Ep 1 - Weeks 4-6 of your pregnancy
Is It Normal? The Pregnancy Podcast With Jessie Ware
Host Jessie Ware discusses the early stages of her third pregnancy alongside consultant obstetrician Jess McMicking. The episode covers comm
Key takeaways
- Common early symptoms include morning sickness driven by rising beta HCG levels and increased fatigue due to diverted blood supply.
- The growing uterus can put pressure on the bladder, leading to increased urinary frequency.
Main topics
- Early pregnancy symptoms
- Ectopic pregnancy risks
Notable quotes
Google didn't go to medical school, so we shouldn't listen to Google.
Conclusion
The episode serves as a reassuring guide for navigating the physical a
Transcript preview
Speaker 2 (0:04) Is it normal to be incredibly out of breath? Is it normal to have freezing cold feet? Is it normal that my tongue looks like it's been through a shredder? Is it Speaker 3 (0:13) normal to crave crushed ice? Is it normal to have unbelievably itchy nipples? Hello and welcome to Is It Normal? The Pregnancy Podcast. I'm Jessie Ware and I've just found out I'm pregnant. And congratulations because if you're listening to this, then I imagine you have too. This podcast follows my pregnancy journey. I'm actually your number three. And with the help of some brilliant experts... We will hopefully be able to reassure and inform you about as many aspects of pregnancy and giving birth as possible. We'll address common concerns and symptoms, some that maybe you've never even experienced, some that you hopefully will never have to experience. Every pregnancy is different and hopefully you'll be able to find something in this podcast that resonates with you and your pregnancy. We'll also be offering options of how you can alleviate some of those symptoms and what is happening with the baby at each stage of your pregnancy. Despite it being my third pregnancy, I still worry, I Google everything and need constant reassurance. So I thought I'd do this series in which I speak to different experts to reassure and inform everybody about what's going on with our bodies and our baby. Our main contributors will be two brilliant health professionals, Jess McMicking, a consultant obstetrician, and expert midwife, Isabel Borton. We will also be hearing from sonographers, doulas, mental health experts, home birth midwives, anaesthetists, so many more. Our aim is for this podcast to cover as many aspects of pregnancy and giving birth as possible. I'm so thrilled to be doing this podcast. It's something that I would have loved to have had maybe first time round, and I hope that we create a beautiful community that are in this together. and feel no embarrassment about asking about any kind of symptom and hopefully we can just be a helping hand throughout your pregnancy. Speaker 2 (2:02) And don't worry, if you're further along than the first Speaker 3 (2:04) trimester, you can get all of the series at isitnormalpodcast.com. Speaker 3 (2:11) Ms. Jess McMicking, consultant obstetrician and gynecologist. Thank you for joining me. Hi, Jessie. Thank you for having me. I've just found out I'm pregnant. I know that because I am a control freak and I have a period tracker app thing. And so I knew as soon as I was getting to when my period was due, which is really regular. I started to feel shooting pains in my boobs. And that was an indicator for me that's been an indicator for the last two that something's cooking. I still can't quite believe it. And I've done about 10 pregnancy tests because I kind of feel like this is slightly too good to be true. And I'm also in slight disbelief and shock about potentially having a third one on the way. I'm excited and so feel so thankful. But it's a weird old time, that beginning bit of pregnancy where you've just found out. And you don't know whether to believe it or not. And I don't know. I feel like a lot of my friends and I have always done this thing where we buy like 20 pregnancy tests and you just do them. I mean, they're like lying around everywhere and they do have the two lines. So I can confirm. I think that it's right. Yeah. So I'm I think I'm around four to five or six weeks. And the first indicator was the shooting boobs. pain. I have very small bosom, so it's not like they get particularly swollen or anything like that. But these shooting pains was something that happened to me, which actually I couldn't really find on the internet that much. But also obviously a missed period, feeling pretty knackered and weeing constantly. And that is just going to only get more as you get heavier weight in your, near your bladder. So why am I feeling the shooting pains in the boobs and the knackeredness? And obviously I have this nausea in the morning that only goes away if I eat something carby. And then it kind of subsides and it's fine. But it's that beginning bit where you're just like, you feel like you're hungover. Speaker 1 (4:11) Yeah, so they're all super common symptoms. And I think if someone was to write a book, you're right, you know, there would be pages and pages of the different things that have occurred. But I think what you've highlighted, Jessie, is some really important things that, first of all, you've got a pregnancy that's growing inside you. So what we hope is that pregnancy is growing within the uterus and it's going to get through the first few weeks. And so when we think about that pregnancy there, it's... First of all, it's stealing a little bit of your blood supply. It's growing. It's got hormone levels going crazy, which includes that pregnancy hormone, the beta HCG. And then what you get on top of that is other hormones that are helping sustain this