Pregnancy Q&A and Advice

Intro

How do I overcome my fear of pregnancy? You just try to brainwash yourself into not being scared. It's really hard and it's super weird. Just cuz your wife's a woman doesn't mean being pregnant [music] feels natural. Like, I feel like there's a fish living inside me. Men don't realize what a shift it is for women. When you have a baby, it's crazy.

People can see in MRIs that your brain changes. Your entire world is surrounded by keeping this baby alive and your relationship with this baby. How will you manage being a mom [music] with work? How do you maintain your weight? I feel like a hippo. Did you plan two pregnancies this close together? I know I didn't.

My poor body. Any cravings [music] that were outside of your normal diet? Cucumbers have just been my craving for every [music] pregnancy. How did you know you were ready? Do you take supplements, boy or girl? Or will the kindergarten teacher decide? This is a boy. [music] Hey everybody, welcome to my podcast.

I'm Michaela Fuller and this is a pregnancy Q&A. I will show you why. There's a 37 week pregnant belly and I'm sitting on a ball. So, apologies if I bounce a bit, but my back is murdering me. my sacroiliac joint specifically, but also my midback, my ribs, everything's expanding. This is the biggest I've been with a pregnancy and I'm feeling it. So, we are going to be doing I am going to be doing a Q&A. I'm going to do products in another video, probably postpartum.

And I feel like if I don't do this video today, I'm not going to be putting it out cuz that's how I've been feeling. So, let's get started. These were questions I got from you guys off of Instagram.

Best diet for children (meat first)

What are your thoughts on the best diet for children? Okay, here's a spicy one. This isn't that spicy. This is what I'm doing for all my children. So, they start with meat. They go breast milk and eventually they start with meat. Feeding a baby meat is a little bit tricky.

There's some gagging that goes on and that happens with any food you give them that some babies are gaggier than other babies. But I've done meat with Scarlet. I did meat with Scarlet for the first 3 years. So people reach out sometimes with kids that have autoimmune disorders at two at two and they go, you know, can I do the lion diet? Yeah, you can do only meat. You can introduce foods really slowly for little kids. So breast milk, then we do meat.

I do meat until two and a half or three by itself. Beef primarily uh and then eventually some fish and some chicken, but primarily fatty beef. And research has shown that kids that start with meat have a larger head circumference in a good way or bigger. I'll try to remember to link that study below or you can Google it. But meat as a first food is amazing. In the 90s, they were giving everybody iron fortified cereal because cereal doesn't have iron in it. I don't know what marketing genius came up with that.

But don't do that. Do meat. And then amalayise levels. Ama is an enzyme that helps break down starches. Those levels don't even reach peak adult levels until about 2 and 1/2. You guys can double check those numbers, but it's about 2 and 1/2. So, you do not need to rush into giving your kids starches at all until about that age because they're not even ready for it.

So, I do meat for the first 3 years. I wouldn't be this strict except for my history with autoimmunity, my family's history with autoimmunity, and we don't know exactly know why. We're sensitive, maybe genetic sensitivity to mold causing autoimmune problems, but I do not want that for my kids. So, we're strict. And then once I'm at the two and a half, threeyear period, I start foods one by one. And I monitor for things like suddenly having tantrums, from going from being a calm kid to suddenly having tantrums. Uh, and then I can tell I've started to introduce foods too early.

Uh, obviously you can check for stomach aches, rashes, like eczema, the normal stuff, but I also monitor her mood. And Scarlet now, she's almost nine, which is crazy. But she eats what I would consider a paleo diet. So, no processed foods, no cane sugar. Uh she doesn't she can eat dairy, but she doesn't eat much dairy. She doesn't really like eggs, but she can eat eggs. She has no allergies except for environmental allergies, which I think stem from her mold exposure before we knew about the mold problem uh and our mold sensitivity.

But she eats just a healthy, varied diet. A lot of meat, probably 80% meat, but fruits, vegetables. Uh, and all those introductions went swimmingly. She's had nuts before, like I said, no allergies. And she was such an easy kid. The only times, this is sounds crazy, but the only times she had tantrums really, and I really mean this, was when she went to school and somebody gave her chocolate at school. And this was when she was about five.

And she came home and was running around the couch in circles. And I was like, "Did you eat something? Like, what is happening?" She had a meltdown and was like, you know, a kid at school gave me chocolate. And then the same thing happened the next year when a kid at school gave her something.

Does your husband get enough sleep?

But so I've seen this reintroduction and introducing food. Sorry, introducing food slowly, starting with meat for nine years with Scarlet. George is two and a half now. He's still just eating meat. And we've tried little bits of things like some sweet potatoes, some carrots, um a little bit of cooked arugula, egg. Like we've tried things here or there. He really likes beef.

He'll have some chicken sometimes. But when I tried to introduce and feed him carrots and sweet potatoes when he was two, he started having tantrums when he was waking up from naps. and I cut them out and the tantrums went away. And that sounds crazy because it's not a sugar, it's just a carrot, it's just sweet potatoes. But I know that that's just too early for him. Uh, and so I'll probably be doing that again when he's closer to three. And that seems to work really well.

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Were you ready for another baby? (Audrey's health emergency)

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I'm still paying off college from 10 years ago. And [music] I'm also still questioning the value that I got out of college.

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I went to college because I had to. I go to Peterson Academy because I want to. You [music] just kind of have to focus on what's going to actually change your life. Stop paying attention [music] to what things are supposed to look like and actually aim for something and you might just stumble across something like Peterson Academy. I don't know who asked this question in this manner. With you being pregnant and uncomfy in bed so often, does your husband get enough sleep? with a laughing crying face. Zach, this is not the question for a pregnant woman [clears throat] at all.

