Amanda Smith felt completely drained throughout both of her pregnancies. ?Even before I knew I was pregnant, I would come home after work and take a two-hour nap in the afternoon for no good reason that I could think of,? recalls the Toronto mom of three, who works as an elementary school teacher. ?Anything more than a normal workday was too much,? she says. ?I couldn?t even pick up the mail.? Turns out, Smith was pregnant with twins. A few years later, when she was pregnant with her third baby, she was also taking care of her twin girls, who were three at the time. ?I was carrying very large, and I was exhausted,? Smith says. ?It was so physical. My mind also started shutting down. I was leaving my purse everywhere.?
It?s normal to feel tired even if you?re not showing yet. According to Alix Bacon, president of the Midwives Association of British Columbia, most women experience fatigue during pregnancy, but how depleted you feel, and at which stage, varies. ?We?re looking at a complex hormonal cocktail, and one pregnancy can differ from the next, and the experience can differ from woman to woman.? In the first trimester, says Bacon, ?you?ve got a lot of progesterone on board,? which decreases blood pressure and blood sugar, leading to tiredness. There?s also increased blood flow to your kidneys, which means frequent trips to the bathroom in the middle of the night. By the third trimester, you?re carrying around extra weight and finding a comfortable sleeping position fe...