I think I had enough!

I finally broke down and called the OB. A resting HR of around 100 is not good. Not to mention the horrible shortness of breath and the dizziness, fatigue, and nausea. I am pretty damn miserable because I cannot really do anything without getting tired. Some of this is pregnancy-related, but I should be able to do things like let my dogs out without shortness of breath and heart palpitations. Just saying. At the moment, the only thing I can do is rest. I think I am getting a little tired of resting.

My OB saw me this morning. Heart rate was 112 in the office. Blood pressure was normal, fetal heart rate was fine, uterus measured normal. Everything is fine except for my heart rate, which is giving me fits. It is extremely frustrating. The good news is that the OB managed to get my cardiologist appointment moved up to Monday. Until then, I just have to live with it. Monday is much better than the 17th! Maybe the cardiologist will have some answers for me. Or at least a plan of action.

Limbo

I think the worst part about this situation right now is that I am in limbo. Just told to "take it easy." I feel like the next step will be either medication or bedrest. (Or both.) I doubt they will do much more than that. Bedrest would totally bum me out. I would miss my grandfather's funeral. I would miss the shower my mother's prayer group wants to throw for me. I could not travel for either of Thanksgiving or Christmas. (Well not traveling for the holidays does not upset me too much.)

It would also be nice to know if they will even let me go back to work. Or if they will have me out of work until I give birth.

I am still waiting for the cardiologist appointment. Until then, I am just spending a lot of time on the couch. I guess there is not much else I can do. Next OB appointment is Wednesday.

Just waiting.

I think I have been ignoring certain things. I took my pulse this morning after going back to bed for a while, and it was just over 100. I have been ignoring the fact that I get out of breath going up and down the stairs to let the dogs out. I feel tired all the time. And then there is the random nausea. The frustrating thing is that these symptoms are also common with pregnancy. It is hard to tell which are pregnancy symptoms and which are the result of tachycardia. I am just trying to be gentle with myself. I think that is all I can do.

Yesterday I came to the realization that I do not have a lot of control over what is happening to me. All I can do is rest, and even then, my heart still beats fast. Physiologically, I understand what is likely happening. My blood volume is increased due to the pregnancy, which causes my heart to work harder. In order for my heart to pump the increased volume, it tries to pump faster in an effort to be more efficient. Knowing what is likely happening does not make it any easier to deal with. I still feel like my body betrayed me. Again. (As if dealing with IF wasn't bad enough!) I want to be able to walk dogs and work and keep up with life. But I get tired just going downstairs to let the dogs out. I get out of breath when I walk my dogs. I just want to cry because it feels like I should still be able to do these things. I am pregnant, I do not want to be sick on top of that!

I know that heart problems are serious problems and I should take them seriously. I hate the fact that Hubby is scared for me. I hate the fact that I think I am now a high risk pregnancy. (Or maybe medium risk at least. Fairly sure I am not low risk anymore.) I suspect that I will be out of work for a while because of my heart problems. Maybe even the rest of the pregnancy. I guess it is better to have me at home and taking it easy than risk work and another misadventure at the hospital.

I honestly thought it would be my blood sugar causing problems for me, not my heart.

Heart sick?

I never thought I would be in this situation. After my SVT incident, I rested, I gave up most caffeine. (Well, I still have the occasional chocolate fix. I need at least one vice!) I also rested. All appropriate things to do. I thought I would be fine.

And then I went to my OB appointment today. My heart rate is still high. BP is fine, I am not having contractions, and baby's heart rate is strong. When Dr Sweetness measured my heart rate, she actually put her stethoscope and listened to my heart as she counted. I am fairly sure it is accurate. I was floored. She did not feel comfortable sending me back to work with my heart rate that high. All I had done was move from a chair to the exam table. So she is sending me to cardiologist and keeping me out of work.

Apparently I need to keep resting and generally taking it easy.

Dr Google is not very forthcoming on tachycardia during pregnancy. Apparently it can happen during pregnancy because of fluid volume shifts which make the heart work harder. I guess we will see what the cardiologist says. I saw the EKG, and it looks like it is a normal heart rhythm, but the rate is just fast. Not as fast as the SVT I was in last week, but in the 100s. Still not good for the heart, though. I think Dr Sweetness is afraid I will have another SVT incident. I cannot say I blame her. I do not know what to expect with the cardiologist.

This whole situation has both Hubby and I really freaked out. Hubby is treating me with kid gloves because he is scared. I am too afraid to do much of anything because it just wears me out and makes me feel terrible. I am not sure what can be attributed to pregnancy, and what can be attributed to the heart problems.

Everything seems really unsure right now. I was so hopeful that things would be good the rest of the pregnancy. I guess the other shoe has finally dropped.

Feeling more human.

