Nearly 29 Weeks!

Tomorrow I will be 29 weeks pregnant! I can't really believe it.  Time is flying by even faster now that it's fall and I'm in holiday excitement mode.  Plus there is so much going on over the next two and a half months that I don't know how time couldn't fly by.  Next Sunday I turn 25, then I have some baby showers a few weeks in a row, then it's Thanksgiving, and then Christmas, and then my baby will be here!  It's sort of scary, but in a totally exciting way.  I feel him moving so much during the day (and night) and I am so, so ready to meet him. 

feeling huge.  am I really going to get bigger?!

28w 6d

In other news, I had the worst scare yesterday.  I have been getting more and more sick of my heart monitor contraption being hooked to me at all times.  My skin is getting destroyed and is constantly sore, I am so sick of carrying another cell phone around at all times and charging it twice a day, and sleeping is bad enough without worrying about tangled cords and disconnected electrodes.  Needless to say I am pretty dang excited about only having about 10 days left of misery.

So when I received a phone call from Life Watch (the company monitoring the data that is being continuously recorded and sent away to a computer somewhere) calmly informing me that my account was never activated and they haven't been recording the information this entire time.  I had a breakdown.  I just started crying on the phone, and I mean really crying.  The poor lady was so taken aback by my tears, she just didn't know what to do.  I tried to explain to her that I'm 7 months pregnant and sleeping is hard enough and I just can't wear the monitor for another thirty days and that's why I'm crying, and she calmly tells me I just have to call my cardiologists office and talk to them about it.  She was very nice, but still couldn't do anything. 

So I call my cardiologists office, still crying mind you, and try hard to be coherent enough for the receptionist to understand what I'm saying.  I finally get put through to the nurse who got me set up with my monitor, and she assures me that she did in fact register the device, and that she will call Life Watch right away and make sure everything is sorted out.  I only had to wait a few minutes before she called me back and let me know that there was a mistake and they actually had been recording the information.  Which was obviously a big relief, but after hanging up the phone, I just sat back exhausted from such a rollercoaster of emotions. 

Luckily I revived myself and worked on shower planning with my sisters the rest of the day, and my mood improved greatly.  I can't believe that my baby shower is only four weeks away!  I am so excited to celebrate with friends and family.  I've always loved baby showers, and the fact that the next one I go to will be celebrating my baby is pretty surreal. 

Happy Friday!

heart update

I had another appointment with the cardiologist yesterday.  They ran another echo cardiogram on me, which went pretty well except that by the end I felt like I was going to pass out from holding my breath so many times.    Afterwards I had an appointment with my doctor, in which he looked over the results of the echo cardiogram to see if my heart function had worsened or stayed the same.  Luckily for me it had not worsened, and he even said I had more normal heart beats in a row so hooray for me!  This means that I do not have to take any medication as of now to help increase my heart function.  I did have a few symptoms which were noteworthy to my cardiologist, so despite the good echo cardiogram, I was set up with a ACT heart monitor which I have to wear for the next 30 days.

here I am all hooked up:  four stickers, one transmitter and
the wonderful cell phone...

This consists of four electrodes attached at random places on my chest and upper abdomen, which are attached at the other end to a transmitting device that I have to wear at all times.  Add in the annoying cell phone which must be within 10 ft of me at all times and has to be charged every 6-10 hours, and you can start to see the picture I'm dealing with.  The fancy name for the device is  LifeStar Act Ambulatory Cardiac Telemetry, this website can tell you more about it if you're nosy :).

Matters of the Heart

Sometimes life holds things we do not expect or anticipate at all.  This is a concept I am constantly trying to remember and struggle to embrace;  I am a planner, I like things to go the way they are planned.  This past week has been a case study in this concept for me, and maybe also a little reminder that I need to slow down and worry less.  What's strange is that regardless how many activities I'm actually doing, I'm almost always the same amount stressed.  I've been thinking a lot about that this week, as I've had the chance to see what that stress is doing to my body and mind.

Tuesday I began a whirlwind of medical visits and unanswered questions when my midwives informed me that I had an abnormal heartbeat that they wanted to have checked out, immediately.  My blood was drawn from both arms, and I was sent off with haste to the Alaska Heart Institute at Providence Hospital to get an EKG done.

I've included a picture to demonstrate what exactly is entailed in an EKG.  I was very nervous, for no reason at all other than the suddenness of everything.  After the test, I was told to go home, do nothing to raise my blood pressure, and go to the emergency room if I felt any new, uncomfortable symptoms.  

I received word from my midwives the next day:  my EKG results showed a problem as well, and they had scheduled an appointment with a cardiologist at the Heart Institute.  I was to have a full cardiac checkup with him, and once again I was left to worry and stress over it all.  What was wrong with me?  And more importantly in my mind, was any of this going to affect my baby?  Luckily the answer to that last question was no, the concern was 100% for me.  Apparently baby is like a little leech, getting everything first, and leaving mamma with the leftovers :).  

Long story short, I have to get more testing, in the form of an ultrasound of my heart tomorrow, and then I get to wear a chest harness monitor for the next 30 days.  But the good news is, the cardiologist told me he's not too worried, because I'm very healthy and my blood pressure was ideal.  Both he and the midwives mentioned that one of the main causes of heart issues like this is stress.  Which would make sense in my case, since being pregnant has sent my worrying tendencies into overdrive.  As a result, I have spent this down time reflecting on my problems being a stressed out, worrying person.  I've learned a few things from this ongoing ordeal, but what stands out the most is the need to take deep breaths, smile, and let things go.  So if you see me in the near future with my eyes closed and a forced smile on my face, that's what I'm doing. 

Hope it's a happy Monday for everyone :)