Our First a Slow Dance

Last night, Mark and I attended our second prenatal class. The teacher had the perimeter of the room set up with different stations based on coping and relaxation techniques for labor. Some of the stations had prompts for discussion or visualization. My second favorite was one where I was on my knees leaning over an exercise ball while Mark massaged my lower back with a little wooden massage piece. My very favorite was the station titled "slow dance". 

The slow dance technique is pretty close to your classic middle school slow dance position. With this labor coping technique, the man makes his legs a sturdy base by spreading his feet apart. He places his hands on his wife's hips as she leans forward against him with her arms supported on his shoulders or behind his neck. The woman sways her hips to help with labor pain and to encourage the baby to shift into the right position. 

If you know my husband well, you will know that he hates PDA. He does not hold hands, kiss willingly in public or even accept public hugs without a groan or exclamation of "something is touching me!". At our wedding reception, we planned to avoid any of the classic first dance situations and warned people that if they banged silverware on glasses, he would not kiss me. Though this sounds a little extreme, it is not the way he is or how he loves best and throughout our relationship, I have learned to see his love in his acts of service, his sense of humor and pet names for me, and his deep care and gentleness for all living things (you should see him with my cats). 

As we went through the stations, he did participate, some times begrudgingly but he did his best. We came around to the slow dance station and though he rolled his eyes a little and had a "this is weird" quip, when I settled my head on his chest and we swayed a bit, it felt so very nice. Afterwards, he was the one that pointed out that it had been our very first dance together after dating 3.5 years and being married almost 6 years. He didn't hate it! 

It is his birthday soon and one tradition I have to help celebrate is to make a poster and put it up while he is sleeping so he sees it the next morning.  This year's poster features balloon versions of the cats and myself. It goes along with one of his endearments for my current look : My Little Marshmallow Puff. Hehe:)

3 Hour Glucose Test and Results

I am hanging out in an empty exam room with my lap top and gettin' things done! There is quite a lot one can accomplish when left alone for three hours, only pausing on the hour for a blood-draw.

Last week, as you can see from the end of my previous post, I was flagged with high levels of sugar in my urine and blood. I have learned my lesson and will not emotionally eat sugar puffs and grapes before an exam. Even so, the docs want to make sure baby and I are healthy and not in danger of gestational diabetes.

I passed the traditional one hour glucose test "with flying colors", according to the lovely lab lady (J) who takes my blood on frequent occasions. That test was done a little over a week before my sugar rush breakfast so hopefully this three hour test will prove the same. *fingers crossed and prayers uttered*

It was my honor to drink the 100g orange drink.

The three hour glucose test preparations begin the night before with no food after 10pm. After that time, only water is allowed. My test started around 8:30am with an initial, baseline blood-draw. Right after that, I was handed a styrofoam cup of flat, thick, orange sugar drink to be consumed within 5 minutes. I finished it off as quickly as possible, feeling a bit queasy already.

The first hour passed pretty quickly with the same effects as before - slight dizziness, some rolling stomach, and a little cold sweat. I distracted myself by plowing through some emails, creating work invoices, and finishing my previous blog about vasa previa. By the time I needed to get my blood drawn again, I was feeling  pretty normal.

Within the second hour of waiting, I continued to work and got a pop-in visit by the doctor that had originally suspected vasa previa. He asked if I had any questions and seemed relieved that the situation was not as scary as he thought. It felt very nice to have him take interest in my continued care, even if I am not his primary patient. (The patients at my clinic get rotated between 5 doctors.) I asked him to help with specifics about my current pelvic rest. Now that vasa is hopefully out of the way, I can do light aerobic exercise so YAY I can swim again! Still no lifting or straining, still no sex but at least I can get back in the pool.

I am almost finished with my third hour of waiting time and I am starting to get hungry. I tracked the 100g sugar drink on My Fitness Pal app and it was over my daily goal for sugar and also contained 450 calories, blech! I will have to watch my sugar intake for the rest of the day. I am supposed to be called with results tomorrow so I will wait til I get the results to publish this post.

Thank you for reading! This has been a nice outlet for me so far as the pregnancy gets further along and as I process each symptom/diagnosis/change throughout the pregnancy. I still need to write about my experiences with surgery for endometriosis as well as my trek through the fertility treatments. It seems like a lot of people connected with my endo pain blog. I figured it would be good to start a separate health/life blog so that I can separate this part of my life from the art part of my life (though the two do tend to overlap).

 *****

Test results:

Curses. Curses. Curses.

Got the call this morning and I failed 2 of 4 blood-tests which counts as Gestational Diabetes. After a long case of shower weepies, I got myself together enough to be angry/frustrated. I have been doing my best to be a positive, healthy, happy pregnant lady. I continued my healthful diet and exercise from before I got pregnant including 4-5 workouts a week (including weight lifting and swimming) and nutritious meals (very veggie based plus light proteins). I even passed the first glucose test but that was before I was put on pelvic rest. Once put on pelvic rest, I began monitoring my food intake, capping my calorie count at a little above 2,000 calories a day  - even a little low for a pregnant woman in her third trimester. I made sure to keep to the recommended percentages: 50% carbs, 30% fat, 20% protein. All of this work but still this diagnosis. Frustrating, shame and worry inducing, ugh.

