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| Current mood . . . |
The weekend proved to be somewhat unenjoyable and stressful with two visits from one of the landladies (trying to figure out how to plug up the hole where the rat supposedly got through in our laundry room and then putting something over it) and finding out that my new laptop from Dell was a lemon and that while Dell could fix it remotely with software, they would not do it unless we paid for them to fix it even though the laptop was brand new. That's right, extortion and racketeering. After a further call and threats of litigation, my husband managed to get a packing label to send the laptop back. So now we have to send off the laptop, wait for a refund, then buy yet another laptop. It really pisses me off, especially since my current laptop has been on its last legs for a while and I was counting on this one. A laptop is the tool of my trade. The next laptop I buy certainly will not be a Dell computer. That's for sure.
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| Caturday fun taking selfies with the cat. He was not impressed. |
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| Our walk on Sunday started at sunset. |
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| Our walk Sunday evening revealed a sliver of moon and Venus. |
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| Beautiful Gerbera daisies that my husband brought home for me. |
Monday morning, I was in the lab first thing in the morning for my scheduled blood test for my thyroid levels. I had to get my levels done again as I had an appointment with my endocrinologist on Wednesday and he would need my levels to determine if my thyroid levels were optimal (if they are not optimal it can affect the fetus' IQ). If my levels were not optimal then he would have to raise my medication(s) again. The test results online showed that the my thyroid levels were not optimal with my T4 and T3 levels being off even though he raised my levothyroxine dosage last time he saw me a month ago.
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| Too early on Monday to be at the lab for yet another blood test. |
Tuesday, my husband and I went to the Royal Jubilee Hospital for our schedule Developmental Ultrasound for the fetus (this is usually done between 18-20 weeks pregnancy, I was 19 weeks 4 days). The process was annoying with having to take a number, wait for it to be called, check in, then go to a second waiting room, then wait around there for the technician to fetch us (he was slightly late, but it's a hospital, so not a huge surprise), all while having a full bladder (required for imaging of the cervix and placenta).
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Car selfie.
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Before the ultrasound in awesome hospital lighting.
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Hospital selfie.
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My husband and I had both had this technician image us in the past when we had had imaging done to try to diagnose our fertility problems, so it was funny to have him now doing the fetal developmental ultrasound. I had been told by people and the pregnancy books I've been reading that this is the best ultrasound that one has during pregnancy. People say that it's longer, you get to see more details, and they go to various parts of the fetus and linger over it, so you can see the various parts in great detail. There was only one screen in the ultrasound room that we were in. The technician told us that he would have to view it head on and I wouldn't be able to see it until the end, as he had to do measurements. I had never had this experience before. In the private fertility clinic I was always shown the screen while the ultrasound was happening and they were very amenable to me taking photos for my blog too (photos are not allowed at the hospital at all in your ultrasound), no doubt because we were paying a fortune to be there. In my two other non-private ultrasounds I have had another screen to look at, so I've been able to see what's happening while the technician does measurements and images various areas. In the absence of this, I lay there nervously for what felt like forever while my husband stared at the screen that I couldn't see and didn't bother to reassure me that the fetus wasn't dead until after a few minutes (yes, I still feel worried about this every time I have an ultrasound- that miscarriage is still fresh in my mind).
Then when I couldn't hold it anymore, I asked to go to the washroom as the technician had told me that once he had the cervix and placenta imaged, I could go to the washroom, as the quality of the fetal imaging would not be impacted by an empty bladder. I went to the washroom and returned for another long stretch of staring at the hospital ceiling. Then he turned the screen towards me and proceeded with the most blurry and fast ultrasound session I had ever witnessed. I had maybe two minutes and then he was done. He said the heart rate was 152 bpm and that the fetus measures at maybe two days older than it's supposed to be (given that my husband is around 6 foot and I'm 5 foot 10, I'm not surprised). I was pretty disappointed and even more so when he handed us a few hastily printed photos of the fetus. They were badly printed and the least number of photos I've ever had from an ultrasound, other than the heart ECG ultrasound where one doesn't even usually get photos, but the technician there kindly printed them for me for my blog. The three photos we were given from the ultrasound are below. The fetus was facing down, so the full body shot is spine up. The other two are supposedly nose and lips and hands and arms.
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| The fetus is lying face down and spine up in this body shot. |
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| Apparently the lips and nose. |
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| Blurry renderings of each of the arms and hands. |
Wednesday, I was subjected to the regular torture of being weighed and questioned by my endocrinologist who monitors my hypothyroidism (suspected Hashimoto's Disease). He commented that I had gained "a lot" of weight. Gee thanks. Then he said that my thyroid levels were not right (too low) and that he'd have to raise my dose of levothyroxine yet again (it's common in pregnancy to have medication dosages go up by a lot due to increased blood volume, weight, and metabolism). He said that my medication needs had increased due to my increased weight and the pregnancy (yeah, don't try to link those two items, whatever you do, and the falling thyroid levels couldn't have caused any weight gain!).
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| I'm perfect. Don't criticize me! |
Thursday, I decided to go for massage therapy, as I was feeling very stiff and sore in the neck, back, and hips. Massage therapy when you're pregnant is more complicated. I still am not sticking out much in the stomach, so she was okay with having me on my stomach to begin with for a bit, but not as long as usual and I had to have pillows under my shoulders to help take pressure off my breasts and make it more bearable to lie on my stomach. When I was turned over it was onto my side instead of my back (the vena cava can compress when lying on the back, so this position is best avoided or done for short periods of time, so in pregnancy massage is usually done on the side and since left side is optimal for cardiac and digestive reasons, it's done on the left side). On my left side, I was given a pillow for my head, a pillow to hug to support my shoulders, and a pillow between my bent knees. Then to end, I was on my back for a short while, but she put pillows under my right hip to take pressure off the vena cava, so that it would not compress and I was told to tell her if I had any dizziness or strange feelings (an indication that the vena cava is being compressed). I was really stiff and sore, but felt better after the massage for sure. I was really impressed with how knowledgeable Ashleigh at Moss Street Health is with pregnancy massage. It was very reassuring.
