Pregnancy Update
Well hellooo there!
I’m currently sitting here at 40weeks+5days, feeling little Baby Matthew stretch and kick in my belly looking for some additional room. I keep trying to tell him that there’s plenty of room outside my stomach but he just doesn’t seem to understand. Labour will begin when both he and I are ready, but the waiting really does suck! So what better way to pass the time then to update my little blog here on how things have been going? : )
And here’s where some of you will stop reading LOL : My pregnancy really was quite easy. Honestly, I can’t complain! I’ve only just started feeling the ‘get this baby out of me’ sentiments and I know some women feel that long before 40 weeks. It’s been a fairly easy ride, but here are some of the challenges I faced during the second half of my pregnancy:
Constant Starvation but a Shrinking Stomach
OK that’s a bit dramatic, but I was quite hungry all the time. I managed this by ensuring that I had snacks at the ready: nuts and seeds, pre-cut fruit salad, granola bars (soo many granola bars!). And I tried to have protein with my snacks but this wasn’t always possible because I couldn’t overfill myself or I risked indigestion/heartburn. I had a couple of big lunches between 28 – 35 weeks that kept me full for over 8 hours. oopps! It takes a while to get used to the ever shrinking stomach.
Heart Burn
I had heartburn a couple of times but was able to mostly avoid it by taking digestive enzymes with my meals. I ended up taking an antacid a few times when I had to go to sleep but the acid kept creeping up. This is caused when the lower esophageal sphincter (the flap between your stomach and esophagus) gets weakened when your body starts to produce the hormone Relaxin to get your muscles and ligaments relaxed and ready for labour.
Fatigue
I ended up working full time in a temporary placement to get some EI hours and qualify for maternity leave (hense the lack of blogs updates). My hours were 8am – 4pm which was great because it made the days fly by, but getting up at 6am was tough. Luckily the office had a couple first aid rooms where I could go to sleep on my lunch if I was truly exhausted. I think I went about 3 or 4 times to catch a cat nap. Also, it turned out that I had an iron deficiency in my third trimester which definitly contributed to the fatigue, more on that below….
Constant Cravings
Most people wouldn’t call cravings a problem, but when you’re a nutritionist you have this constant battle between wanting to eat well, but leaving room for some cravings. I definitly went through a serious pickle phase, as cliche as that sounds! I remember making a chicken salad sandwich and cutting up pickles to go into it, while eating a pickle. I ate another pickle on the side with the sandwich, and thought while eating the sandwich, “I should have added some pickle juice”. LOL! That’s a serious pickle binge.
I also went through a timbits phase. Shame!! Working in an office environment was hard for this one because people would bring in timbits constantly and I had little will power around them. We also had a free Tims coffee (which I didn’t drink), and all you can eat timbits day. So if my baby is born a little on the chunky side I’ll just call him my little timbit.
The strangest craving of all was craving the scent of fumes. This is called Pregnancy Induced PICA which is when you crave smelling or eating non-food substances. My mom also experienced this while pregnant with me, she craved, but didn’t smell, the scent of gasoline. I craved the scent of gasoline, permanent black markers, household cleaners, and even really strongly flavoured foods like cinnamon hearts and peppermint gum (not technically PICA because they are food items). Luckily I had more self-control over PICA than timbits, so I never purposely smelled any of these toxic scents.
PICA during pregnancy has been linked to iron deficiency as the body craves strange things to get you to eat more iron, I guess craving liver is out of the question… So this leads me to the next challenge I faced…
Iron Deficiency
It’s pretty common for women to experience low iron during pregnancy because our demand for iron increases from 18mg to 27mg per day. Interestingly, the PICA popped up during my third trimester and so did low iron. These two have been linked by studies although a definitive cause of PICA hasn’t been identified. I’ve always struggled with having lowish iron, but never needed to supplement. However, having the extra blood volume and nutritional demands from baby was too much and I needed to supplement during the last trimester.
Besides the general aches and pains from pregnancy, those are the only issues I had throughout. I wish I could say I was a saint and ate like an angel, worked out everyday and didn’t have any challenges, but that’s not real life y’all! Overall I’m proud of how I did during this pregnancy, and I gained a total of 30lbs.
What’s a blog post without some fun pictures?! Here’s some baby bump shots from throughout the pregnancy:
Below is my sister-in-law Danielle who gave birth to a beautiful little girl on March 31st
: )
Holy growth spurt between 28 and 34 weeks! I didn’t take many picture between this time
but I remember this was a very hungry time for me.
OK there is no current photo of me because my stomach is the same size as 39 weeks but I just look really really tired : )
Can’t wait to share the baby pics with you!
Kate