🌼 Three pregnancies that each felt like starting over — with just enough familiar to remind me I’d been here before.
I’ve written a lot about my three births.
The epidural.
The C-section.
The water birth.
But before those birth stories, there were three pregnancies.
And each of my three pregnancies felt completely different — carrying three completely different babies, fourteen years apart from the first to the last.
And honestly?
The pregnancies themselves were just as different as the births were.
The sickness changed.
The cravings changed.
The way they moved changed.
Even the pressure in my body felt different each time.
But there were also things that carried through all three pregnancies in ways I didn’t fully realize until I looked back.
The mama brain.
Feeling hot all the time, especially near the end.
The restless legs at night.
The cravings that made absolutely no sense and somehow made perfect sense at the same time.
Here’s what each one actually felt like.
My First Pregnancy — Sick, Then Suddenly Starving
I was 20.
The first month, I felt so sick I couldn’t even look at food without my stomach turning upside down.
That lasted all the way until halfway through the second trimester.
And then, almost overnight, my body switched.
Suddenly I wanted to eat constantly.
Bean burritos with lettuce and sour cream.
Doritos and cream cheese.
Big Macs.
So many Big Macs that I started calling him my Big Mac baby before he was even born.
He came out 9 pounds, 14 ounces.
And honestly… that nickname still makes sense.
He’s 15 now and closing in on six feet tall.
With my first pregnancy, I didn’t know what I was feeling at first when he started moving.
I’m sure I felt him before I even realized it.
But I wasn’t sure enough to call it a kick.
Not until it got stronger, and there was no mistaking it anymore.
I also remember the Braxton Hicks contractions with him.
Those practice contractions caught me off guard because I didn’t really know what my body was doing yet. With your first pregnancy, everything feels new because you don’t have anything to compare it to. Every cramp, every tight feeling, every little shift — you wonder if it’s normal, if it means something, or if this is just pregnancy.
And then there was the lightning crotch.
Oh man.
I definitely had that more with the boys. That sharp, sudden pain that makes you stop right where you are and question everything for a second.
The rest of that pregnancy went pretty smoothly overall.
Until the last few weeks, when my feet swelled up more than I thought feet could swell.
And I was hot.
So hot.
Especially near the end, I felt like I could not cool down no matter what I did.
Between the swelling, the heat, and being so close to the end, I was more than ready to meet him.
My Second Pregnancy — Calm Until It Wasn’t
At 25, this pregnancy felt almost nothing like the first.
I didn’t feel sick at all.
I felt calm.
Relaxed.
At peace, even.
My skin looked better than it ever had. I just felt really great.
The cravings were simpler this time too.
French fries with nacho cheese, over and over.
By then I already knew what kicks felt like, so I noticed her moving earlier than I had with my first.
But it felt different too.
Because she was breech, most of her pressure sat up high, under my ribs.
And her kicks landed down low instead.
Down low was not fun.
Especially when I needed to pee.
The lightning crotch felt different with her too because of the way she was positioned. With the boys, that pressure felt more intense down low. With her being breech, everything just sat differently in my body.
And then the gallbladder pain started.
It crept in during the second and third trimester, and it felt like a belt tightening more and more around my chest.
I couldn’t sleep through it.
I was scared to eat.
Scared that eating, or even throwing up, would set it off again.
That fry-and-nacho-cheese craving had to go.
I couldn’t risk it.
I wrote more about the birth itself in C-Section Birth Story — Breech Baby Experience, but the pregnancy before that was very different from what I expected.
It started out calm and easy.
Then the gallbladder pain changed everything.
My Third Pregnancy — Sick Again, Then Just Tired
At 34, with my IVF baby, the sickness came back just like the first time.
I couldn’t cook some days.
My husband took over in the kitchen, and I had to stay out of the dining room while everyone else ate until the smell cleared.
I lived on lollipops and ginger candy just to get through it.
Being older and having an IVF pregnancy meant I was considered high risk too.
I wasn’t expecting that going in.
It meant a lot more appointments from the very beginning, plus visits with a separate high-risk ultrasound doctor just to keep a closer eye on things.
At first, just hearing the words high risk made me more nervous than I already was.
Because this was my IVF baby, every little symptom felt louder. Every appointment mattered. Every scan felt like holding my breath until someone told me he was okay.
It made me even more careful about what I ate and what I did.
There was one point, still in that first trimester, when I had some light bleeding.
Not a lot.
But enough to scare me.
They got me in for an appointment right away, just to check on things.
Everything turned out fine.
Right on schedule.
Walking out of there, I felt so much more at ease, knowing I could get checked that quickly.
The cravings this time were salty.
Pickles.
Pickle-flavored chips.
Anything salty I could get my hands on.
Unlike the first two times, I was trying to be healthier, so fast food mostly stayed off the table. If I gave in, it was a Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich — and even that was rare.
Once the sickness passed, it was a good chapter.
Until the false labor started.
I had false labor for more than a month with him, and it wore me down in a different way than the nausea had. I shared more about that part of the wait in My Natural Water Birth Story — After 2 Very Different Births.
He was active the whole time too.
Somersaulting around in there enough that at one point he ended up sideways instead of head-down.
That made me nervous.
I spent a lot of time on my exercise ball and did some stretches my midwife gave me, trying to coax him back into position.
And he corrected himself before it was time.
Head-down, like he was supposed to be.
That same pressure down low I remembered from my first.
That exercise ball did double duty after that.
Helping with his positioning, then just helping me stay ahead of how tired my body felt.
And I was tired.
Not regular pregnancy tired.
The kind where I’d use my breaks at work to lie down.
One day I caught myself nodding off at my desk, waiting for a call to come through, because my eyes were just too heavy to keep open.
The restless legs were rough this time too.
I had dealt with restless legs in pregnancy before, but with my third, I finally learned that magnesium helped me.
And if I missed a day?
I would usually know.
I’d end up with a Charlie horse at night and immediately think, yep… forgot the magnesium.
It became one of those little pregnancy lessons I wish I had known sooner.
Looking Back at All Three
Looking back and comparing all three pregnancies, each one really did feel like its own chapter.
Some things carried through every time — the mama brain, feeling hot near the end, and the restless legs at night.
The mama brain never fully went away. I forgot things almost instantly. I showed up a full day early to appointments twice and had to turn around and come back. I’d put pantry food in the fridge and fridge food in the pantry without even realizing it until later.
I don’t think that one ever fully goes away once you have your first baby.
By my third pregnancy, I finally learned that magnesium helped with the restless legs and Charlie horses. If I missed a day, my body usually reminded me that night.
But even with some of the same symptoms, I was in a different chapter of life each time.
With my first, everything was new. I didn’t fully understand what I was feeling yet, and every little symptom or movement felt like something I had to figure out as it happened.
By my second, I understood pregnancy a little more, so I felt calmer overall. That pregnancy started out easier for me, until the gallbladder pain became its own issue and changed how comfortable I felt.
And with my third, I felt more in tune with my body. Maybe because I was older. Maybe because he was my IVF baby. Maybe because being high risk made me pay closer attention to every little thing.
Whatever the reason, I noticed more.
And looking back now, that’s what stands out to me most.
Not just how different the pregnancies felt.
But how different I was each time too.
If there’s a next time, I’m keeping notes.
Because pregnancy is not just the waiting before birth.
It is its own story too.
And each one of mine was completely different.
✨ Thank you for letting me share this part of my story.
If you’ve had more than one pregnancy, I’d love to hear — did anything carry over between them, or did your body throw you a completely different curveball every time?
With love,
Rachel (RaiRai 💛)
You Might Also Enjoy
→ 3 Births, 3 Completely Different Experiences — What I Learned Each Time
→ C-Section Birth Story — Breech Baby Experience
→ My Natural Water Birth Story — After 2 Very Different Births
→ The IVF Journey That Led Me to You — After Tubal Reversal & Infertility
This post is based on my personal experience and is not medical advice. Every pregnancy is different, so please talk with your own provider about anything you’re experiencing in yours.
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