Alright, so frustration then gives way to "how can I crush this thing?".
Research. Lots of research. The hospital is also providing a class and dietitian on Tuesday so I will see how that goes. Until then, I will continue to watch my diet, especially the amount of carbs and try to make sure to eat small meals throughout the day. Wish me luck!

*****

Mark and I have another pre-natal class tonight. That man is hilarious and I am blessed to have him as a partner in this.<3

Thanks for reading!

Vasa Previa?

I do not like feeling fragile. I do my best to be strong mentally, physically, etc. but some things come along and knock the wind out of me. Having the life of my unborn daughter face even possible danger is enough to send that creeping sensation down my body, paling face and turning hands into cold, sweaty fists.

When vasa previa was described to me by one of my doctors, that feeling set in.

"Vasa praevia (vasa previa AE) is an obstetric complication in which fetal blood vessels cross or run in close proximity to the external orifice of the uterus. These vessels are at risk of rupture when the supporting membranes rupture, as they are unsupported by the umbilical cord or placental tissue." (thank you, wiki - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_praevia)

During my 28 week ultrasound to check on my placenta previa, the ultrasound tech saw some blood-flow near my cervix and called the doc in for a second look. After this, he describe vasa previa mentioning that a vaginal delivery with this diagnosis has a very low survival rate and that the baby only has "as much blood as the volume of a Coke can" so if that vessel is severed, the baby can bleed out in minutes. He drew a picture for me, showing where my placenta was and where the lobe of blood flow over the cervix resided. See pic.

With this serious of a possibility, he wanted to get it checked with the high risk docs at the hospital. In the meantime, I was to be on pelvic rest - no exercise, no sex, no cervical exams, etc. I was scheduled at the hospital for an in depth ultrasound a week and a day later. During that week, I did what I always do with new info - research the heck out it! Yes, I became increasingly scared about the situation but I learned a lot about how the diagnosis was a huge part of fetal survival. If you do have vasa previa, you can be hospitalized around 30 weeks, given steroids to grow the baby's lungs, and then give birth by planned c-section at 34-45 weeks. This option is very successful because the baby is taken out before labor begins and if you do go into preterm labor, there is a better chance of swooping in with an emergency c-section to save the baby.

I went into my high risk ultrasound armed with this information and feeling comfort in the fact that I was on the right track to do whatever was necessary for the safety of my fetus. At the hospital's perinatal center, I received a very in depth ultrasound which took around 45 minutes. The tech was kind and quiet though he wielded the ultrasound wand with much more pressure than I was used to and resulted in an all over bruised feeling post scan. He explained each part that we were viewing. Part way through, I had been on my back for a while and started feeling nauseous and light headed (pregnant women are not supposed to lay flat on the back for risk of cutting off circulation by weight of the uterus and baby). I asked if that was normal and he said yes and propped me up a little. After the first rush of blood back to my face and a quick sweat, I felt better. He continued with a transvaginal ultrasound to be able to better view the placenta. Eventually, he had to angle the powered chair backwards, using gravity to draw my baby's head away from my pelvis for a better view. He was not allowed to say anything about his findings on the placenta or cord placement and said that he would report to the doc and the doc would come in and do his own viewing.

Eliana at 29 weeks 2 days

The doc came in and was not very verbose but he did take a long look at the blood-flow around the placenta and my cervix. Eventually, he said that he was pretty sure that the blood-flow by the cervix belonged to me, not to the baby but that "the placenta would still be a problem" and there was "nothing of significance to report about the baby". While this was cause for some relief, I am one that likes full explanations and all the details I can get. With the knowledge of meeting with one of my docs the next day to discuss my results, I attempted patience. That night, I consulted an online Vasa Previa Awareness group and asked if any of the ladies had experience with flip-flopping diagnoses. Two answered right away, saying that multiple doctors had waffled on whether or not they had the risk, decided they did not, and then found that the women did, in fact, have the condition when the baby was born. One kind woman sent me ultrasound notes and every time she went in for a new ultrasound, the opinion of her condition changed. Experiences like this make me worry and though I want to trust in the experience of the doctors and the quality of the machines, I also want to protect my little one.

The next day, I met with one of my clinic's doctors to go over the results. We started discussing the results and I said that the first doc was concerned about vasa previa "which you don't have", she added on matter-of-factly. Though I hate to question people, I wanted to make sure she knew I was concerned so I asked her if she was sure. She said that the ultrasound machines they use at the high risk clinic were very high tech and high powered and that I shouldn't worry. I still did have partial placenta previa (placenta is near or in the way of the cervix) and that we would do another ultrasound at 34 weeks. Most likely, the placenta will not move and the baby will be born by c-section somewhere around 38 weeks. 

After that she mentioned that my sugar count had come in high and that was a cause for concern, even though I passed my one-hour glucose test the week before "with flying colors", she wanted to do a bloodtest to check my sugar levels. I was nervous that morning and might have emotionally eaten a bowl full of Kid's Crunch (off brand Cap'n Crunch) and a bunch of grapes. I didn't think anything of it because I thought I was just going in for a chat about the ultrasound results. Alas, I think my sugar bowl of cereal and my grapes (sugar-bombs of the fruit world) set off the results and I will be called in the next week for a three hour glucose test. Goodie-gumdrops. That flat, room-temp, orange drink is dreamy. Ha!

Anyhow, that is where we stand right now - hoping in and trusting for the best and using humor where we can to avoid too many cases of the weepies.  

Thanks so much for reading!