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| And after my massage, I brushed the cat and fed him treats. We were both happy then. |
I've been taking Loxapine to treat my mixed state from my bipolar disorder since last Thursday. How long the course of PRN medication is really depends on how bad the episode is, the season, and other factors that I don't really understand (and no one really understands, it is a very mysterious and not well understood disorder even to this day). What I have to look out for is when I start to become very oversedated the morning after my dose. In the beginning, no matter how high the dose, I will feel wakeful, energetic, and peppy the morning after taking Loxapine despite the fact that this drug is an antipsychotic with various off label uses including treating bipolar disorder without psychosis, a sleeping pill, etc.. However, there is that magic point at which I can't get out of bed the next day without great difficulty and I feel dozy all day. That's when I know to decrease my dose. Then I stay on that next lower dose until I'm oversedated the next day from that dose and so on until I'm off of it. Of course, the being off of it is not pleasant either, because then I have to suffer from withdrawal. This varies based on how high my dose was and how long I was on it for. For me, it always means sleep problems for at least a day or two or longer if my course has been several weeks, a month, or more (for more severe episodes). I had my first night off of Loxapine last night and I did not sleep well or much, but there's the promise that I'll feel better now that I've treated my mixed episode and have come off of this drug which quite frankly has some awful side effects (including increased stiffness in the joints and ligaments, constipation, a dozy feeling all the time, weight gain, increased hunger, etc.).
This morning, I went to the chiropractor for another adjustment. I've been getting the spasms in the my neck and shoulders still and felt stiff in my low back and hips too. But mostly, it was my neck that was bothering me this morning. It actually woke me up and kept me awake part of last night. It felt so tense that it was giving me an awful headache. My chiropractor put the electrotherapy on me with heat and then did adjustments to my neck and back. I'll be back in two weeks unless my neck is continuing to really bother me, then it will be earlier.
This afternoon, we had an appointment scheduled to see my maternity doctor, Dr. Down, about the ultrasound results. I had booked this due to wanting my husband to be able to be there (before he starts travelling across the country again) and because we were anxious to find out if everything was okay from the ultrasound (and we might find out the gender of the fetus too, but that's not of big concern to us, we just want to know that everything is okay). It certainly wasn't apparent to us from the ultrasound if the fetus was okay other than that its heart was apparently beating and apparently it was breathing, though I didn't get to see this part.
At Dr. Down's office, I, as usual, had to give a urine sample and I was weighed by his lovely MOA. Dr. Down reviewed the ultrasound results with us. He said that everything was found to be developmentally normal with the fetus in the ultrasound. He said that the growth and weight were measured to be normal. I told him that I had had some cramping type feelings in my abdomen the last few days and he suspected that this was ligamentous in origin and that the weird feelings I was feeling could even be "quickening" or the first movements of the fetus starting to be felt by me (women apparently usually start feeling some movement between 16 to 20 weeks time). He palpated my abdomen and said that the uterus seemed to be in a normal place for 20 weeks (with the fundus or top of the uterus being around my umbilicus). He also took out a tape measure and measured from my pubic bone to my belly button and said that my measurement was right on track for 20 weeks. He took my blood pressure and said that it was low normal (no surprises there, my blood pressure has always been on the low side). I told him that I was still feeling really exhausted and hadn't felt that energy that the pregnancy books talked about people feeling in the second trimester. He said that this is normal for some women, but gave me a lab test for anemia to check if this could be the cause (conveniently I'm already booked in with the lab on this coming Monday to have my monthly lithium levels done, so I can have this done at the same time). He said that he has absolutely no concerns about my pregnancy and that he will see me again in four weeks. We were very relieved to hear that everything was found to be normal and that he was not concerned about anything. After the journey we had trying to get pregnant, having the reassurance that this is a normal pregnancy (at least so far) is wonderful.
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| Car Selfie. |
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| Awesome doctor's office lighting. |
Yesterday, I was at day 141 of my "cycle" ie. since my last cycle started (the first day of my last period which is how pregnancy is calculated) and the book said I had 141 days to go until my due date, so I was at exactly the halfway point. Today, I'm 20 weeks pregnant, starting into the last half of the pregnancy. I honestly can't believe it. In some ways, it gets easier to believe that we might have a baby, but in other ways I'm still to afraid to "gloat" ie. be excited or happy, because I'm afraid I'll jinx it and have another miscarriage (totally irrational, I know, but I'm still traumatized my that miscarriage in June of last year). Plus, on top of not wanting to buy stuff (I did get a new sports bra and workout leggings this week, so I can start walking and exercising again now that my mixed episode seems to have passed) because I'm afraid the fetus will die, I don't know where we're going to live, so there's no point in buying stuff if we're going to move. But what if we can't move? I just don't know what we're going to do and with only half my pregnancy left, time is running out to either make a move or figure out if we could ever make this cramped duplex work with a baby.
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| 20 weeks pregnant. |
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| Halfway to my due date. |
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| Hanging out in The Hudson's Bay before dinner out with friends tonight. |
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