No rest for the Pregnant

Fourteen weeks and I am one exhausted Mama-to-be.  I’m still extremely exhausted and take daily naps around lunch time.  I would like to give a big shout-out to all those mama’s who experience this fatigue but are unable to take the time to recoup.  I do not know how you do it!  This is exhaustion of the next level.  I think my husband is a bit concerned because he’s never seen me like this before.  I can’t even bring myself to get off the couch to make dinner.  I’m still going from the couch to bed around 8-9pm and unfortunately I am waking up around 4-5am.

 

Funny story!  The other morning after I woke up around 5am and I couldn’t fall back asleep as I was starving.  If I don’t eat right away, I find the nausea will kick in.  So I figured I had 3hrs to kill before having to be at work, why not make myself a glorious bacon and egg breakfast!  Head downstairs and start my cooking.  Well, my cooking didn’t go exactly as planned.  I successfully set the smoke detector off!  My poor husband, I’ve never seen someone react so quickly out of a dead sleep!  He came bolting downstairs, eyes still half closed, to find me in the kitchen.  I just looked at him apologetically and said, “Sorry, it’s just me!”  He didn’t say a word to me and just turned around and went back to bed.  Poor guy, thought the only possibility of the smoke detector going off in the middle of the night, was the house was on fire.

Personal Life Update:

I informed my employer of my pregnancy two weeks ago, and unfortunately, they let me go at the same time.  If my stress and anxiety levels were not already at an all-time high, they are now.  As I am a high-risk pregnancy I’m trying not to let it stress me out more.  Obviously, there are a lot of new concerns that have arisen from this, but I have to believe it will all work out.  As I am a natural busy body, this is a very big change for me.  I do not like all this down time and I know I need to find something to occupy my time quickly otherwise I may go stir crazy.

Adenomyosis or Just Pregnancy?:

Last week I was able to go to the gym every day.  While I had to come home and nap right after, it was nice to be able to keep my body moving.  My workouts are still slow as I want to keep my heart rate down and don’t want to exhaust myself too much at the gym.  I’m hoping to join some prenatal yoga as I get further into my pregnancy.

I’ve gained 10lbs thus far and I’m still not sure if the pelvic discomfort is from Adenomyosis or from the pregnancy.  It’s not severe but it is noticeable.  As I do not have an OB and this isn’t the specialty of my GP, I think we are going to have to continue to wait it out and see how things progress.

 

Midwives & Adenomyosis

Eleven weeks already!  Time is flying and the first trimester is almost over.  Here’s to hoping my energy comes back very soon.  I’m still struggling to find the energy to do anything at all.  If I do something that takes everything out of me and I feel like the recovery time is days.  Went to the gym on Saturday, stayed in bed all day Sunday, had a concert Sunday night and survived.  Monday I had a headache that turned into a migraine and had a hard time getting a full sleep Monday night.

Midwifery & Adenomyosis:

I had my Midwife consultation yesterday and as I feared, due to my  adenomyosis I was not a candidate for midwifery as I am too high risk.  As part of the consultation, she mentioned she did research on Adenomyosis and pregnancy and there are many more dangers and complications that need to be monitored.   I was afraid all of this was going to be the outcome, it was disappointing but I wasn’t surprised by any of it.

Adenomyosis & Pregnancy Risk Factors:

• Higher Risk of miscarriage throughout entire pregnancy
• Preterm Delivery
• Incompetent cervix
• Uterus development not matching the weeks of the pregnancy

Ultrasounds:

I expressed to her that I wanted as few ultrasounds as possible, preferably just one if needed.  I explained to her my reasoning why and the research I had done on the dangers of ultrasounds and she didn’t seem to agree with the research out there.  I understand there have been no real controlled studies on ultrasounds, but why not?  As part of that conversation she mentioned that they would want to do more ultrasounds than usual as they need to ensure the uterus is developing and growing to accommodate the baby.

Known Risk Factors:

• Heating the tissue slightly, the fetus has no way of regulating its body temperature during this
• Cavitation or Gas Pockets released from the solution and the heat generated from the ultrasound that can be dangerous if they flow into the bloodstream
• Sound Waves which can be very loud to the fetus and can affect the development of the ears and cells

There are many other risk factors believed to be linked to ultrasounds, but they are unable to be proven as there have been no controlled studies completed on the dangers of ultrasounds.  I asked if there was any way to hear the baby’s heartbeat yet, but unfortunately with the fetoscope, we would need to wait until at least 12 weeks before we will have a chance to hear it.

