Things I've Learned About Pregnancy

So as I've gone through this pregnancy, I've been learning lots of new things. And as I was reviewing them in my mind the other day, I thought it could be a good idea to share a list. Maybe someone else can learn something from me. And if not that, maybe at least get a laugh! :) These are listed in no particular order. That takes too much planning!!

• Getting a baby bump can be so exciting you're willing to convince yourself that really bad bloating is actually your baby. Then you will try to convince your spouse that you finally have a REAL baby bump. 
• If your spouse doesn't readily agree that you finally have a REAL bump, your heart will be broken and you will probably cry. Even though you know deep inside he's probably right. Admitting that would probably make you cry more. 
• It's hard to understand your feelings as the hormones take over. I think that becoming pregnant simulates developing several mental illnesses all at once. Mainly depression, bi-polar, & schizophrenia. I'll explain why below.
• Depression- SOOOO exhausted, loss of interest in things (mainly due to exhaustion), thoughts of inadequacy about being a parent, fear of the future, thinking of the looming black cloud that is called "finances after baby comes", etc. 
• Bi-Polar- you're so excited to be pregnant! And then you're terrified of all the changes. Then you're really excited to become a parent. Then you're terrified of the type of parent you'll be. Then you LOVE your husband. And then you HATE him. Then you think pregnancy is such an AMAZING miracle. And then you get sick & tired of being pregnant for almost a year. (Ok so those feelings and such are not things that would get you a diagnosis of bi-polar, but when you're experiencing the mood swings and the ups and down, it sure FEELS like you could be bi-polar).
• Schizophrenia, paranoid type- suddenly everything that you have ever heard that could go wrong with a pregnancy is suddenly really, truly, maybe, possibly happening to you RIGHT NOW! You may experience thoughts like: I sneezed really hard, and had a pain in my abdomen. What if that means I'm ruptured my uterus? I wiped and saw some spotting. Obviously I'm miscarrying. Baby hasn't moved for the last hour. What if he's dead?!? There's a whole big long list of things you can't do now, because someone's sister's cousin's grandmother's hairdresser once had Z happen to them after doing X. And what if YOU'RE the person it happens to NEXT?!? It could happen....you could fall into that .0000001% category of probability.They call you paranoid. You & your voices call yourself prepared. 
• Many strangers just can't WAIT to tell you horror stories about pregnancy once they hear you're pregnant. It's like word vomit. They hear the word "pregnant" and suddenly horrible, scary stories come spewing forth from their mouth. If you weren't paranoid before, welcome to the club.
• Google is no longer your best friend. Neither are pregnancy group forums. If you try to even be friendly with them, it will probably result in you telling your spouse that you have been self diagnosed with ihaveallthingsterriblywronginmypregnancyandourbabyisgoingtohavetwoheadsandthreearmsitis and should therefore probably go straight to the hospital so they can look for a cure. Your husband may call you a hypochondriac. This will make you cry, and go VERY quickly from loving your sweet husband to hating the man you thought you once loved, 27 seconds ago. 
• Google & pregnancy forums can be your best friend. Hearing stories about other women going through your same experiences can be soothing and helpful. They can give you ideas to ease discomfort that you wouldn't have thought of on your own. If you are experiencing something strange, you'll sometimes read about someone else who experienced the same thing and it turns out everything was ok! Other times they had the symptoms you were worried about and something went terribly, horribly wrong and what if that's happening to YOU?!? So now, I invite you to read the above listed point. 
• As your body changes, your mind set about certain things will have to change as well. For instance, never trust a fart. It could be like playing Russian roulette with a very sad ending.
• Gaining weight is a psychological nightmare. Picture an angel and a devil on your shoulders as you look at the scale.
• Devil- Look at those numbers grow! You're getting fat you fatty McFatterson
• Angel- But you're growing a baby! How can you hate yourself for being part of that miracle? Gaining weight is just part of the process. 
• Devil- Ok you whale, your baby weighs less than 10 lbs, so how can you justify gaining 30?
• Angel- You're beautiful. You're glowing. You're all baby. You don't look like you've gained anything but baby!
• Devil- starve yourself, stop the weight gain!
