Things people dont tell you about pregnancy....

[Letsallscreamatthesistene]

Just for fun!

My ribcage has gotten wider
My hips have gotten wider
I can only get good deep breaths if im sat straight up or standing

URGH

The uncontrollable, stinking farts that just went on and on,
The skin tags,
The breathlessness going upstairs,
The leaking nipples before you've even given birth,
The restless legs,
The middle of the night hunger,
The heartburn,
The piles,
The peeing,
Suffering all this and more but being told not to complain, you're not ill, only pregnant.

And then afterwards, the lochia - the weird clumps and it lasting for weeks.

1. The drool. When I became pregnant I started dribbling like a waterfall when I slept, I’d wake up to a sodden pillow straight after my son was born it vanished!
2. The nocturnal farts. My husband informs me that he misses the way I would fart all through the night when I was pregnant, again it has gone away.
3. The second trimester lethargy. What the actual cluck? I think I slept right through this when I wasn’t busy vomiting or eating Rennies for the heartburn.
4. THE HEARTBURN!!!
5. Pelvic girdle pain 24/7 so not even sleeping or laying in bed would ease it.
6. Peeing 3 times an hour
7. The unlimited joy when my squirmy baby would swoosh around in there and I spent hours talking/singing to him like a dafty

snoring
Extra moles
Extra body hair
Exhaustion
Heartburn

@Selfsettling3 loool. Speaking of that before I had my first, I was a size 4. Towards the end of that pregnancy I somehow evolved into a size 5. 4th pregnancy and I've been a size 5 since.

Peeing all the time! I sleep better now with a newborn than I did while pregnant.
SPD I'd never heard of it but I ended up in a wheelchair.
I had thrush pretty much the whole time I was pregnant.
I also suffered badly from anxiety, I'm getting help now but the whole time I was pregnant I was told it was "normal" it was not.
I had a load of other things that bugged me but these are the ones that have stuck with me.

Let's think :

Carpal tunnel
Snoring
Starving all the time
Weird hairs
Wider ribcage
Heartburn
Linea negra for 1 year pp
Morning sickness was like being hungover
When your stomach muscles stretch god that wad painful
Also afterbirth pains Wtaf how painful

I work with a lady who is hugely pregnant and she looked so uncomfortable today, it really is a massive undertaking having babies

In the movies, every pregnancy reveals itself by causing violent bouts of vomiting. Some women do have this, but others, like me, only feel nausea without ever being sick, and a lucky minority of women escape pregnancy nausea altogether.

Before I realised I was pregnant, I had a stuffy nose which persisted for weeks but never developed into a cold. I now think it was pregnancy rhinitis.

Also in very early pregnancy, If I moved my arms above my head, I had shooting pains up both sides of my outer abdomen, as though I had pulled muscles. I now think that was round ligament pain.

I got very emotional in late pregnancy and cried over nothing.

Three months after the birth, I lost a lot of hair. 18 months later, I still had scruffy, frizzy bits of regrown hair.

Very hot swollen feet especially at night time keeping you awake.
Body shop peppermint foot spray was a godsend - could spray my feet as o couldn't reach them to rub on any cooling lotion

On a positive note, I was in and out of hospital twice a day for the week leading up to birth. After birth, word got round that it had finally happened, my baby was here! every nurse midwife sister consultant anaesthetist anyone who we had met/treated us came to visit us to see how I was and to meet our special little guy.
This was totally unexpected, no one had ever told me that could happen and it meant the world to me.

