I’m planning to do a post about my experience of pregnancy, labour, recovery and my first year of being a mum. It’s been a wild ride but after much soul searching I feel it would be a disservice to keep it all to myself, especially when my experiences could help someone else.
I will start by explaining that, in general, I keep my private life exactly that: private. I’m careful about what I share online and who I share with in real life. There is a trusted circle who know everything, but outside of that I like to keep it light and easy-breezy. That being said, everything I do share is authentic, the person you see online and in the clinic is who I am, there is no pretending for the sake of social media, image or ego!
The motivation behind this is to share my real, unfiltered experiences. After hours spent googling what pregnancy, labour and motherhood would be like to try and gain some insight to prepare, when I went through it I soon realised that it was NOTHING like the internet said it would be. If you have a question then I’d be happy to answer (within reason).
This one is all about the pregnancy, just an honest account of how it was for me.
To begin – we chose this, and I would do it all over again even knowing how challenging the journey would be. Going into my pregnancy I was excited, nervous, but I was certain it was what I wanted to do. Harry and I had discussed everything at length before deciding we wanted to start a family. We had talked about every scenario we could think of, including managing finances, what would happen if I needed to work less, what our parenting values are, etc. Both of us had spent our 20’s enjoying life to the full, out with friends, travelling and we had naturally reached a point where very little of our lifestyle would need to change to accommodate a child.
When I found out I was pregnant I was shocked, which was silly really, considering it was on purpose! I stood staring out the window for a good 10 minutes contemplating life and periodically looking at the (4th) test because it didn’t feel real. I had to wait until Harry finished work at 11:30pm before I could tell him which was a torturous wait!
Side note: buy the 100 strip tests for £10 on Amazon, they also do ovulation tests for the same quantity/price. They work in exactly the same way as the expensive branded ones but it gives you the freedom to test more often if you wish to do so without breaking the bank.
At 5 weeks the nausea started. We were on a mini break at the seaside and I felt ROUGH. I also started to get episodes of dizziness, was extremely thirsty all the time, had a super dry mouth, was unusually weepy and felt drained of all my energy. These symptoms kept up until around the 16 week mark; the dizziness wore off slightly earlier but i gained two new symptoms in that time.
1) Sudden, sharp pains in the sides of my abdomen like my muscles were being stretched (it was the ligaments stretching in preparation for the physical changes to come)
2) An inability to look at a certain texture of fur/soft toy/blanket without gagging aggressively – the most bizarre symptom by far.
During this time I continued to work in the clinic 5 days a week, but it was very difficult to hide how bad I was feeling. I was struggling to eat and sleep so I looked incredibly tired and I lost a lot of weight. The muscle loss from lack of food and exercise started to become noticable and I had to ‘fess up to a few of my regular patients because they were starting to get very worried for my wellbeing. It was also difficult to be my usual sunny self when I was having a particularly bad day of nausea – it would start as soon as I woke and continue almost all day until I went to bed.
A few of the things I used to help with the nausea were: motion sickness bands, fresh brewed lemon and ginger tea (thanks, Harry!), mints, gaviscon and eating rich tea biscuits first thing in the morning before I got out of bed. It wasn’t foolproof but these items did enough to keep me working in the clinic.
Christmas was a blast, I was feeling better, I had a little bump growing which was still hidden under my loose-fit style of clothes, and alcohol free prosecco exists which was perfect for the New Year toast! I was swimming when I had the energy which took the extra weight of my bump off my back and hips, resting when I needed to and Harry was taking exceptional care of me at all times.
In January, we found out we were having a girl, but we kept this (mostly) to ourselves except for Harry’s occasional slip-up! Cannot recommend this enough, like our own little secret, although at this point only people we saw in person knew about the pregnancy because we kept it off social media until February, also cannot recommend this enough. After we posted on social media about it we recieved lots of lovely messages, including people I hadn’t spoken to or seen in a long time.
The visits to the midwife were mostly routine: pee in a cup, much harder as your bump grows so be sure to ask for sample pots to take home and bring one pre-prepared for your visits, saves a lot of hassle and mess. Check-in on my mental health, make sure my homelife is safe – ever-appreciative of this step in the process to help give women an opportunity to speak up if they are experiencing domestic abuse, forever grateful to confidently say “no” when asked if I’m being mistreated. They start to take measurements of the bump to track growth, take my blood pressure to ensure it doesn’t start creeping up and eventually they start to listen to baby’s heartbeat, too.