I am I am currently sleeping. I slept on an angle for 3 months because I couldn't breathe through my nose. Uh I slept at an angle basically sitting up for four months with Audrey because I couldn't breathe through my nose from pregnancy rhinitis. I'm sleeping with a pillow behind my back, a pillow under my stomach, a pillow behind in between my knees, and I'm waking up every two hours to pee. So, I don't really care how Jordan is sleeping. He's sleeping totally fine, but I've actually we have beds next to each other. Not because I'm not headover heels in love with my husband, but because I have such a hard time sleeping that if he were to move and wake me up, I would might murder him.

So, I'm like, I need to get all the sleep I can because I'm not sleeping anyway. So, you need to be in a different bed or I'll kill you. So, he's sleeping just fine. Thanks for asking. How did you know you were ready here? 24 months postpartum and still dying inside and exhausted. I was not ready for this baby at all. I was Audrey was born in May and then we had a horrifyingly traumatizing summer because she had let me see if I can do this without crying but uh she got a cold at 3 weeks.

I haven't actually gone into what happened to her on YouTube, but um she got a cold at 3 weeks and George, who was a you know baby at that time, a year a year and a half old, he was quite sick and so we think it was some sort of maybe a denovirus or something, but it wasn't sick enough to go to a doctor. She just got a sniffle. That was it. I was like, "Oh, lucky we dodged that." And about a week past the sniffle, she started projectile vomiting. And I brought two doctors over because it was really, it didn't feel like reflux or something like that. And both doctors said, "Don't worry, it's reflux."

And I was like, "Yeah, but this is pretty violent, like projectile vomiting." And it would happen like once a week. It was completely random. So, she'd just have this one violent like projectile vomit. She wasn't upset or anything once a week. And then, oh, and then two weeks into that after I had it checked out with doctors, she started getting lethargic and sleepy and not eating as much. And it got to the point where I just had, you know, mom Spidey vibes going off and I was like, it feels like she's dying.

Like, that seems like a dramatic thing. And when you're postpartum, you can have these crazy thoughts about the safety of your baby. But but I've had I'd had two kids at that point. Was like I didn't I've never had that feeling before. So we went to emergency and she was pretty lethargic and they checked her over and they said she's fine. Just monitor her intake. She can stay over or you guys can go home.

And I thought okay well let's just go home cuz like nobody's sleeping in the hospital. And the next day she almost died. She wasn't eating and we had our bags packed to go to emergency. And oh my gosh, it was so awful. like she ended up anyway I don't really want to get into the details or I'm just gonna cry and I wanted this to be a fun episode but she just was lethargic screaming screaming bloody murder and not in a like my stomach hurts type of way like in a bad way and we called an ambulance when she kind of like seized up and I thought she had a seizure and I was like call 911. the ambulance showed up in like the paramedics. So, the fire department showed up in three minutes and then the ambulance came a couple minutes after that and in the ambulance she turned blue in my arms. Her whole body turned blue [sighs and gasps] and they put um oxygen on her and we got to the hospital and that night they went through a bunch of diagnoses. They were like she has a brain bleed.

Uh, and I know some of you guys have asked about vitamin K, which I'll get into, but first they told me, you know, that it was my fault because I hadn't done the vitamin K shot with her and I hadn't given her oral vitamin K. And they're like, she has a brain bleed and you've basically killed her. And I was like, we were on I was on my knees praying because I like can't imagine something worse than making a medical decision that kind of goes against the mainstream and having it negatively like, oh my gosh. Anyway, that night was a very long night. And about 6. So [sighs and gasps] then about 6:00 in the morning, they go, "Okay, it's not a brain bleed, but she's still, you know, on the verge of death." And we have no idea why.

I was like, "Okay, well, thank God it's not a brain bleed caused by my like negligence, basically." Um, so we get transferred to the NIQ, uh, the PQ, which is a part of the hospital for like pediatric care, and then I get grilled about vaccines, and this horrible neurologist that I wish I could remember her name of cuz I'd send a complaint to the hospital came up and goes, "Yeah, it's going to take a while to figure out what's wrong with her cuz he didn't vaccinate. Keep in mind, this baby is 6 weeks on the dot." Okay, so there's one vaccination at birth, which is Hep B. She clearly doesn't have HEP B and she's not due for the other vaccinations yet. So, my choice to not vaccinate hadn't even impacted her yet. But because they knew that that was my choice, which I will also get into, they're like, "Yeah, it's going to take a while."

And I was like, "Oh, what would we have vaccinated against that could be this?" And she was like, "Uh, cuz I don't think she was expecting someone to respond to her." She was like, "Oh, um, menitis." And I was like, well, this is like this isn't menitis. We've already ruled that out anyway. But she menitis isn't even something that's vaccinated for at 6 weeks. So, it was just she was just an awful power-hungry moronic neurologist that came in.

Anyway, that hospital, it was Phoenix Children's. They saved they saved Audrey. And what what it was was actually something called idiopathic pulmonary hypertension. And I didn't I hadn't known anything about heart issues, but it looks like what happened is when she got that virus, for whatever reason, her lungs got stressed and it caused pulmonary hypertension, which is when one side of your heart gets really big. and she couldn't handle it and it kind of spiraled. And this happens to one in two million kids. There's something called persistent pulmonary hypertension which is which happens right away at birth. You can tell they give the baby oxygen.

Sometimes they have to give them some medications to like stabilize their heart. And that's much more common. But this weird heart issue at 6 weeks is virtually unheard of. Now, thankfully, I took to Instagram, I asked for prayers, and a couple people reached out and were like, "Yeah, I've, you know, I've seen it." Um, but it hits one in two million babies. It was just really bad luck. They put her on uh Selenapil, which is what men will get from a company like HIMS for erectile dysfunction, and they use it for pulmonary hypertension.