• Angel- eat good healthy foods so you don't starve your baby!
• Devil- well if you're gonna gain weight you may as well enjoy it. Go eat ice cream.
• Angel- mmmmmm, ice cream
• Panty liners will become your best friend. You thought you knew what discharge was. Ha, joke's on you little naive one. 
• As pregnancy progresses, it seems the nipple to boob ratio changes. Be prepared for your nipples to take up like 2/3 of your boob. Better yet, don't think of them as boobs with nipples anymore. It may make more sense to think of them as fatty nipples. 
• At some point, your nipples may start to leak. Your spouse may find this to be really disgusting. Depending on where you are in your bi-polar cycle, you may find his reaction really amusing, or it may make you cry. Again. 
• The bathroom becomes your best friend. Peeing has never felt so good. At least that's what you thought when you went 4 times ago. All in the space of an hour. Now you hate the bathroom. As you're walking to the bathroom AGAIN, you resent having to go AGAIN and want to punch it in the face. Until you go pee and feel better. Then the bathroom is yet again your best friend.
• You get to a point where your frequent deadly heartburn has you thoroughly convinced that you aren't pregnant with a human baby, but instead you're incubating a fire breathing dragon. 
• Shaving your legs becomes nearly impossible. Every time you accomplish it, you feel as though you've just competed in the Olympics, and therefore deserve a medal. Preferably a chocolate one. 
• You've always heard that your hair grows faster and thicker during pregnancy. They DON'T feel it important to emphasize the fact that that means ALL of your hair. Let that sink in. You thought you knew what prickly legs were after not shaving for 3 days was before. Now you look down after 3 days of not shaving at the tiny sequoia forests that have taken over your legs, and after feeling slightly disgusted, shrug your shoulders and move on with your day. Cause you aren't prepared for the Olympics today. Or tomorrow. Maybe next week sometime.
• Clipping your toenails turns you into the gymnast you always wanted to be as a little girl, but couldn't ever bend that way. Now, you have no choice. It's either that or have raptor claws on your toes. And, to be completely honest, you'll leave your raptor claws alone more than you care to admit. 
• At some point you may look down at your stretch marks and realize that you look like you've been mauled by a bear. Then you remember the fire breathing dragon you're incubating and come to the realization that it must also be clawing you from the inside out (on top of ruining your digestive tract with it's fire).
• You always told yourself you wouldn't be one of THOSE women who waddle. Now, you just embrace it. 
• It may come as a shock when you're walking along, feeling pretty good about yourself being mobile, when you glance over and see that you're keeping pace with an ancient man walking with a walker. And he's only got one leg. And you can't speed up, cause you're already feeling like you're ready to break a sweat. Just embrace it. Just don't ask the man how he's doing today, because even though you probably don't realize it, you're out of breath from walking so fast. Not speaking to him isn't rude, it's preserving a teensy bit of your quickly fading 
• When it comes time to start feeling baby start to move, you will probably drive yourself crazy deciphering if things happening in your body are really baby moving. This will become a similar experience to when you thought you could first see your baby bump. Suddenly your mind will be overtaken with thoughts like: I think my stomach just rumbled from hunger. Or was that baby? Oh, I've got gas bubbles. No wait! That could be baby!! I should ask every woman I see what it felt like for HER when she was pregnant and see if I've had a similar feeling! Talk to all the ladies!!!
• It's common to become really tired again during the third trimester. Except now you can't sleep, cause you can't get comfortable. Which makes you more tired. And irritable. And zombie like. Except I don't think that zombies can be pregnant. And they don't need sleep, so they are never tired. Is feeling envy for a zombie natural? During pregnancy, yes. Yes it is. 
• As you get closer to the end of your pregnancy, people will make comments about how huge you are, and you must be SO CLOSE to being done. When you have to respond that no, you actually still have 6 weeks left, you may feel sad inside. And want to cry. Feeling sad is or angry ok. Pretending to punch the offender in the face in your mind is ok. Actually doing it is not ok. Sad, but true. 
• Feeling baby move is my FAVORITE thing. Hands down. Coolest. Feeling. Ever. It makes me sad that my husband can't feel it the same as me, but I'm glad that he can at least feel him from the outside. 

