I've known a few pregnant women; whether they are friends, family or acquaintances I am not completely out of the loop when it comes to women being pregnant. However, what I never had any clue about was the God awful symptoms that came alongside pregnancy. Why on earth are these not spoken about among women? Better yet, why are they not taught to us in school?! This would maybe prevent so many young pregnancies from occurring. Not that being young and pregnant is bad at all, I personally don't have an opinion on the matter as it's entirely up to the young individual, however girls who have unplanned pregnancies whilst trying to juggle the life of a student have no idea what's about to hit them! Mentally you could say (or I'd like to think) that my 24 year old self is much more mature than my 17 year old self and even I was blindsighted by the toll pregnancy was about to take on me. I was so unprepared! Sure you probably know that your life is going to change completely once you welcome a baby into the world BUT what is unknown is that your life can be flipped way before you have even had time to think about baby names or cots!
So it's no secret that most of the time I really hate being pregnant. In fact, I'd love to pop into schools to let students hear the truth about being pregnant as there is no way I would have been able to do it whilst studying! Plus I've had friends tell me my pregnancy works as a great contraception for them as they now have the "fear" of carrying a tiny human (oops!). But no one should take what I say as gospel. I think I've just been unlucky in that I've had a lot of pregnancy symptoms but other women don't! Either way it's an incredible experience full of the strangest sensations and the best and worst feelings.
I don't mind sharing my symptoms with you all as at this point I have no shame and the amount of doctors/midwives I've had check out my vagina I don't have much else to feel embarrassed about. But I'm okay with that - honest!
Here goes...
My partner and I found out we were expecting a baby when I was around 6 weeks pregnant. At that point I didn't feel much of a difference, until around week 8 when I started to suffer from constipation. Not the most glamorous of symptoms but unfortunately a common symptom nonetheless! I was constipated for the first few months of my pregnancy, not being able to go to the toilet sometimes for 3 weeks!! I was given medication from the doctor but unfortunately this didn't work for another week or so. By this point I was around 12/13 weeks pregnant and had been experiencing morning sickness since around 9/10 weeks so as gross as this sounds the doctor's thinking was that I was being so sick because I had no bowel movement and the food I consumed (not that it was much) had to go somewhere. I know gross right?! I was then due to go on holiday when I was 15 weeks pregnant but was still suffering from both so was close to cancelling it as I was going on a typical girls holiday to Kavos with my sisters, but of course this couldn't be a typical girls holiday! I was pregnant and ill after all! I have to say that although I spent most of the time in my insanely uncomfortable hotel room feeling sorry for myself, I was glad I went. Not only did I get to spend some quality time with my sisters and catch a bit of sun but thanks to the different food I had to eat I was able to go to the toilet as normal - hurray!! Sure I was still being sick whilst on holiday and had the most dramatic episode of having to use the sick bag when our flight landed home (everyone was standing watching me while we were waiting to leave the plane; super embarrassing) BUT being able to go to the toilet again like a normal person was amazing!
I'm sorry you've had to endure my toilet talk but if you’re not too put off I'll dive straight into the more commonly known pregnancy symptom; morning sickness. As the name would suggest, and as glamorous as the movies make it (I'm looking at you J.Lo in The Backup Plan) it is not in fact being sick occasionally in the morning but being/feeling sick ALL THE TIME! It happens in the morning, afternoon, evening and goes so far as to keep you up at night. And sometimes the sensation of feeling sick is much worse than actually being sick. Especially when you cannot eat a single meal so there is literally nothing but water to bring up. It's not just feeling ill but it bloody hurts! Unfortunately for me this has lasted pretty much throughout my pregnancy, although I haven't been quite as sick since about week 28 but the feeling does still come in waves.
It's not just the physical sickness either it's what comes with it. Because it takes all of your energy you can't help but feel completely drained which leads to a whole lot of dizziness and blurry vision. Some days I couldn't even make it out of bed so would lay there until Sean came home from work to bring me water. Feeling like that was absolutely awful, and as much as I know family were trying to help they sometimes couldn't help but nag at me to eat something for the sake of the baby which is completely understandable but I think until you have experienced "morning sickness" you won't truly know what it's like as it is different from any upset tummy I've had before! I did lose a lot of weight which I think looked scarier in comparison to my totally bloated constipated stomach I had the first few weeks but after speaking to my midwife she reassured me that baby would be fine and to do what was right for me. She reminded me that women give birth everyday in poverty stricken areas around the world and their babies are absolutely fine. As the doctor said babies are like termites, they eat away at you and suck out all of your goodness so they are absolutely loving life but you’re not. It's maybe not the nicest of metaphors when speaking about little bundles of "joy" but it certainly made sense to me!
The next fun symptom I started to experience, and still suffer from daily at 35 weeks is breathlessness and chest tightening. When this first happens to you it can be really scary, especially if you've never suffered from asthma or other breathing issues so it was definitely worth going to the hospital to get checked over for. Having breathlessness along with the wonky vision I had been experiencing raised a concern for the doctors who thought I may have formed preeclampsia however after staying in and being monitored everything turned out fine. It was explained that with your ever-expanding uterus and growing baby your organs tend to get pushed up and moved around so experiencing a shortness of breath while uncomfortable was normal. Just another fantastic symptom for me!