Uh, they stabilized her. They they threw everything at her. Like she was on steroids. She was on antibiotics prophylactically. She needed a blood transfusion. It was horrible. We when we got to the hospital, they were like, "You're going to be here.

You're going to live here. This is where you live for maybe the next month, assuming we can figure it out." We were out in [sighs] I think it was 11 days. Um and then she that was it. And then [sighs and gasps] I don't even know what else to say about that. She is totally fine now. She's totally fine.

She has no heart issues after that episode. Thank god that cardiac the CVICU, which is where we stayed, those doctors were so good. Uh, I know I go after the mainstream medical system, but there are some departments obviously that are just amazing and I'm so impressed with Phoenix Children's Hospital and that cardiac unit. Um, just heartbreaking unit. You know, it turns out heart issues are fairly common in kids. Some sort of heart issue and it's very sad. So that brings me back to was I ready to have another baby?

Definitely not. Like we had that horrifyingly traumatic experience in July. Then in August, my dad just deteriorated brutally and he ended up in the hospital. And the same day he went to the hospital by ambulance, Audrey went to the hospital again because she turned blue again. And this time it was from a UTI and likely caused because she'd been on so much medication that her body just wasn't equipped. UTI are like kind of rare but kind of common. They're not associated with being dirty or something.

I think because she had been on so many antibiotics and was just, you know, almost died that her body couldn't handle things. So she ended up in the hospital again. But luckily the UTI was pretty easily treatable anyway. And then I got pregnant and I don't remember like October I think and I didn't find out for a while because I hadn't had my cycle. Like that's how fast I got pregnant.

First-trimester nausea & the carnivore diet

I didn't even I have no idea how I got pregnant that quickly. I we weren't trying. We were obviously weren't being careful, but and you know, you're supposed to be careful, but I didn't think it was possible. It's like, my body can't handle this. Like, why would that happen? So, to get back to the question after that long traumatizing rant, um, how did you know you were ready? I was not ready.

I spent a week crying, actually. I was like, I'm not mentally okay for this. Like I've talked to you guys before. I did a pregnancy Q&A years ago or a Q&A at some point where I was like, I'm really scared about being pregnant because with Scarlet, I like had periods of suicidality. And that was confounded cuz I was in anti-depressant withdrawal, but I was like, I can't I I'm scared of that, you know, I can't get to that point. Um, so I had the same fears with this. And praise God, as hard as this year was, this was one of the easier pregnancies I've had, which is shocking because I just had a baby.

And so, you'd think having them in a row would be harder, but this one was actually easier. And I think partly that's because it's a boy, and I know it's an old wives tale to say boys are easier, but I think depending on your hormones and how they interact with pregnancy hormones, my boy pregnancies have been so much easier than the girl pregnancies. So, I wasn't ready at all, but we did it anyway. I would say like having two little kids is really hard, but I know what it's like having one cuz I had Scarlet and then she didn't have a sibling until she was six, I think. So, I did the having one kid and I just always felt kind of bad or sad that and having one kid is better than not having a kid. If you can only do one, then do one. But I always wanted a sibling for her, and I felt kind of bad.

And it's just nice to see George and Audrey together, even though they're two and a half and she's she just turned one in May, so she's basically a one-year-old. But it's so nice to see them interact and things. So, I'm happy that these three are going to be close together, but I am taking a large break after this. This is most likely my last, unless I don't know. I don't know, guys. But I can't keep doing this. It's too much.

Is my audio still working? Good. I recorded this already. I did a Q&A and then I kicked my computer or a cord underneath cuz I'm kicky and lost all my audio. So, this is the second time I'm doing this. [snorts] Did you have first trimester nausea? Wondering if carnivore diet helps that. So, it definitely does help, but it's tricky because I've had a meat aversion with the last three pregnancies.

I don't really remember it with Scarlet, but it was brutal with George. It was brutal this time. It was so bad in first trimester that I actually introduced other foods because I was gagging. Like, I couldn't eat.

Balancing motherhood and work (getting help)

I was just going to undereat. And you guys might remember with George, I stuck with a diet basically. And I was pretty skinny at the end. like not unhealthy. I gained 30 lbs, but it was like all in my belly. My rings were a bit loose at the end of the pregnancy. And I was like, "Oh man, you know, I wouldn't be on the diet if it didn't stabilize me and if I didn't need it for autoimmune issues." But it was so hard with me aversion.

And this time I was like, "I just did this. I can't do it again. I need some other foods." So I started chicken arugula. I had some coconut mango ice cream, which is so good after not eating those foods for so long. Um, and I kind of got through first trimester like that. I also had avocados, so like super clean, but just to get enough calories in.

Second trimester, I was back to just meat, no meat aversion, totally fine, much more stable emotionally. Uh, and that's hormonal, but also because of the diet. And then at about 31 weeks, the meat aversion came back full swing. like and I was starting to get angry and my husband was like, "You need to eat. You need to eat." Sorry for all the likes. My brain is mush right now. Uh so I started eating chicken arugula again, which basically dampened down the steak aversion so I could have steak in the morning and the afternoon and then I'd have some other foods at night when the meat aversion was worse.

And then recently I'm back on the meat aversion's gone so I'm back on just meat and I feel a lot better. Um, did that even answer the question I was answering? Oh, nausea. Yeah, it does help. It helps a lot actually. Uh, some people get hit with brutal nausea, vomiting. With Scarlet, when I was on a more varied diet, I was doing kind of a keto diet.