Definitely feeling better today. Usually it takes me about 3 days to recover from something. And it has been about 3 days. I think I am almost ready to return to the land of the living. The good thing about all of this is that I now have a doctor's note for restricted hours. I cannot work more than an 8 hour shift, and no more than 40 hours a week. Because it is in a doctor's note, my job has to comply. I may make it even easier for them and switch to regular part time. My manager called today, and I started to discuss some of this with her. I think we are going to talk more about this on Monday when I return to work. I at least let her know what the doctor's note said. I hope she appreciates the heads up!

Looking forward to a real weekend this weekend. I have both Saturday and Sunday off. I actually get to spend some time with the hubby! Hooray! Oh yeah, and the nursery gets painted this weekend! That is certainly exciting. Hubby may even start putting together nursery furniture after the painting is done. And by the way, I did get a zero VOC paint! Lowe.s will color match val.spar colors to their oly.mpic paints! So I was able to get the Am.erican Her.itage color I wanted. Very cool!

I chose a doula. After speaking with a couple of them, and then talking about it with my mother, I decided to go with my gut. I am really excited about working with her. I think we are setting up our first meeting for sometime next week. This doula also got a recommendation from a midwife, so I feel pretty confident in choosing her.

I suspect our weekend will involve fire at some point. Hubby has a fireplace in his basement, and he recently discovered that the flu and chimney work! We had a lovely couple of hours last weekend sitting in front of the fire. I decided to step things up a bit this weekend, and I got stuff to make s.mores! What is a fire without s'mores!

Also I get to meet up with a college friend this weekend, and she is also pregnant. She is due a couple of months after I am. I am pretty excited to reconnect with her. I think we are using the same doula, too. Anyway, it should be a nice time.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Withdrawals.

Just so you know, I am not a huge caffiene drinker. I have one cup in the morning (down from 2 cups in the morning), and that is about it. The rest of the day I have water or diet ginger ale. Apparently I really needed that small amount of caffiene to wake my body up in the morning.

When I was being discharged from the hospital after my misadventure, the OB told me to cut out my one cup of coffee. I understand why. That could have been part of what triggered the incident. Probably best not to aggravate things. I get it. But damn, it is difficult giving up that morning cup of coffee. Decaf tea is not the same, though it does go down a whole lot easier. Fortunately, my co-workers do not have to put up with me during this time. It is not a pretty sight. I spend most of my time feeling like a slug and lying on the couch.

The incident did cause me to think about some things, and there are some things I may change. I have been throwing around the idea of going part time the next couple of months. Likely I will still work close to 40 hours anyway, but I will not have to use all my PTO to make up the difference. I really do not have a whole lot of PTO after I took that much needed vacation. (Unfortunately that vacation was cancelled out by the fact that my schedule was hellish after I got back. I really do not want to go back after maternity leave.) I may try to call HR today and talk to them about going part time. I think we can afford it. We may have to play with who pays which bills, but that is fairly do-able, I think. We were going to have to do that, anyway.

I am also thinking about getting a doula. Surprisingly, there are two in my area, and they do hospital births, and medicated births. I think it could be worth it, as I want as few interventions as possible, though I have a hunch I may end up with an epidural anyway. Just not that into pain, and I like most of the anesthesia providers at my hospital. (It seems most of them like me, as several came to check on me during the incident.) I am 35 and having my first child. I may not be high risk, but I think I am not exactly low risk, either. I want all the medical stuff around me. I just want to do most of stage I labor at home. I think that is what may help prevent interventions later on. Hopefully. The doula I am thinking of using also does breastfeeding supprt, which could be good as I really want to breastfeed. Still at the thinking stage, though. Nothing is definite right now.

Probably another slow day for me today. Not a bad thing, really.

Apparently I am working myself into the ground.

I spent the day in the hospital listening to my baby. Not a bad way to spend the day, but I would rather not have gotten there the way I did.

I went into work, and before I even left the dressing room after changing out, I started feeling bad. And I mean really bad. Pale, weak, sweaty, with heart palpitations. I felt like my heart was going to beat right out of my chest. I thought it would pass if I rested, but a co-worker caught me in the break room and told me I looked awful. She also said I really needed to be put on a monitor, she was really worried about me. Once she got me on a stretcher and the monitors on me, she went to find an anesthesia provider. There are some good places to get sick, and the OR is one of them. I had 2 anesthesiologists, 3 CRNAs, and several nurses working on me all at the same time. And then there were the co-workers who had to come in and give me a hard time. Oh yeah, and because they knew I was pregnant, they called down a labor and delivery nurse to monitor the baby. I was well taken care of.

The following is likely going to sound very clinical, but I am just trying to process everything. It actually is pretty classic textbook treatment for SVT. My anesthesia providers know what they are doing!

