Preggo my eggo
I know there will come a day when I will want to remember the deets of my pregnancy. Since I have a terrible memory, I figure documenting them is a good idea. That way, when my little girl asks me questions a few years down the road, I'll know what to tell her! If you are reading this, be forewarned that I may provide a little TMI... continue at your own risk! Here is how pregnancy went for me:
Morning sickness: I didn't have much morning sickness, but during my first trimester I had an almost constant nauseous/hungry feeling and not much of an appetite. I only threw up a total of 4 or 5 times throughout my entire pregnancy. I am SO glad I wasn't one of those women who puke their whole first tri or, even worse, the whole 10 months like my poor sister-in-law, Erin. I don't know how those women do it! Poor things... As I said, I only puked a small handful of times, but those few times were pretty awful. Once I vomited so forcefully that I actually broke blood vessels in my cheeks and one in my eye! Crazy, right? To make it even more fun, I had taken fish oil that morning and so my puke tasted and smelled like fish. So nasty!!! The majority of the time, as long as I stayed away from the things that I learned made my stomach upset (like drinking too much water at once and going too long without eating), I felt pretty good.
Cravings: I didn't really have funky cravings like some women have. For a little while I had cravings for greasy burgers from McDonald's. I also craved sweets throughout my pregnancy, but that's kind of a normal thing for me even when I'm not pregnant... :)
Hormones: I wasn't super emotional like I thought I might be. Being pregnant sends some women into emotional turmoil. If anything, pregnancy made me more even tempered. Who'd have thought?
Swelling: I didn't have much swelling... that is until the last month or so when my ankles blew up. They seriously didn't look like they belonged to me! My feet were round on the tops and bottoms and I had some serious pitting edema. So gross! The very first time I experienced this delightful pregnancy symptom was when I went home to Colorado for my baby showers. Before that time, I had never had trouble with swelling at all, but for some odd reason, when I went home my ankles swelled up like crazy! Maybe because of the elevation or the heat or the amount of time I was spending on my feet? Who knows... Anyway, I remember sitting at the kitchen table with my mom and the family and saying, "My feet feel weird." I looked down to see that my feet and ankles looked like balloons! I totally freaked out and my mom just laughed and laughed. She thought it was hilarious! For me it was a bit traumatizing. Luckily, when I went back to Portland, the swelling went away... only to return a few weeks later with a vengeance. I'm pretty sure I had some swelling in my calves and thighs towards the end as well. Not pretty. Oh, well. Could have been worse! At least it wasn't my face that swelled up! My hands swelled a little too, to the point that I couldn't take my wedding ring off anymore. To this day, I actually still have trouble taking my ring off. It can be done, but takes a lot of work!
Contractions: I had Braxton Hicks contractions for maybe the last half of my pregnancy. For me, I could tell I was having a contraction because it would get harder to breathe. My stomach would get really hard, especially at the very top, just under my breasts. The contractions never hurt (until I was given Pitocin to induce labor in the hospital). At around 34 weeks, I began having 6-8 contractions per hour, about 5-7 min apart and had to go to the hospital twice to be monitored to make sure I wasn't going into preterm labor. The first time I went, they did a cervical check and found that my cervix was soft, but long and closed (which indicated that I was experiencing some cervical changes, but nothing too serious yet) and gave me a shot of terbutaline to stop the contractions. The terbutaline burned like a mama when they injected it and made me feel really shaky and jittery. It worked like a charm though and I was able to go home but was ordered to be on bedrest until further notice. The second time I went in was just a few days later and they did another cervical check, monitored me and Emmy for a while and then sent me home again, but ordered continued bedrest. When I went to see my NP for follow-up, my condition hadn't changed (I was still contracting frequently and my cervix was the same), but she put me on bedrest until I reached 37 weeks, just to be on the safe side. We didn't want little Emmy coming too early! After I reached 37 weeks, I was given the 'ok' to return to work.
