Tricks to Bounce Back and More

Intro

I was hoping I wasn't going to be pregnant at this point. The baby decided to turn upside down and so his head was in my ribs and my ribs felt like they were splitting apart. It was very unpleasant and she felt the baby and she's like, I think your baby's breech. So, we're going to answer some questions. Do you do the glucose testing while pregnant for diabetes? How did you improve fertility after mold? Prenatal supplements and any other supplements you take for pregnancy specifically?

How much weight did you gain during pregnancy? [music] Any hair loss with close pregnancies? I'm losing mine like crazy. after miscarriage. I'm wondering about your opinion on how to think of career versus kids. There's no comparison. Prioritize your career first, have kids later. I think society is figuring out was a lie.

[music]

Hi guys, welcome to my podcast. I'm Michaela Fuller.

Pregnancy Update & Why I’m Doing Another Q&A

I've decided to do another pregnancy Q&A because I'm still pregnant. I was hoping I wasn't going to be pregnant at this point. I'm 38 weeks and 3 days. So, we're going to answer some questions. I'll show you my belly. If I can wiggle out of here. Wow.

I'm on a bouncy ball. Okay, let's get to it. Actually, before we get to it, so yesterday my midwife came over and she's pretty casual. I really like her. She's helped deliver my last couple of babies and she looked at my belly and was like, your belly looks different. I was like, yeah, my ribs really hurt. Like my hips feel better cuz I've been having a lot of sacroiliac joint pain.

My hips feel better but my ribs really hurt and she felt the baby and she's like, I think your baby's breech. So, at some time in the last couple of days, the baby decided to turn upside down which is when it's not exactly upside down. They should be upside down to come out but he did a somersault and flipped and so his head in my ribs, and my ribs felt like they were splitting apart. It was very unpleasant. And so, obviously, I plan on having a home birth. I've had three home births already, but I haven't had a breech home birth, and that freaks me out. And I know you can have breech home births.

Lots of people do it. It's much more rare than having a regular birth, but I don't know if I'm comfortable with that. But I didn't freak out. We went to the doctor, and this OB has so much experience. He's apparently he's delivered triplets vaginally seven times. And he gave me a medication to like relax the uterus, and it took about 15 seconds. It was so easy, and I was kind of nervous going into it cuz I've heard it can be really hard on women to have someone flip your baby.

It's called an ECV. They hook you up to a bunch of monitors, and they literally grab the baby's bottom and the baby's head and flip them. And it sounds very uncomfortable, but I got really lucky, and it took about 15 seconds, and he just flipped back down, and I went home. So, that's what I did yesterday, and I was like, "Okay." The midwife was like, "The baby's got to come." The doctor was like, "It's got to come soon." And then I had a bunch of contractions last night, and nothing happened.

So, I was still pregnant. But I seem to have a lot more energy, so I thought I'd stick in another Q&A before I'm back to my normal self. Uh so, let's get into it. Actually, before we get into it, I wanted to tell you guys, this is so important.

The One Thing I Recommend for Pregnancy Recovery

If I had one product I would get during pregnancy, it would be belly binders for recovery after birth. So, I would recommend, I brought them over here, getting a really heavy-duty one. So, this is from Bump Suit. But, honestly, as long as it's kind of like this, you can kind of buy wherever. Uh I used one, I can't remember the company. I'll link products below, but I used one before that was really good, too. But, I like this one.

And it's this It's this pretty intense band that you stick around your belly. And then you tighten this extra piece here and tighten it even more. And for my last two kids, I have put this thinner one on. This is from Bump Suit, too. They don't sell this anymore, but there are hordes of other companies that just sell something thin like this. It's It's It has like boning that's kind of flexible, but it's just It's thick. I stick this on right after I have a baby.

And then I put this thick one on on top. And I just squeeze it as hard as I can. And [snorts] it has made recovery so much easier. And I wear it 24 hours a day. When I sleep, I don't know if the recommendation says, "Oh, only wear it for 12 hours." I don't care. Wearing it 24 hours a day.