It was my nausea was super dependent on what I ate. And I actually I ended up throwing up a few times. And some people get hit a lot harder than that. But it was each time I ate something that didn't agree with me, I'd throw up. So I would say if you're suffering from severe, it's hard to it's hard to avoid the nausea and the it's hard to avoid the nausea. But if you have vomiting, it's worth trying to cut down and see if it's what you're eating because it was definitely causing vomiting for me with scarlet. For the last two, I haven't had any vomiting.

So, luck. I think diet plays a huge role. Um, but first trimester nausea is pretty normal. That's kind of hard to avoid. If you get rid of everything fragranced in your home, which you should do anyway, that helps. [clears throat] And then being careful about what you eat. How will you manage being a mom with work? How can I be successful in both?

Okay. So, I need I need my work to stay sane. And with Scarlet, I was a stay-at-home mom for 11 months. And I started working when she was about six 6 months old, but she was like on my lap and I was working on a laptop at home. And I needed that. I needed that kind of work escape. And I have friends that are stay-at-home moms full-time and they love it.

And good for those women honestly because keeping a house maintained, doing all the extracurriculars that kids eventually do, taking care of kids, taking care of a newborn, taking care of toddlers, it is a full-time job. It is way harder than a full-time job. Like that is constant work. And it's and it's overstimulating as well. And it is hard. It's way harder than than going to work. Now, it depends what your work is, but most like corporate jobs or things like that, it's way harder.

What I would say for women who want to do both is like make sure you can take enough time off when you have the baby because how you feel before you have the baby and how you feel when you have the baby will change. It's like when you have the baby, you are going to want to be with the baby even if you're not that maternal of a person when they're really little. Even if you're not that maternal of a person. And I would say I'm a pretty, if I do say so myself, I'm a pretty compassionate person. Like I care a lot. Uh but I I wouldn't say I'm the most maternal person. I I always knew I wanted to have kids, but um but that wasn't and I was like I would do everything I could to have kids, but I also wanted to do a bunch of other things.

I don't want to insult anybody here, but like that wasn't enough for me. And I would have ended up getting resentful if I just stayed home and had kids. And I don't want to be resentful. That's not good for my kids. Uh the way I manage it to be perfectly honest is I have a lot of help. And I don't think this is talked about enough from people who have help like especially women who work a lot. They have help almost always.

And it's generally more than just doing daycare and going to work. And a lot of women will do something like daycare and go to work. Um when I had Scarlet, I had no money. like not no money, but I was really living in debt and I was separated and I spent all my money on my condo and a nanny and so I wasn't making money working. I was really just paying for the condo and the nanny and going into a bit of debt and I thought, well, I'll make it work eventually. Uh, and so in order I think in order to manage being a mom with work, you need to make sure you have a support system. So your husband needs to be on board and hire help if you can hire help. Hiring help has been I wouldn't have this many kids these this many kids if I didn't have help.

So hiring help actually enabled me to have more children. And I think that's why you can see some celebrities that have four or five kids and you're like, "Well, how do they do that?" They have a lot of help. And so I have something called a roa nanny, which there's two women on rotation and they come stay with me for a week at a time or stay with us and we have like a guest suite and they're here 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So if I have a business meeting I suddenly need to go to, I don't have to organize anything. They're just there. If I have a trip that I want to go fly to for a day, I don't take very long trips.

A day or two, I can just go. Uh the nannies that I have are like family to me. I've been working with them for quite a while now. Last year when Audrey was in the hospital, we were staying overnight. Like we were there 24 hours a day monitoring the situation at the hospital, monitoring what medication she was given. Although obviously there wasn't much much leeway there, but we wouldn't have been able to get up and go. We had George at home and Scarlet was at her dad's luckily for like that portion of it.

But there was a 1 and 1/ halfyear-old at home and we were able to go and stay with Audrey at the hospital where it was really needed for 11 days because I have this help set up and it's expensive. So that's not it's not like I'm giving people being like, "Oh, just get Roda nannies." You have to you have to pay a lot for road to Annies. But what I did for Scarlet was I had someone who came 9 to5 5 days a week and I could barely afford that and that was fantastic. It's just it's nice to make a relationship with somebody so that you feel comfortable leaving your kid with someone who's basically like family. And I think the reason people were able to have more kids back in the day was because they had family helping them. They had grandparents.

They had aunts and uncles. They had a community. We don't have that anymore. And so, you need to make that yourself. And you have to figure out how to prioritize that yourself. And it's not a waste of money cuz it's your kids. It's your mental well-being.

And you need a little community. And we like I definitely didn't have a community at all. Uh we aren't near Jordan's family. Otherwise, I know that they would be helpful. My family's sw like swamped and with dad's especially this year like dad's health issues they have plenty to do. They don't have time to come over and help with kids. I needed people that were reliable that I really liked that were here that are like family.

So that's how I do it. Um and then you have to weigh the benefits and cons. Like I fully believe you can be successful at both. I think it's beneficial for children to one, not have a resentful mother, but two, to see their mom going out and doing things.

How pregnancy affects your sex life

I think that's completely healthy. I think that was the norm. Uh, but you're going to miss things that way for sure. So, you have to be okay with that. And you have you have to really think about it, you know, and maybe you only want to hire somebody for 3 or 4 hours a day to get out and do things like maybe that's enough for you. Um, if you want to do 9 to5, I mean, it's all fine. I It's I have a really I don't want to use the word privilege cuz I worked really hard to get here.

