Advice from one who's 2/3 of the way there

So I realize that most of the women who read this board now are probably either farther along than me or have babies already, but I’ve been keeping a list of “oooh, I wish I’d known about this before” things I’ve learned thus far and thought I’d pass it on, so maybe some future thinker/tryers will get some benefit from it!

Get insured before getting pregnant – this may be obvious to some people, but you’d be surprised by how many people I’ve talked to who had no maternity insurance (or any insurance at all) and thought they could “add it later”.  Apparently like everything else, pregnancy is considered a “pre-existing condition”, so once you’re knocked up, you’re screwed, so to speak.  So as much as it may suck paying a higher premium for months or even years not even knowing if pregnancy is possible for you, it’s kind of imperative.  Also if you’re self-employed like me and have to buy your own policy, don’t go for one that requires you pay a percentage of the birth – with an emergency c-section, NICU, complications, etc, your bill could run upwards of $100,000, and yes, that means you’d be stuck with $33,000 PLUS your deductible.  So, when it comes to insurance, don’t take anything for granted and ask lots of questions!

Use cheapie internet or Dollar Store pregnancy tests.  I spent countless hundreds on high end expensive digitals before doing a little research and discovering that these tests are actually equally accurate and CHEAP.  Believe me, you’ll want to pee on sticks all day, for days.  So why not?  I typically started testing around 10 dpo (this is without an hcg shot – if you have anything in your system that may cause a false positive you’ll probably need to wait a few more days).  Peeing on sticks is tons of fun, and at $1 or less a pop you can have at it.  There’s nothing worse than not testing for several days in a row because you don’t want to spend another $50!

With that said, once you have one or two BFPs, stop testing.  You can have false negatives (not enough hcg in your system yet, pee too diluted, etc) but not false positives unless it’s one of those extremely rare cases of a faulty test.  Don’t make yourself nuts by testing for days afterwards trying to determine if you’re “still pregnant”.  Every test measures/displays positives differently, and a million things can influence how dark the line is – again, pee too diluted, wrong time of day, different batch of tests, etc etc.  If you really need to know that the pregnancy is progressing properly, have your hcg levels tested over a series of days by a doctor.  Other than that, all you can do is check for spotting and wait for that viability ultrasound!  It’s nerve wracking but taking home pregnancy tests will not give you the answer you want and may drive you crazy.

Ask what’s going to happen at your ob appointments in advance!  I’ll never forget how heartbroken I was when I went to what I thought was going to be my viability ultrasound and instead just did paperwork AND had to down a glucose drink when I was already so sick I could barely get in the car to get to the appointment.  Had I known what I was in for that day I would have been better emotionally prepared.  So now I always ask, “so, what happens at my next appointment?”  Surprisingly this information is never offered unless you ask.  So, ask!

If you get really knocked out by nausea in your first trimester, here are some things that helped me.  Of course everyone is different, and nearly all the suggestions I got didn’t help me.  But just passing this on anyway.  The things that helped me were: not getting out of bed until eating something (crackers or rice cakes), bringing crackers with me everywhere (when I could leave the house, that is), and forcing food down my throat in the rare moments where I felt a tiny bit better.  Now I had entire days where I could manage nothing – but I knew it was important to try to eat whenever I could, whatever I could, and to drink water, and take my vitamins.  I drank a lot of Ensure.  I also let myself eat whatever I needed to – my favorites were bagels, rice cakes, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, bananas, rye toast, string cheese, cottage cheese, apple sauce, and dry cereal.  Balanced?  No. Healthy?  Not really.  But it kept me going just enough to survive.  If you haven’t been able to keep anything down for days, even water, you have to go to an ER.  You may have hyperemesis which is a serious condition that could endanger your life or that of the baby.  There are lots of safe prescription meds for first trimester nausea – I tried one, Zofran, which many people love.  Didn’t really work for me, but I’m glad I gave it a shot.

One you’re in the second trimester, get a Doppler!  I got the Sonoline B off of ebay for just $50 and it is to this day the best investment I’ve made.  Now, just a word of caution that it won’t work for everyone – if you have an anterior placenta, for example.  So don’t freak out if you can’t find the heartbeat.  It doesn’t work for most people until about 12 weeks (I started using mine at I believe 15), and even then doesn’t work all the time.  I’ve had a few instances where it was eerily silent in there – but I had promised myself to not freak out, and instead wait an hour or two, drink some oj or eat something, change position, and try again.  Also don’t try to use this as an analytical tool, as in “does the heartbeat sound weird?  Is it slower/faster than last time?  What does it mean???”  The heartbeat on this thing pretty much always sounds weird, and the rate changes all the time.  One night I remember it was about half the rate it had been the day before – but then I put it away, waited, and tried again and it was fine.  It’s a limited little machine but SO worth it for those freak out moments (that at 28 weeks I still have, btw).

And finally, an odd little tidbit I picked up from the WTE boards – take off your rings!  I have a couple of rings I love that had gotten kind of tight, which I thought nothing of until I read that sometimes hospitals will cut them off of you.  So, don’t wait until your rings can’t be removed by you – take them off now as your hands swell so you don’t have to worry about them being destroyed later (or even if not, cutting off your circulation and making the hand swelling feel worse).

Ok, so that’s my list of first, second, and early third tri advice.  Any experienced mommas are welcome to chime in their wisdom!