These things have saved my core, saved my back. Stops the feeling After you have a baby, you're so loose that it kind of feels like your organs are sloshing around inside you. And it's very disconcerting. When my first baby, I was like faint. It was awful feeling. This kind of gets rid of all of that. So, I just wanted to tell you guys about those because I've been sending them to everybody I know that's had a baby, being like, "You need to belly bind."

I didn't take it seriously with Scarlet. I was like, "That sounds like a scam." So, I didn't do it. And it probably took my core 5 months 6 months to really get back to normal, and it was still not quite normal. And I recovered in I got to the same size of waist in a matter of weeks belly binding for my next two. And I was much older with those babies. So, definitely belly bind.

How much weight did you gain during pregnancy?

How Much Weight Did You Gain During Pregnancy?

So, I gained 35 lb with Scarlett, 30 lb with George, 30 lb with Audrey, and I'm at 32 lb now. So, that seems to be pretty stable. And I I know that the reason I'm not gaining more than that is because of my diet, and I've been primarily eating meat. I told you guys before I varied the diet a bit because I had such a terrible meat aversion, and there's really nothing you can do about a meat aversion during pregnancy. It's repulsive, the textures are weird, the smells are weird. It's really frustrating. And so, I varied the diet a little bit by adding some greens, uh some mango coconut ice cream from Fronen, which has like three ingredients.

Which was good, but uh I actually started getting arthritis again. And I've put out a couple of videos in the last number of months being like, "Hey, I seem to be a lot less sensitive." And I am, for sure, with eating other foods, even if they're just like certain plant foods. I'm being very careful. But I actually started getting arthritis again, which was really disappointing. So, at first I just had a little bit of joint pain, and I was like, "Wow, that's fine. A little bit of joint pain is nothing."

And then it ramped up, and it was my shoulders, all the fingers that used to be impacted, uh like my thumb joints were hit pretty hard. My shoulders, my big toe. And it was just that was a a serious downer. But luckily my meat aversion has lessened a little bit at the very very end. So I've been back to just eating meat for a while and I'm feeling better joint pain-wise, but a little spooky after not having arthritis for so long being like having mild [clears throat] flare-ups in all the joints that used to be impacted 9 years ago. It's just kind of crazy that the disease is obviously still there and it's just being kept in remission from the diet. I was kind of hoping obviously that with time it would just go away.

But that doesn't seem to be what's happened. So part of the reason I haven't gained very much weight definitely is cuz I'm just eating meat basically.

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How Do You Teach Your Kids to Walk, Eat, Speak & Read?

What are your timelines or strategies in teaching a baby or child how to walk, eat, speak, read? I've been really relaxed about this except for maybe the reading part. My babies have been so different. Scarlett was really early with everything. Like she got bottom teeth at 3 months. She started She was fully not She weaned herself off of breastfeeding by 13 months and she was really mostly eating food by 11 months and at that point she was just eating meat by 11 months old. Audrey, because she was in the hospital last year for a bit, was super delayed.

Everything was delayed. And so we just waited, but crawling's been delayed, eating's been delayed, just everything's been delayed by about 4 months and with George, he was a bit slower than Scarlett. Uh So, I haven't worried about when they're walking, when they're eating, when they're speaking. And my My family seems to be notorious for speaking really late. My dad apparently didn't really start talking till he was three, and then he was talking in full sentences.

[sighs and gasps]

I didn't really start talking till I was about three, and then I started talking in full sentences. George just started saying words, and he's 2 and 1/2. So, I think by three he'll be talking in full sentences. So, if you go online, they're like, bring your kid to a speech pathologist. That might be wrong. Anyway, a speech person. But, I haven't done any of that.

I don't think it's necessary. So, I think you can go based off of your mom vibe. And I can see George is fine. He understands everything. He points. He runs around. Everything's normal.

It's almost like he doesn't want to talk. Like, if you say a word, you can eventually get him to repeat it, but he just rather point at things. So, that doesn't that doesn't bother me at all. Same with the walking. Um and with Audrey, just this last week, thank goodness, she started eating more, and she's May, June, July, 14 months. And so, that seems like if you talk to the guidelines for feeding babies really tell you to start at 6 months old. That's never been my experience.

