Welcome to Week 15 of my personal pregnancy week by week series. If you want to catch up on previous weeks, scroll to the bottom. Otherwise, enjoy!
Week 15
This week all the books, and some doctors, will start talking about Braxton Hicks contractions. I have no idea what those are because I never got to experience the wonderfulness of feeling like I am in labor when I am not. Hubby thinks I had them before having Munchie, but they aren’t fake contractions if I end up giving birth, so I lucked out in a completely different way; I was in labor for 33 hours. Party in the maternity ward! If you do get Braxton Hicks contractions, don’t panic, they are normal. How do you know the difference? Well, you won’t be in real labor this early on, and the real thing is way worse. If you can’t breathe during a contraction, or do anything else for that matter, and you feel this weird pain in your lower back, then you are in real labor. But more on that in a few months.
Your body is totally stressed out right now. But can you blame it? You are making a human being inside, which is way more difficult than making cookies, even Martha Stewart style. So all this being tired starts to mess with other parts of you. Like your brain. You know that commercial where a girl holds up an egg and says “This is your brain.” And then she cracks the egg into a sizzling frying pan and says “This is your brain on drugs.?” Well, it is just like that, except she would be saying “pregnancy” instead of “drugs.” There will be many of those days that feel like your brain is a giant sizzling pan filled with cracked eggs. It goes away. Like everything else I have been talking about the last couple of months, it disappears shortly after you deliver.
Around now, as you start getting front heavy, you will be reintroduced to your good friend Gravity. And he will constantly remind you of his existence by making you far clumsier then you thought you could be. I am the biggest klutz, and I somehow managed to be even more so. You will get used to it. Most people will tell you to wear comfortable shoes, with a low or nonexistent heel to prevent falls and injury. I will not be the one to tell you this. I wore five inch heels until the day I gave birth (both times) and I didn’t fall. My kids are fine. So, be aware of the change, and feel free to ignore it.
Another piece of advice you will be receiving is in regards to the chemicals you use. Everyone and their brother was telling me to stop dying my hair while pregnant. You know who didn’t tell me this? And who said it is fine? My doctor. So, talk to yours. If you trust him enough to deliver your baby, you should trust him enough to take his advice about hair dye, or anything else you have previously been doing. Unless he is telling you to smoke crack (in which case you should probably find a different doctor). The only drawback about doing my hair while pregnant is that due to the hormones the dye wasn’t always taking well, so sometimes I ended up with orangey splotches instead of my usual red. And nail polish didn’t work so well on me either. So, take all that into consideration, make your decision, and tell everyone else to mind their own business.
If you want to catch up:
