Andrea's Super Simple Advice for the Pregnant

Since I am now nearly 33 weeks into this thing, I feel I have learned enough to give some unwanted advice to other pregnant women, or those who will be pregnant later.

1.  Calm down, you are only pregnant.

I was one of those people who knew she was pregnant long before (a week) a home pregnancy test would have been accurate.  I never took a test, I just took my basal body temp and felt the symptoms.  I felt no rush to find a care provider, I was fine and was taking prenatal vitamins and avoiding toxins. 

Until I got a migraine with an aura.  Migraines were not new for me, but auras were.  So I did the "right" thing and called my clinic at the time.  Here is the simplified version of the conversation:

Me: "I'm pregnant and I'm being seen by one of your doctors for migraines, and now I have one with an aura."
Nurse: "Well, I don't know why you are having an aura, but HOLY SHIT you are pregnant?! Fucking find an OB you goddamn idiot!!  Conception was THREE weeks ago?!  You are practically in labor!  How could you be so stupid as to not seek care!?"
Me:  "Uhh... I was... um..."  CLICK.

Obviously that was a dramatization, but that nurse seriously must know nothing about pregnancy because unless you have some horrible illness that can interfere with pregnancy or are in extreme pain, chances are super, super, great that in your first month or two, everything is fine and you need very little care, if any. 

Here is the simplfied version of my first prenatal appointment at 8 weeks 5 days pregnant (three or four weeks after the above conversation):

Nurse Midwife: "So you're pregnant, how does that feel?"
Me: "Pretty shitty."
Nurse Midwife: "Try vitamin B6 and Unisom."
Me: "OK."
Nurse Midwife: "Are you drinking alcohol."
Me:  "Fuck no, I feel like puking all the time, why would I drink alcohol?"
Nurse Midwife: "Awesome, see you in a month."

So even when I did get the care the first nurse insisted I needed right away, there wasn't much to it.  So if you find yourself pregnant and otherwise healthy, it's OK to just celebrate for a while and not rush to the doctor.

2.  Stop reading pregnancy books. Do what feels right to you. 

Focus your reading on baby care and parenting, these things are way more important and you won't be reading them after baby comes.  Pregnancy books are also full of misinformation and overly cautious advice.  I'll admit that reading What To Expect When You Are Expecting was kind of fun, but the crap that book tells you to do or not to do is overwhelming and not backed up by scientific research for the most part.  It claimed you should never point your toes!  I point them every few days to see what it supposed to happen; no leg cramps yet. 

I decided to follow some of that book's advice for the first trimester because I thought maybe being a bit overly cautious the first three months would reduce my chance of having a miscarriage.  So I avoided lunch meats, or I would microwave them, and I decided to skip the raw seafood for the entire pregnancy.  I figured nasty food poisoning was something to avoid.  I also stopped drinking alcohol because that toxin does have scientific research backing it up, and I haven't changed the cat litter in probably three years, so that was no problem (Brent does it).  I also decided to avoid cleaning products with nasty chemicals in them, which was easy because I don't do much cleaning (Brent does it), and I stopped using my acne cream, which was fine because pregnancy totally cleared up my skin.  

The other thing Brent and I did was buy more organic foods.  I'm not sure about the research regarding pesticides on fetuses, but it doesn't sound like a good thing.  So for a lot of our staples, like tomato sauce, salsa, beans, milk, and a good portion of our fruits and vegetables, we went organic.  We didn't go 100%, but we both felt good about making an effort.  I didn't worry about whether my food was organic at other people's houses or when we went out to dinner.

3. Diet really isn't that important.

That uterine parasite of yours will take calcium out of your teeth and bones if it needs it!  Which is bad for you, but you really have to have a bad diet before it will affect your fetus.  Folic Acid is easy to get through pills and a prenatal vitamin should cover the rest of the holes in your diet.  Chances are if you didn't have a vitamin deficiency before pregnancy, you won't have one now.  Eat what sounds good and eat a variety and you should be good.  The pregnancy diet guidelines that ended up in some of those pregnancy books I read were so long and complicated, I bet there are few women who follow them. 

I don't think my midwife once talked about diet.  She only talked about exercise and maybe cutting a few calories when I was gaining a ton of weight my second trimester. 

Like, I said above, calm down, you are only pregnant. 

4.  You are not fragile; your uterus is super strong!

The uterus is one of the best shock absorption systems around.  I could easily lay on my stomach until I reached the third trimester; as long as the surface was soft enough.  My protruding baby bump has been shoved, bumped, run into a wall, elbowed, mushed against a wheelchair... the thing gets in the way!  The only time I've been concerned is when I'm being shoved (at work, I work with adults with developmental disabilities), because I don't want to fall over, so I tell them to watch out for the baby.  But baby is fine, my uterus feels fine.  I built an IKEA book shelf by myself in my sixth month of pregnancy.  I was exhausted after, but baby was fine.  I occasionally lift wheelchairs and people and I'm well into my eighth month.  My lower back hurts from it sometimes, but my lower back hurts from simply walking these days. 

I have a much bigger problem with picking small things up off the ground (it's hard to bend over) than carrying heavy things.  I think the greatest thing I've said at work in the past few months was, "Hey, does someone who's not pregnant want to crawl under my desk and see if my phone is plugged in?"  If it hurts, don't do it; if it doesn't, chances are it's not harmful.  You really have to be in a bad accident to hurt the contents of your uterus.  I'm sure some pregnant women are different and have other issues making them have more restrictions, but chances are you are fine. 

5.  Look into all of your options about care and birth.

There are so many options and you should at least know about them.  I still sometimes contemplate a home birth.  Your options grow if your pregnancy is low-risk, which most are.  I chose a midwife because I felt pregnancy and birth were natural things, not illnesses.  I don't feel the need for a doctor.  So far I've only had one pelvic exam when they did an overdue "poke and scrape" and tested me for STIs that could hurt the baby.  Minimizing pelvic exams is a plus, I have a feeling they will start looking in there soon, however. 

Not every test is needed for you.  And learn about all the interventions, they all have risks, some that will simply not be worth it.  Get informed well before your due date so you know your options before the birth.  Some hospitals and doctors have a very high C-section rate, these are places to avoid, these are places that rarely see a natural, normal birth without an intervention.  The C-section rate is close to one third in the US, when really it should probably be under 10%.  C-sections save lives, but are way overdone and are major surgery to recover from.  Birth and pregnancy do not have to be medicalized unless there is a medical problem, which rarely there is.