My experience has been babies are more interested around eight or nine months. And Audrey was not interested at all until

[snorts]

after a year, and that was really from us trying to get food into her. And then in the last week, she's way more interested. And she's fine. Her weight is really good, even though that's just been entirely breast milk. So, I wouldn't stress about these things. For reading, I really encouraged Scarlet to read and kind of push that. But, she didn't read early or anything.

That was pretty on time. So, hopefully that answers that question.

What Do You Feed Your Kids?

What do you feed your kids? I answered this in the last Q&A in in more detail, but I start them out with meat. And then I wait until I can tell that introduction. So, like sweet potatoes, carrots, things like that aren't causing any behavioral issues or rashes or stomach aches or digestive issues. Uh so, I'm pretty slow with food. And that's obviously because of my background with having an autoimmune disorder in my family's background with being very sensitive to foods and having some autoimmunity and psychiatric issues that go generations back. So, we're very careful and we start with fatty meat.

And babies love fatty meat. And if you introduce that first, it's good for head circumference. There's studies on this. It's good for iron levels. They love it. And then you don't end up with a toddler that refuses to eat meat, too. Which I think is pretty common for people who start off on cereals and things like that.

So, I would definitely recommend starting with meat. And then Scarlet eats kind of a paleo diet. Paleo diet. I don't plan to have any of my kids on the restricted diet I'm on, the lion diet, unless they had some sort of health issue arise. But, that seems too restrictive to me.

[sighs]

So, paleo seems like a good in between. No processed foods. We don't do cane [snorts] sugar. Lots of meat. Some fruit and vegetables. Yeah. They've had eggs.

Nobody really likes eggs.

[laughter]

Why Do You Show Your Kids’ Faces Online?

Oh, someone asked why the decision to show kids' faces. It's an interesting question. I'm not a very neurotic person and I'm not worried about it. Uh I certainly wasn't worried about with Scarlett years ago. We're talking about 8 years ago. And it's just never seemed like a problem to me. I know people put little hearts and things over their kids' faces.

Some people don't. I just I kind of think all your data's online anyway. And so I haven't been paranoid about it. Neither has my husband. Also, we're in America, land of the free. We have guns. Just in case anyone gets any sketchy sketchy ideas out there.

I'm in a way better mood than last time. I don't know what's going on. I maybe I'm about to have a baby. I can talk about the end of pregnancy, too.

What the Three Trimesters of Pregnancy Actually Feel Like

This isn't a question, but for people who haven't had a baby, first trimester is crazy and it's weird cuz you don't look pregnant, but you feel weird. Meat aversions, your smell heightens. You're tired like you've been drugged. Like it feels like you've taken Benadryl or something the entire time. Really boring. Food aversions, meat aversions can occur and some people get super unlucky and end up throwing up all the time. And I think you can fix part of that by really monitoring what you eat because with Scarlett I had some bouts of nausea and I threw up a few times when I ate things that really didn't agree with me.

And I haven't had any of that eating meat. But the tricky part is you can get a meat aversion, so then meat is kind of out of the question. So then I'd probably recommend chicken wings have never been an issue for me pregnant or caused any nausea. Uh I would probably stick to whole foods. Try to avoid coffee seems to be a trigger, dairy dairy seems to be a big trigger for pregnant women. So that's first trimester. And then second trimester things kind of lighten up a bit.

You have a cute belly. You have more energy. Sometimes the aversions and the nausea go away. Not as tired. And then third trimester hits and it's kind of like first trimester except you can't move very well. Like you guys should see how I'm sleeping. It's so miserable.

It's so miserable. And I've been lucky my last two kids were born at 36 weeks which was just naturally I had like like I said I had home births. George was born 36 weeks and 1 day cuz my water broke. And he was big. He was 7 lb 9 oz at 36 weeks. Thank goodness. But it was a little early.

I was kind of worried about him getting a cold and things. And then Audrey was born 38 weeks and 2 days which was yesterday. I was really hoping this baby would be out yesterday but he's not. I've managed to dodge the last 2 weeks 2 to 4 weeks of pregnancy for these last two kids and it's been nice because the last couple of months of pregnancy are crazy. I've been hanging out primarily in the bathtub cuz my back has hurt so much. Sacroiliac joint mostly but also up here. So when I sleep I think cuz my belly flops over it like pulls on one side.

So that's really uncomfortable.

Did You Exercise to Prevent Pregnancy Back Pain?

Uh Somebody asked if I did exercises or anything to avoid this. No cuz I had babies back to back. So I haven't done anything, which cannot be good for my core. So, maybe you can avoid some of the back pain if you strengthen your back. I was hoping to have time to do that before the pregnancy, but I've been so stressed this year and busy and tired that I didn't do any back exercises and now my back is in a lot of pain. A lot of pain. Oh, someone did ask about ask about the wrapping.

What Do You Use to Help Your Waist Recover After Pregnancy?

You shared info about some form of wrapping to help keep your waist in form. Well, yeah. These guys that I showed you. So, that answers that question. I would highly recommend, seriously, out of everything you can buy, get these. I'm wondering about your opinion on how to think of career versus kids. Kind regards.

There's no comparison. There's no comparison about which is better. So, versus maybe isn't quite right.

How Should Women Think About Career vs. Having Kids?

But, I I get what the person's asking, so I'll answer that, but I would prioritize kids over career for sure. Um, I would I would try to create your work career shape it in a way so that it enables you to have kids, if that's possible. Because that should be your primary goal. So, I know it's tricky for a woman. We've been taught, especially people my age, have been We're taught as a kid, you can do everything. You can have everything. Prioritize your career first, have kids later.

Which I think society is figuring out was a lie that women were taught, really unfair lie, because one, a lot of women have difficulty having kids and getting pregnant later. And later isn't even that old. Later could be 35. Which isn't that old, but for pregnancy it's old. And some people get pregnant uh like above that naturally with no problems, which is great. Fantastic. I like I I have a feeling because of because I've been so fortunate with how much diet has helped my health, I could probably keep having babies.

But not everybody can do that. So, prioritizing kids early is should be your goal. And I think even more than focusing on career, you should focus on who you're going to marry. Because that's way more important than career, too. So, if I was a young person and I knew what I knew now,

[snorts]

I would I would focus on who I was going to marry. And that's tricky, too, because you see a lot of kid people, a lot of women and men getting married younger. And I'm all for that, but I also know for myself, I was naive until I was 26, which is tricky because you want to have kids early, you want to pick somebody to have kids with that you're madly in love with, that you're going to be in love with for the rest of your life. But you're I was at least pretty naive, so that makes that makes the whole situation tricky. But maybe people out there will be less naive than I was. I think years of being on psychiatric medications and sick really stunted my ability to judge other people properly. So, I'm going to use that as an excuse, but I actually do believe that because when I went off of them, my entire world view changed, you know?

It It is really like being on drugs for your developmental years, and then I had to relearn cues from people, vibes. I was misjudging vibes for most of my life, and that sounds kind of hippie-dippy, but I would I would go I would be around people and get a vibe that I didn't understand and ignore it for years, which I shouldn't have been doing. So, that's part of the answer for um career versus kids is kids should take priority, but even more than that, your relationship should take priority. Uh that being said, if you have a career and you love it and it's something you want to pursue, I do think that's doable, but you you're going to miss out on things. You can't have both, right? If you're going to go to work, you're going to miss your kids when you're at work. And if you're going to stay home, you're going to miss out on career opportunities.

And so, you kind of have to choose. And what I've done is I've been working from home and because I do everything online and I've been managing my dad's brand and even building Peters an Academy, all of that has been from home. I'm always available, but I also have a lot of help. And I went into detail about what help I have in the last video, too. But I have nannies, [snorts] multiple nannies that help. Um one that lives in, so somebody's there all of the time. And that makes working as much as I want to work possible.

And I made that a like conscious decision after I had Scarlett and I was home for a year with her with no help, and I was going completely nuts and feeling really isolated, and I thought, I want more kids. How am I going to be able to do that and stay sane? And I thought, I need to hire help. And I need to make enough money to be able to afford that. So, my primary goal for a while was trying to make more money to afford help so I could have more kids. So that's my question to career versus kids. His focus on relationship and really make a long-term game plan about how you're going to have kids.

And I wouldn't wait to do that. I would plan to do that because you're never going to be be ready to have kids. It's always inconvenient to be pregnant. You can't just take a year off. So you have to just have this year where you can manage bouts of nausea, kind of feeling ill the whole time, mood swings, not getting enough sleep. And then you have to manage the year after when you have a baby and I think the year after having a baby is easier than pregnancy because you can sleep more. You're not full of the same hormones you are in pregnancy.

Postpartum can be difficult though. Uh so you basically need 2 years minimum to kind of put towards having children. Uh so you have to figure out how to make that happen. But planning in advance and having a partner that will do that journey with you is the most important part.

What Can I Do to Help My Wife During Pregnancy, Labor & Postpartum?

What can I do to help my wife during the end of her pregnancy {slash} during labor {slash} after birth? Okay. I also answered this in the last one, but I have another answer. There's something you can do during labor that's really helpful, uh which is you kind of grab her hips, um right if you look at a pelvis, there's kind of a an indent in the back. If you put your hands there and squeeze in hard, it can open the pelvis a bit and it is amazing during labor. So, with Audrey, it went really fast and I was in the tub and our midwife had taught my husband how to do this pushing thing and he probably did that I want to say for at least an hour, but maybe longer near the end. That honestly changed pain from being absolutely excruciating to excruciating but manageable.

So, I would recommend looking up videos to do that cuz that really helps. And now that's going to That's going to be important if you have a natural birth or home birth. That's really helpful. And then end of her pregnancy and after birth is imagine she's like a cat, a pregnant cat. What would you do with a pregnant cat? You would like set up a nice cave for them, bring them food, and kind of leave them alone, but be nearby. And I feel like that's what women want near the end and postpartum time is they want to be in a safe, cozy place with enough food and enough water cuz it's It can get get really hard to move at the end and then after you have a baby, you kind of want to stay around the bed for a couple of weeks.

Like you don't want to do a bunch of exercise walking around. So, food, water, shelter, taking as much off her plate as you possibly can, and monitoring for unwanted visitors. Uh and I think a lot of first-time parents make this mistake with let's invite a bunch of people over right after you have a baby and it is so overwhelming. And near the end, it's so overwhelming, especially if you're kind of a people pleaser and you want to make sure everyone's comfortable and make sure everyone's fed while you're bleeding in bed with your newborn, and everyone wants to hold the baby, and maybe you don't want to share the baby because you have been one for 9 months. And so I think the healthiest thing a man can do is understand that this is a very like primal and animalistic period where she'll need a lot of like comfort, food, water, and safety. And the most important thing you can do is help her feel safe. Cuz the hormones are just they're so unpleasant if you don't feel safe.

If you don't feel safe there's screaming and crying and at least for me but I think that's pretty normal. Flapping around, and it's just not necessary. Nice and calm. Nice and calm. I'm so congested. My nose has been stuffy this entire pregnancy. I'm so excited to not be pregnant.

I told you guys I have this like extra energy, which I think happens at the end. So we'll see. I'm just so excited to not be pregnant. My husband keeps being like, "Yeah, and there'll be a baby." I'm like, "Oh, yeah, there'll be a baby, too." But I don't know why I'm thinking about like that. I just want to be able to sleep and breathe through my nose again, and not cry all the time about nothing.

Like I wake up in the morning and I'm just so sad and uncomfortable. And I just need to have a quick weep. He's like, "What are you weeping about?" I'm like, "Nothing. I'm just hurting. Like nothing. I just am so pregnant.

It's crazy." I told him this morning, "I'm nothing but a baby vessel now. There's like that's all I am is just a waddling around baby vessel. There's no part of me that's here." Maybe that's part of the reason I wanted to do another Q&A. I'm like, "Ugh, I just want to do something."

Is It Harder Being Pregnant in Your 30s?

