Did you know that you were pregnant fairly early on after you conceived? You know — before the whole achy boobs, insane nausea, and extreme fatigue set in? I did.

About four or five days after I got pregnant with my son, I completely had a meltdown because my husband picked up barbecue take-out for dinner on his way home from work and forgot the potato salad.

Who freaks out over a picnic food? I knew that something just wasn’t quite right with me — and a positive pregnancy test confirmed my suspicions.

I’m definitely not the only woman who ever lashed out over something fairly stupid during pregnancy, and odd mood swings are a symptom that many women experience. however, there are a few things that can occur during pregnancy that are a bit more unexpected!

1. Making donkey noises. Can you even imagine waking up one day and getting out of bed only to realize that you suddenly sound like a farm animal? because it happened to an 18-year old pregnant girl in the UK named Cody Hagel, whostarted making donkey noises shortly after she conceived. Cody wasn’t quite as shocked as most people would be at the whole donkey thing because she’d already been suffering from Tourette’s syndrome since she was 14-years old. Apparently pregnancy can trigger new forms of “tics” in Tourette’s sufferers, and since she lives on a farm where there are donkeys, she thinks that is why she picked up the noises. She’s taking her new sounds with a grain of salt, and her light-hearted attitude on her condition is incredibly refreshing. She’s wise beyond her years, that’s for sure!

2. changes to your voice. it may not be quite as quirky as sounding like a donkey, but Julia Roberts had changes to her voice while pregnant. she wound up talking, and even laughing, at a lower tone than normal. how weird is it that this “Pretty Woman” wound up sounding more like a man? of course, a lot of men find the whole husky voice thing pretty sexy.

3. Bizarre pregnancy cravings. have you heard about those women who crave really strange foods while they are pregnant — like soil? Britney Spears supposedly had a hankering for dirt while she was expecting. but perhaps the oddest part of this pregnancy symptom is the fact that we aren’t really all that shocked by it. C’mon — would your jaw really drop to the floor if you saw Brit reach down and grab a handful of soil and stick it in her mouth? I didn’t think so.

4. Excessive farting. Another embarrassing symptom that some of us don’t want to admit having? Lots and lots of gas. sometimes it’s just impossible to suck ‘em in while you’re pregnant. but I guess it’s better to just laugh about gas the way Jessica Simpson did instead of getting all bent out of shape about it.

5. Increased foot size. Many women find themselves needing to go out and buy new shoes while they are pregnant. in fact, some women may even go up as much as a size-and-a-half! Sometimes foot size goes back to normal, and sometimes it doesn’t. but then again, do us gals ever really need a good excuse to go shoe shopping?

Are you experiencing anything unusual or that you did not expect while pregnant?

Image via o5com/Flickr

then last night I found out that "geographic tongue" was one more symptom…
I am going to the asthma clinic in a month and I will ask for the sweat test then… but a month is a looong time…

If you had symptom after symptom after symptom …what would you think?

I have the cough, the infertility, the poor growth, the bowel problems, the tongue, & more…

Would you be worried if you were me?

Do you have incredibly thick mucus that is difficult to cough out?
Infertility isn't necessarily a symptom of CF, unless you're a male. Females were once thought to be infertile if they had CF, but that's not the case. (There are 3 women with CF pregnant in my clinic right now)
I haven't seen any CF'ers with the geographic tongue.
Do your stools smell incredibly foul? Are they greasy?
Is your BMI less than 22?
If I had symptom after symptom, I'd stop reading about it, it just freaks me out.

No. CF is usually diagnosed at birth and evident right away.
Growth and infertility could be a hormonal problem. Bowel, tongue, cough ect could be a simple virus.

Geographic tongue (benign migratory glossitis) is usually considered a benign condition. It's actually more closely linked to psoriasis than cystic fibrosis; it can also be hormone-related. Let's look at some of your other symptoms.

At age 43, many women can be infertile. You may be entering perimenopause mayoclinic.com/health/perimen…

Mucus in bowel movements can be caused by diverticular disease mayoclinic.com/health/diverti… or irritable bowel syndrome mayoclinic.com/health/irritab…

It's difficult to tell what might be causing your coughing. Something as simple as an allergy or irritant in your home (such as pets or ordinary dust) may be responsible.

Although cystic fibrosis can appear in early teens to late twenties, it seldom appears in people in their 40's.

If you have a good general practitioner, you may want to see him/her for a simple physical exam that will include a Pap smear, a CBC, a metabolic panel, a thyroid test, and evaluation for IBS and diverticular disease. this may help you relax about what your symptoms mean.

When we reach our 40's, we sometimes have chronic health problems that we just have to live with. We can't diagnose you here and I'm certainly not saying that your symptoms don't mean anything. but if you're like me, you can read about a disease and then start experiencing the symptoms. I've been a healthcare teaching assistant for 20+ years, so I recognize the tendency!