Thursday, October 13, 2016

20 Week Pregnancy Update

I'm officially halfway through this pregnancy, and this was an interesting week! Next week is my big ultrasound so I'm really excited for that, and anxious to see if they confirm we are having a boy.
I'll start with the boring stuff. I began having the dreaded middle-of-the-night leg cramps. I get them with every pregnancy and they are excruciating. Mine last a long time so I will often be pacing the room in the middle of the night, trying not to yell out in pain while I wait for them to pass.

I'm still pretty tired. I have normal energy in the morning but by afternoon my body just wants to rest. After I walk to school with the double stroller to pick up Ryan and then walk back home....I am tired! I feel like such an out of shape old lady, huffing and puffing.

On Saturday night I started having chest pains. They began pretty infrequently, and they would only last a few seconds. I noticed them again on Sunday, but couldn't pinpoint what was triggering them. The pain is right where I think my heart is, which is obviously a little worrisome. I have never experienced chest pains before. On Monday they were happening much more frequently, along with these strange "adrenaline rushes" across my chest. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? You know how when you are startled, sometimes you get a wave of warm tingling across your chest? I started having that feeling a lot on Monday. I'm not sure if the pain was making me anxious and causing this fight-or-flight reaction, or if the warm tingling is related to the chest pain. But then on Tuesday I noticed the pain got worse when I went on a walk with the kids, and almost nonexistent when I sat and relaxed.

I saw my doctor late in the day on Tuesday and they did a short EKG, which looked good. Everything checked out fine but they couldn't figure out what was causing the chest pain. My lungs sounded good, and it didn't appear to be a pulled muscle. The pain was feeling like a sharp zing across my heart. I knew that with my history of anxiety, that would be an easy explanation for all of this. But the doctor didn't think that was the cause, so she sent me across town to Labor and Delivery to be monitored. I was there for a couple hours.

They tried to draw some blood to check for a blood clot, but had a heart time getting any blood out of me. After many pricks to find a vein large enough, they finally got a few drops of blood out of my hand and then it just stopped flowing. Ha! The nurse said she has never seen such slow moving blood or small veins. When they finally got enough, the test came back fine. At this point the L&D doctor came in and talked to me, and said he suspects stress or anxiety is in fact causing the pain. I don't logically understand how being stressed can cause chest pain, but he said it is quite common. Nevertheless, he is a little concerned that physical activity seems to trigger more frequent pain in my chest. So I am being referred to cardiology for a treadmill stress test. The doctor joked that they should bring my kids in during the test and see how that affects my heart.

So that was my week in a nutshell. The baby's heart sounded great at the doctor and I am feeling him move a lot now. Now we just wait for the stress test and the ultrasound to confirm everything is perfect.

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