Heels Over Head for You, Baby!

And I meant that title pretty literally!  Its been a couple of crazy weeks, all starting the week of my husband's birthday.  We were attending a funeral for the mom of my husband's friend, and it was pretty hot out and we had been standing in the sun for awhile when I started to get a bout of dizziness and vertigo.  Its a strange feeling - I just started sweating profusely, my heart started pounding, and my eyes started to get all fuzzy.  I guess I'm not all that obviously pregnant still, so since nobody wanted to relinquish their seat to the fainting preggers my husband's dad guided us over to a shady spot further away from the ceremony.  So after sitting on top of a grave in the shade covered in ants for awhile and drinking water I felt much better.  But getting back up off the ground again was a challenge, and my back wasn't too happy!  That didn't stop me the next day though when I decided to move around furniture and baby items that had been sitting in my hallway for 2 weeks that I was getting sick of tripping over, and I was feeling pretty kick-ass because I cooked lunch and dinner for my hubs that day for his big 3-4.  By the end of the day, my body was screaming in protest so I booked a prenatal massage using a deal I got from Living Social for that Friday.

By Thursday, something was up.  I just felt weak, like my body was fighting something.  I never get fevers though - my temp usually runs anywhere from 97-98.2F - so it can be hard sometimes to figure out when I'm sick or if its just allergies.  Through my support groups and others I've talked to it seems this is common in people with Fibromyalgia or thyroid problems.  Anyways, my lower back was killing me and it was hard to move around anyways, so I just pretty much rested Thursday and went to my massage Friday and had them work on my sciatica a bit.  Nothing was enough though, no matter how much rest I got or whatever stretches I tried.  So Sunday morning when the hubs headed off to teach some guitar lessons, I headed over to the walk-in chiropractic office near my home to see if some kind of adjustment might help. By that point it hurt to sit down on the sofa and I was gasping with pain when I moved.  I had an adjustment done and it felt a little better, but after as I was standing at the counter paying, there it was again.... Sudden profuse sweating, pounding heart, and.... Oops!  All of a sudden the chiro and his receptionist were laying me down on the couch and an ambulance was on the way.  I didn't even realize what had happened - I was pulling my car keys out of my purse thinking I had just paid and was ready to go home!  But I guess I had just dropped it like its hot and the receptionist was barely able to reach over the counter to grab me in time before I hit the floor.

Once I found out where the ambulance was taking me I was able to get a message over to Stephen so he could meet me in the ER.  After a few hours of getting poked and prodded and monitoring my baby's heartbeat, most my labs and tests came back good but it looks like I was fighting a viral infection and a UTI.  I never would have noticed this because I've been drinking at least 3 of the big 24oz bottles of water a day, and peeing like a normal pregger should - all the time, with no pain! (TMI? LOL)  But this is really important!  This is one of the reasons why they test our urine at every one of our prenatal visits - a UTI can spread to the kidneys and cause premature labor.  I just happened to be a couple days away from my monthly prenatal visit, so this infection was likely more recent since the previous month's tests were clear.  So in a way I'm thankful for the sciatica that forced me out for a fainting spell at the chiropractor's office that day - caught the infection just in the nick of time and got started on some antibiotics right away!  Gotta say Stephen was such a trouper that day - he ditched his student and came straight to the ER, held my hand through it all, and then rushed me home and got my meds and some food before rushing off again to perform with one of his bands across town until late into the night.  Am I dreaming?  Didn't think such guys existed, but I musta won the lotto with this one.

The past couple of weeks I've just been laying low, not daring to venture out alone much again.  The pain has still been intense but I can't do much about that.  I finished the antibiotics, but still don't feel quite right. A couple of times I've gone out with Stephen, but if I've been on my feet for very long, I start to feel the spins coming on again.  I also get a weird type of tinnitus, in my left ear, but instead of buzzing, its more of a pounding, like a heartbeat in my ear that won't stop.  A trip yesterday to Urgent Care didn't show an ear infection at least, and I'm waiting on the results of another test to see if my UTI is gone.  While I was there I headed to the lab to do some of the mid pregnancy labs my OB had ordered for me.  One of those was the Glucose Tolerance test to check for gestational diabetes.  They make you drink this nasty, sugary drink, and then after an hour they test your blood to see if your body processed the glucose or not.  The thing is... over 4 years ago, I had gastric bypass surgery (not just for weight-loss, but to circumvent some of the damage my acid reflux was doing to my esophagus.)  With this surgery, there is very little chance going forward of getting diabetes, because your body rejects high amounts of sugar in a way that makes you avoid it!  Its called Dumping Syndrome, and when you have very much sugar at once, you get those same dizzy/vertigo type feelings plus nausea, sweating, and general blah feeling for hours.  Even drinking a glass of orange juice gives me the shakes most the time.  I do get cravings for sweets sometimes, but it can be kind of comical how it will take me 3 days to eat a donut because I only want a bite here and there.  Anyways, I mentioned all of this to my OB because I thought the test would be skewed because I can't process sugar anyways.  I mentioned it to the lab technicians too.  But nobody is really familiar with the effects of gastric surgery except for the surgeons in that specialty.  Sure enough, I did the test, the drink made me horribly sick, and I got a call back saying I have gestational diabetes and I need to go in for a diabetes education consultation on Monday.  Of course after more research online, I see other women who have posted on support forums who have had the surgery and their surgeons advised them not to do this type of test but instead to monitor blood sugar regularly after normal fasting without consuming the glucose drink.

So it will be some interesting times ahead of me, trying to convince my various doctors that I do not have diabetes, and trying to figure out what the heck else is going on with me that is making me feel so weak and woozy.  I get a bit stir crazy at times, at home alone while the hubs is at work, but I have been enjoying kicking back with my feet up devouring every book I can download into my tablet.  Besides, baby Darius and his buddy Kona the kitty have been keeping me plenty of company.

Cutest interaction ever! She purrs, then he kicks, and then out go her paws to the area he's kicking!

This boy is strong as ever - growing big, strong heart, and performing acrobatics in my tummy that even daddy and the cat can feel now.  I feel sorta like Al Bundy (Married with Children anyone?) with my hand down the top of my pants all the time these days so I can feel my son's kicks.  So despite whatever pains or frustrations, I have plenty to smile over.  In a couple of weeks I think I'll go in for that 3D/4D ultrasound and video, and we are so excited to see how our son looks now as we're getting into the 3rd trimester!