What no one ever told me about being pregnant

Readers, be warned: I’m blogging today with very frank discussions regarding pregnancy and what it does to the female body. If you don’t care, or want to stick your fingers in your ears and say, “la-la-la-la-la”, I completely understand. Just stop reading here, and go check your email, or see if you have any new friend requests on Facebook or something. If you actually are curious about the stuff that no-one ever talks about in pregnancy, allow me the privilege of enlightening you.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been compiling a sort of list in my head of the things that I’m noticing are happening that no one had ever told me about when they were pregnant. I’m not grossed out- I think it’s fascinating. And mysterious. And surprising, every day when I notice yet another symptom that I never knew was possible. I imagine there’s probably 2 types of readers who are going through this right now: the women who have been pregnant, and know exactly what I’m talking about, and the people who are just as shocked and surprised as I was. I have several friends who are pregnant and our due dates are all very close, so almost daily we have been texting or calling each other saying, “Wait…what is going on here? Did this happen to you too?”  I figured if I put it out there for my readers, I will either get sympathy, empathy, or at the very least, a couple of laughs. So let’s start on my list, shall we?

Extreme thirst-All day, and all night, I’m dying of thirst. I bring about 3 glasses of water to bed with me at night and have them all lined up because by morning, I will have emptied them all. This water chugging also exacerbates the next thing on my list, which is…

Extreme having to pee-All that water consumption, combined with the fact that my uterus is ballooning rapidly and pressing on my bladder means I’m getting plenty of exercise running to the bathroom all the time. I had to install a nightlight in our bathroom because it’s pitch black at night, and if I turned the lights on, I would be blinded and then fully awake and unable to fall back asleep.

Bleeding gums- So turns out that your gums bleed a lot when pregnant. I’m a regular flosser, and normally don’t have any bleeding, but now even after just brushing my teeth, it looks like I’ve taken a sock full of nickels to the face from a prison gang. Getting my teeth cleaned at the dentist a few months ago was absolutely one of the worst experiences ever. There was so much blood in my mouth, and then coupled with the fact that I still had morning sickness, it was making me gag over and over while his fingers were all jammed up in there. Awful.

Metallic taste in your mouth- This one is interesting. I often have a weird metallic taste in my mouth, even after eating. Wonder what the deal with that is?

Giant areolas- My boobs have gotten big (which is really nice, seeing as I went from a barely A cup to a 38C!) but my areolas are ginormous. It’s really quite shocking. I’m praying they don’t get dark, which is what I’ve heard happens to a lot of women. Fingers crossed.

Constipation- My theory is that maybe it’s practice for all the pushing you have to do during labor. That’s all I’m gonna say about that. Next!

Gas/Bloating- Pretty self explanatory. I can’t eat jalapenos raw like I used to because I pay for it later with bloating and painful gas. Not pretty.

Fingernail/Hair Growth- I have to trim my nails every week, and my hair is growing so fast and so thick! I love that part, but not only does your hair on your head grow, but everywhere else too. Nosehair, leghair, armpits, and most shocking, EYEBROW hair. It’s not that I have bushy eyebrows, but I have to trim them with scissors almost daily because they are so LONG! I feel like Andy Rooney from 60 minutes sometimes. (shudder)

Heart pounding- When I lay down on my left side (like you’re supposed to), just resting or watching TV, sometimes my heart pounds SO hard it’s like it’s going to pop out of my chest! I think this has to do with the fact that there is so much more blood volume in my body now that there’s a little person inside with their own circulatory system to nourish. It’s a little frightening, though- to feel your heart pounding so hard. It’s not rapid, it’s just forceful, and consuming. Weird.

Nightmares- I dream very vividly, and multiple dreams a night, but since I’ve been pregnant, I’ve had terrible nightmares. Being kidnapped, people being murdered, crazy monsters. And of course, a lot of just strange dreams too.