So back to square one.  I had to call my Doctor so I can get a referral to an OB. As part of my discussion with the Midwife, we can look to seeing about finding an OB that will transfer me back to a midwife later on if the pregnancy does progress in a positive way with no complications and does not appear to be a high risk. I have to wait another week for that doctors appointment for the referral.  From there, I will then have to wait for yet another appointment for the OB.  I’m starting to feel a lot of frustrations with regards to this slow process of the waiting game.

Current Symptoms:

So one thing I will say that is making me a little bit nervous thus far is that, the pain is starting to come back during intercourse.  This is something I experienced frequently in the past, and once I changed my diet completely, the pain went away.  Now the pain is becoming noticeable and I cannot say if it is pregnancy related or if it is because I have been eating foods that I had previously cut out like bread and pasta.  I’ve been eating bread daily, which we didn’t even have in the house for the longest time.  As soon as I got pregnant my body was craving bad carbs.  I ate salads on the daily and the other day I tried to eat a salad and I just started gagging.  My body wants the bad food that I didn’t normally eat before.

While I cannot say if the pain is from the foods I’m consuming or the concerns of the way the uterus is developing.  I feel like I’ve got quite a belly already and I am finding it hard to hide, given how tiny I was and that I’m all belly and boobs now.  I can only hope that it’s my baby naturally developing inside me and not inflammation from the adenomyosis.

I’m also feeling a lot of cramping and bloating.  Nothing painful or unbearable, just feels like my stomach is always active.  My pants are starting to feel tight on me and very uncomfortable to wear.  It’s strange how the belly is hard and no form of pressure on the belly feels good, including elastics from pants.

MissBarroness Instagram

 

Surprise – 2 pink lines

Today marks 4 weeks pregnant.  When my period was late, I didn’t think that I was actually pregnant.  I had a couple bouts of spotting when I was supposed to get my period, and a couple days of spotting leading up to it.  Spotting has always been normal for me; my period has been irregular for quite some time and I think it was due to the amount of stress I was under for the past year.  However, when I looked at my period tracker app and it said 6 days late, but my boobs were tender, I got a little bit nervous.  I thought it was coming because my boobs always get tender leading up to my period, but it just didn’t.  Spotting stopped and my period never started.

Finally, I went and bought a pregnancy test.  Sure enough, two pink lines appeared.  My boobs are tender because that’s the first sign of pregnancy.  My mind was spinning.  I didn’t plan for this, I wasn’t prepared for this.  I don’t even know how to handle this news.  I had a few good cries.  And to think they suggested removing my uterus and left me with a feeling of not being able to get pregnant.

Now it’s time to accept and embrace.  I’m having a baby.  It still doesn’t feel real.  I have my first doctor’s appointment on Wednesday and maybe that’s when things will start to sink in?  So, I wanted to document how I’ve felt throughout this process because I couldn’t find much out there with regards to adenomyosis and pregnancy.  There is a lot of ‘high risk’ concerns but no ‘real life’ stories.  I’m completely terrified because I have no idea what to expect.  I’m nervous because I feel like my body is still healing from my previous issues.  Now, I have to change my entire mentality.

One morning on my way to work, I had a wave of nauseous come over me.  I thought I was going to puke in my car and have to turn around.  It was the weirdest feeling for me because I never get sick.  I might get a cold because I’m under a lot of stress but I can’t tell you the last time I had the flu.  The feeling passed and the rest of the work day was fine.  That was before I knew I was pregnant.  Once I found out, everything made sense.

During my 3^rd -4^th weeks of pregnancy, I had never felt more tired in my life.  I’m a very active and energetic person, I go to the gym daily and I love playing sports.  I couldn’t do any of that.  I could barely make it through the work day and I was now going to sleep by 9pm at the latest.  I had only one other wave of nauseous in the morning which passed.  My tummy has been very active though.  Feels like there’s constant grumblings going on.  Sometimes it’s like baby cramps and feels like your body is trying to digest, but it’s constantly feeling like that, not just after meals.  Nothing painful or unbearable.