Once they got me on the monitors, they saw my heart rate was over 200. It was unresponsive to coughing, vagaling, or carotid massage. The cardiologist got there, and saw what was happening and said that I should get a dose of adenosine, but he did not want to do anything without an OB present, just to make sure that was all right. The OB who initially showed up was a high risk OB. I thought she was great. No panic, and she knew what she wanted to do. She agreed with the adenosine, and that is what I got. The CRNAs and MDs knew that was likely to happen, so they planned for that circumstance. They already had the IV in the right place, and the crash cart pulled around, so the medication was readily available. The adenosine made me feel awful right after the anesthesiologist gave it, but one dose did the trick, and put me back into sinus tach. I started feeling better soon after that. No problems with baby as they gave it.

They monitored me in the pre-op area for about an hour and then transferred me to the L and D observation area. My OB showed up not long after the cardioversion. She agreed that I needed to be admitted at least for the day, just to be sure that everything was all right. Our boy had a great heart rate, and the nurse had to chase after him all day just to keep him on the monitor. My vitals were also good all day. No increase in BP, and labs all looked fine, as well. I had no contractions at all, so he is not ready to meet us yet. Thank goodness! I do not think he is done cooking.

I liked the L and D nurse who cared for me all day. She was really great. I found it fascinating that she mentioned that her favorite deliveries are for IVF babies. It amazed me that she said that. Apparently they do not get a lot of married couples on their unit. She said she liked delivering IVF babies because everyone is happy about the birth, and everyone wants the baby. I just thought that was really interesting. Hopefully I will see her again.

The high risk OB came and talked to me before I was discharged. Apparently I am off all caffeine now. I have to find a substitute for my one morning cup of coffee. I think I may end up switching to decaf tea. Likely I will have a headache the next couple of mornings from lack of caffeine. The sacrifices I make for the little guy!

A work rant. Feel free to skip if you want...

Just have to get this off my chest. I think I am starting to see red because I apparently cannot catch a break!

For three weekends in a row, I have had to work at some point over the weekend. Two weekends ago it was 3-11 Friday and Saturday. Last weekend it was training to use the new computer documentation system. This weekend it was call during the day on Sunday. The Sunday call person always seems to get called in, and this Sunday was no exception. I cannot plan anything. I cannot do much of anything on the weekends because I have a work commitment, on top of the 40 hours I already work during the week. I understand the need for OT and call, but does all of my OT and call have to happen on the weekend? Seriously? When do I get to have a life.

Still waiting to hear from that other job opportunity. One of my co-workers has been talking me up to the person in charge of hiring, so I suspect they are waiting with bated breath for my application to come through all the HR stuff. I am tempted to email my resume to her, anyway. My co-worker gave me the director of nursing email. Maybe I will do that tonight and then see what happens this week.

Really wanting this other opportunity to work out because I do not think I can go back to my current place of employment! Can you blame me?

An early morning blog post.

It seems I cannot sleep in very well, and sleeping in is almost impossible. I think part of this is from the carpal tunnel symptoms I have. I really want to change positions and sleep on my right side, but the only way both hands are comfortable is on my left side. When I lay on my right side, my right hand gets all numb and tingly. Maybe I should invest in a sleep brace for my right hand, too. The sleep brace seems to work fine on my left hand. Sigh. I have a sneaking suspicion that my sleep issues have only just begun.

I have to say it is very strange being one of the many bellies in the OB's waiting room. For so long, I never thought I would have a belly of my own, and the bellies made me sort of crazy. I think we have all been there. Now I have a belly of my own, and I find it is pretty neat. It is nice to know that my body is capable of doing something it was meant to do.

Over the past week or two, I suddenly realized that the baby actually has to come out somehow. I started researching labor and childbirth. I actually found a book written by an obstetric anesthesiologist. It outlines all methods of pain control and relief, from Bradley and Lamaze to epidurals and c-sections. I love it! One of the things I did not like about many of the natural birth books was that they do not give you all the options for pain control during labor. Most of the natural books insist that natural is the only way to go, and that sort of turns me off. I like to know what all of my options are. Bottom line is, I want a safe and healthy delivery for baby and mom. Sometimes that can invovle an epidural and pitocin. Still working out the birth plan, though I have my doubts as to how useful it will be. I think I am going to be pretty flexible and hopefully I will be able to listen to my doctors and nurses when the time comes.

I may post more later. I have hunch it is going to be a slow and lazy day for me. This is the first Saturday in a about a month that I have not had work commitments. Hooray!

Making room,

I have to say hooray for Hubby! He did a lot today! He moved both dressers out of the future nursery, and even moved his clothes out of the closet. That is not all, though. He also contacted the painter, and hopefully this means that we will get the room painted soon!