From about week 20, whilst out food shopping or walking up and down the stairs at work (in other words walking more than I had been doing throughout my pregnancy) I started to experience occasional pains in my lower abdomen/top of my pubic bone which felt like a strong throbbing pain and huge amounts of pressure in this area. Whenever this happened I was subconsciously lifting my bump off to ease some pressure and would walk on my tip toes to reduce sharp shooting pains. As this happened occasionally I had convinced myself that the baby was lying on a nerve which would trigger this feeling, however at week 26 this pain started in the afternoon and lasted the whole day, something it hadn't done before. By the end of the night I was unable to walk and had to either crawl on all fours or walk extremely slowly bent over. I was woken early with the pain in the morning so decided to soak in the bath for an hour to help ease the pain. Of course this didn't work so again I called the midwife for advice. *I've not mentioned that I've had to call the midwife until now but I have done this so many times and would encourage anyone who is unsure of anything to do the same!* They asked that I come into the hospital as I may be experiencing some ligament damage and would prefer that I was checked over by a doctor. I remember standing in my bedroom naked doing this weird as hell dance on the spot to try and ease some of the pain whilst being on the phone to the midwife explaining this annoying as sh*t pain! And then not being able to put my own pants on so having to call my mum to come through, dress me and then drive me to the hospital. Another person who my vagina has been exposed to, see now why I'm not ashamed! Anyway, after a few tests and an internal examination to make sure the neck of my womb was still closed (thank God it was!) the doctor concluded that I had symphasis pubis dysfunction. What on earth is that I hear you say, don't worry I was the same. It's most commonly known as pelvic girdle which basically affects your pelvis area, pubic bone, hips, lower back, bum and thighs. It can affect one of these areas, a couple or them all; it really just depends and is probably different from everyone. For me the pain was constantly throbbing in my pubic bone but whenever I tried to walk my pelvis made it so difficult to do so without being bent over and holding up my bump. I was given cocodamol for the pain and was told to contact the maternity unit again should the pain change or increase. So off home I went, or rather off to my mum and dad’s one level house I went to stay with my cocodamol. As well as taking the pain killers I was told to have plenty of baths to help with the pain so that night I done exactly that. However, as soon as I climbed out of the bath I was violently sick, practically passed out on the cold bathroom floor unable to move due to the painkillers and mix of the heat from the bath. It was such a horrific feeling so I decided there was no way I could continue with the painkillers; plus they didn't ease the pain anyway so what was the point? I spent that week pretty much stationary, only moving between my sisters bedroom (which I had now taken over), living room and bathroom where only a few steps were needed to be taken. By the end of the week I had to crawl just to get around as the pain had intensified so I decided to call the midwife again and was asked to pop back into the hospital. I arrived late at night with Sean and having just made it to the hospital I was being really sick again in the car park (sorry to the visitors who would've bagged that space in the morning, they might have gotten a not so pleasant surprise when they stepped out of the car!) whilst waiting on him running in to grab me a wheelchair as he refused to have me walking. Again, the doctors ran tests and gave me another internal examination but with my temperature and heart rate appearing higher than normal they decided to keep me in overnight and check this regularly. Sean left the hospital around 6am and I was so anxious about staying in myself as I wasn't really sure what was going on. I was scared I'd have my baby early as they had to prepare me for this slight possibility and I didn't want to be alone. Luckily of course this didn't happen and in fact I was pleased to have been kept in as the physiotherapist came to assess me the next day and provided me with support aids; both crutches and tuba grips which have done me the world of good for getting around!
I'm currently at week 35 + 5 days and still suffer really bad from pelvic girdle but do see the physiotherapist to try and manage the pain, especially due to not being able to take pain relief. I find that soaking in the bath helps ease the pain; however I usually have to go straight to bed after being in the bath due to feeling too dizzy when I come out. It is horrible feeling out of sorts but worth it to numb the pain.
I've mostly experienced the pain in my pubic bone but the bigger I grow and the more pressure that's added I now have aching hips, thighs and a rather sore arse!
As much as it hurts like a bitch it's now just turned into more of an inconvenience than anything else as I am completely reliant on other people to get me dressed, make me food and drive me around. I was lucky enough to get a wheelchair from the Red Cross charity in December, so this allows me to actually get out of the house and get some fresh air, so it's not all bad! I'm so grateful for a fantastic charity like this as they are allowing me to keep the wheelchair until the end of my pregnancy!
Taking the time to write down my pregnancy symptoms and reflecting on them has made me realise everything my body has gone through. Despite the pain and feeling horrendous the worst part for me has been that I haven't been at work or in my own home since I was 26 weeks pregnant. I've had no structure, routine or normality to my life for the last couple of months which is something I was never prepared for! You appreciate you have to give up certain things when you are pregnant; alcohol, pate, runny eggs etc. but you are never told of the possibility of having to give up your entire life! But as I mentioned earlier, it has been a tough but incredible experience all wrapped in one.
I will leave you with a picture of myself from today, where I got to leave the house for the first time this week to see the midwife for 15 minutes! I never usually put on a face of makeup but I find myself doing this every time I leave the house as it is literally the only time I get to 'doll myself up'.
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