but it was a horrible feeling nonetheless. So now I'm trying to be more sensible with my portions. (It was still a yummy meal out though...I'd probably do it again!!!)
I've also experienced some intense heart beating during this trimester. That's the only way to describe it. I had a previous 'thing' with my heart where I had to have a minor operation so that my heart basically wouldn't beat too fast. Being in my third trimester I've started to experience some intense heart beating randomly which sometimes leaves me a bit breathless. Your heart is already working twice as hard being pregnant and the midwives haven't been too worried about it (plus I couldn't actually get a doctors appointment until AFTER the baby would be born anyway), so I've just been keeping an eye on myself whenever this happens. It seems to be okay and not affecting the baby, but it'll be nice to let my heart go back to normal once the baby is born!
Another strange one is a burnt tongue sensation. I definitely haven't burnt my tongue, but have woken up a few times after naps and nights sleeps with the feeling of a burnt tongue. Very strange, but again...some women experience this!
One thing I've experienced during this trimester the most is weight gain. To date I have put on about 3 stone - and I'm not ashamed of this. I'm growing a human!!!!!! Yes, the child doesn't itself weigh 3 stone. It actually only weighs roughly 7 and a half pounds. But there is so much other stuff the weight gain is from. Here is a breakdown of an average:
      Placenta: 1 and a half pounds
      Maternal stores of fats, proteins and other nutrients: 7 pounds
      Breast tissue: 2 pounds
      Increased fluid: 4 pounds
      Increased blood: 4 pounds
      The Uterus: 2 pounds
      Amniotic Fluid: 2 pounds
      The baby: 7 and a half pounds
This is a total of 30 pounds! - over 2 stone. And this is an average! I'm above average and I'm okay with it. I've had an amazing pregnancy. I can't really complain, there hasn't really been any complications. I've enjoyed feeling my baby move everyday, I've enjoyed eating what I've wanted whilst keeping active. The sad thing is, some people feel the need to point out my weight gain. Luckily, I haven't been an emotional pregnant lady. I've had my moments (like crying in the local supermarket when not knowing what I wanted to eat!!!), but I know I've been relatively level headed. This has made dealing with these unwanted, unnecessary comments very easy. They've been like water off a ducks back for me. Obviously I can see my face has got chubbier, and my jeans are stretching more around my thighs, and I'm now in a size 14 top rather than 8. But hey...I'M GROWING A HUMAN! Whats your excuse for the weight gain!!!!!!
And lastly, the best part of this trimester - is the smiles you get from everyone when they see your bump. It's made me so proud to be growing a baby! And I do it flipping well! I will definitely be doing it again!


Thank you to my husband for supporting me in so many ways. Bringing me all the Milky Bar Chocolate I could eat, holding my hair whilst being sick, being okay with me having the light on at night when I can't sleep, getting excited over little baby outfits, redesigning the cupboard in the baby room, carrying all the heavy stuff, driving everywhere and so much more. You've been amazing and I really couldn't do this without you. I know me and the baby will be okay as long as we have you and I can't wait to see how you develop into an amazing Dad! We love you!

posted by MissHarwood @ 17:41