What a fab collection of posts! I am very happy to see that you are more each time to send me your posts, and I am currently working on a way to store your little gems to become references in the future.
If you are new to A Mother' Secrets our aim is to have "Mothers tell Motherhood", so rest assured that all the stories you read here are personal experiences. Even if there is absolutely no guarantee and even a very slim chance for your personal story to be identical to any of these stories, you will be able to find inspiration and support here.
If you are an expectant mother don't be scared by the title of this post or the big names used.
If you have to retain one thing only from all of this, it is that when you are holding your little baby in your arms all of the pain and struggle during the pregnancy becomes a memory, leaving lots of space for this new life ahead!
Before you go ahead, just to make it easier for you, the main topic discussed is bold at the beginning of each post.
I hope you enjoy reading these as much as I did.
PS for the contributors: the contibutors list will be updated tomorrow!
The Bump and the Hump
Suffering from Cramps
As you may already know, not only do I blog here but I also pop on over to contribute to the A Mothers Secrets blog also, and this month the topic is Pregnancy Lows.
A great topic as those pesky Pregnancy books don't always tell you about the times when you wonder if there's not an alien life form growing inside you, sucking the very life out of you from the inside out for 9 months. In fact the best pregnancy guide book I ever read was by Joan Rivers, called "Having a Baby Can Be A Scream". In it, she was honest about the highs and lows of carrying a tiny tot.
For any of you who have just found that they are pregnant, read on with caution-but be sure to know that the minute they hand you that baby you'll forget the awful bits. Eventually.
Read the rest of the story at The Life of a Twenty Something
It's all in the hips - Pelvic pain in pregnancy
PGP (Pelvic Girdle Pain), more commonly known as SPD (Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction)
Before I became a mother my perception of pregnancy was always veering towards the rose tinted .The reality came as a bit of a shock. Don't get me wrong. I absolutely LOVED being pregnant. What I didn't love was the pain and debilitation of SPD.
During my pregnancy with Big E I had hip pain from the 3rd trimester. I was told it was normal because of the extra strain on joints and the hormone relaxin. The pain they said, would go away after I'd given birth.
They were wrong.
Read the rest of the story at Insomniac Mummy
Pregnancy weight - it's just so depressing
Pregnancy Weight
I had the shock of my life today. My hairdresser is pregnant. Ok, so she did actually tell me she was pregnant about 3 months ago, but I had completely forgotten...so when I walked in today (for my 3 monthly treat - nothing whatsoever to do with the Blogging meet-up on Sunday - you have to believe me) - and I was met with a bump the size of...well something rather large, I was a little taken aback. But only momentarily, of course. I quickly recovered my composure and instead mustered the most amount of excitement possible on a wet and windy midsummer day. But then I saw Kelly's face, and it didn't match my excitement at all...Could it have been that she wasn't happy being pregnant? I was sure she'd viewed it as good news when she'd initially told me...So what was the problem? I decided to enquire further.
"I just feel so fat. I hate it. I feel like a baby elephant. And I know I look like one too. I can't find any clothes to fit and I'm aching all over and I can't walk, I can only waddle and...well...nobody told me it was going to be like this. And the worst thing is - I'm only 5 months gone."
Read on at Maternal Tales from the South Coast
Not always blooming marvellous
Worried about the future with a baby
This post has been written for Peggy Poyser at A Mother’s Secrets. Peggy has asked for stories of pregnancy lows for her site. Here's my experience.
The first few months of pregnancy with my eldest son Podge were nerve-wracking. I’d had two miscarriages and was frantic with worry that this one would end the same way. When we discovered I was pregnant with Podge, we were unable to get excited. We didn’t want to raise our hopes that this pregnancy would be successful. So we spent three muted months trying to get on with things and not worry too much.
But it was difficult. I couldn’t help but worry.
Read the rest at Babyrambles
Pregnancy Lows
Bleeding, Fainting, Sickness, Gall Stones
Peggy from A Mother' Secrets had requested posts on Pregnancy Lows... So I thought I'd share my pregnancy lows with you.
Pregnancy Low Number 1... The Bleeding.. A few weeks into the pregnancy I was taken into hospital with severe abdominal pain and bleeding. I didn't know bleeding was a danger during pregnancy until the doctor who was called out to see me explained what bleeding could mean so early on. The doctor explained I could have be having a ectopic pregnancy so I was sent to the hospital to get checked out.
Read the rest at Me, The Man and The Baby
The rollercoaster ride
Hyperemesis (HG)
My life seems to increasingly resemble a rollercoaster, one that I have little control over and yet cannot jump off when it comes to a halt.