Bladder issues: My first trimester, I had to pee all the time. It got better in my second trimester and then returned in the third; however, it was much worse in my first trimester than in my third which I found to be interesting since you'd think having a big baby pushing on your bladder would make you have to pee more. After I reached 37 weeks, I had an ultrasound done to confirm Emmy's position. Unfortunately, we learned that she was breech. I had an external version to flip her a week or so later. To get her to flip, I went to the hospital where they gave me terbutaline (again) to stop my contractions, did an ultrasound to figure out how best to try to move Emmy and then the doctor lubed up my belly and pushed on my stomach until she got Emmy's head down in the right position. We were so glad that the version worked! If it hadn't, I would have had to schedule a c-section and forgo a vaginal delivery. After Emmy flipped, I felt intense pressure on my bladder that REALLY made me feel like I had to pee and that never went away, even after just going to the bathroom. It also hurt! The pressure of her head down there caused me to have awful shooting vaginal pains when I would walk or jostle around too much. Not fun!
Body changes: My first trimester, by boobs hurt so bad! As my hips loosened, it would sometimes hurt when I walked uphill. On and off throughout my pregnancy, my back would hurt a lot. My nipples got HUGE! Ew. I got that dark line down the center of my stomach. My ab muscles separated and when I would flex them (like when doing a sit-up), I would get this funky looking bulge in the center of my stomach. Turns out, the bulge were my organs poking through my abdominal wall which was no longer intact. So strange...
Baby movements: Emmy was super active throughout my pregnancy. The first time I felt Emmy move, it felt like a little flutter. Kind of like a mix between butterflies in my tummy and that feeling you get in your stomach when you're falling. Soon, the flutters turned into little pokes, and the little pokes turned into hard kicks and punches, and those turned into big rolls and waves. Ryan and I could sit and watch my stomach move around forever. It was mesmerizing and a little freaky looking! Sometimes Emmy would push out on my stomach so hard that it would stretch out a few inches, all alien style. Ha ha. Occasionally, she would shove her foot or arm in my side and leave it there, making me extremely uncomfortable. Hiccups were a cool sensation - they were like rhythmic little spasms inside my tummy. Emmy was usually the most active at night just before I would go to sleep, in the mornings when I would wake up, and right after I ate.
This doesn't really fit into any of the categories I listed, but there was something else strange that happened to me. A few years back, I was in a snowmobiling accident that left me with some numbness on my right thigh. Pregnancy made the numbness more intense and spread to cover about half of my thigh! Maybe Emmy was putting pressure on a nerve or something, because now that she's out, my leg went back to how it was before.
And that was was pregnancy Jamie style. Thankfully, I had it pretty easy overall without too many complications. I hope my future pregnancies follow suit!
15 weeks
18 weeks
Now I can't remember what weeks these are!
Morning sickness: I didn't have much morning sickness, but during my first trimester I had an almost constant nauseous/hungry feeling and not much of an appetite. I only threw up a total of 4 or 5 times throughout my entire pregnancy. I am SO glad I wasn't one of those women who puke their whole first tri or, even worse, the whole 10 months like my poor sister-in-law, Erin. I don't know how those women do it! Poor things... As I said, I only puked a small handful of times, but those few times were pretty awful. Once I vomited so forcefully that I actually broke blood vessels in my cheeks and one in my eye! Crazy, right? To make it even more fun, I had taken fish oil that morning and so my puke tasted and smelled like fish. So nasty!!! The majority of the time, as long as I stayed away from the things that I learned made my stomach upset (like drinking too much water at once and going too long without eating), I felt pretty good.
Cravings: I didn't really have funky cravings like some women have. For a little while I had cravings for greasy burgers from McDonald's. I also craved sweets throughout my pregnancy, but that's kind of a normal thing for me even when I'm not pregnant... :)
Hormones: I wasn't super emotional like I thought I might be. Being pregnant sends some women into emotional turmoil. If anything, pregnancy made me more even tempered. Who'd have thought?
Swelling: I didn't have much swelling... that is until the last month or so when my ankles blew up. They seriously didn't look like they belonged to me! My feet were round on the tops and bottoms and I had some serious pitting edema. So gross! The very first time I experienced this delightful pregnancy symptom was when I went home to Colorado for my baby showers. Before that time, I had never had trouble with swelling at all, but for some odd reason, when I went home my ankles swelled up like crazy! Maybe because of the elevation or the heat or the amount of time I was spending on my feet? Who knows... Anyway, I remember sitting at the kitchen table with my mom and the family and saying, "My feet feel weird." I looked down to see that my feet and ankles looked like balloons! I totally freaked out and my mom just laughed and laughed. She thought it was hilarious! For me it was a bit traumatizing. Luckily, when I went back to Portland, the swelling went away... only to return a few weeks later with a vengeance. I'm pretty sure I had some swelling in my calves and thighs towards the end as well. Not pretty. Oh, well. Could have been worse! At least it wasn't my face that swelled up! My hands swelled a little too, to the point that I couldn't take my wedding ring off anymore. To this day, I actually still have trouble taking my ring off. It can be done, but takes a lot of work!