Cameltoe- here’s an interesting one. So, not sure if you know this, but your hoo-ha swells up a bit when you’re pregnant.  This leads to some unfortunate battles with cameltoe. On top of that, you’ve got this baby bump that you have to either choose to pull your pants up over or under, and if you go over, be prepared for cameltoe problems. Despite my resistance to buying maternity clothes, I can now see the point of those giant stretchy panels.

Black poo- I think it’s the prenatal vitamins, but the poo situation is also frightening, especially the early weeks. Moving on.

Yeast infections- Extra estrogen brings upon this lovely side effect, during the first few weeks of pregnancy.  When I timidly mentioned it to my doctor, he exclaimed, “That’s wonderful!” Apparently, this is a GOOD sign that your hormone levels are where they should be. Hard to be excited about it, though. I couldn’t stop thinking, “yeah, well you’re a MAN, so you’ve never had one, there sir. Easy for you to be happy about it.”

Uterine stretching pain- The uterus stretches from the size of a small fist to the size of a watermelon. And I never knew that this HURTS. I thought it just stretches like your belly does. It’s called “round ligament pain” and it feels like sharp shooting pains through your lower abdomen. I try to see the positive side, that it means the baby is growing and getting stronger, but man oh man, sometimes it’s just not pleasant.

Peeing in a cup- I never realized how much pregnant women have to pee in cups. Every doctor’s visit starts with you peeing in a cup so they can check protein and sugar levels in your urine. Remember what I said about hoo-ha swelling? Yeah, well that means that peeing in a cup without peeing all over yourself is almost impossible. As your belly gets bigger, you can forget about even being able to see what you’re doing, so you just have to blindly try to line yourself up and let ‘er fly. Also, it’s funny how comfortable you quickly get with carrying your warm pee around in a cup and then handing it to strangers. So odd. Really.

Aversion to sweets- Maybe it’s just me, but sweets are REALLY sweet. And I have a sweet tooth. But since I’ve been pregnant, I can’t stand chocolate, sugar, anything like that. It’s just overwhelmingly rich and sweet. I guess maybe that’s the reason my weight gain hasn’t exploded. And who knows, maybe the cravings for sweets will stay away after the baby comes!

Half-naked ultrasounds- The first ultrasound we had was internal, which means you’re naked from the waist down with jelly up in all your crevices. Hello, stranger! Nice to meet you too! The next ultrasound was on my belly so I though I’d just lift up my shirt a bit. Wrong! They made me pull down my pants to my knees! It was all women, so it wasn’t a matter of being uncomfortable, I just thought that was odd.

Sweat- I’m warm-blooded to begin with, but now my body is a FURNACE. I wear short sleeves in winter. I sweat like crazy just getting up to grab a glass of water. On top of that, the smell of deodorant was absolutely overwhelming during my first trimester, so it was a bad situation. I wore the deodorant to stop me from sweating through my clothes, but hated the smell. Thankfully, now the smell doesn’t bother me as much.

Hip and ligaments changing- As the baby grows, so do your hips. The ligaments get really loose and flexible to allow your hips to widen a bit and prepare for the baby’s grand entrance into the world. Here’s another thing that I was never told will hurt. Sometimes I stand up and my hip feels like it popped out of place. I’ve been doing pre-natal yoga since the 11^th week (do not even try to tell me about exercising in the first trimester. Not gonna happen, I’m telling you now!) so the stretching helps a lot with keeping the hips loose and flexible. But still, now and then I get the same shooting ligament pain in my hips like I do in my uterus.

Drooling- When you’re pregnant, you drool. Seriously. Maybe to empathize when the baby starts teething? You have all this excess saliva and sometimes feel like you’re choking on it because your mouth is so full of slobber. Doesn’t that sound positively lovely? Lol

Well, there’s my list- and I’m not even halfway through my pregnancy yet. You heard it candidly from me, folks. Did I miss anything on this list that you’d like to add? Anyone else agree with some of these symptoms? Comment below!