Easter was a high - a wonderful opportunity for some time with B and I started thinking I was feeling a bit better and then woomph a quick flip and a downwards spiral started.
I ran out of my anti-sickness pills, which are keeping my hyperemesis just about under control, and began a slow slide over the weekend into dehydration and misery. I cannot find words to explain what this constant feeling of sickness is doing to me. I cannot find a way to explain how it feels to feel constantly nauseated, to dread eating, to dread drinking even more and to see no end in sight.
Read the rest of the story at Muddling Along Mummy
Blooming unmarvellous
When all you have to do is lie down
Peggy at A Mother's Secrets is compiling stories about pregnancy lows as part of her mission to let mothers tell the honest truth about their experiences.
As I hit the final few days of this pregnancy I have been thinking about how it has been so far removed from my first pregnancy and what
My first trimester was filled by HG which I blogged about before on here so won't bore you with but which was fairly horrid.
The last 4 months however have taken the lows of the first trimester and built on them - this baby has been threatening to arrive since 20 weeks. And in a rather Victorian manner I've had to put my feet up and rest and try and persuade her not to arrive.
Read the rest at Muddling Along Mummy
Baby on Board
The overwhelming feeling of expectancy
A sorry tale of a pregnancy low point, inspired by A Mother's Secrets
A week after I discovered I was pregnant, I decided to pop into Mothercare – the panacea for all things baby. I had, of course, been in here before to buy presents for nieces, nephews and off-spring of various friends, but now I was here for myself, because I was PREGNANT and the shop suddenly looked entirely different.
I really only wanted to buy a book on pregnancy but of course found myself browsing around the entire shop, taking in all the baby paraphenelia which we would need in the not too distant future. There was all the obvious big stuff like cots, buggies and car seats – I couldn’t believe how many shelves of car seats there were!
Read the rest at Hot Cross Mum
Pregnancy Lows
Hyperemesis and Gall Bladder removed
A mothers secrets has asked for any experiences on pregnancy lows this month. I have never posted about my pregnancies with the boys so thought I would participate. Just a disclaimer before you read on, it doesnt seem all that bad or dramatic now.
What can I say about being pregnant, it was a hard road for us to get MaxiMad and MiniMad, Maxi particularly. I had suffered numerous miscarriages, including twins at 20 weeks and a molar pregnancy, which meant that I had to have blood tests monthly for two years. So MadDad and I put being and getting pregnant out of our minds and enjoyed our life as a couple visiting lots of lovely places, working hard and loving lots. We decided that after 9 years of marriage that we would move house and so committed ourselves to a whopper of a mortgage and bought our dream home in Berkshire. Well you know what they say new home, new baby, well in our case it seemed to prove right.
Read the rest of the story at The Madhouse
Reflections on Pregnancy
When baby arrives it really is forgotten
After my wordless Wednesday last week I had a couple of comments asking how I made all that with a new baby! Well I have a confession to make. My baby goes to bed at 6 every evening with very little fuss and stays there quite happily. He is fed at 10pm and around 2am by me and then at 6am by his Dad. He 'gets up' at somewhere between 7am and 7.30am. I was afraid to write that just on case I jinx it, but I had to own up sometime. So this means after dinner and our nightly episode of Veronica Mars I have a couple hours of sewing time just for me. I also cut fabric during the day when the baby naps.
I went out to lunch yesterday with the girls from work and when I said that Piran was a good baby one of them remarked "Well, you had a difficult pregnancy, so you deserve it".
It is funny, if someone had asked whether I thought I had a difficult pregnancy I would have said no. I remember going to see my homeopath around week 20 and going through the list of aches and pains and problems that I had been having and her telling me off for not contacting her sooner and getting something to help me feel better. I just thought that all of this stuff was part of being pregnant and you just needed to 'grin and bear it'.
Read the rest of the story at A Place of my own
Pregnancy Lows
Itching and Sickness
Another post request over at A Mother's Secrets wanted and as I have (finally) some free time on my hands, I thought I'd write about my pregnancy lows.
I don't think I ever had any pregnancy lows with my first pregnancy. I was pretty text book right up until a week before my due date. I started getting really really itchy. This horrid looking, painful red rash had appeared all over my bump, my chest, my arms and my thighs. I would lie awake in bed at night itching it every couple of minutes hoping for some relief...it never came it just got worse. At it's worst point, I was getting out of bed and hopping in the shower (well maybe not hopping, I was of course 9 months pregnant) and scrubbing the rash with an exfoliating brush. I would stand there in tears just itching. Relief came in the form of some antihistamines. I popped one of those bad boys and I feel asleep on the couch for 5 hours in the afternoon, even skipping dinner!!!!