There was one not-so-routine midwife appointment when I said my hands and feet had become unbearably itchy, especially worse at night, but still unrelenting during the day, too. Suddenly I’m being asked to dash up to hospital, cue panicked phonecall to my dad for a lift, and off I went for a blood test. I had developed an issue with my liver called intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy (ICP), a quick Google of this brings up some scary stuff, not helped by a complete lack of information on what or why I was being tested, or when I’d get the results. Weekly blood tests were scheduled to check my liver function and any signs of increased bile acid in the blood, any worrying abnormalities would be discussed before “next steps” were taken. Luckily my symptoms subsided when I went on holiday so the hospital were happy to drop the weekly blood tests but I was monitored even more closely after that, especially as I was at an increased risk of preeclampsia (thankfully never reared it’s ugly head).
Any new symptoms, no matter how mild they seem, should be mentioned to your midwife. It might just be a normal part of pregnancy, or it could need investigating. Always better to be safe than sorry.
Another medical test I had to do was the glucose test for diabetes. You have a blood sample taken, drink a glucose drink very quickly, sit in the waiting room for 2 hours (bring a book) and then have another blood test. As it’s a fasting test it can make you feel pretty rough, but the reaction to the test varies for each person. I felt a little nauseous but it wore off quickly (20 minutes or so), unlike another poor lady in the waiting area who projectile vomited everywhere! I would recommend not going back to work after the test, because I experienced enthusiastic side effects from the other end of my body about 3 hours later…
In the last 3 months of my pregnancy my acid reflux got so bad that the first sip of water in the morning would set off an intense burning in my throat. My reflexologist had taught me a technique which really helped relieve this until closer to the end of my pregnancy which is when i finally went to the doctor for omeprozole which worked like a charm to line my stomach and reduce the acid. Unfortunately, as my acid reflux symptoms got worse, so did my craving for burgers and extremely spicy food, but if I’m honest the symptoms were no worse after I’d eaten spicy food than before. Our local kebab house would regularly recieve an order for a whole box of green chilli’s – Thank you, Ali Baba’s!
We did go on holiday to the Canary Islands when i was 7 months pregnant and I’m really pleased we did. It was relaxing, everyone was very sweet and friendly, and I got a little bit of time to decompress from work. To travel abroad I had to get a signed letter from my midwife to say I was a low risk pregnancy and cleared to fly, and then I had to make sure I had hot weather clothes to fit! The flight was around 4hrs which was personally my limit for sitting in a small space and we made sure to book seats relatively close to the toilet. When pregnant you can be a lot more sensitive to the sun so I wore high factor suncream, a hat and a cover up, and stayed under a parasol for most of the time – I still came home with the best tan of my life.
If I’d have had the choice I would have stopped work shortly after my holiday, around the 34/35 week mark, because working was physically very exhausting, and my hips and back were really painful when walking. However, being self-employed meant I was facing only a maximum of £184 per week in statutory maternity pay which amounted to less than half of my monthly rent, bills and utilities at the time, so working as much as I could fit into my schedule was my top priority to save every penny until 37 weeks, when I finally went on maternity leave.
Top tips for getting through pregnancy:
- Sleep as much as you can, whenever you need to
- Ask other people for help outside of your partner
- Stay lightly active if you can, even just a gentle walk can really help
- Dress for comfort, maternity tops and leggings were my life, but expect to feel the heat if you’re coming into warmer weather
- See an osteopath regularly, this is what made the biggest difference for me being able to continue working as my bump grew
- Eat well and stay hydrated, it makes a difference to your energy levels
I can say, hand on heart, that I didn’t enjoy being pregnant at all. I certainly haven’t felt in a rush to go through it again. But every pregnancy is different and this is not meant to scare you, but to prepare you for some of the possibilities on what can happen to balance the rose-tinted view that social media portrays more enthusiastically. Remember: we are ready to look after you at Wisbey Osteopathy, contact us if you would like more information about our services or how we can support you through this exciting, but sometimes challenging, season of life!
Wisbey Osteopathy 