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Just found out I am pregnant!!!
This is my second pregnancy, long hoped for! I am so happy and excited! I am getting older and in mid-lateish thirties, so this will also be the last one assuming all goes well. I always wanted two kids, so crossing my fingers that this is a healthy pregnancy to complete my family!
I know a few things from my last pregnancy, but it's been long enough that I need to refresh my memory. What are your top pregnancy tips?
Main worry: I am getting a new OBGYN (the one I had during pregnancy with my son was absolutely horrible. The next one I got was also bad and apparently is affiliated with my old provider. 🙄). Other than choosing a better hospital affiliation and an all-female practice if I can, what are your top tips for finding a good provider? Based in the US Midwest.
Hoooorraayyyyyy!!!! 😁😁😁
Apparently this got double posted somehow (not by me?? I only made one post 🤷♀️), but I still got the well wishes and advice on the dupe post! Thanks! ❤️
Congratulations! That's so exciting!! 🎉🎉
I'm my experience, my second pregnancy was about the same as my first, but everything happened faster. I broke out the maternity clothes at 8 weeks, I got heartburn earlier, and I got much bigger (my second daughter was born 1lb 11oz bigger than my first). My labor also lasted half as long, so prepare to head to the hospital sooner haha!
I think an all-female obgyn office is the best, that what mine is too. My doctor and her staff are all great, and no sign of the gender insanity yet (I'm in the northeast US, so pretty woke). If you already have 1 child, then you know what kinds of questions to ask a new provider, so just trust your instincts. Unfortunately I don't have any other advice.
I wish you and your family lots of love, and good luck during your pregnancy!
Thank you! Yeah, I was expecting to "pop" sooner this time-- but really, that soon?? Yikes, that is only a month away!! Last time I made it to mid-second trimester before needing any maternity clothes!
Definitely should have trusted my instincts last time. Good thing for me I guess is that with age comes a lot less concern for pleasing others. My husband talked me out of switching docs last time, and THIS time I'm not even going to consult him if I feel that is warranted!
Congratulations! My biggest advice is to stay away from “baby friendly” hospitals. Baby friendly means no available nursery and less support for moms.
Thanks, yeah they did "rooming in" at the hospital I used with my first child. I am switching for a few reasons, but the way they heavily pushed this was one! You really need a couple of days to sleep and recuperate before heading home, and rooming in did not allow for that so much. Although my mom and mother in law overnighted with me, which helped a ton. I did not realize they had another term for this, thank you!
I had no idea this was a thing with my son's birth. I was so exhausted - a halfway long and halfway traumatic labor. I kept waiting for them to take him, and finally asked only to find out they only had NICU? I dunno, it was all such a blur. I remember someone freaking me out about how poorly the breastfeeding was going and that I needed to try harder and keep a tally on a form, when the damn pen kept getting lost and there was no hard surface on my bed to write on because some nurse or my husband kept moving the damn rolling table. It's just like, you know, this is the modern era. Can we just get through this day so I can go home with my healthy and fed baby? Every 20 minutes someone was in there to bother me about some dumb shit when I was just trying to sleep and yet no one bothered to take the fucking IV out of my damn wrist for 20 hours after I had been disconnected!
I would have had no idea about any of this. My gyno was great and had recently given birth herself. The nurses and doctors involved in my actual birth were great. It was the rest of the hospital stay that sucked! As soon as we got someone to sign off on our release (one of the nurses really tried to talk us into staying another fucking day) we got out of there so damn fast, it felt like a scene from Mission Impossible.
OMG YES.
"Baby friendly" is the biggest pile of shit ever forced on pregnant women (in modern times), IMO. I am 100% sure that the lack of a nursery or any help at all at the hospital where #1 was born caused my ppd. I think I managed about three hours of sleep during my entire hospital stay, and I felt so scared and alone. The nurses would barely even look at me or my baby, much less help me with her. It was just awful. I'm still angry about it.
Hospital #2 didn't have a nursery, but at least there the nurses would take my baby to the nursing station so I could get some sleep. It was a total night-and-day experience.
Other than choosing a better hospital affiliation and an all-female practice if I can, what are your top tips for finding a good provider? Based in the US Midwest.
A practice with midwives tends to be more open to listening to the mother's preferences for birth rather than an all-MD practice. (even if you don't use a midwife, the fact that the MD's in the practice HAVE them says a lot to me)
Depending on your birthing preferences, look for a group that does water birth, or if you need a repeat c-section, or if you're high risk... I'd look for specialists in that area.
Good luck and congrats!!!