Is it harder being pregnant in your 30s? No, because I was so sick in my 20s, that was right when I was getting out of auto-immunity and depression, and I was in psych med withdrawal. Uh and I wasn't in the most fantastic relationship. So, that was really hard, and Scarlett was a total surprise. So, that was hard. And I still had arthritis and things. I wasn't on the Lyme diet at that point.

Oh, man. Yeah, no, that was hard. So, I'm probably not the best. I think the healthy you the healthier you are, the easier your pregnancy is. So, it's been easier in my 30s, but now at the end, I can't remember being this uncomfortable with the other ones, and I don't know if that's cuz I had Audrey last May, or if it's because I'm older, or my core is more worn out with multiple children, but I'm so uncomfortable. I'm so uncomfortable I can't sleep at night. My back hurts so much.

There isn't a position I can get in that doesn't hurt. I can get into a position that doesn't hurt for 40 minutes, and then my upper back will start hurting and I have to flip over, and then 40 minutes later that'll hurt. So, I'm waking up every 40 minutes. So, if that's age, then that near the end is harder,

[snorts]

but the psychological part isn't. I was talking to I got my nails done, and I was talking to my nail lady who had a kid. I think she was 23, and I had Scarlett when I was 25, which doesn't seem that young, but it felt young. I got pregnant when I was 24, obviously. uh and I was talking to her about how psychologically, it's been a it's a lot easier later. So, maybe it's more difficult physically, but I'm much more confident and sure of myself. I'm in a fantastic relationship, which makes all the all the difference. I've already had a baby.

Having multiple babies is so so much easier than your first. Like, you're not worried about whether or not they're going to survive. Although, I'm a little spooked about it since Audrey got sick last year. So, I have that a bit, but it's easier, I would say. Now, I'm not 40 or anything. Maybe it just gets way harder at that point, but I've actually had an easier time. Oh, this one's sad.

How did you improve fertility after mold? I have CIRS and currently miscarrying. That's too bad.

How Did You Improve Fertility After Mold Exposure?

I you guys know that I was diagnosed with CIRS from mold exposure, and I had a miscarriage in Miami. Um that was pretty early, like 10 weeks. Uh and it's funny because Jordan and I kind of started to try to have kids right away. And we didn't have successful pregnancies until I figured out the CIRS aspect and moved out of mold. So, I would say for anybody suffering from infertility, I think this is rampant. I really think you should look at your air quality. Get tested for CIRS.

You can go to mold-co.com, and they have blood work that's cheap and easy to do, so you can at least rule out CIRS. But, more importantly, check your HVAC. Make sure there's no obvious water damage in your house. So, that would be like wrinkled paint, lines around and windows, water staining, water staining on the ceiling, obvious mold growth is obviously a sign, but also look for those signs I just mentioned. You can check it your toilet bowl, too. And if your toilet bowl is moldy, I always toilet bowls were always moldy wherever I was living. And I used to think that that's just what happened to toilet bowls.

It's not. Toilet bowls, when you flush, will pull in air from the bathroom. And whatever's in the air will start growing in the toilet. So, if your air is clean, your toilet bowls don't get moldy. This might not be shocking to you guys, but considering I always had moldy toilet bowl like not toilet bowl, sorry, toilet tanks. Uh I just kind of thought that was how they were. It's not.

So, a good test is looking at your toilet tank and seeing if there's mold in there, cuz that means there's mold in the air in your bathrooms, which likely means your whole house. And I have a good setup. I have a really good setup now, and I'll I'll just link the article below to what we have. It's not super pricey, but I think I think the best investment for your health would be adding an ERV to your HVAC and

[snorts]

a serious filtration system to that setup as well. So, we use something called the SuperV, which has a really really intense uh filtration rating. I think it's the MERV. It might be MERV 19. It's something like that, which is just a really intense filter. So, it actually takes in outdoor air, filters the air, and so you have fresh air circulating around your house all the time. So, then, if something does leak and you have a bit of mold in your house, you should fix that, but it doesn't fill your house like you're living in an aquarium.

Cuz our houses are so sealed now that it's basically like we're living in aquariums. You need to get your air quality under control. So, anybody suffering from miscarriages and infertility should really check out their air. And I know a lot of people are like, "Get your diet under control." That's true. Get your diet under control. Like, get healthy.

