Sunday, November 14, 2010

Pregnancy

This pregnancy started out quite well.  I was at a lower weight than I had been with the other 3 and was still running a few times a week and in the early months I ran with my friend Shaunie Decker on Saturdays.  She was training for a marathon so she was running 10 miles or more so I went with her for the first 5 or 6.  The last time I ran was on July 24th when our family ran the Enumclaw 5k.  After that I still walked the kids to school and walked extra on the way home, but it hurt a bit too much too run.

Other major happenings during the early months included lots and lots of painting time getting ready for my first solo art show, playing basketball on the stake team, and uncle Mark getting home from his mission in Japan.


Here are a few pictures from the last few weeks of pregnancy.

Every pregnancy has been different for me.  During this one I gained more weight than I had (40 lbs) and I had some new difficulties I had not experienced before.

One was heart flutters -- Sometimes at night when I would lie down I could feel my heart beat speed up and then slow down.  It  was a little scary so I spoke to Dr. Oxford (my OBGYN) about it.  She said that the amount of blood flowing through our body increases during pregnancy and sometimes it takes our heart a bit of time to adjust, but to be safe I should wear a 24 hour heart monitor.  It turned out I did have some flutters, but not enough to be a big concern.  After several more weeks they evened out, and the last few months of my pregnancy I didn't notice any at all.

Another thing I experienced this pregnancy was a high level of anxiety during the last few months.  I had a hard time falling to sleep and felt fear for reasons that weren't logical.  At 1 am on Wednesday October 3rd, I woke up to one strong contractions, followed by pretty consistent braxton hicks contractions.  The thing that scared me though was that I was shivering and shaking and I wasn't cold.  I woke Jake and told him that I would like a blessing.  I wasn't sure if I was having an anxiety attack or if the shaking was because of something else.  He gave me a blessing, then I called the Dr. who was on call that night.  She told me that sometimes our bodies start shaking when we go into labor and that since I was already dilated to a 4 (I had found out at my last Dr. apt that I was already 70% effaced and dilated 4 cm) that I should go ahead and go to the hospital to be checked.  I called Brigette and she came over right away.  We headed to the hospital and went to triage.  They checked me and I was still a 4 for the next hour so we went home.  I was totally embarrassed, but felt relieved that everything was okay.  I woke up shaking about a week later and just knew that it was the anxiety so I talked myself down enough to relax and go back to sleep.

One thing that has been consistent in all my pregnancies has been heart burn.  This one was no different. Major heartburn for all 9 months.  I took prevacid daily for it, and definitely felt the pain if I forgot to take it on any given day.  I also had a lot of pain in my groin muscles.  If I sat too long, or walked extra far I could feel throbbing.  That was something that I had after Trey was born for quite some time.  I am hoping this time I can figure out a solution so I can start running without that pain again.

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