Thanks, yeah I forgot from last time that they said I should use a maternal fetal medicine OB next time due to a birth defect that my son has. I've been told since by his specialist that it was spontaneous with no known risk factors due to abnormal development at 6-8 weeks gestation. So I'm not sure it's truly necessary but I think I might run with it if it means extra screening. My son is super duper healthy except for this issue (which is mainly cosmetic it turns out, doesn't bother him at all), so IDK. I honestly forget he has a birth defect most of the time! He's just a normal kid to me. But it would have been nice not to have been so surprised when he was born! We had no idea, hence switching OBs. -_-
Congratulations!! A tiny cute baby with tiny fingers and toes! What a delight!!!
I have no advice as i'm not in the US i'm just here to join in to yay.
YAAAAYYYY! congrats!!!
Congrats and good luck!! :-)
I'm also pregnant with my second and in my mid 30's (but a lot further along at 35 weeks).
My best tip - Just keep moving. Exercise in whatever way feels good for as long as you can, and if you have a job sitting or standing for extended periods of time get up and walk around for a few minutes every hour. I'm swimming 3-5 times per week and doing some yoga every now and then. Swimming feels great when I feel like a beached whale on land - I feel like a much more agile whale in the water, lol. If I skip more than a few days of exercise or don't get up and walk around at work, my body starts seizing up like an old unused engine. My sciatica acts up, my knees start to hurt and I get all kinds of other random aches and pains.
Thanks, I am very sedentary but trying to be more active. Swimming sounds like it would be wonderful once you are big. Someone told me the Y is waiving join fees so maybe I'll sign up! Little boy would love that too.
Congratulations! I am so excited for you!
Unfortunately I haven't any tips myself, as I have never been in a position to get pregnant, but I did want to send you joyful vibes! Thank you for sharing this news with us. :)
Congratulations! I dug through reviews on medical review websites and then asked in a local mommy group when I picked my obgyn. She’s so good I won’t even consider seeing anyone else. Definitely ask other women in your area and ask specifically what they liked about their doctor. Mine is known specifically for her friendly nature and attention to explaining things to her patients.
Other things I would recommend is find out what the hospital allows and doesn’t allow early. If there are things you don’t like that the first hospital did, it’s better to find out early. My second pregnancy was significantly harder on my body than my first even though they were just three years apart and I was in my thirties both times. I started showing way earlier, like we had to tell people before 8 weeks or just not see them until we were ready to tell them. I was also way sicker with my second than my first. Things like carpal tunnel and pelvic/hip bone shifting will probably start months earlier too.
CONGRATULATIONS!!!!
That is WONDERFUL news!!!
My best tip (aside from swimming--I'm not a big swimmer and don't especially like water, but when I was pg with my first, from about five months along I was in the pool every day. It was just such a relief to be able to lift my knees and take that weight off):
You know how your hips start to hurt when the baby starts getting big? If you stand facing a wall or couch or something--something you can brace yourself on with your hands--your husband can come stand behind you and squeeze/push your hips together (like, push each in toward the center, toward each other). Instant break from the pain, and it takes a minute or two after he stops pushing for it come come back (and longer than that for it to be as bad as it was before). He might have to shift his hands around a bit to find the right spot, but once he does...so much better. I'm very petite, short-waisted with narrow hips, so my hips really hurt all the time, and this was the only thing that helped.
Also, just in case, a tip from my best friend, who was (like me) put on full pelvic rest for part of her pregnancy: coconut oil apparently makes a great lubricant for handies. And, the real issue wrt full pelvic rest (aside from orgasms, which aren't allowed) is semen; it's some hormone or something in it that can trigger contractions. What you do with that info is up to you, of course; Bestie went the coconut oil route, whereas I went the once-a-month-with-a-condom route and turned the couch into a weekly Beej spot (I liked the couch because I could listen to the TV). (And if anyone is wondering...like I said above, women on full pelvic rest aren't supposed to be having orgasms, which also trigger contractions; my husband wasn't being selfish.)
ETA: I remembered another tip this morning. I used to get foot cramps semi-regularly (sometimes calf cramps, too), and I found the way to get rid of them is to stand tiptoe on the cramping foot, with all your weight.
It seems counterintuitive to put all your weight on a cramping foot, but it eases the cramp almost instantly. Like, within seconds.
(I'm not sure if anyone's going to see this, but fyi it works when you're not pregnant, too. Any foot cramp. Put your weight on it, tiptoe--the weight has to be on your toes/ball of your foot or it doesn't work.)
Congratulations! ☺️🥳 I have never been pregnant, so sadly no advice here. But I'm very happy for you ☺️
Thanks! It kind of feels like how you feel when you buy a lottery ticket-- so much possibility! Lol
Must be the best lottery ticket ☺️