Post-menstrual syndrome is a thing — just ask Alanna Ubach.
The Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce star revealed to PEOPLE’s Celeb Parents Get Real that she had an unexpectedly hard time after discontinuing breastfeeding her son Thomas Rodolfo, who celebrates his first birthday on Wednesday.
“I did almost lose it when I stopped breastfeeding my son, and no one talks about that,” says Ubach, 42. “When you stop breastfeeding, all of a sudden, that premenstrual syndrome … every period that you did not have while you were pregnant and while you were breastfeeding comes to you all at once.”
“It is unbelievable how hormonal I was during that transition,” she admits. “I drove my family crazy.”
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RELATED: Alanna Ubach and Thomas Russo Jr. Welcome Son Thomas Rodolfo
When it comes to getting an epidural during childbirth, Ubach advises pregnant women, “Don’t be a martyr” and to save themselves from the pain.
“If you’re in pain while you’re in labor, please, for God’s sake. Taking an epidural isn’t going to make the child any less capable than if you decided not to have the drugs,” she says. “You’ll brag about not having used drugs for about four years and after that, the story gets old and no one really cares anymore.”
Advises the Legally Blonde star, “So just cut out the middleman and take the drugs.”
RELATED VIDEO: Lisa Edelstein Reveals How Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce Helps Her Marriage
The new mom — who shares her baby boy with husband Thomas Russo Jr. — says that one thing that helped with her fertility was acupuncture.
“Acupuncture really did kick everything in gear for me, I think,” Ubach tells PEOPLE. “I would go to acupuncture once a week [where they’d] place needles all around my belly, all around the uterus, and I think that really did wake things up after about a couple of months.”
“I had gone through fertility treatments and my husband and I froze embryos — we have five babies on ice right now,” she reveals. “And so all of this planning didn’t amount to anything because after one visit back in Los Angeles, I got pregnant naturally. … I didn’t think I could get pregnant naturally because of my age. But you never know.”
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