Linea negra that lasted a year PP
Veiny chest
Leaking nipples
Hairier during pregnancy
The strange pelvic pains and pains even when I sneezed in the beginning of pregnancy
Actually not being able to see toes or pubic region - so I had a hairy private area until beyond the birth
Itchy itchy tummy skin as it grew
The strangeness (but awesomeness) of feeling a little hand reach out or seeing a knee or foot kick out
That stretch marks aren’t always visible until after birth - I was shocked
Losing hair after pregnancy
Carpal tunnel/mother’s wrist after birth
Wider chest and tummy probably forever
Having a kangaroo pouch for the first month or so after baby
Not sleeping well from third trimester onwards for a long time
The Lochia - how much there was and how long it lasted for
The first post birth poo - massive
Afterpains that increased when I breastfed - never heard of this before it happened

Oh pelvic girdle pain and peeing a lot

No one warns you about the absolutely ridiculous ways in which your body can react.

Pregnant with my second, I became allergic to eye shadow. I’d break out in little bumps, like lizard skin, wherever I put my eye shadow. I couldn’t wear any for years.

When I was pregnant with my first, I found that I could not drink milk after 8:00 p.m. or I’d get the runs. I was fine with water.

When I was pregnant with my second, I could not drink water after 8:00 p.m. or I’d get the runs. I was fine with milk.

Stomach pushed up to just under the heart, so frequent heartburn if I overate or ate too quickly.

Elephant legs: The ankles disappear.

How clueless you are when giving birth!

During birth you can’t see a bloody thing down there, so you have no idea what is going on.

It was only later my DH told me the baby’s head was crowning for a long time, I had no idea I just was in agony. My midwife modelled herself on the sadistic army major from Platoon and told me my efforts were ‘pathetic’ all the way through labour so I had no clue how it was going.

In the end when the baby was placed on me, it felt like a very abrupt (and happy) ending!

Scared to poo

After many miscarriages I loved being pregnant
But I've developed hay fever and snoring, plus another shoe size too
More hair on my head and it's got more curly too (was just wavyish/scruffy before, now curly! )

Morning sickness lasts 24hours, not just the morning

It also lasts for the whole of the pregnancy

That Braxton Hicks contractions can be at best really weird - belly contorted into all sorts of weird shapes and at worst were bloody uncomfortable - making me feel tired and breathless and that they can start from 25 weeks....

You can get very horny in 2nd trimester. Rather enjoyable, that bit. But the rest, argh.

And you feel so emotionally vulnerable ( I had to stop reading the news), it's like having a layer of skin peeled off as everything seems to hurt,

Babies can kick you and cause you to involuntarily fart. In front of a boardroom of people (men, to be precise)

@Alarae can I recommend a donut cushion? They are absolute genius. My MIL brought one to me just after I birthed my 10lb boy at home and had 3 layers of stitching . It was utter bliss and I could have kissed her.

That not having any pregnancy symptoms will alienate you from your friends who had a hard time being pregnant and just about every pregnant woman you meet.

That loneliness and alienation doesn’t go away when you then have a baby that just doesn’t cry and sleeps well and takes well to breastfeeding...

That the NHS care you get might be atrocious and you’re judged every single appointment you go to because you’ve come from work.

Not getting stretch marks on your belly.. but getting a shitload of them on the back of both of your calves?
Also crazy amounts of sweating after the baby is born

I'm only 10 weeks so have a lot to find out but I had no idea about the crippling first trimester anxiety. The headaches. The stabby pains and cramps which are apparently normal. The increased discharge which causes you to run to the bathroom constantly to check! The bloat - I could pass for 6 months pregnant!! The lower back ache can start so early on and not just when you have a big bump! The insomnia, every night I'm awake for 2 hours through the night. That spotting is normal and expected, a lot more common than we think.

And yet there are some people who enjoy being pregnant! I will never understand them.

I enjoyed being pregnant. As a PP said, I don't think there is any greater joy than feeling a new life kicking inside you. I fill privileged to have experienced that twice.

I was one of the lucky ones that loved being pregnant. A lot of my previous issues like sciatica actually disappeared with pregnancy. What I hadn't realise for expected were:
-the linea nigra

• how dark my nipples became
• that my hair texture would change so dramatically (ie. from dead straight to super wavy)