Category Archives: guide

40 Weeks Of Pregnancy – Week 11

Welcome to this week’s installment of the pregnancy edition. If you need a refresher of any of our previous weeks, scroll to the bottom. Otherwise, this week we are looking at…
Week 11
Medically, your little sea monkey is now considered a fetus. I a totally not going to even get into the whole when a baby becomes a baby thing because that is absolutely not what this post, or series, is about. The first sentence of this paragraph was solely a statement in regards to my limited medical knowledge.
You are pregnant. You feel pregnant. You act pregnant. You think pregnant. But you still don’t look pregnant. Even if there is a small bump developing, unless someone knows you are preggers, it looks like you have just been having a few too many girl scout cookies. If this is your first you are most likely in a huge rush to start proudly parading your protruding belly. Trust me, it will happen. This is just like that time when you were little and couldn’t wait to get your period because you thought it meant you were a big girl, and then you got it only to find out how much it sucks. Yeah, it just like that that. Except this time there are a lot of beautiful and wonderful things that come with pregnancy and that you will get to experience. Unlike your period that brings no good. Unless you count your pregnancy due to your period as good. In which case they are all connected, and I have left the original topic so far behind…
So, back to week 11 events. All the hormones (notice how I like to blame everything on all the hormones) can start causing you headaches. These headaches will come and go, and will be of varying intensities. Whenever I got headaches I would first try drinking some water. If that did nothing, I would eat a little food. Typically the main causes of headaches are dehydration and/or hunger. If possible I would also try laying down. If none of these things helped I would take a Tylonol. Ask your doctor before taking anything, even though Tylonol is generally safe for everyone. You know what is not safe? Aspirin. Aspirin and Tylonol are not the same thing. You should absolutely not take any aspirin while pregnant. It could kill your baby.
Everything else in pregnancy land is progressing much as before. Hang in there, the first trimester is almost done. If you want to see what you have missed, I have included links to all the previous posts from this series.
 

40 Weeks of Pregnancy – Week 10

Happy Monday Everyone! This week I am exploring Week 10 of pregnancy. If you want to see any of the other weeks leading up to this one, scroll to the bottom. If you are pregnant, no one can blame you for your short term memory loss. If are not pregnant, I am sure you are very busy and just forgot. So, for this week’s edition…
Week 10
Congratulations, you have made it a quarter of the way through!
Even though I have done this before I don’t necessarily remember when exactly different things started happening. But this particular week I remember quite vividly. Especially when I was carrying Munchie. Due to all the hormones, at this point, your gums wills start swelling. Mine were a disaster, but I also have terrible tooth problems. You probably will not have anything close to as bad, but nevertheless you may experience some soreness, especially on your top gums. When you brush, they may bleed. They are swollen, look bad, and bleed a lot, but they generally don’t hurt.
Which brings us to nose bleeds. Because pregnancy causes higher blood pressure, and because you actually start producing more blood, you may also end up having regular nose bleeds, or at the least blood in your inner nose so it will be there when you blow your nose. This, much like the swollen gums, does not hurt. It is weird, it may freak you out, but it is pretty innocuous. If there is excessive blood, talk to your doctor. Since I don’t know how to quantify “excessive” in this case, and everyone is different, just talk to your doctor.
A few other things you may want to discuss with your doctor are your bowel movements. Or lack thereof. Not fun. I am sure he will recommend extra fiber before anything else. Eat more fiber rich fruit and veggies. Even if I am medically wrong at least this piece of advice can only do you good. So for once I am going to tell you to just take my advice without discussing it with any kind of professional beforehand. Relish it because it doesn’t happen too often.
More fun to come next week! Until then, feel free to peruse earlier weekly posts.
If you want to catch up:
 

40 Weeks of Pregnancy – Week 9

Good morning! If you are new, you have just stepped into the middle of a pregnancy series, where every Monday I outline a new part of pregnancy. This week, I am looking at week 9. If you want to see the previous weeks, scroll down and take a peak.
Week 9
This week, you are even more tired. If this is your first, take advantage of all your free time and take lots of naps. You may think you have no free time. Trust me, you do. You will often look back fondly at “all that free time I had back then.” If this is not your first, you still need to take a nap.
If you haven’t gotten it already, heartburn may start happening around now. I personally didn’t get heart burn until the third trimester, so basically you can get it at any time. If it happens, it is normal. My doctor said I can take Zantac.  But he told me this too late, so basically I just dealt with it. Talk to your doctor, see what he says you are okay to take.
Even though I was not showing at this point during my first pregnancy, and barely showing during my second, I started feeling lower back pain right around now. I found warm baths to be very helpful. At the very least they would relax me for a little while.
Speaking for relaxing, at this point a lot of moms start to worry about their plans for baby. Will they continue working? Is that even an option? Who will take care of the baby when you go back to work? How do you pick the best day care?  And one of the most stressful, what do you name the baby?
And with that, I am going to wrap up this installment. See you next week! And in the meantime, feel free to look up previous weeks.
If you want to catch up: