Even when it feels extremely weird and how to actually feel supported emotionally and physically, you're gonna hear from me where I'm not gonna sugarcoat it, but I'm gonna be cheering you on along the way. You can follow along each Wednesday because pregnancy deserves more than outdated advice and Google anxiety.

I'm experiencing this right now with someone who's pregnant in my own family, and I have to hold my mouth, y'all. I have to hold my mouth because today we're gonna get into some truths about this stretch of pregnancy, but also really all of pregnancy, what's happening in your body, what the science says and what actually matters, and.

13 to 14 inches long and close to two pounds. They're starting to develop fat stores, which we'll talk about later 'cause it's a little bit different than our own. But they're getting little cheeks. They're fine tuning, they're hearing they're. Sense of touch. They're growing stronger lung tissue because they're having to start to prepare for life outside the womb, although they're not using it yet.

They're opening and closing their eyes, and they're practicing breathing movements, which is so important. This is so, so important. Even though there's no air in there yet, the placenta and the cord, that's all given 'em what they need.

'cause I'd love to post 'em. They're my favorite. And this girl did not take any videos at all, but they're so amazing. Your little stomach goes boop. Boop, right up and down. Let's talk about what might be going on with you and for each and every one of you guys. If you listen to one of these episodes and you're like, Trish, uh, no, that's not happening with me.

Or you listen and you're like, every darn thing that you're saying is happening to me, everybody is different, and even each of my six pregnancies were different, so you might. Start having some shortness of breath and that is literally no fun. So what I found that helped me a lot was to really practice some deep breathing exercises.

You can also lift your hands up into the air, but girl, this is something that a lot of us deal with and I'm so sorry. Carpal tunnel is another thing that pregnancy can really flare up because it can compress your nerves, especially for those of us who work at computers like nurses or creators like me or online business owners.

Carpal tunnel is a thing, so if you start feeling. Like some different, uh, like your wrists are swollen or you feel like your wrists are hurting or you feel like you just can't move them. Talk to your provider. There are some things they can do for you. I. Round ligament, lower back pain. These are all real leg cramps, especially at night.

You're probably having some increased discharge or even some vaginal sensitivity. Joy, joy, joy of being pregnant. Now, this one is actually kind of fun. I like it. It's the belly button, weirdness, those things. Your belly button is gonna go through so many weird distortions and changes. It's not even funny.

Like it goes from being an any to a flatty to an Audi. And I would sit there and just play with like play an, this is, you guys are probably gonna think I'm a weirdo now, but I would just rub my belly button 'cause it's literally the softest skin that you've ever felt in your life. It's so weird. If you don't believe me.

So let's talk about carpal tunnel. I had this with Grayson and with Laney, and it is so freaking real. And even though I mentioned some of the people that it might happen to, it actually can happen to more than just people who work on laptops or desk workers because we're all holding our cell phones and

When you're pregnant, you're retaining more fluid and that extra fluid can cause swelling in the tissues in your wrist, which will compress the median nerve, which is the one that's responsible for the sensations in your fingers.

So some of the symptoms in case you're like, what the hell is carpal 10? Tunnel and how do I know if I'm having it, is numbness or tingling in your fingers, especially your thumb, your index finger, and your middle fingers. I wish you guys could see me 'cause I'm such a hand talker and I'm literally got my hand up like doing all this stuff.

So if you do experience any of that, talk to your provider. They may have you wear a wrist brace, especially at night, and you can grab them at drugstore. So if you're like, I already know this is me. I don't need to talk to my doctor. Go ahead and go grab one at, Walmart, or we can list one or link to one in the show notes.

Elevate your hands when possible avoid sleeping with your wrist bent. This is a weird one, but I noticed when I was having this that I do sleep with my hands bent in a weird way. Another thing you can do, and again, I'm doing this right now, y'all can't see me, but shake out your hands frequently and if it's really severe, talk to your provider.

And as your uterus grows, these ligaments stretch and sometimes they get a little bit angry and they're gonna protest. So what that feels like is sharp stabbing pains on one or both sides of your lower belly or your groin. And this is usually brought on by a set of movements. So maybe you're sitting on the couch and you.

You get up really quickly or you roll over really quickly or you cough or you sneeze. So what I recommend is if you can with coughing and sneezing, kind of support your belly and. For sure you can control moving slower and getting up more intentionally so you can kind of put your hands under your belly and stand up slower.

Go for a walk. If it's hot as Hades where you are or if you're listening to this in the winter, go walk Target. That's what I did when I had Hunter in Florida and it was 110 out. I went and walked Target so much that they knew me and they'd be like, Hey, do we have a baby yet? No, obviously we don't. You see this big old belly, you can also try warm compresses.

Not hot to the area. When sneezing or coughing, again, bend your knees just a little bit and put those hands and support that belly. Now let's talk about the leg cramps. This is one thing that is really super annoying if you experience, if you haven't, you're like, I don't know what you're talking about, but if you have like, you're like.

I know this, if you know, you know they happen because of the pressure from your growing uterus and it's putting pressure on those blood vessels. It's also from your electrolytes like calcium and magnesium and potassium shifting around because you know you've got all this extra volume. So this is really, really important.

The other thing that can really cause these leg cramps is getting too tired and also pore circulation due to pregnancy. So one of the things you can do if you are on your feet a lot, wear some compression hose that can help you a lot. Stay hydrated all day. Not just at bedtime. Stretch your calves before you go to bed.

You can actually like stand up and flex your foot back towards your shin. Do that like maybe 25 times on each foot. You can also do the magnesium lotion or the supplement that I talked to you about. You probably wanna clear that with your provider, but it should be safe. I love the calm gummies, which also help you sleep.

So some of this might ruffle some feathers, but we're gonna talk about it anyway. So you're gonna start hearing things like, oh my stars, you're carrying so high, it's for sure a girl. Then you're gonna walk around the corner and Nancy is gonna say, oh my gosh, you're carrying so high. It's a boy. How you carry has nothing to do with the sex of the baby.

Now come on. N come on. Al cords do not happen because of you raising your hands. I promise you al cords happen when the baby is small enough to like do some somersault and move around in there and they get tied up in their cord and they're actually very, very common. But they aren't always dangerous. So don't let that freak you out.

This is body shaming, so we're gonna stop that. Your funnel height and your ultrasounds determine your baby's growth, not. Someone's eyes at the grocery store, so don't let that get into you. Sleep on your left side or your squished the baby. So we do wanna sleep on the left side, or we want to at least put a pillow under the right side, or it doesn't even have to be a thick pillow.

You wanna be propped to the left. The reason you wanna do that is because of the blood vessels. You're not hurting the baby, it's because of blood flow and your body really knows how to adjust you. So don't let that freak you out. Okay? You can just use a little blanket or a little pillow put on your left side and you can sleep on your back.

And I really wanna encourage you. You are giving your other child the greatest gift. A sibling like this is a precious gift to your entire. Family, and I know it's real, that guilt is real. I felt it with every one of my kids, all seven. But the truth is, you're bringing something, it's a gift. And those, those siblings are gonna be there for each other longer than we are actually gonna be here.

So remember, you're gifting your family. So you might go from excitement to guilt, to confidence, to confusion, to hope to what ifs. And you might also start grieving who you were, especially if this is your first baby, even though you're excited, you're like, God dang, I'm not gonna be able to do this or that.

30 minutes, take 30 minutes and do something that you love. That means a lot to you. I want you to celebrate you, and I want you to remember how powerfully amazing you are, and that is gonna teach your children to also honor you. Another thing I really wanna encourage you with is a lot of people will be like, this is what you need to do and here's how you should handle your pregnancy, and here's what you should get done.

You don't have to have any kind of like perfect plan. You don't have to like do all the things, pick what's important to you and pick what it's supposed to look like for you. You get to decide what this pregnancy looks like for you, and if that means you curl up with pizza in one hand and birth affirmations in the other, no matter what it is, this is your journey and your pregnancy.

Honestly, the most powerful part of my membership is the moms and how they support and love one another. But you need to be surrounded and you need to understand that what you're feeling is valid and that pregnancy is hard. So if you are feeling these things, please don't hesitate to reach out. Let's talk about your appointments.

The other option is that you do your own thing where you check your own blood sugars at home for two weeks or so, where you're doing your own little finger prick. The other option is the gluc, which is the nasty sweet drink that they give you. There's also some alternatives to the gluc, but honestly, you just have to talk to your provider about that.

So the glucose screening test is checking for gestational diabetes, and I know that a lot of my students and a lot of my mama members, they feel like, like they're outta control or they did something wrong if they test positive. But I want you to know that you didn't. You did not, and you may even have it with one pregnancy and not with the other.

It's like flat soda. It's not good. It's nasty. Exactly. One hour later you'll have your blood drawn to measure. How did your body process that amount of sugar? If your level is elevated, you're gonna be asked to do a three hour glucose tolerance test, which involves fasting and then drinking a stronger version of the drink.

Then you will have multiple blood draws, and I have a lot of information about this. We can link in the show notes. Here's what it matters. You either have it or you don't. So knowing, having knowledge, we say this all the time, knowledge is power because gestational diabetes can increase some risks. Risk of a larger baby, which can complicate birth, which they do use a lot to scare y'all.

