When I was going through my first trimester blues, I was noticing all these changes happening to my body, particularly, to my vagina. I keep thinking, “Great, not only I’m do I have one random stretch mark on my growing ass, but now I have a labia that has swollen past my panties.” Not a great visual, sorry for that.
I casually dropped my swollen vagina, or technically, labia, into a conversation after my mama friends kept encouraging me to wear leggings since I outgrew every thigh hole in my closet. There was no freaking way I was going to rock a Mariah Carey-like camel toe, not with my mild case of vulval vericose veins.
Then came the second trimester and the pee problem. I was clueless and slightly ashamed of this development. Not only was I pissing 20 times a day, but then I had to wear thick panty liners to catch additional wetness that evidently wasn’t making its way into the toilet. I’m convinced god was introducing me to my 75-year-old self.
Now that I’ve entered my third trimester, I have experienced the spinal/leg phenomenon called sciatica or psychotica as I like to refer to it because it sent me into a tailspin of nerve-shattering pain when I walked on concrete. Side effects include snapping at your awesome husband, wincing like a baby, and hitting yourself repeatedly in the ass for a 3-second cure. The real cure? Don’t walk. But is that really a good thing? Probably not.
So ladies, speak up! Tell your pregnant sisters the real raw deal. I know we have the Internet to answer every ridiculous question imaginable, but there’s nothing like hearing the truth from a fellow mama who’s been through it. I’m due in December, so feel free to share all the ugly details surrounding that final few weeks and the weeks after birth. I kinda hate surprises.
Steph’s new book, The Mama and Baby Love Guide to a Conscious Childbearing Year has been super helpful in giving me straight up, no BS information on pregnancy and post partum. If you want your own copy, just sign up for the MBL newsletter and get your free copy!
Hi there,
I’m due Dec too – but this is my third. With my first, I bled a lot for WEEKS after the baby was born. My advice now to new moms is to pack several pairs of black underwear in your hospital bag. Nothing but black. And a couple plastic bags to send the washing home, just in case you end up bleeding lots like me. My second delivery, hardly any bleeding at all. So maybe it was a prima-partia thing… But anyways, something I hadn’t thought of. Good luck!
Definitely going to load up on black underwear. Guess I won’t be returning to my regular hiking routine for a few weeks unless I’m wearing depends and a large skirt, which isn’t so fashionable on the trails.
Ok. Here was a shocker that I found out about (luckily!) 3 days before my first arrived… Be prepared to drop blood clots right after birth. Lots of them. Can be the size of a lemon. Don’t mistake it for your liver like I would’ve done, had I not read that priceless tidbit of info that apparently everyone else in the world forgot to mention to me. I dropped about 5 of them probably. Feels weird coming out, looks just as weird laying on the bathroom floor. Be nice like me and let your midwife/nurse clean them up for you.
Also, you do bleed for WEEKS. At least I did. About 6 weeks. I wore Depends underwear (not the crappy mesh stuff they give you) and was eternally grateful for that spark of random ingeniousness that came to me one day. My husband told me he could barely look at me (sexually) for the 2 weeks that I wore them. I counted that as a bonus, because I was in NO mood to be touched or “be” sexy. 
At least they have those new Depends shapers! I’ll be packing those in the hospital bag for sure. Thanks for the heads up!
Yes, ladies! Please tell the truth! I’m always interested in hearing REAL advice, because I truly do not want to be surprised by things like this when I get pregnant.
Get a cover for your sheets. No matter how much protection I used in my pants, I ALWAYS bled through at night while sleeping and would wake up mortified at the massacre. My mattress was protected by the hypoallergenic cover we use, but my amazing $200 bamboo sheets were ruined. Those pads they use in most hospitals to cover the bed work great, the disposable bed mats from Huggies work even better and have an adhesive so they don’t move around.
Another tidbit- invest in the hemorrhoid cream with a numbing agent in it. Trust me, you will be very glad you did.
I’ll jump on the TMI train and say nobody told me about the wet dreams. Boy was that a pleasant surprise. Except from about 30-36 weeks when the orgasms were painful. I guess also that orgasms can be painful.
I’ll second the insane blood clots postpartum. I passed one bigger than my fist and felt a bit of pride, like I had birthed another baby. Actually left it sitting in the sink because it was so big I wasn’t sure I could flush it and then my mother found it. My midwife laughed when I told her. Well gee, you didn’t tell me that would happpen, don’t laugh at me about it now.
oh my, we are twins! the wet dreams!!
i will say though, my orgasms didnt hurt. i actually think they helped with delivery!
yes, the clots are huge. i actually wanted to name mine! after i freaked out and paged the nurse… no one told me!! (i had a lot of problems with my hospital birth, misinformation/ heck no information was one of them!) my doula came to check on me later that day at home and laughed at me too. she then proceeded to inform me of all the other things to come!
get nursing bras, especially if you plan on nursing! and WOOL nursing pads. LIFESAVER! i leaked EVERYWHERE. all the time!
i shoot milk still… Eden will be 1 next week! i make alot of milk. your boobs get porn-star-ish.
nice and not so nice! i still havent been able to go to bed without a nursing bra on! i still dont wear underwires… and im a big chested mama!
and the poop.
i kid you not this is how my experience went.
i was told it would be scary… it is. i applied my birthing mantras to pooping, and did until about 6 months after!
my husband walked by the bathroom and started laughing at me.
me on potty… swaying back and forth, eyes closed. repeating/sing-songy “open sphincter. open sphincter. ahhh ohhhh. open open OPEN…” i did that over and over…
you can do it! i actually came out of the room and said, i think we have to name that!
needless to say those were some funny names we came up with!
good luck mama, we are here for you!
How about the headaches? I know they’re not as much fun as the swollen labia or peeing yourself (both of which have attacked me with this second pregnancy), but for at least two months of my second trimester I had the most annoying, wouldn’t go away for anything in the world, headaches. And I got the “drink a cup of coffee” or “take some Tylenol” routine, yeah, because Tylenol really works on pain, right? Ha. Right.
But honestly, the WORST part about pregnancy to me was the jerk pregnant women that swoon around you and tell you how beautiful and wonderful it is. When I was venting to a friend about peeing my pants after sneezing three times she told me she wouldn’t have to worry about that with her second pregnancy because “she had strong vag muscles.” Yeah, because mine are weak and brittle? UGH. Pregnancy IS wonderful and life-changing and amazing, but with all it’s swollen bits and wet pieces it can sometimes be ANYTHING but beautiful!
Buhahahaha…”strong vag muscles.” I’m not sure how I would have reacted. Speaking of headaches…that just started with me at week 32. It doesn’t matter how much I drink, I get these strange dehydration-like headaches that only a nap can relieve.
I had the same terrible headaches. I found relief with acupuncture. Although, I must say that even though I hated being needled it really helped. For dehydration like headaches, I drank coconut water or would put pink Himalayan salt in my water. It seemed to help with improving my hydration.
How much is too much info? Because I have things going on that make me feel like a freak show! It’s not so much the things that happened while I was pregnant, it’s the after. First… I’ll go through spells every now and then of the “noisey air” that comes from your vagina (I can’t bring myself to say the actual word). And it’s when I get up in the morning… I have only been sleeping! I don’t get it… I’ll get up and quietly try to go get the kids in the morning without waking my husband up, and it comes out like a truck horn! (I am such a quiet person in real life that I can’t even believe I am typing these words for other people to read! haha)
The second thing is…. tampons just do NOT, I repeat-do NOT fit right anymore. It makes me sob every time. It is SO annoying!!
Never too much info Casey!! You are doing a service to ladies like me who have no freaking clue what I’m about to go through. Ha! Thanks for sharing.
Oh yes the tampon thing is depressing.
If you’re struggling with tampons or wondering about another option, I HIGHLY suggest the Mooncup! You can read my post about why I love it HERE.
This is an interesting product. If I end up having issues, I’ll look into it. Thanks for posting.
My friends have warned me about the vaginal sounds that make the hills quake. I teach yoga and am stressing this one as I hear down dog because the nemesis of a quiet vagina.
No one warned me about the tampons. Thank you!
