Pregnancy Update - 25 Weeks

It's been a crazy couple of weeks for me. I've posted a little of the strange symptoms I've been having but it's probably time for a complete recap.

Starting about 2.5 weeks ago I was having this intense upper abdominal pressure and feeling short of breath. The reality was that I was breathing just fine and taking in plenty of oxygen but I felt like I couldn't breath. Given the location of the pressure and the location of baby I knew it wasn't really baby pressing into my abdomen. It was happening only sporadically - not every day and not all day when it happened. It got so bad that last week I took a day off work on Tuesday to try to rest and see if it went away. Here's how the week has gone since then.

Tuesday
Took the day off to rest. The rest didn't really seem to help. I suspected that maybe anemia was causing my crazy symptoms so I bought some iron pills to try to get my iron levels up. I called the nurse at the OBs office because I wasn't feeling well at all and wondered if the problem was that I was not getting enough oxygen. She referred me to me regular doctor. I went in and they tested my pulse-oxidation (amount of oxygen in my blood) and it looked fine. They tested my lung function (also fine) and sent me for some blood work - a CBC (complete blood count) and TSH (thyroid check). One possibility the doctor mentioned was pulmonary embolism but she also said that it was very, very unlikely.

Wednesday
I felt better on Wednesday during the day and went to work. No crazy symptoms. But that afternoon I started feeling a cold coming on. And since there's been a significant amount of crud going around at work, I decided to take off on Thursday for another day of rest, orange juice, and benedryl to try to kick whatever was coming on before it got too bad.

Thursday
Stayed home with my OJ and benedryl and tried to rest. By mid-day my heart was racing - around 120 bpm while I was just lying on the couch. Now your pulse does increase in pregnancy because there's lots of extra blood. 90 is normal, 100 is fine, even 110 can be okay (according to my doc) but 120 is pretty worrisome. Called the OB and spoke to the oncall doctor. She said it was high but not concerning enough for an ER visit unless it got worse. She advised me to come in on Friday for a check-up

Friday
Still feeling a little crazy so I sent Allison to daycare even though it was my "off" Friday. I went into the OB (not my usual one - it was her day off) because my heart was still really fast. At the OB my blood pressure was up (higher than normal but not alarming) and my pulse was 126 bpm. The OB referred me to a perinatologist (high-risk OB) and I saw him in the afternoon. Perinatologist wants to get a reading of my heart to see what's really going on and rule out pulmonary embolism. They did an ultrasound of baby and everything looks GREAT. Baby is measuring right on track for a July 9 due date. They also tried to look at my heart with the ultrasound (weren't able to) but found something else fun... a gallstone! Great - just another fun thing to add to the list. Fortunately, the gall ducts look good and I'm not having any gall bladder symptoms (RUQ pain) for now. But since this is my 2nd incident with the gall bladder I think it will becoming out once baby arrives. Perinatologist referred my to a cardiologist for a monitor and to a ultrasounds place for a leg ultrasound to rule out the blood clots that could cause a PE.
The one thing the Perinatologist said that made a lot of sense to me is that some women are just much more sensitive to the changes in hormones during pregnancy. I have good reason to believe that I'm one of those extrasensitive types - the unrelenting morning sickness is one good sign. My body just has a very strong reaction to pregnancy hormones.

Saturday & Sunday
I felt decent over the weekend. Strange pulse increases but nothing sustained.

Monday
Appointment with my regular OB. She said she was definitely concerned about the crazy heartrate and was glad I was seeing a cardiologist. Overall, feeling better. We discussed that there might be something going on with me that isn't really related to the pregnancy at all but that pregnancy, since it puts such an extra strain on your body, could just be exacerbating the problem to the point that I'm noticing it.

Tuesday
Met with the cardiologist and got hooked up with a Holter Monitor. I've got 5 leads attached to my chest and a monitor that records my heart activity. I have to wear it for 48 hours and keep a log of any strange symptoms I'm feeling. Of course, since I got it, I've felt relatively normal. Isn't that always the way.

That brings us to today. I'm actually feeling pretty good. I slept well without getting woken up with crazy heart activity. Even Allison slept in until 6am. Let's hope that the crazy heart stuff was just a phase and that it's all behind me now. But we'll see.