Hey guys, welcome to another episode of For Vaginas Only. I know it's been a minute. But in this episode we are going to continue the pregnancy series that I had started last year, and we are gonna talk about what I experienced in the third trimester and a little bit about what you can experience too. So let's finally, for the first time in a long time, cue the music. Hello and welcome to For Vaginas Only the podcast about everything female. I'm your host, Dr. Celestine, bringing you important information about understanding your health and body in the way you wish your doctor would actually explain it. Alright, well that was great to listen to. It's been a long time for you, but probably even longer for me it feels like. I've been behind the scenes just on creation mode, trying to figure out what to do next. And we're gonna start out with this episode. So I am Dr. Celestine or Dr. C as a majority of you guys know. And I am your host of the For Vagina's only podcast. In this episode, we are gonna talk about what I experienced in the third trimester of my pregnancy last year. A little bit of what I did to help myself go through some of the things I experienced and how I treated them, and talk about what you can expect out of your third trimester of pregnancy as well. Okay, so as we talked about in my first trimester, I was vomiting like crazy. I had lost a lot of weight. I never reached the point of having Hyperemesis Gravidarum which is a condition where you are not only vomiting all the time, you can't keep any food or liquid down, and your labs actually show that you're very dehydrated. Luckily for me, which is not the case for many, it got better around 17 to 18 weeks. And I still had some food aversions, but I was actually able to eat and kind of enjoy my life again in the second trimester. So that was better, but what started up was some heartburn. A lot of people experience heartburn in the third trimester because the uterus and the baby are very large and pressing up on their stomach. So, sometimes it's harder to eat full meals like you were doing before, and you kind of get that reflux or acid sensation in your throat constantly. You can take some over the counter medication in pregnancy that's safe, such as TUMS or your doctor can provide some prescription reflux medication. But I had just taken TUMS every now and again when I needed it, and I avoided certain triggers. Big trigger is anything that is acid. So reflux is kind of that acid sensation. So avoiding acid foods are helpful, such as tomato sauce. To me, a big trigger was red tomato sauce. But it's funny because that's also something I could not eat at all in the first trimester, and it just kind of carried over in a different way in the third trimester. Some other triggers for reflux can include citrus fruit, can also include fatty foods like french fries, onion rings, things like that. Sometimes it's triggered for people with chocolate or garlic and onions, so everybody can be a little bit different. But to me a big one was tomatoes and tomato sauce. So avoiding some of the triggers, taking a reflux medication if needed, and some foods are actually soothing, like oatmeal can help kind of calm down that sensation if you have it in your pregnancy. So that was one of the things that I was dealing with. My acne that I had talked about that was really bad in the first trimester, was much more controlled by the third trimester. I still had some dark spots to kind of get rid of, and I still do now, honestly. But using a lot of the products that I talked to a dermatologist about for safety in pregnancy was beneficial in helping me control the outbreaks that were hormone related. So I talked about them before, but the two products I added to my regimen were from"The Ordinary." And they're a good company because they have good products and they're not expensive. Most of their products are like$20 or less, and I used the ordinary niacinamide and zinc serum as well as the azealic acid suspension. In addition, I had some things I had always used in my regimen, like the"Murad Revitalixer Recovery" serum. And I continued to use my benzoyl peroxide wash for my face, but I cut out the salicylic acid wash. So those were the things that had helped me, and I carried that through to the third trimster. So that was great. I still had the occasional nausea here and there and you know, I got the thing that everybody gets in pregnancy. So it's funny because you know, I'm an OBGYN doctor and before I was pregnant last year, I would sympathize with everybody and I understood how much it took from a woman's body to create a baby and deliver said baby, whether it be vaginal delivery or a C-section, but to go through it on my own was completely interesting. So I definitely had that kind of beached whale sensation by the third trimester. You know, I just wanted the pregnancy to be over, not to end, you know, in a bad way, but I was ready to deliver my baby and experience the joy of it on the other side. I just felt huge. Everything I did, even though people told me I didn't look that big, and I'm a naturally small person, which, you know, yay genetics for me. But it doesn't matter how big or small you are when you're pregnant and you're carrying around a whole other human's body in your body. You're bigger than you were before, so you feel extra large. And that's just how I felt. And I was ready for this baby's eviction day. I was ready to, to experience delivery, and my hip started to become a little achy. So I did a lot of like stretching. I wasn't really a great stretcher before. I used to work out a lot, but I would