But, I've seen so many people have miscarriages because of their air quality. And I did. And so, Jordan and I were kind of off and on trying. One of my really old I was like considering getting a surrogate because I was worried about suicidal depression during pregnancy. Seriously, cuz I had that a little bit with Scarlett. But, also because we were having such trouble having babies, which was weird cuz we're both on the meat diet. We're like, "We're good to go.

This is going to be easy." And then, it wasn't easy at all. And then, I had a miscarriage. I was like, "W- Why would I have a miscarriage?" Figured out the air quality issue. Moved out. I got pregnant with George a month after I moved out of the Miami home.

A month. We were like, "That was fast." We were living in a hotel at the time because we didn't have a house cuz I was like, "I'm not staying in that house anymore. Death house." Uh and I got pregnant then. And then, the gap between George and Audrey was nothing. I had George in December and I got pregnant with Audrey in September the next year.

Which was like just a couple months after I was even able to get pregnant. And then, with this baby, I didn't have any time. This was a shocker. I was like, "I didn't even like this was not my plan."

[laughter]

But, he snuck on through. So, it's been hard to not get pregnant since we figured out the air quality issue. And then, with the diet I'm on that's put everything into remission. Like I can't believe I gave my myself arthritis again with arugula. Like the recent flare-up was caused by eating arugula, cooked arugula. I was talking to my dad about this and he's like, of all the things to eat, why would you be eating that? And [snorts] I actually like greens a lot.

And they're cooked and they're supposed to be good for people with IBD and IBS and very easy to digest and low in oxalate. Like I chose this very carefully and then boom, arthritis. So, yeah, that's disappointing. Meat girl for now.

[sighs]

Maybe forever, who knows. Who knows? I think if I probably did something like have mango that mango ice cream, it's just mango, coconut, and honey. If I had a little bit of that once a week, I don't think I would bring back an autoimmune disorder. But obviously if I do arugula every day, all my joints start to hurt. And I know that if I kept doing this, it would progress in a nasty way. Like it went from a couple of joints hurting to suddenly all the joints that used to be impacted in my hands, um my knees didn't flare.

They used to be pretty badly impacted. So, my knees are still in the clear, but I can feel it my shoulders, my toe, and my fingers.

Do You Take the Gestational Diabetes Glucose Test?

Do you do the glucose testing while pregnant for diabetes? I didn't because I have a Keto Mojo where you can test glucose and ketones and my glucose has never been abnormal. I'm really not worried about it. If you only eat meat, the likelihood of that is I don't even know how it would be possible to get diabetes during pregnancy. If you're literally only eating meat, but I also don't know anyone insane enough to only eat meat during the pregnancy. I don't mean carnivore with some like eggs and cream and a lot more variety. I mean just eating beef.

I don't understand how it would be possible. So, I did not do the glucose testing. They also want you to drink this disgusting drink that's completely full of sugar. If I drank a drink completely full of It might not be sugar. Let me Let me just look up. What do they use? Oh my gosh, it is sugar.

So, pregnancy glucose drinks contain 50 to 100 g of dextrose {slash} glucose depending on the type of test your doctor orders. I haven't had that much sugar in 11 years. If I drank that drink, my glucose would look so bad, I would immediately be diagnosed with diabetes. So, I didn't do it. But, I don't know what would happen to my glucose if I did that. Like 200? I'm not sure.

So, no, I didn't do that.

What Prenatal Supplements Do You Take During Pregnancy?

Prenatal supplements and any other supplements you take for pregnancy pregnancy specifically. Pregnancy? I can't wait to have my brain back. Ha ha ha, it's going to be good. It's probably going to take 2 years to come back to normal. I took folinic acid. And I took a little bit of B1.

So, it looks like if you only eat meat for a very long time, 8 years for me, your B1 and folate can fall. And this took years to figure out. If you've only been doing the diet for like 3 to 6 months, I wouldn't even worry about this. And there are people who've been doing this forever that have had kids that didn't supplement. But, I did. Um folinic acid was pretty tolerable. I have a really bad reaction to B vitamins where they make me agitated, give me insomnia, horrible feelings.