Read the rest at Yummy Mummy Flabby Tummy
My battle to keep my baby boy
Hyperemesis and Pituitary Tumor
Sometimes when I look at No 1 Son, so healthy and strong, I find it hard to believe we both had to fight so hard for him to be here.
I started being sick almost from the moment the blue line appeared on the pregnancy stick. Before then I had always thought that 'morning sickness' would be exactly that, but my nausea started the moment I woke up and went on until the evening. 'It'll soon pass,' everyone kept telling me as I puked my guts out, but it didn't. Foolishly, we decided to go on holiday to Florida. 'I'm desperate for a holiday,' I told my concerned mum. 'I'm only three months pregnant, it'll be fine.'
Read the rest at Living with Kids
A Pregnancy Journey!
Pre-Eclampsia
This post was inspired by Peggy over at A Mothers Secret, who has bee requesting posts on pregnancy lows.
To say I was shocked when I discovered I was pregnant would be an understatement, I have endometriosis and PCOS, so the chances of a pregnancy were affected by this anyway, and as I have posted before I was not one of those women who had every really wanted a baby, I liked my life the way it was.
But after feeling kind of off for a couple of weeks I jut somehow knew I was pregnant and decided to take the test, I can remember that little blue line appearing on the stick and I just burst into tears, my hubby was laughing and I just told him, "its not funny, I don't want to be pregnant", to which his reply of "it's a bit late for that" did not really go down to well.
Read the rest at Ramblings of a Mum on the Run
When nine months feels like a lifetime
Pregnancy at risks
Peggy over at A Mother's Secrets is gathering stories about pregnancy low points.
I thought long and hard before deciding to post something about my pregnancy. It was one long low point really.
But I decided to share it here because when I look at Flea now, finally, I can say it was worth it. And perhaps someone in a similar situation will be cheered up - I know I used to scour the Internet for stories like mine that had happy endings.
I found out I was pregnant a week before my wedding. My breasts swelled up like airbags and my wedding dress designer cried for an hour. But six days later – on the eve of my wedding – I started to bleed. A scan two days later revealed a missed miscarriage. We cancelled the honeymoon and I was admitted to hospital for a surgical evacuation.
Three months later when I had another positive pregnancy test, I was nervous but optimistic. Having one miscarriage doesn’t mean you’ll have another, right? That feeling lasted precisely two days, at which point I started bleeding.
Read the rest at Who's the Mummy?
Pregnancy Lows
Gestational Diabetes
All my adult life I wanted to be pregnant. I couldn’t wait to start wearing maternity clothes and walking with a waddle. I wanted to be treated differently, reverentially. That’s how I saw pregnant women, I was in awe of them.
When it finally happened to me I was thrilled. I had to keep popping to the loos at work so I could have a grin to myself. Mostly I loved being pregnant. It’s an exciting time, a time to make plans. I studied my baby books and each week read about the baby’s development. I also checked the mother’s symptoms guide and read out snippets to Andy. This week I will get a rush of hormones, apparently. This week I should have my first scan. And so on.
With Presley I sailed through my pregnancy until about 28 weeks. I narrowly failed the Glucose Tolerance test for gestational diabetes.
Read the rest at Baby Baby
Surgical Support
Symphysis Pubis Disfunction (SPD)
Peggy at A Mother's Secrets is compiling stories about pregnancy lows, so I thought I'd share mine:
I hated DH, who wasn't DH at that point (by which I mean he wasn't my husband rather than he wasn't my darling) for making me learn to drive. I hated the lessons, though he found me an annoyingly nice teacher, hated the car he bought just so I could learn to drive, hated the driving he made me do every evening when he got home from work. I hated the test so much I remember nothing about it. I hated the shiny red car sitting on our driveway just daring me to go somewhere in it. I refused to drive if DH wasn't in the car. Until I got pregnant, got SPD and had to drive everywhere; driving stopped me from going mad.
Pregnancy didn't come as easily as you imagine it will when you spend your twenties praying for your period. But after over two years, one miscarriage and five cycles of Clomid, I had peed on 12 sticks and had 24 lines to show for it. DH and I floated on cloud nine planning and preparing, putting the house on the market and trying to pick the perfect name. I started getting this odd feeling in my pelvis, but just assumed that it was part of the expanding process, until it got a lot worse and I went to see the Doctor. Funnily enough the doctor turned out to be pregnant too, but that didn't stop her poking me in places that shouldn't be poked (unless you are Samantha in Sex and the City) until I cried, which admittedly didn't take much. She gave me a diagnosis of Symphysis Pubis Disfunction and a referral to my local Physiotherapy Department. I thought it was pregnancy karma.