never really take the time to stretch either before or after adequately, but I found the time in pregnancy to do lots of stretching. One, because I had read on the blogs just like you guys are on the internet and things like that. I looked around too for some of these things. I don't recommend doing that for people that you know are not, don't have a medical background. I always recommend that you talk to your own doctor, but I kind of knew what to trust and what not to trust. And stretching exercises for the most part, are safe in pregnancy, so I did little things to help with my hips and my lower back that were becoming really achy. I used an exercise ball a lot. I used the Peloton stretching aspect to it. So, you know, they have the workouts, the bike workout, the tread, all of that. But I did a lot of their stretching videos too at home and yoga videos, which were really helpful. I would say your balance is a little bit off in the third trimester, so don't do any crazy yoga positions. Just do things that you feel like you can handle without tipping over. And for me it was beneficial. And I did continue to work out, so I was working out pretty much all the way till I delivered. A lot of it was on my stationary bike at home. I didn't do any running or anything like that, and I did light weights nothing heavier than what I had done pre-pregnancy. Kind of the same amount of weight because you don't really wanna exert yourself too much or lift heavier than you ever have before when you're pregnant. You just kind of wanna maintain. So that's what I did. I was still, I have a video of myself working out with my big belly and my sports bra on my Peloton bike, and that'll always kind of stick with me. Sorry, I don't have a Peloton bike. I have a different bike, but I used a Peloton app, but that always stuck with me and I was working out truly until almost the end 38 plus weeks. And I was able to cook a little bit more by that time. So in the beginning, you know, every smell, everything. I couldn't even-and I'm somebody that cooked a lot before. I couldn't stand the smell of my own cooking, like it made me nauseous and I guess if I finished cooking, other people could eat it, but I did not want any bit of that food before. But in the third trimester I started to be able to tolerate the things that I was cooking. So I cooked a little bit more by then. Those are some of the biggest things I experienced in the third trimester. Some key things just during pregnancy, you start to get a lot more frequent OBGYN visits in the third trimester. So in the beginning you're usually seeing your doctor like every four weeks or every three weeks. In the third trimester, that really goes down, at least in the United States to every two weeks and weekly actually by the end of the pregnancy. So at 36 weeks, you also get something called the group b strep test. Wow. Can I speak today? The group B strep test Group B or Beta Hemolytic strep is a bacteria that lives in the vagina and kind of near the rectum in some adults. And it doesn't do anything to adults really from day to day, whether it's there or not. It doesn't truly matter if you're not pregnant. But you get swabbed for this. The little Q-tip goes in the vagina and into your rectum a little bit. So don't be surprised. Okay? And what that does is it tests for the presence of the bacteria. If the bacteria is there, then you just need antibiotics in labor because there's a small chance that the baby can get an infection if it comes through the vagina without getting treatment for this bacteria while you're in labor. So that's why we test every pregnant woman in the third trimester because even though the risk is not super high, even if the bacteria's present, the results can be catastrophic if your baby does actually get this condition from the bacteria. So that's a test that's done in all pregnant women around 36 weeks. Depending on your pregnancy condition, you might even start getting more frequent ultrasounds toward the end of the pregnancy. Or NST's."Non-stress tests," which is where we put you on the monitor in the office, one measures the heartbeat of the baby the other monitor on your abdomen measures contractions. So some women with higher risk pregnancies or with certain conditions that doctors are watching closely, you might need to start to do this type of test every week in the office. Everybody's a little bit different. You know, I was older in my pregnancy, so I was 35, so technically that's considered a"geriatric pregnancy." I know how much we love that term. Or"advanced maternal age," anybody 35 years or older. So some of these testing I had at the end so I had NSTs weekly up until delivery. I also had something in my ultrasound. I kind of had Amniotic bands, so they saw little floating bands within my amniotic fluid like tissue or fibers. Sometimes those can be severe and actually affect the baby, wrap around certain parts of the baby and compromise the child. Mine didn't seem to be doing that but they continued to be there until the end. In addition, I had fibroids, so I had a little pain from those fibroids where I was in the hospital in my second trimester with them. And I took pain medication from time to time. So that was there too. And it was in the lower part of my uterus where the baby's head was. Luckily he was head down kind of from the beginning and stayed that way. So, sometimes the fibroids can be pressing into the uterus so much that kind of the home inside where the baby lives in the cavity that it can either affect how the baby can move inside the uterus. So sometimes it can limit the baby's