I think I’ve worked out 3-4 times in the last two weeks.  My body does feel tired all the time.  I am taking it very slow as I’ve read the first trimester is very taxing on the body.  I’m hoping that as I progress through, I will be able to keep my activity levels up at the gym throughout this pregnancy.

My Goals:

• Stay active
• Be positive
• Embrace
• Research
• Keep my hormonal outbursts in check
• Don’t panic
• Document the process

You can follow along in my bump process through Instagram here

My struggles with Adenomyosis

It all started when I was 22 years old.  My internal health concerns.  I started to spot constantly outside of my monthly flow.  Then the pain started and everything hurt down there.  I went to the doctors and they didn’t want to look at me.  No exams, no tests.  They just assumed it was my birth control and said lets just try a different kind.  Nothing got better.  So, I went to a different doctor.  He examined me and found that my cervix was inflamed pretty badly.  He described it as looking very angry, but we didn’t know what was causing it.

The doctor instantly wanted to give me the HPV vaccine and I refused.  I had to explain to him that I did not to do vaccines.  Let the waves of judgement commence.

Let the years of testing and different doctors begin.  I was tested for everything under the sun.  I was sent to doctor after doctor, specialist after specialist.  Tried different birth controls but they only seemed to make it worse.  After 2 years of trying different birth controls, I finally went off birth control permanently.  As soon as I went off birth control my periods regulated and the spotting stopped.  The pain was still an issue though and so was bleeding during any examination.

I finally went for laparoscopic surgery to see if they could see anything.  Just some scar tissue and enlarged blood vessels.  Given their findings they diagnosed me with Adenomyosis and said there wasn’t a whole lot they could do for me.  Adenomyosis, now that’s a scary word.  What does that even mean.  Google did not tell me a whole lot about this disease at all.  My options were to remove my uterus to hopefully ease the pain or insert an IUD which has so many horrible side effects.  I wouldn’t consider either.  That was the last time I visited the doctors for help as they said they didn’t know how to help me further.

I started seeing a Natural Path who did find that I had a stagnant liver.   Not only that but I was estrogen dominant and needed more progesterone.  One of the side effects of birth control is becoming estrogen dominant.  We started working on that in hopes it would kick start some other things, however because she wasn’t covered under my benefits, I had to stop going due to cost.  Back to square one.  I was active with the gym and ate what I thought was fairly healthy, but I couldn’t seem to lose the weight.  I was just always bloated looking.  8 years in total I suffered with the pain.

I couldn’t talk about it with anyone.  How embarrassing.  My sex life was affected as we never knew if it was going to be a good day or bad.  Thankfully I had a very patient and understanding boyfriend who supported me through it all.  When I first started this journey, there wasn’t much information out there and doctors didn’t know what to do.

Finally, I found other people online who were suffering with similar things and what they were able to do about it.  At the beginning of 2017 I kicked my health into high gear and cut all the shit (minus the alcohol).  No more bad foods.  I had cut out fast food about 7 years ago, but cutting bread, rice and pasta was the most difficult now.  They had to go.  No more processed foods, no more bad carbs, flour, wheat, etc.  My gym workouts where switched up as well.

Instantly, within a month I was down 8lbs.  Within the year, I had lost 25lbs in total and 20% body fat.  It just dropped so easily.  All of a sudden, the pain was pretty much gone.  In my personal option, I think the birth control really messed up my system and I will never recommend it to anyone ever.  I think the shitty foods that we constantly eat just add to the issues that we are experiencing in our bodies.  There’s no more nutrients in the fast food/frozen food, we are starving our bodies of the good stuff.

One thing I openly said all the time is ‘I’m never having children’.  It was not a secret.  Throughout this entire process I believed I could not get pregnant.  It was drilled into my head that was no longer an option.  I would watch those around me get pregnant and be excited and I would watch those around me get pregnant and abort the babies.  It was hard for me, hurt deep down, that I didn’t get a say, the choice was taken away from me.

I started to lie to everyone about how I felt.  I couldn’t talk to people about this ‘disease’ I was suffering from.  I couldn’t let them know I couldn’t have kids.  It was easier to change my mentality to saying, I don’t want kids.  This would keep people off my back and I could just say that anytime someone asked me.  I literally convinced myself and my now husband that I didn’t want children.