My 2nd child was over 10lbs, and he taught me that not only could I get more stretch marks, but I could get them both vertically and horizontally. On a positive note he also taught me that I could vaginally birth a 10lb baby in 4 hours without needing a single stitch. Apparently the skin on my abdomen has zero elasticity because it was all stolen by my vagina.
That is one sneaky vagina.
My advice is to take your stool softeners after leaving the hospital!!!!! I thought I was fine — has gone a few times without issues here and there…..and then, I didn’t go. And then I tried to go…. and then the stitches…..and the ouchie…..and it was like I was giving birth again but not the right way……it was terrible. I can’t explain what came out of me and how my ladyparts felt……and this was like 6 weeks post-partum. Don’t let a day go without going potty!!!!
I got Vital Lifeforce’s Intestinal Cleanse on standby!
The breast feeding contractions, they seemed worse with my 2nd. Oh and my boobs never went back to their normal size. I told my husband i will need a reduction if we have anymore kids.
Oh my, the breast feeding contractions. I so agree. I could totally handle it with my first, but add exhaustion from having a 2 1/2 yr old around a newborn and a apparently a uterus that had much more healing to do since it was the second time around… OUCH! I was able to endure the pain of a natural delivery both times, but those contractions were over the top and Motrin made everything better at least for a couple days. I am pregnant with my third now… and I can only imagine the pain might be a little worse this time around.
Ok, so I heard all the horrific bloody details that would follow a normal delivery– but was vastly unprepared when I ended up having a c-section with my first. I got ingrown hairs from where they shaved me, and one got really infected because I had no feeling down there. Wasn’t until the red from the infection spread up my tummy that I noticed. TMI, right? Also, I learned to blow dry my incision before getting dressed to keep it extra dry and promote fealing. So I guess my best piece of advice is just go ahead and get that Brazilian before going in, just in case! With my second I had a homebirth– and I also recommend the Depends. What a life saver!
I welcome TMI!!!! As a half-latin chick with unruly wavy hair…I definitely don’t want to be shaved down there for fear of what you just described. I hear many hospitals have stopped that practice, but I’ll consider myself warned just in case.
Throughout my whole pregnancy, I would have what I refer to as the tingles (think about when you get a mild electrical shock (like when you were a kid and put your tongue on the 9-volt battery). I would get them randomly in different parts of my body. For example, one day my left check, my right hand, and my buttcheeks had this feeling for like 2 hours. It wasn’t painful just weird and something I have never really experienced before that. Now, 2 years later, I will still randomly get them. My doctors believe it was a hormone thing.
Also, I thought once I was done being pregnant that I could sneeze without peeing. Yea, it doesn’t go away. No matter how many kegals I do, I still have to stop and hold my legs together before sneezing. No one ever mentioned this didn’t go away after birth.
Lori! I had a severe case of the tingles too. I tried acupuncture and it went away. Have you tried that yet?
LOL! I second the above comment about the ladies who walk around loving being pregnant! If you love being preggo that’s great, but don’t tell me about it!! Ha! All my symptoms were all pretty common (I love the depends idea!) except that, now for my second pregnancy, I am getting really awful stomach aches, like heartburn and indigestion combined on steroids. I am learning how to manage, but I definately had never, ever heard of that pregnancy symptom! I suppose all’s far in love and war…and pregnancy!
I had the same kind of digestion issues going on. Turns out I developed an intolerance to gluten. Maybe keeping a food diary might help you identify if it’s a food issue. But seriously, I think there are symptoms we get that are truly for no good reason.
Do those kegals ladies…..My daughter is 7 months old and I still pee when I cough or sneeze. And yes I agree with all the above that no one told me how much I would bleed afterwards and for how long. And pain…for weeks after, worse than labor to me. Ice cubes in a newborn diaper was my best friend.
Nice to know all this before hand!! We have been trying to concieve for a year and a half and it’s awesome that you are so open with all of this!!
: )
I just had my third child 6 weeks ago and no one told me about Dermaplast until this time around. It’s a numbing spray that works waaaay better than the hemorrhoid cream. Here’s one for you. My labia always swells during pregnacy but that’s nothing compared to what it looks like 24-36 hours post delivery. If you can avoid looking I’d advise it. Also if you get an epidural, they’ll want you to pee while you’re still fairly numb. It’s hard! My mom told me to blow bubbles into a cup of water using a straw. Even though I couldn’t feel a thing, it totally worked! Successful peeing and pooping between you and your baby will be the highlights of your life for several weeks
Gosh! I made it to week 24 pretty well but now I’m scared
My friends and i continue to be in awe at the fact that no one told ANY of us that Vicodin (regularly prescribed after delivery) causes constipation. BAD COMBO!!! As if i need to strain to push out anything else!! That leads me right into hemorrhoids…i was largely uneducated as to what they were…where they actually came out & about how itchy miserable they are! I made it through my first pregnancy without them…until after the pushing. They started near the first trimester of my 2nd pregnancy. My baby is 20 mos old & i still have one. Went to the doctor last week and avoided eye contact while asking when the hemorrhoid would go away. His answer?????? Never!! Sexy stuff!
….and pooping while pushing! Shouldn’t have had Mexican food the night before.
Most people poop while pushing =) It’s the same muscles and the same area. Nothing to be embarrassed about.
The sweating and hair loss, I don’t think have been mentioned yet. I sleep on a towel anyway because my boobs leak all over at night, but I soak the towel and sheets with sweat for a couple of months postpartum. Very icky. And you know how you didn’t lose any hair while you’re pregnant? Time for it to come out! I actually appreciated it because I have very thick hair, but if you have thin hair, you may be afraid you’re going bald! But you won’t =)
And kellymom.com is the best resource for GOOD nursing information. Don’t take the formula samples!
Looks like those fast drying towels I purchased for yoga are going to come in handy!
1). Constipation = stopped up toilets. Asking your hubby to snake the toilet for you is always romantic.
Also, I started stalking the public restroom stalls that had plungers.
2). If planning to wear maternity underwear with a dress and no stockings, walk around your house a lot before you wear them in public the first time. Otherwise, you may end up like me, wearing your coat all day at work so you can walk around with your hands in your cost pockets holding up your panties.
3). Energetic sex in the third trimester can irritate your cervix and cause bleeding which really kills the mood, freaks out your partner, and lands you in the ER to get baby checked out. Happy first Mothers Day to me.
4). Your baby can give you hickies on your nipples the first few weeks, especially if you don’t get them latched well the first few times they nurse. Lanolin and cold packs help the pain and learn how to use your finger to break their latch if it is bad. Pain from nursing usually goes away after a few weeks, but let down tingles and hurts some women.
5). Get a cheap exercise ball if you don’t have one already. Great for sitting on those last few weeks and helps stretch those muscles a bit. Also great for gently bouncing a fussy infant.
Good to know about sex during the third trimester. This makes me not feel so bad about being totally weirded out about it because now I’ll use your experience as an excuse. : ) No really, watching my baby move while getting it on feels like she’s walking in on us already!
Also, didn’t know about maternity panties..I’m going to look into this!
Ok, so I’ve been extremely interested in sex since becoming pregnant… weird, I know. But after a great round at 34 weeks I ended up with major contractions and several days of bed rest. I was aware that sex could help you go into labor later on, but no one warned me that one night in the sheets had the potential to land me on bed rest. Thankfully I am mobile once again, but seriously being cautious and totally cut off from sex until it is time to birth. Pretty sure the libido will be dead at that point.
That’s hilarious. I had the very same conversation about the swollen vagina last night with a bunch of female friends over a glass of champagne. Oh, the loss of dignity! Kellie xx
A few things surprised me after delivery. ( the good)1) I didn’t bleed as much as I expected which was awesome! 2) I felt pretty great and energetic afterwards..for days! (the bad) 3) I peed, and I mean I didn’t know I was going. This lasted a few days after birth. Its a good thing I had those huge pads on cause by the time I thought I had to go to the bathroom and got there was already peeing and didn’t even now it! 4) Nipple cream will be your best friend, my baby is 6 weeks and my nipples are still cracking and bleeding, which no one warned me about. For sure use the stool softener, it will be scary when you get the urge but afterwards you will realize it wasn’t that bad and you are really going to have to push VERY hard to rip a stitch, so don’t worry. The contractions from nursing hurt for a few days but then they go away. Everyone is different, I expected to feel like crap ,bleed a lot and be tired. I didn’t have any of that, I was taking the baby on walks right after we left the hospital. I hope you feel this good too, and hopefully have a easy delivery. Good Luck Becky:)
Thaaaaank you so much
I’m in week 24, started worrying about delivery, then found this article and read all the comments that scared the hell out of me but you comment at the end softened it, a little, for now.