ability to turn head down. It causes pain sometimes, like what I had, and it also can cause contractions, preterm labor, preterm contractions in some cases. And I actually had preterm contractions that I needed to take medication for at the end of the second trimester and early third trimester. But by the end of the third trimester, all of that was gone, I was not in any pain and I was really ready to just have this baby. Because of my age and some of the things that were going on in my pregnancy, I was induced, actually, my labor was induced. I came in on my due date for induction, and the induction process took about three days before I actually met my son. And that was a little daunting, and especially as an obgyn, you know, I just start thinking, The worst, like, is the induction gonna work? Is my cervix gonna dilate? Am I gonna end up with a C-section? Not that a C-section is the worst thing in the world, but it is a major surgery. So I didn't really wanna go through that. But if I had to, I would for me or my baby. But just lots of doubts if I could even really do this. So it took three days. I had started with a Cervidil, which is a packet of medication that goes in the vagina, very close to the cervix, and it releases something called prostaglandins, which helps the uterus to start contracting and the cervix to start softening and dilating. So I had that in for the full 12 hours that it stays in. And then I think I was like one centimeter dilated when it came out and started on Pitocin in the IV, which is another medication that causes contractions. I was on Pitocin for like 24 hours or more and my... the baby was looking great for a long time. My water broke. Oh my God. So they broke my water. I was only about like two centimeters when they broke my water and then the pain kicked in. So I always tell people to expect that, and I've seen it in my patients also. Once the water's broken, the baby's head is applied now at this point, right on the cervix, there's no more barrier. So there's no amniotic sack there or fluid. It's literally just the baby and your uterus, So I think something with that causes a little bit more pain and contractions. So I was like crawling up the bed and I felt all of my contractions in my back. I actually didn't feel anything in my abdomen at all. It was like severe back pain. So at that point I got an epidural. Yes, I was only two centimeters and I got my epidural. So, you know, don't ever think you're too strong. I got my epidural. I progressed to fully dilated overnight by the morning, and during that time, my baby did have something called"late decelerations" for a little bit. So they had to change my position a few times, and that's when the heart rate dips a little bit after contractions. But that seemed to resolve and I got to fully dilated in the morning of the third day. And I pushed ladies and gentlemen for three hours and 15 minutes to get this little boy out. I, at that point, again, was wondering if it was gonna happen vaginally, you know? And my epidural was great until the end. I felt as if his head was gonna explode through my left hip. I just felt everything in my left hip. So I always tell people, epidurals are great. You know, there's no real proof that there's long term back problems or anything after you get them. Like I know some people believe. But everybody's anatomy is a little different and sometimes the way they do the epidural is a little bit different. So some people have the most perfect epidural ever and some people have some gaps. You might feel pain in your left hip like I did, or you know, something along those lines. But I would still say it worked great up until the end, like until right before his head came out, it was 7 pounds, 12 ounces. I delivered him. I had a small tear that was repaired and then my baby and I were united on the outside And it was great. It was a great, great moment. You know, it was, I was kind of in shock. It was like, I've been doing this for people for so long and now it was my turn and it was almost surreal in a way. Yeah, becoming a mom is a lot of mixed emotions, but it was great and the journey was interesting, to say the least, and I learned a lot during the process about myself and about what women in general experience. So I think overall the lessons on both sides were just very, very beneficial. So yeah. I'm going to end this third trimester part of the pregnancy series here. I was gonna talk a little bit about my maternity leave. Now, I took maternity in the state of New Jersey, but I think there's gonna be one more episode of this series that's gonna talk about the fourth trimester. So it's the part where the baby is delivered and now, you know, you have to come to grips with being a mom, and I think part of that involves maternity leave. So I'm gonna talk about that in the next episode of the podcast. So thank you guys for listening. And that's that. That is the next installment of the For Vaginas Only pregnancy series about the third trimester with me, Dr. C. I hope this has helped you a little bit in realizing, one, you're not alone. Two, we all go through very similar processes. And three, you know, pregnancy is unique, so some things I might have experienced you might not have. And vice versa. So I always recommend, no matter what you're experiencing, especially if you feel like it's off, bring it up to your doctor and bring it up multiple times. You have to always advocate for yourself, advocate for your health, and in this instance, advocate for your unborn child. So thanks so much for listening guys, and I'll see you on the next episode. Bye.