Episode #27: The 3 things that surprised us the most during pregnancy
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In this episode, Rhonda and Dayna each share the 3 things that we were not expecting during pregnancy.
Rhonda’s 3 things were:
1️⃣ Morning sickness that lasted all day 🤢
2️⃣ Zero appetite for my entire pregnancy 🙅🏼♀️
3️⃣ Constipation, giant poops and hemorrhoids 💩😂
Dayna’s 3 things were:
1️⃣ Overwhelming fatigue 😴
2️⃣ Restless legs every evening🦵🏼
3️⃣ How different her 2 pregnancies were🤰🏻
This was a fun episode to record to reminisce about our pregnancies!
Let us know if you can relate to 1 or more of these in the comments!
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Episode #27: The 3 things that surprised us the most during pregnancy
We're excited to have you join us for this episode of Pelvic Health and Fitness. I'm Dayna Morellato, Mom, Orthopedic and Pelvic Health Physiotherapist. And I'm Rhonda Chamberlain, Mom, Orthopedic Physiotherapist and Pre Postnatal Fitness Coach. On this show, we have open and honest conversations about all phases of motherhood, including fertility, pregnancy, birth, postpartum, menopause, and everything in between.
We also provide helpful education and information on fitness, the pelvic floor, and many aspects of women's health, including physical, mental, and emotional wellness. Please remember as you listen to this podcast that this is not meant to treat or diagnose any medical conditions. Please contact your medical provider if you have specific questions or concerns.
Thanks so much for joining us. Grab a cup of coffee. Or wine. And enjoy!
Welcome back everyone to the pelvic health and fitness podcast today. Dayna and I decided to do a bit of a fun episode reminiscing about our pregnancies and discussing the three things that surprised each of us the most about pregnancy.
So I will get started, um, for me, the morning sickness. That seemed to last all day. That was a struggle for me. So I don't know why they call it morning sickness. I feel like you hear this in, uh, TV shows and everything that for me, it was true. It lasted all day. And I think, you know, people kept saying, you know, for me, after the first trimester, it went away.
So it should be going away soon. And for both of my pregnancies for Sadie and Teagan, it lasted, I think, into like 16, 17 weeks. So that was rough. And I threw up probably once a day, I would say, or at least gagged maybe to throw up. And that was challenging. I, you know, continued working as a physiotherapist through both pregnancies.
And I specifically remember having conversations with clients and like mid conversation, be like. One second. It was really, really bad. And, uh, yeah, I don't wish that upon anyone. And thankfully it did end at around like 16, 17 weeks and then it did get better. But, uh, yeah, not fun. No. And I, so common. I hear that a lot.
Just why do they call it morning sickness? You know, happen all day. And some people are really unlucky. It sort of tracks them through their whole pregnancy. Or I have quite a few clients too, where they get this lull in the middle, but then it starts to come back in the third trimester as well. Yeah. So if you are listening and you're in any of those scenarios, we feel you, you are not alone.
That is so, so common. What were some of the things that helped you sort of manage it day to day? Yeah, I was just going to say I, uh, used Diclectin, so Diclectin I used the maximum dose and I, my memory escapes me how many pills that actually was, but I was prescribed that from my, um, doctor and I tried to go off it a few times and even though my morning sickness got better, I still had like a low lying nauseousness, so I went down in the number of pills throughout the pregnancy, but I still had to go on it.
Okay. Okay. And I do remember now that you say that at the end of both pregnancies, I think I upped my doses again because I started to get more nauseous. And so for me too, I found I I couldn't let myself not eat. So as much as I wasn't hungry, a lot of the times, if I didn't eat, I would feel worse. So I would try to eat, but I couldn't overeat.
So it was a very much a balancing act of try to keep eating, but not too much. Um, yeah, the second one I'll kind of get into more of that, but yeah, just continuing to eat and, uh, and, and lie down a lot, just rest and honor that my body needed a bit more rest too. Rest me. It's a good segue into mine. So my, my, uh, first, very surprising, uh, symptom of pregnancy was fatigue.
And with my first Kara, I was. Fatigue, like most people are sort of in those early stages, early weeks, I remember feeling like I, something couldn't possibly be normal because I would get up in the morning, feel like I hadn't really slept, go to work. I would sometimes nap in my chair at work, like in my office, I would fall asleep.
Um, I have to set alarms because I could just pass out sitting up, right? Yeah. And then I would come home from work, often have a nap. My husband would come home, make, make dinner and I'd be asleep and in bed by 9, 9. 30, sleep the entire night, rinse, repeat. Wow. For like that whole first trimester. Yeah. Now with her it did lift.
