Melbourne mum Antoinette McKenzie talks ‘taboo’ symptoms she didn’t know about before falling pregnant
Having always wanted to be a mum, Antoinette was overjoyed when she fell pregnant last year. Speaking just days away from welcoming her baby boy, she wishes she’d been told about this.
Pregnancy
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In Melbourne’s northern suburbs, Antoinette and Hayden McKenzie are just days away from welcoming their first child, a baby boy, into the world.
Their hospital bags are packed, the nursery stocked full of tiny blue jumpsuits, the drawers filled with nappies, the baby seat in the car — and now, both sides of the family are anxiously anticipating the arrival of the newest member of their clan.
“The day we found out I was pregnant, I literally did not sleep that night,” Antoinette said.
“Being a mum is just always what I’ve wanted. It feels like it’s how I’m wired.”
At 21, Antoinette is 10 years younger than the average Aussie mum. Finding out she was pregnant was a complete surprise to her and her husband.
“I’m so thankful that I am able to do this because I’ve always wanted to have kids young,” she said.
“Having kids young is so shunned upon and people (tell you) you should wait until you’re older. But if kids is something that you have desired, don’t feel the need to wait til you’re older, or wait til you’re ready, because you’re never going to be ready.
“We don’t have a lot of money, all we really have is each other — but we don’t regret this at all … What a blessing.”
Like most people, what Antoinette knew of pregnancy were the commonly spoken-about signs and symptoms: the swelling, vomiting, a “dramatic water break” and intense labour.
Her mum had told her mostly positive things about her own pregnancies — and Antoinette assumed having a child would be the same for her, too.
“My whole life, I’ve been like ‘I just can’t wait to be pregnant’,” she said.
But now, 39-weeks pregnant, Antoinette is desperate to shine a light upon what carrying a child is really like and reveal the things she wished she could have prepared for before falling pregnant.
“You don’t truly understand what a woman goes through in pregnancy until you’re actually living that,” Antoinette said. “It’s just bloody exhausting.”
Obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr Guy Skinner, who has delivered just short of 20,000 babies over his 30 years in the industry, explains the reason for each of Antoinette’s symptoms — and if any are of concern.
“If something surprises me these days, it’s got to be pretty weird,” he said.
#1. Say goodbye to your shoes
“They tell you that some women swell, and that some women swell more than others,” Antoinette said.
“What I wasn’t expecting was for my shoes not to fit anymore. My feet were so swollen, that sometimes I thank God that there’s a summertime because thongs have been my lifesaver,” she said with a laugh.
“I’m out here putting on my (wide fit) runners – apparently they’re not wide enough.
“My hands are also swelling. Yesterday, Dad cut off two rings.”
Dr Skinner said swelling was “meant to happen” — and his clinic even kept a ring cutter because of how common it was.
“That’s actually the body’s accommodation to what used to be thousands of years ago, the person in labour for a few days in their cave or hut or barn, and they needed the fluid overload to survive the dehydration of labour,” he said. “They need to retain their water, ready for birth.”
“You can’t treat it with medicines — that actually has a negative effect.”
#2. Lightning crotch
Lightning what now? As soon as she felt it, Antoinette rushed to Google.
Sure enough, the pain she felt was a common symptom experienced during the third trimester.
“It feels like a shooting, firing, burning pain right at the base of your (vagina),” Antoinette said.
“Just imagine like a constant UTI. It’s literally at the base like a sting and it just stays there. You just sort of got to breathe through it.”
Dr Skinner said a lot of girls wouldn’t mention the pain to others during their pregnancy, but it was a “common sensation” of a baby sitting “heavy and low”.
“It’s referred nerve pain from pressure on the cervix,” he explained. “It shoots down into the vaginal region and the cervix — the cervix is full of nerves.
“A lot of girls think ‘oh my god, (the baby) is going to come’ … most girls have to stop in their tracks.”
But don’t be worried — it’s not a sign of labour.
“(Lightning crotch) doesn’t mean they’re going to give birth early. There’s no association with premature birth,” Dr Skinner said.
#3. A ‘crackle-like’ snore
“My poor darling husband – we basically haven’t slept in the same bed for weeks,” Antoinette said.
“I’ve always had a little snore, but nothing to the extent that it is now. I’m just snoring like a trooper apparently.”
Dr Skinner said pregnant women often “snore more than their husbands”.
“They sound like a train,” he said. “You get oropharangeal — in the mouth, larynx and back of the nose — you get a lot of congestion in the area.
“They also get a lot more sinusitis, blood noses and blood when they brush their teeth.”
#4. The constant fear
Antoinette didn’t expect to be so “on edge” during her first trimester.
“I didn’t know that the rate of miscarriages is one in four women — that’s huge,” she said.
“Miscarriages aren’t spoken about. I didn’t realise the statistic.”
There wasn’t much Antoinette could do but hope and pray her baby was OK.
“They say in your later stages, as long as baby’s moving, baby’s healthy.
