Being pregnant is such a blessing, one that many long for. I’ve been able to proudly carry 3 boys within my body and let me tell you, when they say every pregnancy is different, they really were not lying. Even though all of my pregnancy’s have the same gender, they couldn’t be further from the same. That is another myth some say, That if you are carrying a female that you are sicker, or that you are feeling and craving different things. Not in my case!
Morning sickness was for sure increased with the 3rd baby. A lot of people suspected it was a girl because of this. Based on the fact that apparently girls make people sicker. I know, wild right. With my 1st pregnancy I was barely sick. I had thrown up a couple times but it was mostly self inflicted due to the fact that I added too much milk to my Kraft Dinner (Mac and Cheese in the box!). With my second I found that I was more gaggy, and I was sick a few times in the first trimester and then a few in the third one. And mostly it started after I woke up. Sometimes a weird smell or something did it. Something from putting garbage in the can, to getting a whiff of peanut butter, or mixing my son’s oatmeal for breakfast. It was strange. And my third pregnancy, I was the sickest I had ever been. Mind you I never had the really bad sickness and there was far more people who had a really tough time with it BUT for me it was rough. I was also super thankful that my husband was home a lot of lunch times because that made me able to go to bed after spending the afternoon throwing up. It really helped to be able to disconnect and to get away because with my 3rd pregnancy I still have 2 other toddlers to take care of! And while the first few weeks I was only experiencing feeling tired, eventually sooner than anticipated my oldest stopped napping. That was hard. Then it became a juggling act with my oldest to see if he would have some cuddle time with his Mama on the couch and a lot of times it was a no. He would not do that and I would be even more tired.
Another thing I found was that I was up way more overnight to pee way sooner. Which also accompanied the lovely body aches. Having multiple pregnancy’s seemingly back to back like we did can make you more sore fast due to your body already going through the motions, so to speak, of pregnancy. For me that was no exception. Chasing around the kids while growing another human was challenging. Though I found that we were on the go playing and things so much that I never really “felt” sore until the end of the day. Once the boys were in bed and I was starting to settle down that was when I found myself feeling the aches. I swear I was in the bath nearly daily in order to just soothe my muscles. I don’t even think I was in the tub more collectively in my entire life that I was while pregnant with this third baby!
Leaky boobs is one of the things that ONLY showed up in the last pregnancy and I absolutely hated it. As a formula feeding parent it was amazing how this final pregnancy started it but also I hated every single minute. I felt like whenever I touched my chest it leaked!! That doesn’t even make sense. Even weeks postpartum it still leaked! I tried to wear tight bras, face away from the hot showers I took. I even wore a bra in bed for the first few weeks to hopefully stop it sooner but it seemed to just have to run it’s course. It certainly made me feel like I made the right decision for myself by not breastfeeding because it was just another thing that made me feel down right icky.
This final baby had a lot of medical monitoring at the end. My 1st pregnancy was pretty textbook. In terms of like minimal monitoring required and then giving birth. Then my 2nd was pretty much the same. The only difference is that my 2nd ended in a c-section due to him being breech and finding out in labour. They did say he was measuring ahead of his gestation which turned out to be true with how much he weighed at birth! So my 3rd pregnancy towards the end between a regular OB appointment, a handful at a second OBs office, Weekly ultrasounds and blood work it was about 2x per week doctors visits. That was so many for me. It was so hard especially trying to have my husband off enough for me to go to them without having to worry about my other 2 children and finding someone to watch them too. Not to mention as you may know from previous blogs that I am pretty much a home-body and don’t like going anywhere. So the fact I was driving around the city to these appointments was not something that I really enjoyed either! Yet another reason for me to be grateful that I was going to be having our last baby so I didn’t have to go anywhere I didn’t want to!
And finally, NO MORE C-SECTIONS. In the back of my mind I was always worried that I would have a c-section again. Thinking about how vastly different my 1st, vaginal birth was to this, I was thankful and looking forward to this being the final one I would ever need to have. It was a lot mentally and it was really hard for me to come to terms with what was happening to my body as I could do nothing but lay there.
But, At the end of the day, I was left with 3 healthy baby boys and I really can’t say a whole lot about them except each birth was truly special, and each one unique in their own rights!
Stacey J. Girard 