Expect hemorrhoids. If you don’t get them you are lucky. I got them with my first pregnancy but I got relief from just keeping them clean when I had the occasional flare up. I used baby wipes every time I #2 and tucks if I needed and if it was bad a little hemorrhoid gel did the trick. Second pregnancy wasn’t near as easy! I had a flare up around 32 weeks and they never went down again. I even tried prescription steroid creams. The doc said it was the added pressure of the growing baby, paired with the fact that it was my second pregnancy. He would always remind me that this pregnancy would be harder but labor would be easier. It was, except when I had to push my hemorrhoids just got ginormous! Good thing though, the do reduce and “seem” to be gone as long as the area is kept very clean. Baby wipes every #2, but NEVER flush your wipes.
Girls, thanks for the open talk! Appreciate it a lot. Especially the tips for the hospital bag.
Where to start? My worst pregnancy symptom was carpal tunnel in both hands. It was not gradual–I woke up one morning and literally could not move my hands, my wrists felt broken and the pain was unbearable. In recovery, I only passed one clot and it was so big I thought my uterus fell out. My nurse inspected it to make sure there were no pieces of the placenta. After that, my internal pains lessened. Stool softeners and/or fiber helped but the first few times you go will still be hell. My nurse used Tucks pads on my pads and sprayed me with Dermoplast–the Tucks pads were really soothing. She also gave me a bowl to sit in (can’t remember the name but you can buy in hemmorhoid section of drug store)– she recommended sitting in the warm water to soothe my stitches, but I also found that it helped “clean” me better than the spray bottle. My hospital was great–they let me take home anything–extra ice pads, extra mesh panties, the tucks and dermoplast, and the chuks pads. I would recommend learning how to use a breast pump before you need it. My milk came in the day after I went home and I thought my boobs were going to explode
My carpal tunnel was induced by the severe edema I had from preeclampsia… I felt like I could not grip anything, and was afraid I’d drop the baby. If you get a C-Sect, ask for a stomach binder! This will help your shape, and also help you not feel like your insides were going to burst out of the stitches. Also, the tape they sometimes use over stitches, can be really irritating. I got blisters, and didn’t realize it until it was time to check out of hospital. I had a lot of localized pain and Percocet was my pal. Take the pain meds if prescribed, and don’t wait too long between, it takes a long time for it to re-kick in and by that time you will be hurty again. The ice in the hospital is awesome, good crushed kind for chewing on. And for sure lots of fiber, or stool softeners, poop=2nd baby.
What I was most unprepared for following the births of my two babies was how painful sex is. And I am not only talking about the first time at 6 weeks postpartum. I am talking months! Apparently it doesn’t have to do with the delivery, but with the breastfeeding, which lowers your estrogen levels. My friend had c-sections and experienced the same thing. Use LOTS of lube and maybe a glass of wine! I started feeling back to normal after about four or five months…
Since we’re sharing… The pain I felt while pushing out my baby had very little to do with my vagina (until the end when I think my doctor ripped me open… yea, I’m pretty sure it was a two-handed stretch open… like when porky pig or whoever tries to peep through the black hole at the end of cartoons…). The pain was from my bum and what I was convinced was my intestines leaving my body while I pushed. Seriously, the pain there was way worse. As it turns out, my intestines did not leave my body, but it was the hemorrhoids which I rapidly grew as I pushed for all I was worth. I agree that the 6 weeks post-delivery were much worse than anything I went through during my 24 hours of labor. Between the hemorrhoids (which I’d never had before and hope to never have again) and the stitches, oh, and the baby crying every time I tried to go to the bathroom, I was pretty miserable.
