Pregnancy Tips

I'm going to make this clear at the start: I am not pregnant.
But my bestest, longest (as in time not height. she's actually quite short. and sweet.) friend is!!
This post is for you, buddy.

My Tips for Surviving Pregnancy:

Sleep. We're talking 8+ hours a night. plus naps! Your body is working hard even if you can't see it yet. Give it the rest it needs. You also might get a bit moody and if you're moody and sleepy, your husband will have a harder pregnancy than you. Or so he'll say. Which will just make things worse. Also once the baby arrives, you never know how many weeks, months, or years it will take for you to get the sleep you crave. So get it now. Cleaning the house can wait.

Stay hydrated. Your now over-active bladder may make you want to dehydrate yourself because the smallest drop of water will take 3 trips to the bathroom to pee out. But the effects of dehydration are worse than living in your bathroom. Especially towards the end of your pregnancy. It can lead to pre-term labor. Or worse: false labor. Which is the exact same as real labor except that no progress is made so it's a lot of pain and no gain. Avoid at all costs. *Bonus tip* Try to drink your daily 64 oz before dinner time so that you're not waking up to pee 5 times a night.

Eat. People think of pregnancy as a time to stop watching what they're eating and pig out. I found the opposite to be true. I was more concerned about what foods I was eating and how much. Make sure you get enough. But don't become obese. At every appointment the midwife made sure to remind me that I'm not supposed to be "eating for two." Just like your body needs extra sleep, your body needs extra nutrients. Making a human is no simple task. There are plenty of books and blogs out there that will tell you foods to avoid. It's best to be safe, but don't stress out over never eating cold meats and giving up caffeine, etc.

               

Read. Get your hands on as many baby books, magazines, blogs, and articles as you can. Not so that you can learn how to keep your tiny human alive, but so that you learn that there are 10 million ways of raising this kiddo and you don't need to stress about doing it "right." *Bonus tip* American Baby is a great monthly magazine for free! Sign up online.

Fight nausea. First of all, get your grammar right. If you tell people you're feeling nauseous, that means you're causing nausea. What you're feeling is nauseated. Different tricks work for different people so try a few things and figure out if anything works for you. My tricks were eating a handful of dry cheerios each morning before I even sat up in bed. If I didn't do this, I would be dry heaving before I could pull on my pants. Orange juice tastes surprisingly decent the second time. Another trick was to snack on things throughout the day so that I never let myself feel hungry. I even took a bag of cheerios to church. And I kept saltines on my desk at work.

Deal with body changes. Again, I'm not going into the gory details here. We can talk in person if you want them. But prepare yourself now in the first weeks when not much has changed. Your body is no longer your own. It belongs to this tiny alien growing inside you. It's kind of weird and disturbing. I was surprised at how upset I got over feeling like a stranger in my own body. It's a fast and drastic change that doesn't give you time to adapt. Hopefully one day, you'll feel like yourself again. If you start feeling upset about it, just remember that when you're holding your little alien in your arms you won't care what you look like anymore.

Poop. Get used to talking about it because it's all you're going to be talking about for the first few months of baby's life. You've probably already noticed the effects of the prenatal vitamins on your digestive system. It gets worse. You're actually going to go through 3 births. The baby. The placenta. and, a day or three later, your first post-baby poop. I'll leave it at that.

One good part about being biggest in the summer is you can go barefoot or wear flip flops! It's impossible to tie your shoes with a belly that big. On the down side, you'll have to find a way to shave your legs. Good luck! Happy growing! Can't wait to meet your little person. <3 <3

If anybody else has any pregnancy survival tips, feel free to share them in the comments!