I like really did and I prioritized this, but I'm at home most of the time. So, I'm kind of like stay-at-home momming. If there's ever some sort of emergency or a kid gets sick or they hurt themselves and cry, I can just pop over to like the other side of the house and give them a pat or they can come run and get me. Um, but I'm able to work full-time because I have people here. So, that's how I do it. And honestly that I think that's how a lot of people who have who run a business or have a lot of work that's what they do is they have help. They definitely have help at night so that they can sleep.

Uh that's something I would actually recommend for anybody who can afford that or if you're asking for presents cuz you're having a baby, ask for money for a night nurse. even just once a week or twice a week during that first postpartum time, the first 3 months I would say, but the first 6 weeks in particular, so that you can sleep a little bit cuz I didn't have that with Scarlet at all. And I remember at 6 weeks holding her in the kitchen like rocking back and forth like near hallucinating out of sleep deprivation. And it was so hard. I was so isolated and it was so hard to do that by myself that I made a concerted effort that I was like, if I'm going to have more kids, I'm going to set this up so I don't freak out so it's not stressful like that on me and I need to make enough money to make that happen. And that hasn't been the pri that's been near to the top of the primary goal of me making more money was I want to have a lot of kids. I want to have help. I want this to be a fun experience and not traumatizing.

So, huge fan of getting help. And you don't have to have mom guilt for having some help because everybody used to have help with big families and we don't have that anymore. So, talk to your husband and really figure out what works for you guys, but get some help and don't feel bad about it. This is another man question. How does this impact your sex life? Reasonable question. pretty badly. A pregnant woman isn't the same woman you married.

They're not the same person. I'm certainly not the same person. And knowing that and knowing that it's a season of your life, there's the pregnancy season, then then there's the postpartum season. And in the greater scheme of things over your life, it's not very long.

Maintaining your weight during pregnancy

So, you shouldn't treat the pregnancy season as if that's something that's representative of your relationship or your life. And you shouldn't treat the postpartum season as if that's representative of your relationship or your life. there. It's kind of a seasons that you need to get through together and give each other as much grace and compassion as you can and recognize that it's really short when you look back on it. Like it goes by in a flash when you're in it. It seems like it's forever, especially if it's your first and you're like scared, but it really goes by quite quickly. And Jordan and I are really good. And this is because Jordan's very stable, but really good at being like, "Okay, this is the year we do this."

And so it's not like your ideal relationship. My ideal relationship certainly isn't me when I'm pregnant at all. like we haven't gone out on a date, I don't know, in at least four months or five or something because I'm so grumpy and my back hurts. Like I'm slouching right now actually because my back hurts. I'm on a bouncy ball cuz I can't sit on a chair. And so it's like, how's this impacting your sex life? Oh well, I don't really want to be touched. So quite a lot.

You know, you're getting touched by a baby all the time. It's very overstimulating. Even kids coming in, they're like, "Mom," and there's like lots of hugs and things. I'm like, part of me is like, "Oh, I'm so touched out. I'm so touched out." And I think that's partly from having kids close together where it's like I'm already overstimulated. But yeah, it definitely negatively impacts mine, but not long term.

So, just take the whole thing with a lot of grace because I think kind of the last thing on your wife's mind when she's pregnant is how fun this is going to be for you as a man. And then that can breed to like resentment where man gets resentful about like why am I not getting this and this which totally fair like your relationship entirely changes. The woman gets hurt because she's being guilt guilted and pushed on and is sore and isn't sleeping and is nauseous and kind of disgusting feeling and you just kind of got to grin and bear it. And remember that this isn't your relationship. This is pregnancy. Someone said, "How do you maintain your weight? I feel like a hippo."

I also feel like a hippo. Um my weight is just I just don't gain extra weight purely because of my diet. I'm not doing anything else. Only eating meat, you just won't you don't get fat during pregnancy if you only eat meat. But if you have a meat aversion, and a lot of pregnant women do, that is very very very difficult.

Overcoming the fear of pregnancy

And so I'm not even recommending it as a diet during pregnancy. I probably think it's not ideal. You should probably be eating other things. you should probably gain a bit of weight um for breastfeeding. So that's how I maintain my weight, but it's out of necessity mostly for for arthritis, but also for psych stability. Otherwise, I wouldn't recommend it. But you you can definitely control weight during pregnancy by just not going crazy with your food. And I know how I know how difficult that is, but it is controllable.

Um, it's not just genetic. People like to be like, "Well, no, it's genetic." No, it's it's what you're eating, but it's really hard during pregnancy because you're starving all the time. Starving and full kind of. You only want certain foods like turns you into a monster. Food monster. So, it's controllable, but it was only really controllable for me cuz I'm kind of insane. [laughter] And recently, more recently, when I was eating chicken and arugula along with the steak, I started getting arthritis again.

So, the last time I talked to you guys, I was like, "Hey, I've managed to introduce some foods and there's no arthritis." And that seemed to be okay in first trimester. Although, then I ended up getting a gallbladder attack and went back to just eating meat pretty quickly after. Actually, I put out a video and was like, I'm reintroducing foods. And then I had a gallbladder attack and was like, well, not anymore. Um, but more recently, third trimester, I started getting arthritis from, I don't know if it was from arugula or chicken. That was literally all I was eating.

And it took a number of weeks, but about 4 weeks into it, I started getting arthritis. And so anyway, I don't want that back on just meat now cuz my mution is gone. But yeah, so you can maintain your weight during pregnancy, but also gaining weight isn't a problem. You don't want to get into the diabetes situation because you can gain too much weight. You can get gestational diabetes more easily. Uh you don't want that. So, you should be monitoring what you're eating and trying to eat healthy.

You could do a paleo diet really easily during pregnancy. That's probably the safest bet. Paleo diet. Don't eat the processed foods. You can just eat the healthy foods. And the cravings are kind of there regardless. You don't really fix them by even eating the food you crave.