“In that first trimester, because he’s so little and you can’t feel anything, it’s just continuously being on edge.
“After every pittle, you’re checking for blood. Every little thing, you’re constantly on thin ice.”
She was told at week 12, the risk of a miscarriage “decreased significantly” — but her fear didn’t.
“It’s always been something, even in my later stages. How do I prevent a stillbirth?,” she said.
“I’m sure it’s going to be like that for the rest of his life. I just want to give him my best and do the best that I can for him.
“I was just so on edge and I wasn’t expecting to feel like that.”
#5. Thigh-high cramping
“Imagine you’re in the shower. ‘Frick, I dropped the soap’. You go to pick it up — but you’re a goner,” Antoinette laughed.
“I get bottom of groin to like full-thigh cramp. It’s not even a lock … I always knew about calf cramps that happen in pregnancy. (But) sometimes I’ll just be walking and I’ll cramp up.”
Dr Skinner said leg cramps were very common during pregnancy and were often associated with iron deficiency.
“If you treat them with iron supplementation, often that decreases, so they don’t get as much cramps,” he said.
“There are changes in muscle proteins that cause that triggering of cramping in pregnant girls.”
He often saw women for numbness on the outside of their thigh during pregnancy — which is caused by nerve compression — and said as many as two in five women experienced the “tingling” sensation.
#6. Judgement on parenting methods — even before the baby is born
Antoinette has been constantly researching and planning how she’ll approach the big decisions about raising her new son.
But the mum-to-be said she didn’t expect an “arrogant” response from other parents when she shared.
“Everything that you do and every decision that you make, it always comes with a ‘why are you doing that?’,” she said. “I honestly didn’t expect that.”
“Personally, I’ve done all my research … no one asks me about that.”
Dr Skinner said judgement was “very commonly” received by pregnant women, calling it “rather sad”.
“It’s true — the way you do your pregnancy, people are always commenting about it,” he said.
“Everyone’s had their own lived experience, and then of course there’s lots of people that believe they are experts at it and that they know best.
“It creates an awful lot of unnecessary friction in the new mum … I don’t think we should all be ‘experts’ at it.”
#7. Pregnancy tired V newborn tired
“There is the biggest judgment that I’ve found when I tell someone ‘I’m tired’,” Antoinette said.
“They’ll just say ‘you just wait til he comes out because then you’ll actually know what tired is’.
“I feel like there is the biggest misconception between pregnancy tired and newborn tired.
“Newborn tired, you go to sleep for two hours and you’re tired. But if you just had 12 hours of sleep, you’d be fine — you’d be back and you’d be bouncing and you’d be rejuvenated.
“But I can sleep for 12 hours now and I will still feel like I’ve been hit by a bus. No amount of sleep that I’m getting right now is making me less tired.
“I might only get two hours of sleep when the newborn comes, but at least it will be good sleep. Right now, I just feel like a wreck all the time.”
Dr Skinner explained that during the third trimester, the heart, lungs and metabolism worked 30 per cent harder than your normal state.
“There’s a massive increase in load (on) your body,” he said. “Your body is physically being demanded to do a lot more.”
Dr Skinner said additionally to tiredness, more than half of the pregnant women he treated suffered insomnia and were awake between 2am and 5am every morning.
Dr Skinner said pregnant women also regularly reported “colourful”, “really weird” dreams.
“It’s all the brain changes you get in pregnancy,” he said. “The brain is the organ that’s affected the most.”
Hospitals being ‘blocked up’ by this misconception
Dr Skinner said his clinic had a list of 50 symptoms commonly experienced by pregnant women ranging from heartburn and reflux to constipation and “searing pain” under their ribcage and breasts.
“A lot of people fear they’re having a heart attack,” Dr Skinner said. “It’s not true.”
He said the lack of exposure to ante-natal care has resulted in pregnant women “blocking up” public hospitals as staff are unable to tell them these are just “normal” symptoms.
Another symptom to keep watch for if you’re pregnant — and why you should be careful behind the wheel!
“Pregnant women tend to lose what I term as their spatial perception,” Dr Skinner said.
“They tend to lose judgement on distances and where they are. They bump into things more, they bump their car, they lose track of where they are.”
Dr Skinner said he treated a woman for a fall every second week, and for minor car crashes every third week.
‘It’s all worth it’
For every hurdle and hardship, Antoinette would do it all again for her little baby in a second.
“I just want him to know that it’s all worth it,” Antoinette said through tears.
“You can’t describe it. To feel his little feet, little kicks, to know you’re growing a little person who’s dependent on you.
“I just can’t wait to meet him. I just want to him to know that everything that I do and that I’ve done has been in his best interest.”
He’s here!
Just four days after interviewing the couple, Antoinette delivered a beautiful baby boy, Elijah Daniel McKenzie. He weighed 3.89kg and measured 51cm.
The couple are beyond in love with their little ‘Eli’, who is already being showered with love as the first grandchild on both sides of the family.
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