Like I hit that sort of money zone in the second trimester and I was able to sort of manage and I was super grateful and I always say this to clients, I have conversations about this with friends, it's more than tired. Fatigue is more than tired. It's like you're walking through quicksand all day. Right.
Um, so. Yes, that was sort of my most surprising thing. I thought, yeah, I've been tired before, not like this. And then the second time I never had it lift. So I was pretty chronically fatigued the whole time. And as we know, you don't really have an opportunity for rest. You're chasing around a toddler. Um, and I was working full time and trying to do all of my usual things.
But I. Then started to get such bad anxiety about it because if my husband was like working out of town or he was going to rugby practice or something and I was going to be solo with the kids for a stretch of time, that was like my Everest. Yeah, that would be I don't have one one was in one side but if I had my toddler.
That was my Everest was just try to entertain her. And it never lifted and knowing what I know now like I. I think I probably could have had been tested for like low magnesium, I believe can lead to bad fatigue and things like that. Um, and I had mentioned it to my healthcare provider who I do think the world of, um, but fatigue often just gets sort of swept under the column of, yeah, you're pregnant with a toddler.
Right. And there, there is less rest for sure. I always joke with clients. Remember, remember when you used to be able to come home from work and watch Netflix your first pregnancy, like you don't get to do that the second time, but it was brutal. It was pretty bad. And I think that's part of the reason I ended up having to be signed off work early, uh, for my second, cause my blood pressure started to creep up.
And I think I had just been pushing against that wall for too long and my body started to fight back. I remember you talking about that. I remember you saying to me, I honestly feel like I'm going to feel this way for the rest of my life. Yeah. I was terrified. Yeah. I thought this is just, is this motherhood of two?
Cause I was really worried it wouldn't lift. Yeah. And then did it lift immediately? Pretty much almost immediately. Um, and don't get me wrong. You, if you're listening and you have a newborn, it's not like the newborn stages, you're not fatigued. There are days where you have fatigue, but again, I believe that being sleepy and tired from lack of sleep is a very different thing than that whole body fatigue feeling.
Um, and there's reprieve from that. If you're able to have a nap, whereas the fatigue just never seemed to. Lift for me, but it was very different for me almost immediately postpartum. It's so interesting. So then it makes you think, is it, is it a hormonal related thing? Right. It's yeah. So many factors. Yes.
Yeah. So interesting. Okay. So number two for me of something that was very surprising during pregnancy and this sort of goes with number one about the morning sickness. But for me, I was surprised that I didn't really have an appetite and Food wasn't appealing for me, my entire pregnancy with both pregnancies.
And similar to what you were saying about the fatigue and thinking it was going to last forever. I said that to my husband, I said, am I ever going to be excited about food again, because I love food and I get excited about food. And I remember specifically, uh, we were heading out for, I think it was, um, Jay's birthday to the keg and the keg is one of my favorite restaurants.
And I said to him, I said, I don't. Even I'm not even excited to go because I just am not that hungry. And I knew as soon as I did eat a little bit, then my stomach would hurt. And so it was a very sad time because, yeah, when you love food and you look forward to food and you just aren't craving anything.
That was challenging and I had this was more with Sadie's pregnancy and this kind of ties into my story about sort of like breaking up with diet culture because I remember being pregnant with Sadie and my body craved. Um, carbs. So all I ate pretty much for the first trimester was bagels. So I would like go through Tim Horton's drive thru, pick up a plain bagel with butter.
And like, it sounds so crazy to think about this, but I felt guilty in those times about. that I wasn't eating vegetables, I wasn't eating quote unquote healthy, because up until that point I had, you know, just tried every diet and a lot of the diets I tried were, you know, carbs are horrible and white bread is horrible, and so I had this like really inner battle about I just couldn't stomach anything else, but also feeling like I'm not eating healthily enough.
So that was interesting for me. Yeah. And knowing that you need calories cause you're growing a human. Yeah. So, yeah. So I think like after that, Pregnancy, I think I started to do a bit of unlearning about dieting and how horrible it can be for us and, and how carbs are not the devil and carbs are essential for living.
And so, um, when I was pregnant with Teagan, I was much more embracing the fact that like, I'm just going to feed my body, whatever it's telling me that it needs. And so, yeah, I was. Fully okay with having just plain bagels that whole first trimester. And yeah, just not feeling that guilt and not putting that extra pressure on myself, which I know, um, you know, those of you listening, if you feel that way, you're not alone because we live in a society that is, you know, Sort of forces these messages into us that we have to eat this perfect way.
