Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | Re: Can some of you IBS mamas out there give me some advice? (No, I am not PG)

Congrats on making the leap! Let's see... with my IBS I avoided prenatals with iron in them because they cause constipation. Little did I know I became slightly anemic. I guess you can't win. I also had even more gas than normal (awesome, huh?). Other than that, I didn't find that pregnancy made my IBS better (which I guess it does for some people), but it didn't make it worse either. I did get really terrible reflux, even worse than normal. There was nothing to do for that other than to sleep sitting up.

What did I wish I knew about pregnancy in general? Well, I had a pretty tough pregnancy. I was physically ok, but the hormones caused me to experience some pretty major depression. I actually hated being pregnant, and I feel much better now that I'm not. I worried that because I hated pregnancy so much I was going to be a bad mom and not love my son, but that ended up being ridiculous. I loved him intensely right away (well, I didn't get to see him for the first 10 hours of his life, but I still loved him).

I also wish I knew that it's possible to be eating very well and exercising and gain a ton of weight. My body just conserved every single calorie, which was frustrating. They tried putting me on various diets, but no matter what I ate I still gained a LOT. I wasn't prepared for that.

I wish I had stuck with an OB/GYN. I switched to a midwife run birthing center because I didn't like my first OB/GYN but that ended up being a disaster. In retrospect I should have found an OB/GYN and hospital that supported natural childbirth but had the medical facilities at hand in case an emergency arose. That's a personal choice though.

Oh, and I bought a huge body pillow (HUGE- it's horseshoe shaped and surrounds you entirely). I wish I had bought that earlier. And gone swimming frequently. I went swimming the last week of my pregnancy and it was awesome. I wish I'd done it throughout.

No matter what I tell you though, really the most important thing is that everyone's pregnancy is different. There's no way to predict what you might experience. That's similar to labor, where you can make plans but it's a total crap shoot you have NO control over. Realizing that what I wanted and what my body would do were two separate things was really hard for me but it's the truth.

Good luck!!

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