Weird Pregnancy Symptoms

Symptoms like fatigue, nausea, back and joint pain, constant peeing and hunger, and being “emotional” (both good and bad) are all considered par for the course when it comes to pregnancy, so no one is too surprised by these. However, there are many (so many) more lovely symptoms that can come along with a positive pregnancy test that people don’t talk about or show you in the movies.

Here are just a few of the lesser-known pregnancy symptoms to give you a bit of a heads up so you know you’re not alone.

You may have all of them to which I can only say, “I’m sorry”. Or you may have none, to which I say, “Lucky, you”!

· Extra saliva – I swear to you there were a few days that I would randomly drool and have no clue where it was coming from haha After looking into it, it seems like this is one of those side effects that isn’t really explained but is fairly common. It’s thought that the increase in hormones cause an increase in our saliva production to prepare the body to well, um barf.. Luckily for me it was only associated with my nausea and no vomiting.

· You may be backed up – the hormone progesterone is a huge player in maintaining pregnancy early on and with this pumping extra through your body it helps relax your uterus and other muscles. This relaxation then slows down the intestinal tract which then slows the movement of things moving south. For me, this was a problem because I was on an additional progesterone supplement for the first 13 weeks. Drinking lots of water, eating high fiber foods, and working out helped me a lot though!

· Cue the congestion – This is a weird one to me but it’s definitely more common than not. Estrogen causes the mucous membranes to swell (along with everything else), which can then cause congestion and nosebleeds. Since I have been very diligent to not take anything extra in terms of medication, I found that wearing nasal strips at night was the most helpful (yes, they’re super sexy).

· Random leg cramps – it seems that no matter how much water I drink I can’t go a single day without getting a cramp in my legs. This is another side effect that isn’t well explained. Some think that the compression of our blood vessels cause the cramps or simply the fact of carrying more weight. Either way they hurt and there’s only a few ways to alleviate them.

· Your gums may bleed – I haven’t had this side effect yet but I know its fairly common. Once again progesterone is to blame for this one. There’s not much you can do about it either besides continuing to practice safe oral hygiene by brushing and flossing and rinsing your mouth if and when you do get sick.

· You may have a sour/metallic taste in your mouth – this is something I had the pleasure of experiencing and it was so awful. I felt like I couldn’t get this constant sour taste out of my mouth. This is called dysgeusia and it’s all due to pregnancy hormones again. They suggest citrus foods to help, but nothing really helped me unfortunately.

· Your gag reflex might be heightened – This was one of my earlier signs that I might be pregnant. I couldn’t brush my teeth (more specifically tongue) without having the constant urge to gag. Sadly, at 19 weeks this hasn’t changed much for me although it has gotten a little less. I’m able to brush my teeth just fine but the second I try to touch my tongue I gag.

· Weird hair growth – this one was something that I wasn’t expecting for sure. It seems like I have to shave my legs and armpits every day to keep up and I know it’s not from my prenatal vitamins. But not only is that hair growing like crazy, I’ve got this crazy fuzzy hair on my belly that really is interesting! It’s normal though and most of the time goes away after birth. Some say this is a sign of a boy, which for us is true so who knows!

Like I said there are so many more symptoms that you might experience so be sure to check with your provider if there’s something you’re not quite sure about! Always better to ask and be safe!