And like, what does that even mean? So healthy constitutes a whole lot of things and feeling guilty about the food you're eating and having that inner battle that's not healthy for us. Right. So just eat what your body is telling you to eat and just be okay with that. Like the only thing you can get in is a plain bagel, then like just the plain bagel.
Totally. And it's, it's interesting now being a mom and having, um, my friend Roseanne, which we should have her on. She talks about like picky eaters, but she calls them learning eaters with kids. And so, you know, My kids are learning eaters and so they very much stick to a lot of carbs and that type of thing.
And I think again, just because of the unlearning I've done, I don't freak out about that, right? Like I don't panic if they don't have vegetables with every meal because I know they're okay. I know they're. You know, nourished and I know they're feeding their body and yeah. So I think that sort of translated into me being a mom, which has been helpful to, yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. Um, my second surprise was. The symptom of restless legs. So again, I had it with both pregnancies. It was lighter with my first restless legs. Um, just if you don't know what that feels like, it's like that feeling of needing to stretch a muscle or move your legs constantly, and you can't satisfy or scratch the itch, so to speak.
Um, so I would. Again, as a physiotherapist, we're on our feet for lots of the day and moving around. And again, especially with my second with Nolan, I would not have any sort of symptom of it all day long until I sat down on the couch at night to relax. Interesting. And then it was almost immediate. I couldn't sit in certain positions, like basically on our couch, I had to sit on our floor.
So hardwood floor, you can imagine how that feels when you're 32 weeks. Um, that was the only thing that sometimes kept it at bay, but I was basically unable to sit and relax or even lie down on the couch without it. being constant. I had to constantly be moving my legs, um, or having my husband, like, knead them like dough, basically.
Uh, there were a few things that were helpful. Like, yes, I wore compression stock stockings. Yes. I drank exorbitant. amounts of water, like it wasn't a dehydration issue. Again, I wonder about things like magnesium and stuff like that, especially because I had fatigue, but I didn't have a lot of swelling the first time.
The second time I did later on, but the restless legs started basically from the time I peed on the stick on the stick the second time. Um, so I ate a lot of bananas. So if you're thinking, okay, well maybe potassium, I eat a banana every day. So it wasn't that, but the compression socks, rolling my feet with ice at night and stretching my calves were helpful in the earlier stages when I was comfortable to lie on my back and still do some Zed lying or legs up the wall, that could be helpful.
Um, but not always interesting. Once it basically started, I sort of just had to ride it through. Luckily, um, For me in general, if I got into bed and was going to sleep, I was able to fall asleep and usually it would, would settle. But you can imagine if you're pretty fatigued all day and you're just looking forward to sitting on the couch and reading a book or watching a show with your partner.
And now you're basically doing this crazy dance like, like I had ants in my pants. Do you think, do you think it had something to do with the fact that you had a job that you were on your feet all day? Did you notice a difference on the weekends? Maybe when you weren't as busy? Yeah, I think it did. I think that was definitely part of it.
Um, there was lots going on, lots at play there. Who knows, maybe again, towards the end, it was a bit of a blood pressure issue. I don't really fully understand that. My understanding of restless legs is they don't really know what causes it in a lot of cases. is certainly during pregnancy. I've mentioned magnesium.
I've heard people getting relief from there. Now, listen, check with your health care practitioners. Don't just start taking magnesium or anything like that. Um, but I have heard that people get some relief there if that is low or off. Um But yeah, it was I think being on your feet and all day and then you come home and we'd walk the dog and often go to the park or run an errand and you're like literally the first time I would sit down would be 830 at night.
Yeah. And then I would be in this like just so uncomfortable for an hour before I would be like. Well, I'm off to bed. Bye. Wow. That's so tough. That would be very challenging. And did that, did that go away immediately after? Immediately. Isn't that so fascinating? I was going to add that to the appetite thing.
Um, so for those of you listening who are pregnant and feeling you don't, uh, crave any food, that was me too. And so immediately after having my kids too, we went to the keg again. And I was So excited to go because I finally craved the food and it finally settled nicely. So it, it does get better, which is fascinating.
And I mean, I'm sure there's cases where it does linger into the postpartum phase, but you hear time and time again, a lot of these things are like immediately snap a finger gone. Yeah. Interesting, eh? It is, for sure. Yeah. Okay, so the third and last thing for me that surprised me the most, and this is kind of a funny one, um, if, uh, one of my co workers ends up listening to this episode, she'll understand what I'm talking about, but she'll understand what I dealt, and this was just in my second pregnancy with Teagan, I dealt with horrible constipation during that pregnancy.