The dogs have very different reactions. Oscar is not really bothered. He is not upset very easily. Gertrude is a little on edge. But she is our neurotic dog. She has to make sure she still gets all her stuff at the regular time. She is not quite sure what the changes will mean to her. I am trying to give her as much love and attention as I can. Also, I am trying to make sure that her routine is not too disrupted. That hopefully will work for her.

My doctors' appointments all went well today. The endo is happy with how I am doing, and everything seems to be normal at the OB's office. BP is good, I have not gained too much weight, and my uterus is the appropriate size. When I mentioned the carpal tunnel symptoms, both docs said that there is not a lot I can do. Push fluid, reduce salt intake. I did use braces on my wrists last night, and that seemed to help. Will definitely continue using them at least at night. Hubby noticed I tossed and turned a lot less.

Baby has been very active today. Not sure why. It is still bizarre feeling him push out from inside. He is definitely making his presence known.

So far, so good....

Facing it.

The arrival of all the baby furniture has forced us to realize that there will be a baby at the end of all of this. With all the boxes full of furniture sitting in our living room, the baby becomes less of an idea and more of a reality. We need to make space for this little guy. In three months our lives will change as we welcome our little guy into our lives. Kind of scary. I think both of us have been putting off dealing with it. I do not think we can put it off much longer. In about three months, he will be here.

There has been some good to come out of the arrival of all the baby stuff. Hubby started moving stuff out of the designated nursery room. I think all of this has made him realize that we need to prepare for the little guy's arrival. Hopefully soon we can get the room painted. We may end up painting it ourselves. Well, Hubby may end up painting by himself unless he can find a painter to paint it for him. A friend has offered to come over and paint it. We may take her up on the offer.

I also started reading about baby care, breastfeeding, and baby's first year. I spent so many years hiding from baby stuff that I have no clue about any of it. I am slowly making my way through all the books I ordered. Slowly but surely. Hopefully it will help. I am also hoping that my mother will help. She is great with babies, and she breastfed me when I was a child. I hope that she will be a lot of help when I bring baby home. I think I am starting to get nervous.

I think I also have an odd pregnancy symptom. No one warned me about the possibility of carpal tunnel syndrome developing during pregnancy. (The things you can learn from Dr Google!) I have numbness and tingling in my wrists. Way worse in the morning, but the left wrist has numbness and tingling off and on throughout the day. At first, I thought that it was because I was sleeping on my arm a little funny. But it is not really going away, so I suspect it is likely not that. Apparently fluid retention during pregnancy can press on the nerves, and irritate them. I suspect that is what is happening. I have not noticed a lot of swelling in my ankles, but my wrists and hands are a little more puffy than usual. But not by much. I think this is something I need to mention to my docs when I see them tomorrow. Not that they can do much. I cannot take anti-inflammatories or diuretics right now. I am thinking of investing in a couple of wrist braces to help with the numbness in the morning. I have been waking up and my hands feel dead. It is not fun. Hopefully the braces will help.

Houston, we have baby stuff!

Not just furniture, too! A whole bunch of baby stuff!

Yesterday we got a very large shipment of stuff from U.P.S. The crib, mattress, changing table, and dresser all came. Along with the carseat, stroller, pack and play, and co-sleeper. Um, that is a lot of stuff!

Now we have all these huge boxes in the house. We have not even cleaned out the nursery or made any move to get it painted! I suspect the shipment of baby stuff made the situation a bit more real for both of us. Especially Hubby.

We need to move these things down to the basement until we do get the nursery ready. Hubby has already told me that I cannot lift anything. Well, maybe the mattress. But that is it!

Maybe I will go buy some crib sheets! I think we will need them!

More stuff...

I finally got around to calling HR this afternoon. It took me long enough, I think. I got answers to my questions. I will do my best to accrue as much PTO as I can, but I am not sure if it will be four weeks worth. It takes 4 weeks for short term disability (STD) to kick in, and PTO and STD will pay for my insurance while I am off. PTO pays half of what I usually make. I think I will let them know as late as possible into my leave that I may not be coming back, that way I can keep insurance as long as possible. Hopefully the position I applied for will come through over the next few months. At some point Hubby and I will have to sit down and figure out our finances while I am on maternity leave. Fun times.

I think I am going to stick with my current job at least until the end of the year. It is better to have the insurance right now. I decided that it would be awkward to be without insurance right now, now that I am almost in third trimester.

The belly is fairly obvious now. In scrubs, more people are beginning to notice the belly. I have even had more co-workers come up and rub my belly. It is sort of strange, but not necessarily a bad thing.

Not much else going on. I have another OB appointment on Monday, after my endocrinologist appointment. Should be a regular appointment.

Passed!

My OB's nurse called, and said that my 1 hour GTT came back fine! I passed! Hooray! One less thing to worry about.

Also, I did not get called in last night, which was a blessing. I got to sleep!

So...
Things still seem to be going well. Baby and mom still healthy and looking good. Nothing really new to report.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!