Read the rest at Domestic Godd-esque
Ooh wee – things you don’t want to see
Pelvic floor Prolapse
Who would have thought that pregnancy is a time full of little pains and itches and pinches? Certainly not me. Leg cramps, water retention, nausea, vomiting, mood swings, trapped nerves and back ache, to name just a few.
This may come as no surprise to the well prepared mum-in-waiting. My humble self was mildly terrified when discovering what the true joys of the next nine months to come would have in store. Nine months. This is where my worries actually started. Since when equals 40 weeks divided by four weeks nine months? And since when is being two weeks overdue considered just about being fashionable late? Still in my tummy, our little baby girl was setting new standards.
Of course, there are the joys as well. The first scan, hearing her heartbeat for the first time, the first little kicks and punches, the bigger ones that let your tummy tremble for half a minute… in brief, I got over it.
Read the rest at Metropolitan Mum
Missing my baby
The difficulties to care for a toddler during a hard pregnancy
I miss my son terribly. Every morning, stiff from sleep, I am unable to pick him up for the cuddle we both need to start our days. I am well enough to either pour out his cereal or sit up at the table to eat breakfast with him. I am currently expected to do both. So after breakfast, I spend time lying on the sofa recovering, unable to interact with him in a normal way. I am too distracted by pain. He watches more TV than we ever would in our own home. It is something I am able to do with him, but I'd rather he play, even if it is not with me. When he has his morning sleep, I am not resting, but using the time to dress and wash with agonizing slowness. Then I take more painkillers and try to rest before he wakes, having been soothed to sleep not by me but by his grandmother. He has stopped coming to me. Mummy can't play, get food or give cuddles, so what use is she? All his affection is reserved for Nana, who is doing everything I passionately wish I could. I sobbed today when he voluntarily came to give me a goodbye kiss and wave when heading out of the door on yet another outing I cannot accompany him on.
Read the rest at All Grown Up
Sunday can't come soon enough
Daily routine with a Toddler and SPD
I miss my mum. She has been on holiday in Canada for the last nine days and is not due home until Sunday. Is not that I miss HER as much as I should, but the unquestioning, anytime, joyfully given help she bestows on me in caring or hr beloved grandson while I struggle through the pain of SPD. I have quite clearly been taking this for granted, as I've not realised until now how great I have it. I had been able to ring her if I was having a painful day, and either go round to visit, and have a nice sit down and watch while she plays with Boy, running around and doing all the things I can't with him, or dropping him off for a few hours on my own. Instead, I'm dauntingly on my own ALL DAY from waking up until half an hour or so before Boy's bedtime. To set the context, I have a high-need, on the go, high energy toddler who enjoys going out at least once day to do even more high-energy, on the go stuff outdoors/in the company of others. Most days, we wouldn't even get to 8am before he is crying at the front door, or if he's being very easy-going, the back door. Come teatime, even as an able-bodied un-pregnant mum I have been in the past, I've completely exhausted our supply of parent-toddler groups/walking in the sling/playdates/swimming pool/library/visits to shops or garden centres/all the toys and books that reside in our house. And now I'm a mum that can't walk more than a few steps without wincing, and later holding back tears, can't sit on the floor to play, can't carry an 18 m old (no matter how much he begs, and yes it breaks my heart when he brings me the sling an cries to go in it), and, as a new development, is finding it increasingly painful to drive. In fact, I've stalled my car due to pain holding the clutch. (How much longer am I safe to drive?)
Read the rest at All Grown Up
Pregnancy Lows - where do I start?
Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction (SPD) and Pituitary Tumour
When Peggy over at A Mother'Secrets asked for new posts on the subject of Pregnancy Lows, I have to admit to taking a huge breath in. I mean, seriously Peggy, how many posts can I submit? If it's not morning sickness, or bleeding, or the fear of miscarriage, then it's heartburn, leg cramps, sleepless nights, exhaustion, scary diagnosis during scans. The list of things to complain about during pregnancy really does go on and on and on.
I have a feeling that if you enjoyed your pregnancy, then you're one of the lucky few.
I hated being pregnant. In my case, it was nine months (or nearer ten as both mine were almost two weeks overdue) of pain and torture.
Read the rest at Maternal Tales from the South Coast