And so I would be constipated most of the week. And then once a week I would have the biggest, most painful poop of my life and it would clog the toilet. And of course it always happened when I was working. And so the coworker that I worked with that cleaned the gym at the clinic I worked at. Um, I would always, you know, call her in and kind of embarrassingly be like, uh, I clogged the toilet again.
Can you help me? And she's like, Oh, those pregnancy poops again. Yeah, sorry. And she was amazing. And she was a mom herself. So she, she's like, Oh yeah, I dealt with that too. And it's interesting now thinking about that because I've said on the podcast before, I didn't really get into the pelvic health world and gain knowledge on the pelvic.
floor until after my kiddos. And so, yeah, looking back, I'm wondering, there probably were things I could have done to help the situation, um, like maybe increase some fiber, be maybe a bit more mindful about my water intake, use a squatty potty, which I didn't really know much about that, uh, at the time. And so, so then I also think, because I didn't.
deal with prolapse symptoms in my first pregnancy, but I definitely did in my second pregnancy. And 100 percent I'm thinking it had to do with the constipation because I was having again, these big giant poops that basically felt like birthing a baby out of my bum. And so I, yeah, I would have had a lot of downward pressure.
Um, on my pelvic floor, which, yeah, could have very well contributed to those prolapse symptoms. And so I, along with that, had super uncomfortable, painful, bleeding hemorrhoids at the end of my pregnancy with T, with Teagan 2. Which I wouldn't wish that upon anybody. Um, so, so, so painful and they still, I don't deal with it nearly as much, but they still rear their ugly head.
If I have a phase of like constipation and I've, I've learned ways to manage that so, so much better now, but yeah, I've heard that's common with hemorrhoids too, that they can kind of recur a lot easier once you do have them. So yeah, um, I would say if this is you, again, you're not alone, and I think it is a hormonal thing, constipation, I believe, um, so there is some, some part of that, but there is also a lot of things you can do to learn to manage that.
Yeah. Constipation is so multifactorial, especially during pregnancy. Um, for sure. Hormones. The fact that baby is just rearranging your insides, basically slow motility around down in the, in the gut for sure. Tighter pelvic floors. Um, but yeah, you're absolutely right. Definitely. Definitely a factor likely in your prolapse symptoms the second time around.
Constipation is really common during pregnancy too. I think, I wish, I hope more people will talk about that. Um, and it can absolutely make an uncomfortable experience even more uncomfortable. It's interesting how all three of yours were dietary or sort of tummy related, eh? True. Yeah. Actually, I never thought about that.
And I think, yeah, that's, they were all surprising to me in the sense, again, you hear about morning sickness, but I think I just assumed a lot of these would maybe be first trimester and then be gone or just not impact my life as much as they did. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, um, Rhonda was here. I had to actually ask my husband about my, my third one, because I couldn't remember restless legs.
So that's how debilitating it was during. And then I had to ask what was surprising for me about pregnancy. Um, so these are how things fast things can leave your brain as well. Um, my Final thing that I found the most surprising about my experience with my two pregnancies was how different they were.
And, um, kind of as a extension of that, I think the second time so my first pregnancy, other than the fatigue in the, in the early days and weeks was. pretty comfortable. I had a little bit of pubic symphysis dysfunction, sort of midway to the end, again, mainly tied to work and rushing around a clinic. Um, but very manageable.
I remember thinking, Oh, like I, I'm okay if she stays in there. I'm okay if I go late, like I was pretty comfortable the first time I didn't really, I wasn't counting down the days by any means. It was also terrified of labor. So, I mean, that was part of it. Um, But the second time I was so uncomfortable physically, mentally, I had that horrible fatigue.
I was pretty swollen about halfway on. Um, but I also had this It's really sort of internalized pressure to not complain about it. I was fine. I was healthy. Baby was healthy. I was able to conceive pretty easily. And so I shouldn't be complaining. Um, but looking back, I was really uncomfortable. I remember talking to you at Karen's wedding and one of our mutual friends wedding.
And I remember you saying to me, cause I said like, how's it going? And you're like, This has been really hard and I'm really tired and I just want this to be over and yeah, so, you know, you felt comfortable complaining to me as a friend, but I think there's something to be said about that. You know, I think women in general, we have this sort of internal thing in us that yeah, we feel like we shouldn't complain.
I think it's societal. We should be quiet. We should just be grateful. All of the above. And yeah, I would just say to you, if you're going through a pregnancy, that's challenging. Yes, you can be grateful. Yes, you can be thankful. You know, yes, there are women that are struggling to get pregnant and you feel bad complaining, but your experience is also so valid and it doesn't negate all of that.
If you admit that pregnancy is hard. Yeah, no, for sure. Yeah, I totally. Yeah. So my son was born at the end of October and our friend got married. Middle of September? I think so. Sorry Karen, I'm blanking on the actual date. August? No, I forget too. It was hot. Yes. So poor, poor, swollen, uh, very uncomfortable and pregnant Dayna, um.
Was very excited to be wearing, um, a sari to this wedding. And I had all of her lovely, uh, aunties making sure that I was okay. And like fanning me down chairs and I just desperately wanted to be fine and not complain or take their help. Um, so it's funny to think about now, but I, I was, so I was shocked because my first, I sailed through, I really, truly did.
Um. And I also had this fear my second time, a lot of it, more anxiety the second time as well, which is interesting with my blood pressure at the end, fear about it, not feeling like the fact that I didn't feel well, I wasn't able to be active or like I was, you know, I exercise pretty regularly throughout my first pregnancy.
My workouts looked relatively the same, whereas my workouts were like very. Few and far between and mainly only walking, um, towards the end. So I had a lot of internal guilt, if I'm honest, about the fact that I just hadn't been able to keep myself in the same physical shape, um, which is so like, I just want to hug pictures of myself, to be honest.
Um, and then. I was terrified that that would mean my labor would be harder than it was with my first. And again, I had a relatively good labor and delivery experience both times. I think that's important to know, even though my experience of pregnancy was drastically different. Um, it didn't affect the outcome for me.
Um, The second time that's such an important point. And I think, um, yeah, that's, that's something I think fitness culture sort of pushes onto people that, yeah, if you have this hashtag fit pregnancy, you, that baby is just going to fly out and it's going to be so easy. And yeah, they just don't correlate that way.
And so the opposite can also be true. We have another mutual friend, uh, that was super fit through pregnancies and had more challenging and like super long labors and deliveries. And that, yeah, so the opposite was true for her. So I think that's just a, a take home point too, is that you can't necessarily train Hashtag for your birth, it is just going to be whatever your body does.
And like, I think I say that also in the vein of there, there are things you can do to sort of mentally prepare. And I think, you know, being active and working with a pelvic floor physiotherapist and things like that can help mentally prepare you. But yeah, the actual outcome of the birth, um, has no bearing on how active you were.
Yeah, no, for sure. Like we can physically prepare even to like the pelvic floor and all that sort of thing, but yeah, I don't want anybody beating themselves up like I totally was. I'm not doing my HIIT workouts. I'm not doing squats. I'm not, you know, my heart rate isn't getting it, but my heart rate was getting pretty high going up the stairs guys.
Let's just be real. Um, I was super short of breath too. Now it's all coming back to me now. Yeah. Yeah, I had that too, the shortness of breath. Super short of breath, um, the second time, so I just wasn't able to, uh, work out. And, like, truly, I wouldn't even say, probably from 25 weeks on, workouts were walking and getting my toddler to the top of the climber at the park a couple times a week, like, um, and it, really, truly didn't affect in my experience, my birthing experience, nor my postpartum recovery that much.
Right? Yeah, yeah. I think there's something to be said that in the sense that, you know, taking care of herself and health. Is not just what we eat and how we move our body, right? There's so many other factors into what it looks like to take care of ourselves. And I think for you, and I think, you know, Teresa in a previous podcast, talked a lot, a lot about this too.
So taking care of yourself is going to look differently depending on the season you're in. Right? So for you during that very hard pregnancy, you had a toddler, you were exhausted. Taking care of yourself and being healthy during that pregnancy was resting and was, you know, just taking care of your toddler that was enough for you and going for, you know, gentle walks like that.
That was healthy. Right. And so trying to tack on workouts when you already feel that way. Maybe that wasn't a healthy decision for you right because that just would have added to the fatigue potentially. So I think yeah again it's like if you're feeling the same way Dayna felt. Don't beat yourself up.
And it's all just a matter of like doing what feels best for your body. Mm-Hmm, . Yeah. And you'll have your moments, like I did have moments where I felt okay and I did do a little bit of a workout and it would feel just like a bit like myself again, . Um, but those moments were few and far between for me, particularly in the second half of that second pregnancy.
So yes, please, I feel you listen to your bodies, um, and rest. Is A okay? Yes. Big time. Yeah. Perfect. Well, thanks for sharing Rhonda. Yeah. Thanks for sharing too. That was a good episode and we'll have to do one about the postpartum. I think we'll have more than three things to say about postpartum. About what surprised me postpartum.
Yes. We'll do that next time. All right. See you soon. Thanks for listening to today's podcast. We hope you enjoyed the conversation. If you liked what you heard, we would love if you could share this with a friend, leave us a review or subscribe to anywhere that you listen to your podcasts. Thanks for being here.