Be prepared for the first poop after giving birth. I’ve had two babies so far and it was horrible for each, but at least I was prepared for the second time around! The first time, I kept trying to go, but it hurt too much to push out a poop. It finally turned into a grapefruit at my butthole. I was on the toilet for at least half an hour trying to get this painful poop out when it only took me 18 minutes to push out my baby. It really was like giving birth all over again. My doctor was coming to check on me right when I started pushing, came back when I was almost done, and was yelling into the bathroom, “Are you okay in there?” I was thinking, “No I’m not okay, you could have told me about this part!”
Thanks everyone for writing things down. My pregnancy was pretty uneventful as far as I can remember. Delivery was uneventful too. Afterwards though was something different. This was my first baby so I wasn’t expecting all of the blood. My mom never even mentioned that. I passed some of those clots that everyone was talking about. I never had a hemorrhoid which after reading all these comments I’m glad. I remember one day while taking a shower I was cleaning my lady parts and I felt down there just to see. I was shocked that it was still wide open. I knew that it would take a while to go back to normal but it was just weird. I also ended up with tailbone issues. We think that my daughter pushed on my tailbone while I was delivering and she hurt it. I was in PT for 2 months to help heal it. It will never be the same. I still have issues when I sit too long or sit on a certain chair. I’m hoping the next child doesn’t hurt it again because that was probably the most painful out of everything.
Maybe it was just me, because I don’t see any other mention of this, but I was VERY emotional after I had the baby. I look back now and laugh at the things I was crying about. Even reading children’s books got me all teary-eyed. It was about a month before the emotions balanced back out. Also, I ended up with a non-planned (but non-emergency C-section) and I didn’t know that I would be vigorously shaking for a while afterward. It scared me because it was so uncontrollable, but I was told by the nurse that this is very normal. Good luck to you! Just remember, keep all of what everyone else tells you in mind, but know that everyone is different and you have to do what is best for you and your baby. You will do great!
I had my husband read your post as a emotional disclaimer. : )
Two words… carpal tunnel! Had for both pregnancies from 36 weeks, 1st time in one hand, 2nd time in both hands! So annoying! Couldn’t hold onto anything- knife, forks, pens, the phone!! gripping steering wheel when driving was painful and the worst thing was hands were numb so when it came to learning to breastfeed couldn’t hold baby’s head properly because hands tingled so much it was painful. Also no-one told me about the bleeding and massive clots either and oh boy if anyone offers you cabbage leaves for engorged boobs- use them! They helped a lot! But the best thing of all is that holding your beautiful, precious new baby makes up for all the ugly, annoying, messy, painful bits!
My pregnancy was great but I had planned a homebirth and ended up in the hospital because my water broke and I wasn’t even in labor at all yet. I would say just be emotionally prepared if the birth doesn’t happen exactly how you want it to. Also, I took castor oil on the advice of my midwives to get labor started in hopes that I could go ahead and have the baby at home as planned. Horrible idea!! I will NEVER do that again. It is a laxative and did start me into labor, but I was pooping liquid the entire time I was in labor. I was on the toilet the whole time. It was horrible because I couldn’t keep anything in my stomach and had no energy. Then my labor stalled out and I was 9 cm walking into the hospital not having any contractions at all and they were freaking out. I had like 5 different pushing sessions at home and the hospital, bad hemorrhoids and pooping constantly. The effects of the castor oil lasted many days. Castor oil = very very bad!
My big issue was late in pregnancy when the joints started to soften so my pelvis could open for delivery, my pelvis would move esp when I tried to get out of bed and pinch…hurt so bad. Once I hit 30weeks I always had to get up on my hands and knees and crawl backwards off the bed. It went away pretty quickly after my first pregnancy, but it didn’t go away completely after my second pregnancy until I went to a chiropractor 14m after giving birth. I’ll be using a chiropractor during my next pregnancy without a doubt.
I didn’t so much have trouble with pee leakage as I had TONS of clear/whitish discharge, I wear mini pads during my whole pregnancy (actually one of my early signs of pregnancy) or I either have to change my undies all the time or get a rash from the constant icky wetness (I’ve very rash prone anyway).
