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Saturday, May 31, 2003

the joys of pregnancy - 10:29 AM

this is, no doubt, an incomplete list, but i've decided to list many of the common outward symptoms which a woman can go through during pregnancy & which i've been lucky enough to experience or not experience.

a lot of the women out there will, of course, already know of these, but there are men who have no idea of these things & so may now thank their lucky stars that science hasn't yet come up with a way for men to bear children.

things common during pregnancy:

• extreme fatigue - during the first trimester only. i couldn't get through the day without a two to three hour nap in the afternoon, only to sleep for another eight to ten hours at night. it made me wonder how on earth so many women are able to continue working throughout their pregnancy. they're braver & stronger than me, that's for sure.
  
• tender breasts - first trimester. many times i would hop into bed, then throw myself backwards onto the pillow as i usually would. then i'd lie there in pain for a few seconds, holding my poor breasts in my arms saying to myself, "mental note: don't do that!!"
  
• extreme pickiness with food - it was really hard to feed myself during the first trimester. i totally went off meat, couldn't even bear the site of it for a while. i'm not a big red meat eater anyway, but i couldn't even bear chicken at that stage. i'd put a bit in my mouth & start to chew & when i'd munched on it about three times i'd have to spit it out. there was nothing wrong with the meat, i guess my body just didn't want it. i couldn't even bear my most wonderful chicken schnitzel. if there was something i didn't feel like eating, if i ate it anyway, then i'd pay for it later with a visit to the porcelain bus. if there was any food which came across my mind which appealed to me, i'd jump at the chance to eat it & go out of my way to get some, because i was never sure what i could eat next.
  
• bloating - this was the worst. thankfully it was only during the first trimester, but it drove me absolutely bonkers. almost anything i ate made me look & feel as though i had just eaten an eight course meal in the space of three minutes. it was the worst at night, because i would lie there holding my belly gently moaning because my poor digestion just couldn't handle it. it seemed to take about three to four hours just to digest a tiny meal & i'd be in major discomfort for that whole time.
  
• hungry all the time - i was starving during the first trimester. i had to eat about six times a day, even though i couldn't eat very large meals. i'd begin to feel slightly hungry & if i didn't find food within ten minutes then i'd start to feel really sick, really quickly. combined with the major pickiness with food, it made it really difficult to find food that i could eat. i'd have to eat a small meal before i went to bed or i'd start to feel ill by the time i was ready to fall asleep. even then though, i had to keep in mind that wheat & milk products where the worst offenders where the bloating was concerened so i had to choose something carefully for my before bed meal. it seemed as though my whole day was consumed with feeding myself.
  
• frequent urination - if i hadn't known i was pregnant, the amount of times i had to pee during the first trimester would have made me wonder if i had a urinary tract infection but without the burning sensation. i must have had to go to the toilet about ten times a day, then about four times during the night.
  
• nausea - whoever called it morning sickness was lucky, although i guess i was lucky to not have it in the morning. mine usually started early afternoon & went through to the end of the day. i found some great natural garlic & vitamin B6 tablets which helped a lot. my nausea lasted for about four & a half months.
  
• vomiting - there wasn't too much of this for me. most days i got away with throwing up only once or twice a day, & some days not at all. the worst thing which triggered it was dealing with gross food. for instance, there was a saucepan in the bottom of the fridge which i'd forgotten about. it had some soup in it which had been left there for far too long. by the time i got to scraping it out into the sink it was a wonderful range of colours & textures. halfway through cleaning it out, even though i tried not to look at it & was holding my breath as much as i could, i had to run to the toilet. the worst bit was coming back to do the rest. the only other thing which was a sure-fire recipe for heaving my guts up was brushing my teeth. for a couple of months, my poor back teeth must have suffered, because i could only give them the barest of attention before my gag reflex was triggered & then a spew was imminent, no matter how much deep breathing or telling myself, "you're not going to get sick. you're not going to get sick," i did.
  
• urinary tract infections - i've been fortunate enough not to get one of these so far during my pregnancy.
  
• thrush - i did get thrush in the early days. they reckon it's not dangerous to the baby, which is a relief. at least women can get thrush treatment over the counter these days.
  
• constipation - only one minor bout of it really early in the piece when i was visiting my sister in sydney. she fed me a few prunes & i've been right as rain since then. i hear it can be a real problem for some women.
  
• stuffy nose - i felt like i had a cold for the first four months. now it's still a little stuffy at times but not so bad. they reckon it's caused by the extra 40% volume of blood pumping around your body.
  
• headaches - i had some good ones over the last couple of months around three to four months along. you're meant to avoid most medicines where possible, but even when i did cave & take a couple of headache tablets, they didn't help anyway. also caused by the extra blood volume, they say.
  