She has an amazing membership and I'll link to that as well in the show notes. Here's something I wanna say to you. If you're saying to yourself like, I eat healthy, how could I get this? It's not your fault. It's about how your pregnancy hormones affect your insulin, not what you're doing. Yes, the drink is safe for baby, but some people are not, you know, too fond of it.

So they ask for alternatives. It is, you know, highly processed. Here's a pro tip. Eat a balanced protein heavy meal a few hours before you go to get the test, and if they let you, sometimes they have you fast, but not usually, and just stay hydrated the day before so that the blood draws aren't as rough.

But again, it is your. Choice the Tdap vaccine. When you get it during pregnancy, it protects you and your baby from tetanus, diptheria, and pertussis, which is the whooping cough. Your provider will most likely recommend it anywhere from now until 36 weeks. The reason they do that is babies don't receive their first whooping cough vaccine until they're about two months old, so this gives them a passive immunity.

Now, I'm not gonna go into whether you should or shouldn't vaccinate inside my membership. I'll talk to my moms about that and tell you guys what choices I made, but I believe that's a decision that each and every parent needs to make for their own children. Passive immunity means that the antibodies pass through the placenta and help protect them until they can be vaccinated themselves.

So some of the questions that I get asked is, well, I already had the T dap. Do I need it again? Yes, you need a fresh dose during every pregnancy to transfer the immunity to the baby if that's the route you choose. Is it safe? Well, according to CD, C. ACOG and who World Health Organization, they say yes.

It's been extensively studied and it's recommended. So talk. Talk to your friends. Do your due diligence. I never tell you what you have to do or should do. I just give you the recommendations. And you know, they also recommend that if you do choose to do it, that the people who are gonna be around the baby in the first two months should also be vaccinated, which is called cocooning.

We really recommend around weeks 27 that you start tracking fetal movement. So I want you to snag my third trimester prep pack. If you go to labor nurse mama.com/. Third, or you comment on any poster reel on Instagram, the word third, you'll get it sent to you. We'll also put it in the show notes and we have a fetal movement tracker.

When I say fetal movement, we're not just counting kicks, so I don't wanna say a fetal kick count because it's about movement roles and swishes and, and our movement. The only thing you don't count is hiccups because that is, it's an autonomic nervous system movement. I believe I'm saying that right, according to one of the PDs that I talked to.

Use the coupon code POD 50 and that's gonna get you every dang thing you need. Plus it gives you 30 days free and my mama membership after the 30 days. It's a $19. You can cancel at any time, but that's where you're gonna have access to my doulas, to myself, to the most incredible tribe of women. I have ever met in my life.

Birth class, which is streamlined, you can listen to it on the go, and that is. The full birth class. It's just not all the videos and all the support and all the things, it's your choice. You do what you want. But take a class. Please do not wing your birth. The reason I started educating women and doing what I do is because of all the women that I saw bullied, including myself with my first birth, this, this actually chokes me up every stinking time I talk about it because we fight so hard, we fought so hard to have our rights as women, and the fact that something so.

Y'all know I get off track. Some questions to ask is, ask your provider, any questions you wanna ask them, write them down before you go. 'cause we all know Prego brain, we forget. But ask them like, what happens if I test positive for gestational diabetes? When do my appointments start going to every two weeks? What is your thought on medicated birth induction? All the things that you wanna know. You should be asking them early and often so that you can see what does my doctor really feel about this?

But they may not be asking about you and they may all have an opinion, but they're not asking like, how are you doing? So I wanna ask you right now, like, how are you? Do you feel safe to vent to bitch, to moan? Do you feel seen? If you're not happy about the pregnancy, that's also okay. If you're over the moon unhappy, that's okay.

I just want you to know that I. You are still such an important person, like you are building a human, and I just want you to know that we see you and we value you and we adore you. Thank you so much for being here with us. So here's your action list this week. You're gonna schedule or prep for your glucose screening.

But please just get educated. Do not wing your birth. Start building a list of people that you trust that can be around you and be there for you to help carry the load, challenge, those myths that you hear from all these random people and rest. Take a rest. Honor you, celebrate you. Do something fun that you love, and shoot me a damn and say, Trish, I honored myself.

I did something fun this week.

And just like your body started beating that little heart and forming those little toes, your body is going to birth this baby beautifully. You do not have to be scared about birth. Birth is amazing and your body was. So built for this. Okay, you guys, as always, hit subscribe. Leave a review, please. If you're listening on Spotify, leave a comment.

Tell me what you wanna hear more of. If there's like a specific topic, let me know. I wanna do it. And as always, if you leave a review, send us an email and tell us and we do a drawing at the end of every month. Okay, you guys, I will see you again next Wednesday. Bye for now.