pregnancy
Growing your family, one baby bump at a time. All about the ups and downs of nature's 9 month miracle.
It Can't Be Labour! I'm Only 30 Weeks Pregnant!
You never think going into your first pregnancy that once you reach the 12 week "safe" mark, you'll have to face any of the complications that can come along with growing a human inside you. Sure, we read online about them and worry from time to time, but deep down, I think we all feel like it won't happen to our baby. At least I didn't. In order to get the whole story, we'll have to start when I was 29 weeks pregnant. I had walked to my doctors appointment, and then walked to my dad's house. It was hot out (or maybe it was just my pregnant ass was overheating; it was only March in Canada) so I asked my dad for a ride home. He only has a motorcycle, but his friend was there and they were heading out anyways, so I got in the car with them. The car was a two-door, so I crawled into the back seat. Hindsight is 20/20. DON'T GET INTO THE BACK OF A TWO-DOOR CAR WHILE PREGNANT. The drive was only about five minutes to my house. We pulled up at the curb in front of where I was living at the time, and I proceeded to get out. Well, when I was getting out, my foot got caught on the passenger seat belt, and I tripped out of the car onto the grass. I hit my knees on the curb, and my hands were out in front of me to catch myself from falling on my stomach. I wasn't hurt, I was just shaken up. I was worried about baby, but nothing hurt. I didn't hit my stomach, and I could feel her kicking a few minutes after it happened... I thought we were fine. REGARDLESS OF HOW YOU FEEL, DON'T BE LIKE ME. GO TO THE HOSPITAL. The next day I was fine. Nothing was out of the ordinary. I wasn't sore except for my knees, and baby was kicking and moving as she normally would. Two days after the fall is when I started to notice a bit of a change; which still didn't set off alarm bells in my head, for some reason. I was "peeing" myself a lot. It was embarrassing and awkward, but every so often a little flood of pee would come out. I didn't even feel like I had to pee at the time so it was frustrating, especially because I was at work. I talked to a few people who assured me that it was probably just baby resting on my bladder; it was nothing to worry about. This went on for literally a week. I ended up making an appointment to see the doctor because I got to the point where I felt something was wrong. IF YOU ARE PREGNANT AND LEAKING BODILY FLUIDS, SEEK MEDICAL ATTENTION ASAP. Seriously. I was an idiot for not going sooner.
By Madame Lalapop8 years ago in Families
Oops! I’m a Mom 🤷🏼♀️
I have a huge secret. I am such a wonderful procrastinator, I mean making up excuses is practically a part of my job but that’s not the secret. I keep telling myself I needed to write all of this crazy secret down, like “Hey Brianna, this shit is real, it’s happening and you better document it because you're going to forget all of the insane ridiculous details in the next few months, so get it out of your jumbled up yet simultaneously vacant mind!” This secret is big. It’s fun, it’s terrifying, there’s not really a manual on how to go about dealing with it… well, scratch that. There are lots of books about it. There are lots of opinions and “go to guides” for secrets like mine but not exactly mine.
By Brianna Rettig8 years ago in Families
Isn't It Annoying?!
It’s kind of scary when you find out that you’re pregnant. You get all these mixed up emotions, you start to panic, you start to plan for money saving and baby shower celebration—it just gets really messy and stressful. At times we don’t really get to rest simply because of all of that stuff happening at once.
By Vanessa Lee8 years ago in Families
Becoming a Mom
For some reason, people believe that women aren't real mommies all because they have C-Sections. The way I see it is that, I carried my child to 39 weeks making me a mommy no matter how I birthed him. He was born exactly at 39 weeks, March 4, 4:42 AM.
By Cassidy C Pelletier8 years ago in Families
Pregnancy
Pregnancy. The thing we all eventually want to do to spread our little demons on Earth. They may say you'll miss being pregnant or that it's fun and exciting but I'm going to tell you the things that aren't so pretty. I found out at right about six weeks. I just remember looking in the mirror and finding myself getting stretch marks without gaining weight! What the hell, right? So I order some cream to help it go away and get ready for bed. I go to lay down and I swear to god it was the worst pain I had ever felt. My boobs were falling off I swear. I couldn't touch them, lay on them, nothing. It was ridiculous! I ended up going to the doctor for a routine check-up and just casually asked for a pregnancy test like I did for the past year. Let me remind you, I'm 17 at this point. The doctor walks in, asks how I'm doing, and starts up a conversation as usual when she tells me, "You're pregnant!" What did I just hear? So I went from a 12th grader in high school to a 12th grader in high school having a baby before the legal age that needs to get the hell outta school. Yeah. I remember telling my school counselor that I was having a baby with a former student of hers. She was all excited, as was my mom. I straight up told her I need to get the hell out of school before this baby comes. She agrees and sets me up with six online courses that I need to finish in two months so I can graduate early and be done with school way before the baby comes. I do it and pass all my classes with a 79 percent and higher. Baby now has two graduated parents already. The first few months were a breeze besides trying to remember to take those prenatal pills you need every morning. I remember my first time yawning since knowing I was pregnant and it seemed like something was wrong because it hurt to yawn unless I arched my back. Scared first time mother goes crying to her mother about how, "Oh I'm going to lose the baby mom what do I do?" She has me explain and laughs at me. Yeah, that was my first scare during this long pregnancy. Let's skip to about four months. I remember that someone said to never lay on your stomach when pregnant and it's an obvious reason why. Well I didn't listen and I laid on my stomach and let me tell you, don't do it. I was in so much pain from the extra pressure on my gut cause of my baby I literally cried. Worst pain that had come yet. Still had a month to find out gender and that was the longest month there was. At 19 weeks I found out I was having a boy, hoping she made a mistake I asked,"Are you sure?" Well she showed me and sure enough he wasn't shy at all. Damn, I wanted a girl but hey, as long as he's healthy. That's when the discharge started. Ugh it was so gross! It felt like I was peeing myself but when I used the bathroom, lo and behold, it was a discharge. Me by this time, not being able to shave my legs very well or anything, just kind of gave up on shaving all together except my armpits. Putting on tennis shoes? Nope. Flip flops it is. Wearing jackets from pre-pregnancy? Almost too small already. It was awful. You can't keep anything the same! Your clothes, your shoes, your food, your routine? All ruined. Let's not forget about feeling like you're starving because you can't keep anything down. At six months, everything sort of calmed down. Picked out a name, got baby stuff, and finally settled for a kinda same routine. Then I hit seven months. Worst thing to happen yet. I started getting super sick again and not being able to do anything comfortably. It was a mess. Hurt too much to stand and do the dishes, took too much time to cook dinner, my feet swelled, and tried to lay down and not get cramps from gas. It was a nightmare. Round ligament pain and Braxton Hicks were in store for me. Not to mention the contractions that started around seven months and one week. I decided let's go camping! I always loved camping but this was the worst. I couldn't keep a temperature that was comfortable, couldn't sit comfortably, couldn't lay down, nothing! Not only was I shitty but the weather decided to take a turn. Blew our tent away, put out our fire so we couldn't cook breakfast, and then it started raining. We packed up all of our stuff and got ready to go when we realized our van battery had died. Great! I'm sitting in this van having a contraction while try to get this thing started when we lose hope. Yeah, we're stuck in the hills with no service and a dead van. A couple cars pull by us and ask us if we got this but are unwilling to help or unprepared like us. The last car finally says they can help after sitting there for about two hours. Thank god. So we jump it and go home to me being a bitch because I just want this baby out of me! I'm ignoring my boyfriend, throwing things around, and being a monster just to find out that I wanted food. Got food, laid down, and went to bed. For the past two months I've been dreaming about holding this baby and it pisses me off to wake up to no baby right? So I go to my mom's room and cry, saying I don't want to be pregnant anymore and just go on a rant about how my dreams are making this worse for me and it's not even enjoyable anymore. Well, I'm now eight months pregnant and want him out and to be done being pregnant because I don't believe this will be one of those things I miss. In the end, this long and awful pregnancy will be worth it but as of right now I want nothing to do with it even though I have no choice.
By Jaden Friel8 years ago in Families
Preparing for a Baby...
From the moment you see that plus sign on that pregnancy test, everything is a whirlwind! Before you know it, the end is in sight and it's nearly your due date. I’m no expert. As a first time mummy to be, I (like everyone else in this position) am just scraping along finding my feet with this whole trying to be as organized as possible thing! Here are my top tips for getting prepared before baby arrives:
By Laura Barlow8 years ago in Families
Natural Home Birth Story
When I told people that I was planning to have a home birth, I got a lot of bewildered and shocked reactions. "What?! For your first child? No Drugs?!" followed by a very sarcastic sounding "Gooooood luck. You are BRAVE!" I wrote a lot about peoples reactions in my journal, but chose not to share it here because I hadn't given birth yet, and didn't want to jinx anything. Besides, for all I knew, all of my criticizers were right and I would demand drugs and be rushed to a hospital to give birth like the vast majority do.
By Cassandra Boom8 years ago in Families
My Struggle That Turned into a Blessing
It all started as an average day. I stumbled out of bed, showered, got dressed, and headed out for work just like any other day. It wasn't until I was at work, hovering over a stick, in a tiny bathroom filled with hardware, when everything changed. This was the day I found out I was pregnant.
By Tori Lynne8 years ago in Families