So, you kind of just It's kind of just the downside of pregnancy. You have to just get through it. How do I overcome my fear of pregnancy? Okay, this seems really hippie- dippy, but you should buy a hypnoirthing book. You should buy some audio books about hypnoirthing and listen to those like you're a hippie. And they're they're kind of cheesy to begin with, especially if you're less of a, you know, spiritual woo woo type of person, but they're really helpful. Like the positive affirmations, and I'm not a positive affirmation type of person, but the positive affirmations through that, you just try to brainwash yourself into not being scared.

So, your goal is to brainwash yourself into not being scared.

Home births, midwives & hospital tips

And hypnoirthing can help a lot with that. uh they go into the statistics around home births, things like that, and that really helped me with Scarlet. I was already pretty antih hospital at that point, so it resonated with me as well. Uh in case I don't get to So yeah, how do you overcome your fear of pregnancy? Read positive birth stories and positive experiences and don't read any of the negative stuff. It is basically what you feed yourself. There's so much fear-mongering around pregnancy, birth, brutal fear-mongering around birth, which is so hard with your first, too. Like, I remember I was going to have a home birth.

I had a home birth with Scarlet. That was my first. And like last trimester, weeks before I was going to give birth, somebody I know quite well was like, "Oh, I knew somebody who had a home birth and their baby died." And I was just I was so mad because I'd spent all this time brainwashing myself into being like it's it's healthy. I'm meant to do this. My body has is good at this. Every woman in my lineage has done this.

It's natural. And then just to be like bombarded by that negativity when you're in such a sensitive state is really hard. So try to avoid all that and brainwash yourself. And the whole point of pregnancy is to have a baby. The pregnancy part sucks. The baby part is amazing. There's nothing like it.

Otherwise, I wouldn't be doing this again. Oh, it's so I'm so looking forward to having this baby and having the newborn phase where it's just it's the closest thing to heaven on earth. And it's really emotional and there's a lot of weeping. Like I'm going to cry for the first two weeks and it's going to feel bad, but there's going to be such beauty and like bonding and love. so much love in that. There's nothing like it. So read positive things and stop reading the negative things and don't talk to people who are negative about it. That's so not helpful.

I know that there are questions in here about home birth. So I'll just answer that before I get to another one. But I am planning on doing a home birth again. Um, I only recommend home births for people who are comfortable with the idea. I think the best place for you to have your baby is wherever you feel safest. So for me, I especially with Scarlet, I was having panic attacks going into hospitals. Like I had a serious PTSD type aversion to hospitals because of all the medical stuff I've been through.

And I was like, if I go into a hospital, I am going to freak out. and I don't want to freak out while I'm having a baby. So, I brainwashed myself. I read all the statistics, too. Like, home births are super safe. If you have a low-risisk pregnancy, you can avoid a lot of problems having a home birth. If you're calm and everything's looking good, you need a good midwife. You need someone who can tell if it's appropriate to have a home birth, all that stuff.

But I've had three home births. With Audrey and with Scarlet, honestly, they were with Scarlet. It was so fast. The midwife didn't believe that I was giving birth. So, you're supposed to have two show up in Toronto and one showed up because she was like, "Oh, it's too fast." She sucked, though. She also got me to get out of the bathtub and get on my back in bed to do cervix measuring when I was at the point of pushing basically because she couldn't see.

Pregnancies close together & unusual cravings

If any doctor, if anybody tells you you have to do something like that while you're giving birth, you can just say no. I knew I was like the baby is coming out. You don't need you to look at my vagina for me to know that. Thank you. And I ended up tearing a bit cuz I was on my back, which increases the risk of tears. So, that midwife sucked. But my current midwife is amazing.

And these births have been as easy as a birth could be. Uh even though they're very painful and intense, but they're fast. So, I'm planning on having a home birth again. And that's assuming everything goes smoothly, which I hope it will. Um, I really like home birth and being able to like lie in bed with my baby afterwards. But I've been, you know, lucky to not I haven't gone over. I had Scarlet at 40 weeks.

I had George at 36 weeks in one day, which is like the cut off for being able to have a home birth in Arizona. you can't and shouldn't be at home if your baby comes earlier than that in case they need extra help. I had Audrey at 38 weeks in 2 days, which was great. I'm hoping to hit that mark again. But but yeah, you shouldn't be pressured into a home birth if you're in part of the kind of like health-minded community. If you want to do it at a hospital, that's totally fine. And you can bring a piece of paper that has all your requests. So, I want the lights low.

I want people to talk to my husband and not to me. That's a big one. Um, make sure your husband is prepped to kind of be your guardian in the hospital. So, those are some hospital tips. Uh, bring an eye mask. [snorts] I'd probably bring earplugs and things so you don't have to hear beeping. The the entire point how you make a normal healthy birth go well is to stay calm. If you stay calm, your oxytocin goes up, your contractions increase.

If you get stressed out and your cortisol goes up, your oxytocin goes down. Like in So, if you go to a hospital and stress out, you're going to have a longer, more painful labor because your oxytocin is suppressed by cortisol.

Boy or girl?

Uh, and then that's more likely to lead to ptocin, which is like chemical oxytocin. Ptocin can sometimes make contractions stronger than they are naturally, which hurts. that leads to an epidural. That can lead to having trouble pushing. But then you can also just have a totally fine time. Get an epidural. Have the baby. Don't freak out.

Do your makeup. You see that on Instagram all the time. And I think, you know, kudos to you. Any type any way you have a baby is impressive. So that's my opinion on that. Did you plan two pregnancies this close together? I know I didn't.