There is so much pressure on your lungs that once you give birth and your lungs are suddenly released it feels a little scary, like your lungs are gonna drop into your abdomen…but don’t worry you have a great diaphragm to keep them in line.
Glad to hear you went to a chiropractor, pelvic movement and misalignment due to pregnancy and birth is very common. And getting and adjustment about 6 to 8 weeks post partum will quickly elevate any issues (from a good chiro that is). You want to wait till then to get the adjustment so that your hormones have leveled off a bit and your pelvis is not as loose and will actually hold the adjustment.
I wish I had known abaut the carpal tunnel syndrome. I have suffered it twice and just wondered what that all was. NOW I found the explanation, HERE! I’ve also experienced severe arm pain while brestfeeding (2 kids, brestfed both for 1yr 3 months). My mother was told 35 years ago that the sleeplessness and general fatigue of taking cake of a baby may cause odd pains.
As for delivery I suggest you don’t plan too much. It can go so fast you don’t have time for anything of you might be in such a bad shape that the healthcare professionals make all the decisions for you. Go with the flow!
Breast feeding contractions were a total schocker, no-one had told me about them and they seem to get more severe with second- third… child. Ask for enough painkillers for them! For me the hot treatments just weren’t enouhg and I got worried that I couldn’t hold my baby on breast during them.
Your tail might go misaligned or break during the birth and might or might not get back in place later. Mine is now knobbyer – though it did’t break during delivery- than before, making for example biking ar sitting on hard surfaces a struggle. It might get better in the next delivery. A reason to have a third one?
This is the most candid, funny and informative blog post (with the commentary, of course). I just have to say how much I have appreciated it. I’ve been sharing it with all my mom and mom to be friends.
Jolene – thank you so much for sharing! I was a bit apprehensive about writing a diatribe of TMI, but you have reassured me that’s A-OK!
Okay, I’m at 32 weeks with my second and you all have me laughing so hard I wet myself twice! Thanks for the stress relief- I’m an emotional TERROR of a pregnant lady- my husband is so sweet about it, but I know it’s pretty unlivable at times. Unfortunately, I have to agree that post partum was the hardest part of all. How discouraging is that after 9 months of body chaos? My big “look out” advice is to not assume you’re being weak abot something. I tried to tough it out through very painful nursing/ overproductive milk making boobs and ended up with mastitis. If something really hurts- go get it checked out- don’t try to be heroic like yours truly…
Oh man! Breastfeeding hurt sooooo bad for the first few weeks. Not even a whole cabbage patch could quell those melons. So happy you enjoyed the post and thanks for the advice!
I’m 35w along and my vag looks and feels like a horror story!! My discharge has been GREEN the last two weeks and after all the tests and swabs came back negative for infections or cultures, my doctor just figured it’s another weird normal symptom. My lips areso swollen too! I just went to the bathroom and when I stood up to pull up my pants I caught a glimps of them in the mirror and my jaw dropped!! Oh and as someone with next to no discharge before pregnancy, I haven’t had the need to wear liners in years. So nobody warned me that I could develope diaper rash from them!! I change them every time I pee and I still feel the itch and burn! NowI’m fully committed to cloth diapers for my little guy, I never want my baby to experience diaper rash!!
I want him out!
Hahahaha! Yeah, after 3 months postpartum I think my vag is finally getting back to normal. Now if I can just stop asking my husband if it feels “looser” down there. As for diapers – try the Bumgenius all-in-1 elemental diapers. They’re soooo easy and awesome. No inserts, no snaps. : )
Well!!! My tummy hurts from laughing! Congrats on your successful delivery Becky. There were some things i didn’t know here and some I was reminded of but I think Ive been successfully scared for a SECOND time (thanks to my genius idea of joining my mother in the delivery room as a kid) into waiting as long as possible for children!!! I was laughing and cringing at the same time!! But it sure helps to know what you may be in for before being scared “shitless (literally lol)” later!!!! Im already to pick out which problems ill likely run in to based on existing conditions. But the adorable face of my newborn will be worth it….right?! Right!