• higher body temperature - many women have said that i've been pregnant during the best time of the year because doing it during the heat of summer can be unbearable. i sleep a bit hot anyway, & even during most of the beginning of the colder season i've been able to sleep with just a sheet over me. shroom's wanted his electric blanket on most nights, but i've only wanted to put my feet over onto his side of the bed a few times. early on i was really hot & couldn't stand to have my own skin touching bits of my body let alone have shroom's hand on my belly or my breasts.
  
• breasts growing larger - i think they have their own fields of gravity at this stage. i'm about two sizes larger than i was before i fell pregnant. if i'm anything like my sister, i'll grow about another two sixes once my milk comes in.
  
• darkening of the areola - the nipples & areola are definitely darker than they were. they used to be dark pink, but now they're more of a pinky brown. they've grown larger too.
  
• water retention (oedema) - some evenings my feet swelled a lot & my toes looked like little pork sausages. shroom called them 'cankles', because the line between the ankles & the calves seemed to fade into soft blobbiness. it didn't hurt or anything, but i had to start wearing my old, falling apart boots because the new ones became too tight. doing the aqua aerobics lately seems to have helped with that. my fingers are swelling at night time when i sleep, especially if my hand is under my pillow. it can become quite uncomfortable to bend my fingers in the morning & my hands tend to become a bit clumsy, so i have to be really careful when i'm making hot chocolates. once i get up & about & start moving around though, they seem to come back to normal.
  
• hemorrhoids or piles - fortunately, no. they reckon it can be a real problem.
  
• more obvious veins in the breasts - my boobs were always kind of veiny anyway, since i'm rather pale-skinned. sometimes i refer to myself as 'translucent girl' because i'm so white. they've not become so much more obvious, but there are some veins under my boobs which have appeared. i think they look kind of like i've scratched my skin too hard.
  
• back pain - in the early days, even before i had many other symptoms of pregnancy, i had terrible trouble sleeping at night. i felt as though my back had turned to jelly & i just couldn't find a comfortable position in which to sleep. that finally went away, but lately my posture has been adjusting to carrying the extra weight & i've had some muscle pain in the evenings & during the night making sleeping very difficult again. last night was the first time in a few weeks when my upper back wasn't hurting badly before i went to bed. mind you, it did hurt during the night, so there was lots of tossing & turning again.
  
• carpal tunnel syndrome - i've had this for about a month now. driving is especially bad on my right hand because it stays on the steering wheel while my left hand goes up & down to use the gear stick. using my mouse when i'm at the computer makes my fingers start to tingle pretty quickly too. i haven't had any pain associated with it though, only the tingling & numbness in the middle three digits. if i hang my hand downwards, then it comes good after a few seconds .. until i start to use it in any type of upwards position again. they reckon it usually goes away completely after the baby is born.
  
• strange dreams - for a few months now i've been having some doozies. none of them really make much sense at all. so much so that when i try to relate them to anyone i begin to confuse myself.
  
• moodiness - it seems i've been lucky here. the only major moodiness i've had was when i dropped my most favourite mug in the world, my cow mug, & it broke. it's been nursing some rather large cracks for a while, so i knew it wasn't much longer for this world anyway, but when it shattered on the floor, i was devastated & i burst into tears immediately. poor shroom thought at first that something terrible had happened & he had to hug me for quite a few minutes while i cried about my poor cow mug.
  
• linea nigra - i have the faintest, faintest line down the middle of my belly. in fact, you can hardly see it. some women get a really dark line, almost black. perhaps mine will get darker, perhaps it'll stay really faint.
  
• heartburn - they say that as your stomach gets squashed further up towards your oesophagus that you can suffer from heartburn. i've not really had this, although lately, when i lie down to sleep i can feel something rise in my throat a few times during the night. if i swallow hard then nothing else happens. i haven't had any burning or discomfort.
  
• abdominal cramping - a few times i've had little twinges around the lower belly area, but nothing major to complain about. they reckon that the uterus stretching & growing can cause this. i've also been told that after the baby comes you get the cramps as the uterus goes back to its former size. they say that while you're pregnant it stretches to about five-hundred times its original size!!
  

comment posted by melanie on May 31, 2003 10:53 AM:
you think first trimester peeing was bad... wait for the next one!
don't take a bus trip

comment posted by Niall on June 1, 2003 09:00 AM:
The boob thingies don't sound like a problem....to me at least

comment posted by Wanker on June 3, 2003 09:43 AM:
hhhhmmm you have an interesting life... wheres the god damn webcam ??? I wanna perv!!!

comment posted by Daniel on June 18, 2003 11:41 AM:
Ah... more proof that God is a man

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