My poor body. Yeah. No, I certainly did not. Allison said, "Congrats, I'm 26 weeks. Any cravings that were outside of your normal diet?" Yeah, cucumbers have just been my craving for every pregnancy. And then I had a cucumber this time finally when I was eating arugula and having some mango ice cream and trying to get through first trimester.

I had a cucumber and my whole face got itchy and it didn't taste as good as I remembered. It kind of just tasted like a plant, like grassy and I remember cucumbers being different than I guess they are. So that kind of eliminated the cucumber craving. I was like, "Oh, it kind of just tastes like nothing with grass and crunch." Maybe I was thinking of a pickle or something.

How many kids do you want?

All the foods honestly that I've eaten this pregnancy and there haven't been very many of them to get through the meat aversions haven't hit whatever I want them to hit. So when I started eating chicken wings and arugula recently in the third trimester to get through that like month of me aversion, I got sick of it. And I guess you can say, "Yeah, duh. You're only eating three foods." Of course you get sick of the three foods. But I was like, I really want to get back to the meat diet because I feel better on it. And I'm like tired of eating so much.

You have to eat so much food when you don't just eat meat. It's It's crazy. I was eating all the time cuz you have some chicken wings. Chicken wings like don't feed you. I was eating a lot of chicken wings, too. A lot of chickens went down. And arugula is a joke.

Like arugula, you could probably eat an entire field of arugula and not get full. And I was so tired of eating so much.

Home birth this time? (birth tub ready)

And so now that I'm back to just eating meat, it's like, yeah, I can take more time between the meals. I'm not constantly thinking about food. And my mood is better and more stable. It's just so much better. Boy or girl, or will the kindergarten teacher decide? This is a boy. This is a boy.

I'm going to have two boys and two girls now, which is very cool. And I think that's why my pregnancy this time has been more doable. Thank goodness with the stress of this year, I was worried about some serious mental issues. And other than up until the last month, I've been crying every day. I haven't had it any worse than that. I'm not saying it's been like good cuz it hasn't been good. I have literally been crying every day.

Parenting while feeling so sick

But that was mostly my dad being sick mixed with pregnancy hormones, but like mostly my dad being sick and but it wasn't worse than that, which is what I was worried about. I have a bunch of people asking how many kids I want and if I want more after this. This seems like a lot. Four seems like a lot. Four seems like as many as I can handle.

Vitamin K

Now, maybe in like 9 years or maybe like six or seven years, I'll be like, "Oh, I remember having a baby. Maybe I want a baby again." But five kids, I never thought I was going to have this many kids. I thought I would have three because mom and dad always said, "Oh, I wish we had had more." Like, they always said that when I was growing up. So, I was like, "Okay, they wanted more than two, so maybe I should have three." But this fourth one snuck in.

My husband when we met, he was like, I want five children. And I was like, okay, probably not to that. But [laughter] [gasps] but now that he's been dealing with me through multiple pregnancies, he's like, maybe you know what, three seems like a lot. Four seems like a lot. It's like, yeah, it does. It is a lot. So, we'll see.

There's no plans for any in the future, but six years is a long time. You never know. I'm obviously in an easier having an easier day or I'd be like, "Hell no." Yeah, there's the Are you going to try a home birth? Congratulations on a baby. Yes, I am. I have my birth tub.

Actually, we ordered it. Oh, and I'm going to link all my favorite products below if people want to check them out. I'm going to do a separate video for products, but the home birth kit is there as well. So, that's linked in the description. Um, but I'm I'm prepared. Have you struggled to parent whilst feeling so sick? So, yeah.

Yeah. Like, like I said before, thank goodness I have help. I would not be able to do this. I would not be able to do this without the help. Um, but yeah, there's definitely some guilt because my other babies are so little. They're so little and I have to like nap and I'm tired and my back is murdering me. Um, especially near the end, I'm like, "Sorry, I have to be in bed."

Like I'm overstimulated when I go into the living room even like there's too many noises. And I'm like, "Oh, I feel like I should be in a cave right now. I need to hide under the covers." And so then, yeah, I do feel guilty. But I think I've had enough kids do that, that I'm like, "Yeah, I know that they're good with the nannies. I'm here. They know that I'm here.

My husband sees them." No, it's still hard. Yeah, it's hard. But I don't think you have three kids close together and it isn't hard. I think that's just part of it. Oh, okay. Well, I talked about vitamin K and vaccines and I might as well talk about that.

So, with Scarlet, I did oral vitamin K and if you look at the literature, you can get oral drops of vitamin K and it's just as effective for blood clotting as the injection. And I will try to remember to link the paper so people can look at dosage there. So, I did oral vitamin K with Scarlet. When I had George, I was like, I'm not doing anything. And there's kind of the two arguments for vitamin K is there's the mainstream argument, which is vitamin K levels are too low. There's a very very very very small chance of bleeding and then these delayed brain bleeds which are like ba basically deadly. Very very very small chance.

And if we can reduce it, we should just eliminate it. So they give you a vitamin K. They give the baby a vitamin K shot that has preservatives in the hospital and I guess their I want to say liver stores that level of vitamin K and slowly releases it over the next 6 months till their vitamin K levels are normal. So that's the mainstream argument.

Supplements during pregnancy

And then the kind of hippie argument is well maybe vitamin K levels are supposed to be low and that's why they're low. And uh so I I was more listening to that cuz I assume after everything I've been through that less intervention is better. And no wonder I was injured by medication that I was told was safe. Neurologically injured potentially permanently. Now it's a lot better. But I've seen what it did to my dad. I have an autoimmune disorder that I've had since I was two.

