Pregnancy is a whole body experience

As most of you know, I am pregnant with my fifth baby. Therefore, I have been pregnant a few times before, and should pretty much know what's going on.

This is not true.

Each pregnancy seems to be fraught with its own problems, weird issues, and strange concerns. When I was pregnant with my daughter, I had a horrible itching sensation on my (huge) tummy. It was some sort of phenomenon called PUPS (it reminded me nothing of cute little puppies). With my first son, I gained enough weight to make a sumo wrestler proud. With my second son, I had an enormous tummy, while my legs looked strangely thinner than normal. When I was pregnant with my last son (so far - I'm sure this one will be a boy, too - God is working out patience in me), I had bad morning sickness. Actually, I have had morning (all day) sickness with all of them.

With this baby, other organs have decided to get involved. It turns out, your kidneys feel left out and want to get in on the whole pregnancy thing, so the uterus helps them out by squishing the kidneys, until the pregnant woman has a very achy spot on her back. My OBGYN explained this to me at my last appointment, when I mentioned my sore back. It made complete sense and involved some sort of syndrome thingy involving the ureter I think. I fully understood what he was saying at the time, but could not repeat it to you now if I tried. The gist being, your kidneys are smooshed, and it may or may not get better before you deliver.

I have always read that pregnancy is a whole body experience. Over the course of my many pregnancies (including the ones I miscarried), I have found this to be true.

If only this whole body experience could include flawless skin. . .whiter teeth. . .thin ankles. . .increase in number of brain cells. . .