And so, I've had to test out B vitamins. Methylfolate was horrible, folic acid was horrible. Uh Folinic acid, anyway, wasn't so horrible. So, I supplemented folinic acid, which I would recommend, and B1. But what I would do, too, if you're pregnant, if you're pregnant, you don't have issues with supplements at all, and you don't have any autoimmune and psych issues, then I would say take folinic acid, and just pop a Seeking Health has a really good prenatal supplement. I'd probably just pop one of those. But if you are in the category of people that have autoimmune issues, or you're on the lion diet, or you've previously been on psych meds, or you're on psych meds, I would get your blood tested pretty frequently throughout pregnancy, and you're on a Actually, just regardless of whether or not you're on a restrictive diet.

Get your blood tested, and then address the deficiencies. Especially if you're on to multiple kids, cuz I've noticed with this kid, I can just tell I'm depleted. I did not wait long enough between children, and that's that's fine. He's here. He's here. But uh but I'm depleted, so I I definitely supplemented.

[snorts]

Keto and pregnancy and breastfeeding. So, a lot of doctors will test to see whether you're in ketosis during pregnancy, and if you are, they'll freak out. And that's to look for ketoacidosis. And so, they should be looking at the combination of how high your glucose levels are, plus whether or not you're in ketosis. And that's called ketoacidosis, and that's bad. Uh I haven't had a problem at all being in ketosis almost the entire time, except for I have if I have that delicious mango ice cream. Uh but I'm in ketosis like for sure even adding in arugula I was still in ketosis.

I've just found it beneficial. Um so I haven't had issues during pregnancy and then for breastfeeding I also haven't had issues. The main thing that impacts breastfeeding for me is stress. I've run into a couple of really really stressful situations about 3 months into breastfeeding that just tanked my milk supply. And so for Audrey it was going to the hospital and switching to pumping. And I was worried she was going to die and I wasn't sleeping or eating. And so that obviously didn't work well and then there was another issue that was really stressful with George.

Didn't have to do with George it just happened at the same time as George. And that impacted my milk supply. Um but the actual diet hasn't. As long as you eat enough calories as long as I eat enough I'll I've seen I seem to be fine.

Did You Experience Hair Loss From Back-to-Back Pregnancies?

Any hair loss? This is the last question cuz my back's killing me but any hair loss with close pregnancies? I'm losing mine like crazy after a miscarriage. Oh man, that sucks too. That sucks. Sorry. Uh

[sighs]

yeah, I had hair loss with Audrey and Scarlett. A lot with Audrey. Luckily I have hair extensions in. Uh like obviously this is not all my hair. Uh so it didn't wasn't noticeable on the outside but it was noticeable for me. I got a lot of thinning up here that I'm still recovering from. But with my boys I've grown more hair.

So it hasn't been with every pregnancy but with all the girls I lost so much hair. My arms got less hairy, my legs I stopped having to shave, my eyelashes got really short. Like I lost hair from everywhere. And with the boys, I've My arms are ridiculous. My legs are ridiculous. My Like I have to shave a mustache. I'm so hairy.

But it's kind of nice because I'm growing back all the spots that were depleted during Audrey. So And I haven't had hair loss postpartum with the boys. So I'll get hairier. But they it doesn't seem to fall out. Although the arm hair and the leg hair seems to stop and the mustache. But the other thing that happened during this pregnancy that hasn't happened before is I got melasma. So if you look back on at some of my videos, I have kind of a mustache.

That's melasma. It's darkening over the upper lip. Which seems to have toned down near the end of pregnancy, but hopefully that goes away. Cuz it's like what What? Not only do you have to be pregnant and give birth and breastfeed and not sleep and be nauseous and be tired, but now I get this like painted on mustache that's really hard to cover with makeup. So that's that. Okay.

Final Pregnancy Update & What’s Next

Next time I talk to you guys Actually, I think I have one podcast I can put out, but after that I will be separated into two people. Thank goodness. And then I can feel like myself again a little bit. Thanks for watching.