Those are all the ones I have for now. Feel free to add any that you may think of! 

Placenta Encapsulation- To do or not to do?

    So to start, I have to say that I love the medical world. I'm fascinated by all the amazing things that can be done with the human body, and how much progress is made in that field every year. In my personal life, I've had LOTS of interactions with the medical world. Emphasis on the word LOTS.

    Now, many of my friends are very into the natural medicine world. I don't judge or disagree, it's just generally a different approach than what I take. I personally seem to get better results with modern medicine than I do with natural medicine.

    With it getting closer and closer to my due date, I've spent a lot of time thinking about what will happen once he's arrived. How things will change, what we should prepare for, etc. One of the thoughts that haunts me is if I will experience postpartum depression, and to what extent. On both sides of my extended family, almost every single woman has experienced post-part depression to some degree or another. Both my mom and sister have not only experience postpartum depression, they've also experienced postpartum psychosis. Talk about terrifying! So I've got genetics working against me I think, which is no good. On top of that, I've experienced bouts of depression a few times in my life that needed medication to treat, so that's probably working against me too. SO.....all of that got me thinking. And talking. And researching. And I kept coming back to one thing:

Placenta Encapsulation

   So you may see that and wonder "what the heck?!? Is that what I think it is?!?!?". And my answer to you would be, well if you think I'm talking about getting my placenta turned into pills and taking them, then yes. Yes it IS what you are thinking. Now, some of you make shake your head in disgust. Others may have a look of terror on their face. But maybe a few of you are thinking that's great! Haha. At least I can hope, right?

    Now before those of you who have the look of disgust on your face get too carried away and want to vomit, at least I'm not talking about frying my placenta in a pan and eating it. Or tossing it in a blender and making a placenta smoothie. Yeah, those would probably make me have a similar look of disgust. But let me tell you about placenta encapsulation and why I think it may be a good thing for me.

    Here is a blurb from one of the many websites I've been looking at:

Did you know there is a supplement you can take after birth that:

• Is completely safe for your nursing baby?
• Can significantly decrease postpartum bleeding?
• Helps your uterus return to it’s pre-pregnancy size within a couple of weeks?
• Enriches your milk and ensures an abundant supply?
• Smooths out the postpartum hormonal “crash”?
• Can prevent or reduce postpartum depression, naturally and safely?
• Can be taken for PMS, Menopause, or other hormonal imbalances?
• Was made by your body, and is therefore able to specifically address your hormonal and physical needs after giving birth?
• It’s Your Placenta!

    I underlined and bolded the line about postpartum, since that is really the issue at hand for me. 

Here's another little blurb that caught my attention.

"Use the placenta to help with your postpartum recovery. Your own placenta, made into capsules, is incredibly nutritious and beneficial to you. Women who take their placenta capsules tend to have better postpartum experiences, avoid the baby blues, have an increase in energy, and an increase in milk production. Traditional Chinese Medicine has used placenta for centuries to treat issues such as fatigue and insufficient lactation, and scientific studies have bolstered the use of placenta for these conditions. Using the placenta for your postpartum recovery is a very easy and natural way to help you feel better after the birth."

    Doesn't sound too bad of a deal does it? If something helps, why not use it? Even if it does seem strange and "witch doctor-y" as one of my friends put it. Basically we would save the placenta after I deliver, and Ryan would take it to the "Placenta Lady", who would do all the magical things to it to transform it into pills. We would them pick up the pills and I would start taking them. It isn't much different than an herbal supplement, right? I'm pretty sure that as long as I don't google images of how it's turned from placenta (bloody, squishy, scary blob thing) into non-scary normal looking pills, I think I can handle it. I know it's not conventional per se, and not something that is publicly known about or approved of by the standard population. But I'm thinking that if it does in fact help me with postpartum, then it would be worth it. And if it does all the other stuff for me too, that's just an added bonus! 

   Have any of YOU had any experience with placenta encapsulation? Positive? Negative? I'd love to hear it!