No one tells you these things

There's a lot of information out there about being pregnant. Tons. What happens, the changes to your body, emotions, all of it. And yet, somehow, there seems to be quite a bit that isn't included. The other side of that is that sometimes information is so vague that it is not helpful. Like you could possibly have symptom XYZ during your pregnancy, and that's normal. Or you could not have that symptom, and that's normal too. I haven't worried a ton about any of that because the books and doctors are pretty specific about what isn't normal and isn't good, and those lists don't seem to change, so I have a pretty good grasp about what I really need to be concerned about. The rest of it is probably normal to some degree, I seriously doubt that I will be discovering some previously unknown symptom or risk factor that could put my baby or pregnancy in jeopardy.

I truthfully haven't dealt with a lot of the typical pregnancy issues - I never puked during the 1st trimester, the nausea wasn't really all that severe, I rarely have heartburn problems, my back hurt for awhile but a few trips to the chiropractor had that pretty much fixed. I have started to get very tiny stretch marks, but they're really just adding on to some that have been there forever. so that's no big deal. I did have my first emotional breakdown last week, so that was fun. About the worst, most consistent issue that I've dealt with has been stuffy and bloody noses (actual pregnancy symptom!), and that's just more gross than anything. So I really have had nothing much to complain about, for which I am thankful.

Then a few weeks back, I started noticing what felt like the baby trying to kick my ribs out from the inside. That's not pleasant, but generally pretty short lived. A couple weeks ago, that feeling stopped, but I started having SEVERE pains in that same area, right about where my ribs curve around and head toward by spine. It usually stemmed from any sort of physical contact in that area. I couldn't tell if it was my ribs (I have found out that your baby can bruise you internally) or if it was my skin, it sorta felt like both, depending on the exact situation. I'd never heard of such a pain, it hasn't been mentioned in anything I've read. I mentioned it to my chiropractor and she thought it might be the muscles between my ribs, so she had a little thing she did to work on that, and it helped some, but I still can hardly stand sometimes to have anything touching that area, which isn't super convenient, since that's pretty much where my bra sits, and there's not a lot of room in there if I slouch even a little bit when I'm sitting down.

So at my doctor's appointment yesterday I mentioned it to her, and she didn't seem all that surprised. Yep, it's my skin. More specifically, it's the fascia (this link has some pretty cool info) of my torso, the stuff that kind of keeps everything together - stretching out and becoming thinner, because everything's expanding up in that region. So there's nothing I can do, no relief that she offered, I just have to deal with it because it's going to keep getting stretched out until the baby comes. yaaaay, six more weeks....

It's not that knowing this ahead of time would have changed my mind about being pregnant, and it's not like it was freaking me out to have it happening and not know what all was causing it, it just would be nice with all the volumes of information available on pregnancy and everything that happens, if they would maybe mention that too. It kind of would be nicer if there was a way to treat it, but whatever.