Contractions: I had Braxton Hicks contractions for maybe the last half of my pregnancy. For me, I could tell I was having a contraction because it would get harder to breathe. My stomach would get really hard, especially at the very top, just under my breasts. The contractions never hurt (until I was given Pitocin to induce labor in the hospital). At around 34 weeks, I began having 6-8 contractions per hour, about 5-7 min apart and had to go to the hospital twice to be monitored to make sure I wasn't going into preterm labor. The first time I went, they did a cervical check and found that my cervix was soft, but long and closed (which indicated that I was experiencing some cervical changes, but nothing too serious yet) and gave me a shot of terbutaline to stop the contractions. The terbutaline burned like a mama when they injected it and made me feel really shaky and jittery. It worked like a charm though and I was able to go home but was ordered to be on bedrest until further notice. The second time I went in was just a few days later and they did another cervical check, monitored me and Emmy for a while and then sent me home again, but ordered continued bedrest. When I went to see my NP for follow-up, my condition hadn't changed (I was still contracting frequently and my cervix was the same), but she put me on bedrest until I reached 37 weeks, just to be on the safe side. We didn't want little Emmy coming too early! After I reached 37 weeks, I was given the 'ok' to return to work.
Bladder issues: My first trimester, I had to pee all the time. It got better in my second trimester and then returned in the third; however, it was much worse in my first trimester than in my third which I found to be interesting since you'd think having a big baby pushing on your bladder would make you have to pee more. After I reached 37 weeks, I had an ultrasound done to confirm Emmy's position. Unfortunately, we learned that she was breech. I had an external version to flip her a week or so later. To get her to flip, I went to the hospital where they gave me terbutaline (again) to stop my contractions, did an ultrasound to figure out how best to try to move Emmy and then the doctor lubed up my belly and pushed on my stomach until she got Emmy's head down in the right position. We were so glad that the version worked! If it hadn't, I would have had to schedule a c-section and forgo a vaginal delivery. After Emmy flipped, I felt intense pressure on my bladder that REALLY made me feel like I had to pee and that never went away, even after just going to the bathroom. It also hurt! The pressure of her head down there caused me to have awful shooting vaginal pains when I would walk or jostle around too much. Not fun!
Body changes: My first trimester, by boobs hurt so bad! As my hips loosened, it would sometimes hurt when I walked uphill. On and off throughout my pregnancy, my back would hurt a lot. My nipples got HUGE! Ew. I got that dark line down the center of my stomach. My ab muscles separated and when I would flex them (like when doing a sit-up), I would get this funky looking bulge in the center of my stomach. Turns out, the bulge were my organs poking through my abdominal wall which was no longer intact. So strange...
Baby movements: Emmy was super active throughout my pregnancy. The first time I felt Emmy move, it felt like a little flutter. Kind of like a mix between butterflies in my tummy and that feeling you get in your stomach when you're falling. Soon, the flutters turned into little pokes, and the little pokes turned into hard kicks and punches, and those turned into big rolls and waves. Ryan and I could sit and watch my stomach move around forever. It was mesmerizing and a little freaky looking! Sometimes Emmy would push out on my stomach so hard that it would stretch out a few inches, all alien style. Ha ha. Occasionally, she would shove her foot or arm in my side and leave it there, making me extremely uncomfortable. Hiccups were a cool sensation - they were like rhythmic little spasms inside my tummy. Emmy was usually the most active at night just before I would go to sleep, in the mornings when I would wake up, and right after I ate.
This doesn't really fit into any of the categories I listed, but there was something else strange that happened to me. A few years back, I was in a snowmobiling accident that left me with some numbness on my right thigh. Pregnancy made the numbness more intense and spread to cover about half of my thigh! Maybe Emmy was putting pressure on a nerve or something, because now that she's out, my leg went back to how it was before.
And that was was pregnancy Jamie style. Thankfully, I had it pretty easy overall without too many complications. I hope my future pregnancies follow suit!
15 weeks
18 weeks
Now I can't remember what weeks these are!
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