22 Week Scare!

For the past week and 1/2 I've been doing some work for the soup kitchen and have been kind of wiped out from it, although I've enjoyed it a lot so far. So besides being tired, the past week has been alright. As mentioned in last week's blog, I decided to start doing some research on different ways of eating, exercising, meditating, etc. and have already learned so much! I've started another blog to write about all of it, partly because I want this blog to stay pregnancy-centered, and partly because I've become so obsessed with learning about this stuff that I want to be able to share it with everyone. If the topic of a healthy lifestyle interests you, I recommend checking it out, even if just to get some ideas of your own about where to start your own exploring.

Now, back to baby talk! This past week has been interesting to say the least. Heartburn rears it's ugly head on a daily basis, usually at night, which leaves me popping tums like they're candy. Most of you know how much I detest taking any kind of medicine or pain relief pills, so I haven't been happy with that. I'm looking into natural remedies for heartburn but nothing has worked to my satisfaction so far. A little bit of milk is supposed to help, but I stay away from milk because it increases inflammation, which makes my round ligament pain more pronounced. Not eating 2-3 hours before bed is supposed to help, but I've been getting really hungry before bed, and when I'm hungry I feel nauseous, so obviously I can'y sleep. Tea made with ginger root is also supposed to help, but drinking anything less than 2 hours before bed keeps me up peeing half the night. So what the heck do I do? Pop more Tums I guess. I am determined to figure this out though. Next time I'm going to try carrots. Apparently the juice from carrots is supposed to help due to their alkaline nature. It's worth a try anyways!

On Friday I barely slept at all due to heartburn, and as a result I felt really sick all day on Saturday. My morning sickness was so severe that I ended up getting burst blood vessels all around my eyes and all over my neck. They're gone now, but the one in my right eye is still there, looking nice and gross. I hope that doesn't happen again.

Yesterday afternoon I started feeling some pretty uncomfortable pain in the center of my lower abdomen, so after an hour of this I called telehealth, and they told me if it hasn't gone away within two hours, or if it gets worse I should see a doctor. So, 2 and 1/2 hours later it hadn't gone away and it had gotten worse so mom drove me down to the emergency room, where they immediately sent me up to maternity. They called my midwife, but while we were waiting for her to arrive, they took my blood pressure and decided to get a fetal heartbeat reading. My nurse basically stood there, rubbing the thingy (I don't know what it's called) all over my stomach trying to get a heartbeat but we couldn't hear anything. Needless to say, I started to freak out a little. She just kept saying "Hmmmm. Hmmmmm. Hmmmmm." and then left the room. At this point I burst into tears, sure that something had happened to the baby. She came back with a smaller machine, and within a few minutes we heard his heartbeat, and I finally breathed a sigh of relief. Only then did she decide to tell me that the first machine was meant for bigger babies, ones that were being monitored during labour, which is why it didn't pick up the baby's heartbeat right away. I could have strangled her.

Eventually my midwife arrived (after about 45 minutes of me listening in horror as the woman across the hall was going through scream-inducing labour!) and after asking me some questions, poking around and listening to the baby herself, assured me that this was probably a combination of the baby growing and the uterus stretching, being on my feet too much lately, not getting enough rest, and the awkward position I was standing in when I threw up in the shower on Saturday. She told me to get some rest, and gave me some ibuprofen. Then I asked for a natural remedy (I wonder how many of you are rolling your eyes?) and she said fresh pineapple and cranberry juice can help. So I picked those up, called Jim, went to bed and this morning I feel much better! I am, however, going to take her advice and rest today.

The funny thing is, when I started writing this week's blog, I actually started by saying how great this week has been. Then I started thinking about the events of the past week and had to start over. I sincerely think my threshold for pain and discomfort has reached an all-time high.