We don't know why. Was it vaccines? We don't know. Okay. It certainly wasn't some gene they've figured out. It It's mitigated by diet, but the fact that I can still eat arugula and chicken and get some joint pain, something's up with my immune system. Was it mold?

Was it vaccines? We don't know. So, I said no to vitamin K for George. George was fine. Then for Audrey, also did no vitamin K. She was fine. But then at 6 weeks, she had this heart issue.

And because she was hospitalized, there was so much hubbabub about the vitamin K that I don't want to go through that again. So on I'm planning on doing oral drops for this baby because I think the dangers I can't really figure out what the dangers are of improving vitamin K through oral drops with no preservatives. I can't find any risks associated with that. But I do know that I seem to be and my family seems to be weirdly unlucky. And I talked before about spiritual attacks and was made fun of about that, but I don't care. Like you, you know, you think, well, that's not going to happen to me, but it seems to repeatedly happen to me. even this thing that happened with Audrey that hits one in two million kids and they they were just like, I don't know, it just happened.

Advice for expecting dads

I was like, "Okay, cool." So, I'm doing oral vitamin K on the off chance we end up in the hospital and it's an issue again, which is like I don't think it's going to happen, but it happened last time. So, I'll link the oral vitamin K drops I'm going to use, which are similar to the ones I used for Scarlet. It's just vitamin K and MCT oil. You give it I believe for the first three days and then once a week after that. Uh so that's my plan for vitamin K and I am not vaccinating. Uh because I have a very severe autoimmune disorder and we don't know what caused it and until there's more research about the safety I am not interested in taking that risk with my child or children.

Do you take supplements? This is a good one for pregnancy. I normally take nothing. I normally just eat meat. Done that for years. When I got hit by mold and diagnosed with SERS uh and got pregnant with George, I started taking folinic acid which is a form of folate and really low folate levels can be associated associated with cleft lips and spinobipida. Pretty severe problems.

And so throughout this, because of my restricted diet, and I would recommend other people do this, I test all my vitamins periodically throughout the pregnancy, and I do treat any deficiencies. And so far, that's really been folate. And part of that could be because I only eat meat. So, part of it's that, part of it could be because I've had repeated babies. And that just depletes you. You need a lot. So I've I was taking felinic acid at the beginning of this pregnancy and the last one periodically after that.

I find it pretty tolerable, [snorts] but that's that's it. Oh, and I also took some thamine, which is B1. So if you're suffering with autoimmunity or or psychiatric issues and you're planning on getting pregnant, I would start trying those vitamins and making sure you don't react to them because I know I react terribly to methylolate. Folic acid is off the table. Obviously, I can't take most B vitamins without getting really weird neurological symptoms like um insomnia, hyper stimulation, crawling sensations, very unpleasant. I kind of turn into a monster. I yell a lot.

So figure out the vitamins you can tolerate probably, but I definitely recommend testing during pregnancy and adjusting any deficiencies. We're having children later this year hopefully. Any advice for us men? What can we do? That's nice. So I would say try to help lower stress and remember that this is a season like we talked about earlier. This is not going to last for very long.

It's 9ish months and there's the postpartum period. It's not over when you have the baby. The first 3 months are gnarly. And it's really 6 months, but the first 3 months are just total right off. That woman is still basically pregnant with a baby on the outside, you know. And so I would say try to remove as much stress from your wife's plate as you can. understand that the hormonal fluctuations and the weeping and the yelling and the frustration isn't her, but she's experiencing all of these. It's real.

You know, I explained to my husband this year, I was like, I know I like I don't cry normally.

Wrap-up

I've cried every day. And I I've told him I was like, people look at pregnant people weeping and they think, well, she's just pregnant. She's just crying. It just feels like you normally feel, but you're extra sad. So, it's not like you're just okay with crying all of a sudden. You're just extra sad. It's really hard.

And it's super weird. Just cuz your wife's a woman doesn't mean being pregnant feels natural. Like, I feel like there's a fish living inside me. And my back hurts and my ribs hurt and I'm stretching and this doesn't feel good. like it doesn't it's like oh this is a natural state of being doesn't feel like that. It's really uncomfortable. The hormonal fluctuations are awful. The mood changes are awful.

The food cravings and the nausea is awful. So try to take as much stress off your wife's plate as you can because she will be a more enjoyable person to be around if she's not stressed. And you might have to help her recognize what stresses her out and try to take that away. that would that's I think that's the most helpful thing you can do is what's stressing you out let me handle it because it's so much easier for you to handle than for a pregnant woman to handle so that and then keep her fed. Yeah. and be be nice to each other because it's not a very long period of time and it's a really hard period of time and it takes out a lot of relationships especially the postpartum period and I think it partly does that because honestly because men don't realize what a shift it is for women like when you have a baby it's crazy people can see in MRIs that your brain changes and as a man your brain changes too but not like it does as a woman and so your entire world is surrounded by keeping this baby alive in your relationship with this baby. And as a man, you should be there protecting that relationship during the pregnancy and during the postpartum period. So during the postpartum period, that would look like potentially warding off invaders during the postpartum period. It's like, oh, [snorts] you know, so and so wants to come over and say hi.

Yeah, but has is your wife still bleeding? Has it been like three days and they want to come over and take the baby away from your wife? Is that going to stress her out? Is that necessary? It's not necessary. Your wife being taken care of is what's necessary. So, just be the gatekeeper.

Be the protector. That's what my husband says. Protector. Be the protector during this very sensitive period of time. And it'll be so good for your relationship. That's my Q&A. I did it.

I'm gonna go lie down and I'll do products that I like, I think, after this baby is out of me because I can't do this again. This is my last. This is it. This is it, guys. I will talk to you when I have the child. Bye.